British physicist Stephen Hawking is slowly losing his ability to speech through a computerized interface as the muscles used in his face to operate the program continue to fail. Realizing the scientists need to speak a group of Intel Corp. engineers are looking for new technologies that could advance his speech capabilities.

Diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease as the age of 21 the now 70-year-old scientist uses a special infrared laser attached to his glasses to communicate using pulses from his right cheek, however the nerves in his face have deteriorated to the point where people close to him say he’s only talking at approximately one word per minute.

While most people diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease die within 2-5 years Hawking has lived with the disease for nearly 50 years despite constant attacks on the cells that control his muscles.

For the first part of his diagnosis Hawking managed to overcome his disease by dictating notes to a secretary and through the use of an interpreter. In 1985 Hawking lost his voice completely and used a synthesized voice machine with a trademark robotic monotone sound that is now recognized around the world. Using that machine Hawking could type approximately 15 words per minute.

According to Intel they were asked to gather information for further study but have not yet decided on a course of action.  Intel plans to investigate the use of brainwaves or eye tracking technology to create a new form of communication for Hawking and other people suffering from paralysis.

Intel says its best bet however would be a high definition camera that can pick up even the smallest of facial gestures.

A timeframe for a new product has not yet been revealed.

___

New Stephen Hawking Speech Technology Being Sought Out By Intel is a post from: The Inquisitr

CES 2012 continues to be a hot bed of new product and service announcements from technology companies around the World. Intel, maker of chipsets, processors, and more, debuted their new mobile processor which is based on the Intel Atom platform.

Qualcomm and Texas Instruments have long dominated the smartphone and tablet market with their mobile chipsets and processors. NVIDIA is also growing in it’s integration on mobile with their Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 processors. The Tegra 3 is a quad core monster which is available in the fastest Android tablets on the market.

Via PC Mag:

“The first phones based on the Intel architecture will be going to China (available on China Unicom’s network in the second quarter of 2012) and Liu Jun, Senior Vice President of Lenovo, joined Otellini to show Lenovo’s new K800 smartphone. With a 4.5-inch display and what Jun said is “incredible multitasking performance” it still manages to maintain great battery life.”

Sounds like Intel has finally managed to pull off a solid mobile processor. The Intel Atom processor line has been out for a while, but it never was the best for smartphones and tablets. That’s why other competitors managed to take off with mobile while the company didn’t.

More details about the K800 smartphone with their chip:

“A sped-up clip showed that despite 1080p video displays, the Intel reference design delivers notably better battery life than competitors. Bell believes Intel will have the highest performing version of Android; it’s working with developers to create higher-performing games, but the company has technology to allow any Android application to run well, even those designed for another chip architecture (ARM).”

Intel Debuts Worthy Mobile Processor, Great Battery Life And Multitasking is a post from: The Inquisitr

Some interesting news out of the AnandTech blog when it comes to the chips that are powering the future of smart TV.

It seems that Intel has decided that the time has come to pull the plug on its Digital Home Group, the division responsible for the CE4100 Atom processor chip development that is used for things like smart television devices. At this point companies like Boxee and Google TV make use of the Intel chips but following this news it looks like they’ll have to move over to using ARM chips.

Neither Google nor Boxee executives seemed overly concerned with the news saying that ARM provides a very viable alternative, and one that Boxee is use to working with given that Boxee is designed to run on multiple types of chipsets and that the first Boxee device originally ran on an ARM chipset.

In fact word has it that Google has been working with ARM chips for its next generation of Google TV devices with the hope that doing so would help bring down the prices of those devices.

via GigaOM

Intel walks away from the smart TV war leaving ARM the victor is a post from: The Inquisitr

Technology stocks

Following the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 272 point jump – the biggest point gain since Sept. 7 and fourth-largest rally of the year – on Monday, the blue-chip index once again surged 250 points, or 2.3%, to 11294. The last time the Dow registered back-to-back gains of 200 points or more was in December 2008.

The index is up more than 5% since plunging 391 points last Thursday.

H-P’s shares set the pace, gaining 7%, while IBM rose 2.8%, Intel added 3.2% and Cisco moved up 2%.

Other tech-sector components that helped the blue-chip rally included Oracle Corp. (Up 2.63%), Google Inc. (Up 2.64%) and Dell Inc.(+4.54%).

In addition to the Dow gains, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rallied 26 points and the Nasdaq Composite also shot up 56 points to 2573.

According to reports by the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. market rally follows sharp gains in overseas markets amid reports of a potential expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility as well as plans for the European Union to aggressively recapitalize its banks. European shares were broadly higher.

