IDF is often used as a platform for key industry players to talk about new technologies or intentions for the future. Some of it is a little too far out for most people's scopes, such as Intel talking about machine/human interaction seeing a revolution within the next 40 years. But some other matters are a little closer to today. A very interesting keynote address was made yesterday by an Intel rep who brought some well known industry execs up to talk about the future of 3D, including 3D gaming.
They highlighted the importance of multi-threaded systems and it was that which brought out the most interesting portion of the address. John Carmack of id showed up to demo the upcoming title Rage. According to Carmack, Rage will be able to take advantage of the advances in hardware we've seen the past two years, primarily multi-core CPUs and multiple video cards.
Even though it wasn't extrapolated upon, it's a good sign. The amount of game titles out there that can really stress modern hardware is a short one, and after several years of stale clockspeeds it is clear that CPU manufacturers (and now even GPU manufacturers) need developers to start writing software that thinks parallel.