Once again, Intel's chief executive today showed the company's interest in newer trends- like wearable computing and robotics, showcasing a "smart" shirt and a robot. Brian Krzanich appeared at the Code Conference wearing a shirt packed with sensors capable of measuring heart rate and other vital signs. The battery-powered shirt connects to a prototype smartphone app, communicating real-time EKG data. It was developed with the help of a company called AiQ, and will be available this summer.

Intel does not make sensors itself at the moment, but Krzanich said that it would build some sensors using intellectual property acquired by other companies.

He also showed off Jimmy, a white robot designed to walk, talk and dance, and discussed plans for a consumer robot-making kit, priced at $1,600. "Jimmy" is powered by a Core i7 chip. The kit Intel will be powered by Intel's Edison computer on a chip.

Intel has not managed to follow the industry's turn from PCs to tablets, a market dominated by chip designs licensed from ARM Holdings. Krzanich agrees:

"We missed the tablet. We missed that transition," he said during an interview.

However, Intel is still pursuing the tablet market with its own low-power chips as well as the recently announced deal with the Chinese chip maker Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics to create Intel-branded chips for use in entry-level tablets running Google?s Android operating system.