“This activity represents an elimination of something between a panic and high levels of pessimism” among investors, said Morris Mark, president of Mark Asset Management. “There seems to be a real commitment on the part of leadership in European countries, financial institutions and the European Central Bank to solve the problems. But until we see definitive outcomes, you just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

via MarketWatch

Technology Stocks Join Broader Market Rally is a post from: The Inquisitr

It sure seems some days that what was once science fiction is increasingly becoming today’s technology. From Arthur C. Clarke’s satellite to electronic circuits that can be embedded in our skin science fiction seems more prescient than ever.

Well it seems that Intel is taking notice of this and is hiring science fiction writers to help figure out where consumers and technology could be heading, both in the near and long term. This follows on their experiment last year where Intel hired four science fiction writers to look at Intel’s research projects and then write about how that technology could be used in the near future. The end product, an anthology called The Tomorrow Project, was meant to help drive the direction of Intel’s design of those technologies.

This time around Intel wants the easy to understand language of science fiction to help Intel engineers develop technologies with a wider consumer appeal.

Intel’s resident futurist, Brian David Johnson, has been leading a team of sociologists and anthropologists at Intel. Their job is mingle with people in a range of social contexts to better understand how people use technology in their lives, and how they might want to in the future.

One example of their work to date, has been the development of the chip at the center of the Google TV set-top-box. The team’s research showed that not only were people interested in streaming content directly to their TV and they wanted to surf the Internet from their TV’s too, all without a PC. This finding led to the chip design team developing a processor that could accommodate these requirements.

Although, while the slow take up rate of the device could suggest the project has not been successful, it could also be argued that it might actually be ahead of its time. Regardless, it is an interesting insight into how Intel is tackling the challenge of designing the technology of the future, now.

via electronista

Here is a video of Brian David Johnson, Intel’s resident futurist (now there’s a cool job), explaining the projects.

Science fiction writers hired by Intel to help drive their future technology is a post from: The Inquisitr

An explosion that occurred this week at an Intel plant in Phoenix, Arizona has left seven employees injured and one with severe burns.

According to the Phoenix Business Journal the accident occurred in the company’s solvent waste treatment room at Fab 22, forcing Intel Vice President Josh Walden to assure everyone that “there was no damage or release of chemicals to the community.”

While an investigation is currently underway all facilities effected by the explosion have resumed their roles.

The company promises to update the public once their own investigation reveals what caused the explosion to occur in the first place.

Explosion at Intel’s Arizona Plant Injures 7 is a post from: The Inquisitr

For those of you that aren’t familiar with SSDs that is the acronym for Solid State Drives which are the best things to happen to computers since Moore made up some silly law.

Well, okay maybe not that great but for people who want their computers operating as fast as possible the standard IDE hard drives are actually pretty slow. Not so with SSDs because rather than writing data to physical hard disk platters the SSD writes it to flash ram which gives you a great big bump in accessing and writing data.

The big problem with SSD though is that it is expensive, very expensive. Granted the prices have been coming down but for the average they are still out of our price range. So this news from Intel that they are going to start shipping bigger solid state drive at lower prices is welcome news indeed.

These new drives, the SSD 320 Series, are coming soon in the following configuration:

• 40GB: $89
• 80GB: $159
• 120GB: $209
• 160GB: $289
• 300GB: $529
• 600GB: $1,069

There is a faster series, the 520 Series, but we don’t have a set of prices for them yet.

via CrunchGear

Speed freaks rejoice – Intel shipping bigger and cheaper SSDs is a post from: The Inquisitr

The 1.66GHz Intel N570 CPU has made it’s way into several refreshed versions of HP’s Mini 110 and 210 netbooks.

Along with HP’s plans to begin shipping the new CPU in those units by the end of the month (in Japan), Intel has finally ponied up some specs, including the speed (1.66GHz), thread count (4) and L2 cache (1MB). The unit will also offer 8.5W TDP with DDR3-667 memory.

The quick move to ship after only announcing the chips arrival last month is more than likely in response to AMD’s own Zacate E-350 processor which has been receiving a considerable amount of press and positive feedback.

Let the netbook CPU wars begin and in the meantime, feel free to let us know what you think about both options (AMD and Intel).

HP Mini 110 and 210 Get Refreshed With 1.66GHz Intel Atom N570 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Intel has announced that they are infusing American universities with $100 million in cash over the next five years. According to the chipset manufacturer the money will go to various Intel Science and Technology Centers, with the first being built at Stanford university.

The large cash donations will be primarily used to focus on next-generation visual computing with research being conducted in the fields of mobility, security and embedded technology.

According to Electronista:

At the Stanford lab, researchers will work with colleagues from seven other universities. These include the Universities of California at Davis, Berkeley and Irvine; the University of Washington; Cornell; Princeton; and Harvard.

For their research the Sandy Bridge Core Processor line will be used to help develop the way images are captured or created before the computer monitor delivers those images to the user.

Intel is also sending four of their own researchers to each center to allow for better interaction between University researchers and Intel scientists.

