There was a time when high school science projects involved baking soda volcanoes dropping egg-filled containers from helicopters. That may actually still be the case, but not for a batch of 1,600 high school students at this year’s 2013 Intel International Science. 18-year-old Eesha Khare developed a super-capacitor with a special nano-structure that allows more energy within a lower volume. It is able to deliver the energy more efficiently and stores it for up to 10,000 cycles (compared to most batteries that last around 1000 cycles). It can charge cellphone batteries in 30 seconds and…

“The penalty for laughing in court is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.” – H. L. Mencken Indeed, there have been some laughable lawsuits.  It seems every year something more frivolous than the last makes the headlines.  Lawyers seem bent on sticking themselves in every crevice that they can possibly squeeze into and then drumming up crazy claims.  Over the years these types of lawsuits have been on the rise and have certainly spilled into the tech world.  Here is a list of 5 lawsuits that are just too frivolous not to write about: Rosenberg…

You don’t make it to a billion-dollar blunder without making a few mistakes along the way, or so should be the motto of the day for Intel. The world’s largest chip maker has distributed roughly 8 million faulty Cougar Point chips, and the cost to fix this mess: one billion dollars. The problem is that the Cougar Point SATA chips (the ones that transfer information back and forth to your hard drives) are faulty — more specifically the 3Gbps controllers are experiencing the issues. There is a slight chance that they could fail, and that is what all the fuss is about. However, it isn’t as bad as it might…

It’s a thing that the imagination can hardly conceive and the most avid gamer could only wish for. Intel has brought us a step closer to having the unicorn-like 1,000-core processor with a “proof of concept” that can perform nearly 20X faster than “modern computers.” A team of scientists lead by Dr. Wim Vanderbauwhede have used Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) technology to create the processor. Intel has been playing around with the super-processor concept for a few years now and shipped samples of its 48-core processor earlier this year. Intel’s Terascale Computing Research…

Geeks and nerds everywhere, prep your fingers for some angry typing in the blogosphere, this one is going to get messy. Intel has decided it doesn’t make enough money selling you a single product once, so now it’s experimenting with selling you that product twice. This genius marketing strategy is in place at Best Buy, where customers purchasing certain Compaq systems are offered a $50 upgrade card to unlock threads and cache capability that are otherwise unavailable to the system. You read that right, Intel builds CPUs and sells them to you, only to then slyly sidle up to you to ask if you wanted…

You may have heard that Intel bought McAfee a few weeks ago. Well that decision had a lot of people scratching their heads. Personally, I thought the CEO said ‘I got a virus, we should buy a copy of McAfee’ and an intern misheard him and bought the entire company instead. Intel decided to have a big press conference and try to explain themselves. Their answer isn’t as funny and kind of leaves us scratching our heads more. I don’t have lice, I swear! Here’s the explanation: Traditionally, security companies such as McAfee would take a defensive stance on things. For example, a new virus is made…

You need a computer you can take anywhere, a laptop designed for life on the site or the road. You need it to be shock-resistant, but you want it to have power. For you, good news, with Panasonic today updating some of the models in its Toughbook laptop range. The Toughbook CF-52 now runs on the Intel Core i5 (up to 2.53GHz) processor and includes 2GB RAM and up to a 250GB shock-mounted hard drive. It also has a bevy of wireless connectivity options. We like that this machine’s been drop and spill-tested and features a magnesium alloy case (with a weird-looking but sturdy carry handle). There’s even…

Intel has begun a campaign to let the world know it isn’t just a chip manufacturer. A series of YouTube videos showing ‘mock’ news reports about intelligent, non-PC devices that make use of Intel technology. Each of the 3 videos focuses on a different area where an Intel-powered device is improving people’s lives in the fields of energy, fitness and agriculture. …

Nobody has their hands in as many industries as Google. Nobody. As early as this summer, we may begin to see GoogleTV – the internet TV joint venture between Google, Sony and Intel – taking over our living rooms. The service would allow internet streaming content to be broadcast on your TV as easily as you can change channels. But that’s obvious. With a set-top box being provided by Sony, a chip by Intel, and Googlemancy by Google, the affair would seem to raise an odd question for the search giant: why so hardware-serious? With Google’s legendary penchant for web-based everything, the answer is almost…

Where Microsoft and Apple have failed, Google, those arrogant so-and-so’s, think they can succeed. Today, the New York Times reported the massive search company is teaming up with both Intel and Sony to produce technology to take control of your living room. Details are sketchy so far, and no-one quite knows if ‘GoogleTV’, as the project has been dubbed, will be comprised of a set-top box, a open software platform or something else….