While it may seem like something out of Star Trek, imagine being able to talk on the phone with someone who does not understand English - yet will hear it spoken in his or her native tongue because the phone automatically translates speech into the necessary language. Chipmaker Intel sees it happening within the next decade.

In a keynote address at the Intel Developer Forum, Justin Rattner, director of Intel's corporate technology group, told attendees that much of the company's recent moves are to prepare for these types of tasks, which will require much more computing power than is available today.

"To deliver these capabilities in products that are easy to use and attractive to many people requires that we, as an industry, rethink our approach to platform development," he argued.

Intel recently has begun to look towards multiple-core processors that will offer supercomputer-like performance in a small form factor like today's computers. Having multiple cores within a processor is like adding more "brains" to allow the computer to handle several complex applications at once without degradation in performance.

The company has also begun to look into silicon photonics technology, in which lasers are used within silicon to transport data from one place to another very quickly. The new approach removes the need for today's copper wires that have performance limitations and could stunt processor speed growth in the future.

As well as working on the hardware side of things, Intel is also developing software to ensure its new and future lines of processors are able to handle a large number of simultaneous tasks, which will be necessary to make these more "humanized" applications possible.

"At Intel our research focus is all about making technology more valuable and useful for people," Rattner told the audience. "With the increased capabilities and opportunities we're developing in our labs combined with the company's platform focus, this is an extremely exciting time to be an Intel researcher working with the industry to create the future."