Would you like photorealistic, interactive 3D graphics on a future mobile gaming tablet? Yesterday Daniel Pohl from Intel Labs showed a new cloud-based ray-tracing research demo that represents a significant technical step in that direction. The concept is simple: use powerful servers based on Intel's new Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture to render and deliver frames of a first-person shooter to mobile device with visual effects well beyond what the client can do by itself. Check out this article in TG Daily as well as Daniel's blog.  

The cloud-based gaming model itself is not new and is being pursued actively by companies like OnLive. The novelty of this demo is showing the applicability of the new MIC architecture and our researchers' latestest ray tracing algorithms to bring newer and better effects to smaller devices through this cloud model over time. In addition, this model has the potential to free up the client's compute resources to run more advanced user-interfaces based on gesture and facial recognition to bring more natural game controls in addition to natural visuals.