• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, December 1, 2009

It's likely you never heard about Intel's 90-day trial for Alzheimer's patients and their caregivers. That's because the wireless network is built into patients homes. Using numerous types of motion and weight sensors and radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, patients' daily activities are monitored and recorded.

While Intel installed and tested the system in 24 homes in Portland, Ore. and Las Vegas, the Proactive Health Research project remains one of many the company created throughout the years.

Spreading the word to consumers that Intel creates more than microprocessors hasn't been easy for the company's in-house marketing arm. So the group tapped digital agency MRM Worldwide to design and build a Web site; Experience Intel. The site pulls in all Intel's microsites, YouTube videos and Twitter streams through XML and RSS data feeds to showcase its efforts. The site aggregates content from more than 50 Intel properties.

"If you ask the average person on the street to describe Intel, they zero in on the thing inside the computer," says Bob Duffy, senior social media strategist at Intel. "We want an opportunity to expose people to some of the great Intel stories and innovations."

And there have been plenty of them. More recently, Intel partnered with the social network Mass Animation to create high-quality movies animated by Facebook members. Or, the Intel Reader that takes pictures of text and reads it aloud. It's designed to provide access to printed text for the visually impaired and illiterate. Then there's the solid state Intel drive that got strapped to the frame of a rocket car travelling more than two miles in the Black Rock Desert, but still worked when snapped back into the laptop.

Experience Intel has become a convenient place for the company to showcase its latest innovations. It's segmented by topic making it easier to browse. Plans to expand the site includes content rating and commenting features that allow people to subscribe to topics. Intel also will repackage the content to make it available to other Intel sites and digital experiences.