Intel® Software Innovators at IDF 2016

Intel® Software Innovators demoed a variety of innovative technologies built on Intel architecture at IDF 2016 in San Francisco, August 16-18.  Here's a quick overview of just a few of the demos that Innovators showcased for attendees. 

Hacking Disabilities Demos

Wheelie – Hands free robotic wheelchair 

 How about driving a robotic wheelchair using facial expressions, head movement, eye tracking or speech recognition?  Wheelie is a hands-free solution that uses Intel RealSense technology to drive robotic wheelchairs. Wheelie allows you to set up key expressions as commands. 

1-Here are the options: full-smile, half-smile, wrinkle nose, eyebrows up, kiss movement, tongue out and puffed cheek. 
2-Pick up 5 of them. 
3-Wheelie links the expressions to a command to drive the wheelchair: moving forward, backward, turning right, left and stop.

After a stroke some patients may have different restrictions on controlling facial muscles. Wheelie offers 7 different facial expressions to be selected, but sometimes using the head is the best way to go. Wheelie and Intel® RealSense™ can together track you head position using the pitch, the roll and yaw translating these movements into wheelchair commands. Commands based on speech recognition are also available. Attendees will be able to navigate a wheelchair through obstacles using just their facial expressions and or head movements. 


HELIOS employs Intel® RealSense™ technology to provide a series of accessibility features for visually impaired individuals, empowering them to perform actions and tasks with more confidence and ease. Attendees will be able feel how close or far objects and navigate through obstacles while being blind. The HELIOS headgear comes in 2 models: 

HELIOS Touch - For individuals suffering from severe or complete blindness. 
HELIOS Light - For individuals suffering from low vision

Virtual and Augmented Reality Demos

Shape Song Music VR

Create your own instruments to play along with songs created by you or others in a fully reactive and immersive virtual world. More from the developers: 

"Shape Song is a concept we are developing at Chronosapien that lets people jump into VR and start playing music as easily as banging on a drum. Our goal is to give everyone the experience of playing and creating music, playing with others (even themselves), and sharing those creations and performances with everyone - both inside and outside of VR. By creating your own instrument, playing music can be as simple or as complex as you want, and can be tailored exactly to your ability and style. With VR, we can finally let go of the physical limitations of traditional musical instruments and create ones that are completely unique and made purely of the imagination.

Shape Song is being developed specifically for room-scale VR platforms. We are currently prototyping the app and will show more media and information as we progress."

7VR Wonders of Ancient World 


Recreation of the 7 Ancient Wonders into a Virtual Reality tour. Attendees will experience Virtual Archeology, where it will be possible to visit unique places from ancient history known as the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It's worth noting that, of those Seven Wonders, only one (the Pyramids of Giza) remains intact and possible to visit. Every other was destroyed and only ruins remain, which makes the recreation of those monuments even more interesting. The technologies used in the project will be the Oculus Rift ("Oculus Rift - Developer Center," [s.d.]) and Google Cardboard ("Google Cardboard," 2015). The first one aiming for the highest level of realism possible, while the second can increase distribution and visibility of the experience.

Leave the Nest

Virtual flying game. If you’ve ever had a dream of flying, wanted to feel the wind in your hair, wanted to soar and dive among trees of the forest, race trains and cruise perilously close to dangerous volcanoes, then this game is for you. Flap your little wings to take off from your cozy nest, and embark on an adventure as you fly through the world, passing through peaceful forests, Persian cities, volcanic vistas and more. Earning bonus points and multipliers along the way, flying high will earn you that ever so valuable 2x bonus, but you can't stay up there forever as the air's too thin to flap.

Vapor Riders '99

A VR Game studying new methods of locomotion. This demo was developed for the HTC Vive. 

Mesh Demos

Mesh ( is a platform provided by Intel for developers to showcase their work to the developer community at large, as well as to people at Intel. One of the demos at this booth was for a hardware project that is actually up on Mesh, Console Tab. Video below:

Maker Space Demos

Several Innovators demoed innovative work around IoT in the Maker Space area, in workshops, demos, and interactive projects. 

Innovator-Led Workshops included:

Building Mobile Apps for Connected IoT Products in Minutes

Learn how to build IoT prototype projects and develop mobile apps in minutes using Blynk and the Intel® IoT Developer Kit. 

Building a Photobooth Using Visual Programming in Minutes

Learn how to build a photobooth using Octoblu IoT platform and an Arduino 101*. 

Innovators also demoed the following projects in the Maker Space:

Intel® Ultimate Coder Challenge for IoT: The TransitIQ demo showcases a functional proof of concept based on the Intel® IoT Developer Kit. The demo focuses on increasing the safety of the roads for drivers. In real time it determines and provides drivers with safety scores for cars in their surrounding environment and includes warnings of potential risks.

Nurro: This demo is a wearable device for athletes focused on monitoring the stress levels of the muscles both during and post training in order to improve the effectiveness of training, measure the muscles recovery rate, and prevent injuries. 

Thunder Wake Corp: Become a conductor and create music using the Arduino 101 powered by Intel. With a wave of the arm, this demo generates sounds and melodies inspired by user's movement. Music is created and synthesized on the Intel® Edison board.

The Hybrid Group: Toyhub showcases controlling the Internet of Toys using Cylon.js. Created using the Intel® Edison Board and open source software written using Cylon.js and Gobot, Toyhub lets you use off-the-shelf toy robots to play head-to-head games in the real world. 

Beacon of Hope: This demo showcases a discreet intervention device for victims of human trafficking in need of help during a short window of opportunity. “Beacon of Hope”are the next generation of smart dispensaries to be used in emergency situations ranging from refugee camps to amber alert systems. It collects data that will measure the emergency response time, provide analysis of the data that is identifying the sentiments from the system, and send an SMS to first responders in collaboration with NGOs. 

Staten Island MakerSpace: The Educational Gravity Garden (EGG) demo showcases the use of the Intel® Edison board to automate the care and healthy growth of plants while conserving water. It also showcases how DIY projects can be used as an educational tool and as inspiration to young makers. 

Octoblu: This demo will showcase a number of projects, including miniature battle-bots, which demonstrate how Intel hardware and code-free IoT can be used to rapidly prototype and scale ideas! 

DFRobotics: This demo showcases the use of robots in warehouses as a mean to automatically identify and keep track of inventory. It also showcases the use of predictive algorithms to build forecasting models for reordering, storage location, and process optimization. 

Were you at IDF 2016?

We had a great time at IDF 2016, and we're already looking forward to IDF 2017!  Learn more about the Intel® Software Innovators program on the Intel® Developers Zone.
