Intel makes a push into mini wireless Internet devices

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: Intel plans to proclaim in Shanghai that the next big thing in consumer gadgets will be the ‘Internet in your pocket’.

The challenge for the giant chip maker will be to prove that it is not too late to a market that has rapidly become the hottest spot in the consumer electronics business in a post-PC era.

At a developer event in China, the company, based in Santa Clara, California, will display a range of wireless Internet devices that Intel believes will fill a gap between smartphones and laptops. The company is hoping to capitalise on the success that Apple has had with its iPhone , which is one of the most popular mobile Web smartphones.

Intel is calling the new computers mobile internet devices, or MIDs, and claims that it will have a significant advantage over makers of chips for cellphones because the Intel version will be highly compatible with the company’s laptop and desktop processors for which most Web software is written today.

The first generation of Intel’s MID technology will be aimed at data, not voice communications, leaving the company out of the market for smartphones. That has not damped the enthusiasm of Intel executives who foresee a proliferation of devices ranging from advanced ultracompact laptops to small, tablet-size devices that will be used for browsing the Web, navigation and Internet chat, rather than voice communications.

“What enables the innovation is the ability to bring over all the existing PC applications,” said Anand Chandrasekher, general manager of the company’s Ultra Mobility Group. The weak link in the Intel strategy is that voice communication remains a significant factor for consumers choosing to buy hand-held devices.

Intel backed out of the cellphone market two years ago when it sold its Xscale microprocessor business to Marvell Technology Group . Intel then set out on an ambitious redesign project for ultralow-power versions of its PC-oriented X86 chips. The current system requires two chips, one for the processor and one for peripherals. It will take the company another technology generation to place everything on a single chip.

That leads some analysts to believe that the company’s real breakthrough will not come until 2009 or 2010, when a new processor, now code-named Moorestown, arrives.