The speed of change in the software world is daunting. In his own keynote, SVP and General Manager of the Ultra Mobility Group at Intel, Anand Chandrasekher, noted that everyone is trying to “unleash the Internet, unwire it, and make it go mobile.” Again, the words sound almost obvious, like common sense. They’re not.

It’s true that Intel specializes in bringing incredible advancements to technology on a tick-tock product development schedule that allows industries to grow and thrive. You can see in the matter of weeks and months that Intel’s efforts go from being rumor to being confirmed technological advances (like the recent Dunnington news) that the world is watching itself change in real time. It’s true that a lot of time at IDF in Shanghai was devoted to presentations on specific technologies, platforms and products.

We heard a lot more about Nehalem, about visual computing, about multithreaded CPUs (And just for fun, compare this detailed look at Intel’s sometimes-inscrutable codenames with a detailed look at those same codenames, from a slightly different perspective). Keynotes from Gelsinger and Chandrasekher, along with Software and Solutions Group General Manager and Intel Vice President Renee James and Intel’s Andrew Chien helped to clarify just how much more mobile our technology will allow us to be.

But always in the backdrop was Shanghai. In this video podcast, Jason Lopez connects the dots between Intel’s efforts to push technology past its limits and Shanghai’s amazing journey to pass its own.

Tags: IDF, Shanghai, Intel developers, Pat Gelsinger, architecture for life, Anand Chandrasekher, unleash the Internet, Dunnington, Nehalem, visual computing, multithreaded CPUs, Renee James, Andrew Chien, Jason Lopez, IDF2008, Silverthorne, Intel Atom, mobile Internet device, Nehalem, Dunnington, Multithreading, virtualization, high performance computing, wireless technology, Centrino, WiMax, 45nm, 32nm

This year’s Spring IDF took place in Shanghai.

Tags: Intel, Pat Gelsinger, Dadi Perlmutter, Anand Chandrasekher, Intel Atom, Shanghai, IDF2008, Silverthorne, Intel Atom, mobile Internet device, Nehalem, Dunnington, Multithreading, virtualization, high performance computing, wireless technology, Centrino, WiMax, 45nm, 32nm

Dr. Ren Ng, president and CEO of Refocus Imaging, led a demo of his company’s light field cameras, which record the full light field as it enters the camera, ultimately extending the capabilities of conventional digital cameras and “turning camera hardware into software.” Ng explains that by doing this, light field cameras “bring the economics and power of Moore’s Law to the camera system.” (snapshots from their Web site illustrate the demo, which they re-created live, on stage at IDF!).

Also on hand was Dr. Mendel Rosenblum, co-founder and chief scientist at VMware. He shared the stage with Intel Senior Vice President and General Manager, Digital Enterprise Group, Pat Gelsinger, to demonstrate a flex migration across four generations of hardware as well as the value of the deep collaboration between Intel and VMware.

There was a live demo by Classmate PC, following the news-making announcement of the new, second generation classmate (”featuring a 9-inch LCD screen, 6-cell battery, 512MB memory, a 30GB hard disk drive and a built-in webcam“), the unveiling of Intel’s Tukwila Itanium processor (“Two billion transistors in one processor”), and a mobility-focused Asianux demoonstration of the breadth of Moblin Usage, including a new way to play video from the Web and a new way to order Chinese food.

A Montevina demo was noteworthy after Intel Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Mobility Group, Dadi Perlmutter, revealed that Intel’s next generation mobile platform, Montevina, will provide twice the 3D processing power of any current integrated solution.

Demos showcasing Neusoft driver assistance, Fuwa robot, Adobe Air, Sobey real-time rendering and MID & mobile designs rounded out the event.

Tags: Intel, IDF, Shanghai, mobility, Ren Ng, Refocus Imaging, light field cameras, Mendel Rosenblum, VMware, Pat Gelsinger, flex migration, Classmate PC, Tukwila, Itanium, processor, Moblin, Montevina, Dadi Perlmutter, Fuwa, Adobe Air, Sobey, IDF2008, Silverthorne, Intel Atom, mobile Internet device, Nehalem, Dunnington, Multithreading, virtualization, high performance computing, wireless technology, Centrino, WiMax, 45nm, 32nm

Intel Senior Vice President and Digital Enterprise Group co-GM Pat Gelsinger speaks with PodTech’s Michael Johnson about what is going to happen at the event in Shanghai.

Here, Gelsinger talks about the scheduled keynotes and new mobile internet devices based on the Intel Atom processor. Gelsinger shares his fondest memories of IDF over the years.

If you aren’t attending in person, that’s not a problem. Intel blogs will keep the information flowing in both directions with regular updates, photos and video.

If you’re not attending the event in person, be sure to follow online at Intel’s IDF pages and check in here for more video podcast coverage.

Tags: Pat Gelsinger, IDF, IDF2008, Nehalem, WiMAX, Dunnington, Intel Research, Mobile Internet Devices, Intel Atom, Intel