In his keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) on Tuesday, Intel Chairman Craig Barrett announced a contest to award four $100,000 checks for innovation.

The competition focuses on four areas: education, health care, economic development and environment. The contest, called the Inspire Empower Challenge, is a great idea. There's nothing like a little dough to get people thinking big things.

As my colleague Andy Patrizio reports from the scene in San Francisco, Intel has discussed a few innovative ideas of its own this week, from new solid state drives to closing the gap between humans and machines. Micro-robots in 2050? Long wait, but interesting.