Chip giant Intel calls the first day of IDF day zero. Day zero, this year, happens on a Sunday - the company has rejigged the schedule.
In times of yore, yeah even back to the gory days of Palm Springs when Intel, developers and hacks were all squeezed together in one of only a few pubs in the little town, the last day used to be Thursday. This year the last day is Wednesday and the event proper kicks off Monday morning with CEO and president Paul Otellini a-keynoting.
There is obviously no Wee Free tendency@Intel - keeping the Sabbath Day holy has probably never crossed their mind.
It's long been known that the focus of this IDF is going to be Sandy Bridge - not to be confused with Sandy Ridge, TechEye's raving hackette at the show.
But dang it! You can't keep a good journalist down although we're sure Intel would like to put a good journalist down, and over at Anandtech and at Spawn of theINQSTER Semiaccurate.com, there's already stuff leaking out. Anandtech has reviewed a prototype board and the word on Fourth Street, SF, is that we'll see a lot more of these boards+demonstrations during the week.
Sauces we met while we were having some sauce at the Marriott bar tell us that AMD's Fusion tech is really looking rather good. One sauce close to the action reckons AMD will really do well with this baby in 2011 and that Intel is really rather worried by the threat Fusion poses.
As we revealed earlier on, AMD has wooed all the hackettes and hacks summoned to IDF and will be repeatedly brainwashing them during the course of the conference. No doubt, Intel is mightily stewed up by the prospect but there's little it can do.
There's a motley crew of hacks and hackettes hanging around Fourth Street - IDF is a good opportunity to catch up with journalists from all round the world brought together by the Great Stan of Chips.
We met Nico Ernst round the back of the Marriott cycle sheds having a fly tab first thing in the morning. This new Apple Nano - it's about an inch by an inch and costs $150. Nico tells us it can't play video - what's that all about then?
Now the meal vouchers kindly provided by Intel. The one for breakfast includes the ability to buy alcoholic drinks along with your grits. What does Intel think we all are? Alcoholics? Hic.
But I get feeling that Fusion will start shipping long before 2H2011.