Intel laptops and Qualcomm will make us even more productive and it's terrifying

I write these words on an iPhone while I queue in front of a Mac Donald in Taiwan. I would rather be away from my phone, but alas, time is running out and this article will not be written.

I just got out of the Intel Computex keynote and in a moment I will have to cross the city towards another congress center. The following lines in this column are likely to be written on a MacBook in the back of a taxi.

You may not be a journalist, but I would bet that a variation of this experience sounds familiar to you. We have phones and laptops at home about 100% of the time, so productivity opportunities are constant. And if all I've seen at Computex is an indication, this style of work at any break-in-where-you-can is going nowhere. Productivity will always be an option.

The guilty? Intel and Qualcomm. These two semiconductor giants are competing to get their processors in as many devices as possible. The time is money, and these companies think you will give them money if they give you laptops and tablets that save time. Thus, the battery life is longer, waiting times are shortened and your productivity should be improved.

Qualcomm is one of many Computex companies promising a "new era" of PC. Qualcomm equips Samsung's new 5G phone, as well as the next phones from LG, OnePlus and Nokia. Samsung also wants to create 5G laptops. This will be done with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx chipset, which is in Lenovo's project without limits, the world's first 5G laptop.

In his speech, Qualcomm compared the performance of the 8cx to that of a laptop with an Intel Core i5 processor. During a web browsing test, Qualcomm found that its own processor could load 10 web pages about 13 seconds faster than Intel's. Another test, focused on multitasking, showed that the 8cx could save 1 minute and 11 seconds compared to the Core i5. Qualcomm Senior Vice President Alex Katouzian used impressive mathematical gymnastics and showed how an 8cx powered machine can save you nearly 11 days of work per year.

Then there is Intel. His two main Computex ads were Athena Project and his new Ice Lake 10th generation chips. Ice Lake is a quantum leap forward from Intel's 9th generation processors, and provides AI power, longer battery life, and much thinner notebooks. Meanwhile, the Athena project is a new class from the laptop.

In order for a company to obtain a Project Athena brand device, it must meet certain requirements: it must have an autonomy greater than 9 hours "in the real world", but it must also add 4 hours of autonomy with half an hour. charge, and he has to get out of sleep in less than a second.

Less than a second. Laptops and PCs are so advanced that companies like Qualcomm and Intel are competing against each other. You do most of your work on your laptop, so there should be no barrier between you and him. Your laptop should be there at all times, ready to take you out and be a productive member of the company.

As someone who writes this story from the back of a cab, I'll tell you that this even more productive future does not excite me.

(By the way, Lenovo's senior vice president, Johnson Jia, came on the scene at the Intel conference to introduce the Yoga S940, the first laptop known to the Athena project.

It's hard to be mad at Intel or Qualcomm. It's their job to improve their products and give us what we want, and they do it. The Intel 10th generation processors look promising and the 5G laptops equipped with Qualcomm could change the game. But sometimes we do not know where we are going.

Let me ask you a question. Do you like email? The fact that everyone can reach you at any time is miraculous. Sometimes it's a lifesaver. But most of the time, accessing e-mail 24/7 is a distraction that increases your stress on something that could and should wait until tomorrow. (Just ask my editor, who had to read a draft of this column at 10 pm)

It's the history of technologies that allow us to be more productive. "Imagine how it would make my life easier," you think. The next thing you know you fill out worksheets on the train for work, making corrections on the train back from work and checking your email like you attempt unsuccessfully to watch Netflix.

I do not need to tell you how unhealthy it is. We all agree with the idea that social media is harming us. The problem I have with Facebook and Twitter is not what's in there, even though both are reliable outrageous factories. It's their ubiquity. They are. Always. Sure. Constant pings, it's hard to disable them. But at least I know it's a problem.

We do not have the same allergy to productivity because, I guess, it's more worthy of working on the bus than judging people on Instagram. But it has been shown that too much work causes depression, anxiety and even stroke. How much better is it?

Companies like Intel and Qualcomm are fighting for your minutes and seconds, just like Facebook and Twitter. And it's okay. Laptops have become thinner, lighter, faster and more durable, thanks in part to the two companies that are so good at them. But when the new era of personal computers arrives, when we have 5G laptops always on, we make sure to take a break from time to time.

For my part, I am going to offer another Big Mac bootleg.

Posted at 10:30
Update, 4.30 pm: Adds information about Lenovo Yoga S940.