Intel To Give Universities $100 Million For Research is a post from: The Inquisitr

Today seems to be a big day for news about people looking for new jobs. First of course is the big layoff rumored to be happening at Myspace, then comes news out of Redmond that President of  Server and Tools Business Bob Muglia has been shown the door, even though he’ll be hanging around until summer.

Now e get word that AMD has decided that it’s time for some new leadership as the board announced that CEO Dirk Meyer is by mutual agreement with the board of directors resigning immediately.

All this is rather puzzling since it was under Meyer’s leadership that AMD managed to engineer a turnaround and actually pull ahead of Intel in some cases.

The CEO search committee will be headed by Bruce Claflin, chairman of AMD’s board. Claflin will become executive chairman as he assumes additional responsibilities during the transition. Seifert will maintain his current job as CFO and has asked not to be considered for the permanent CEO job.

“Dirk became CEO during difficult times.  He successfully stabilized AMD while simultaneously concluding strategic initiatives including the launch of GlobalFoundries, the successful settlement of our litigation with Intel and delivering Fusion (accelerated processing units) APUs to the market,” said Claflin.

”However, the Board believes we have the opportunity to create increased shareholder value over time,” Claflin continued. ” This will require the company to have significant growth, establish market leadership and generate superior financial returns.  We believe a change in leadership at this time will accelerate the company’s ability to accomplish these objectives.”

via VentureBeat

One has to wonder, given the circumstances, what kind of possible scandal is lurking under the surface. It sure makes one think of the whole HP and Hurd fiasco.

AMD kicks current CEO to the curb is a post from: The Inquisitr

Intel on Thursday announced that their new massive Hillsboro, Oregon plant, known as D1X will be responsible for the manufacturing of 450 millimeter wafers.  Intel had previously announced large investments in a new 22 nanometer manufacturing process.

Intel only says that the plant is “ready” to create the new wafers, however it will continue to manufacturer 300mm wafers for the time being.

Intel only says that they have the necessary abilities to create 450mm wafers when the industry is ready for them and when the new chips can be created they will ultimately increase efficiency and cut costs by allowing more chips to be manufactured at the same time.

We wouldn’t suggest holding your breath for the 450mm chips, one analyst predicts the industry won’t convert to those wafers until at least 2018.  [via Engadget]

Intel Confirms Hillsboro Plant Will Produce 450mm Wafers is a post from: The Inquisitr

Intel Opens World’s Largest Chip Making Factory In Vietnam is a post from: The Inquisitr

There has always been rumors of an agreement between some of the biggest tech companies that they wouldn’t go around trying to hire top talent away from each other. Well it turns out that this wasn’t just a rumor as the Department of Justice in the U.S. filed suit the afternoon of September 24 against six high profile tech companies.

The DoJ state that Google, Intel, Apple, Adobe, Inuit and Pixar made agreements with each other not to poach competitor employees. This in the eyes of the government restrained competition between them for highly skilled employees. The DoJ also states that starting as early as 2005 the companies agreed to create do not call lists of each other’s employees as well as lists of companies that were off limits.

A couple of the examples given in the DoJ statement are

Beginning no later than 2006, Apple and Google executives agreed not to cold call each other’s employees.   Apple placed Google on its internal “Do Not Call List,” which instructed employees not to directly solicit employees from the listed companies.  Similarly, Google listed Apple among the companies that had special agreements with Google and were part of the “Do Not Cold Call” list;

[....]

Beginning no later than September 2007, Google and Intel executives agreed not to cold call each other’s employees.   In its hiring policies and protocol manual, Google listed Intel among the companies that have special agreements with Google and are part of the “Do Not Cold Call” list.   Similarly, Intel instructed its human resources staff about the existence of the agreement; and

Now at the same time that the civil antitrust complaint was being filed a five-year settlement was also filed that would in effect end the suit.

The proposed settlement, which if accepted by the court will be in effect for five years, prohibits the companies from engaging in anticompetitive no solicitation agreements.   Although the complaint alleges only that the companies agreed to ban cold calling, the proposed settlement more broadly prohibits the companies from entering, maintaining or enforcing any agreement that in any way prevents any person from soliciting, cold calling, recruiting, or otherwise competing for employees.   The companies will also implement compliance measures tailored to these practices.

It’s so nice to see everyone getting along so well together eh.

Google, Apple, Adobe sued by the Feds, and then settled is a post from: The Inquisitr

Talk about being nickeled and dimed to to the point of extreme pissed offness.

I understand that companies – especially gaming companies of all types – are looking for new ways to increase their profits any way the can. With gaming companies it is the increasing use of DLC’s (downloadable content) that includes everything from cool new content to accessories you need in order to play better, but one has to wonder just how far this type of thing will go.

Well it seems that we may have the beginnings of an answer.

News is out that Intel is selling a processor that has been intentionally hobbled. The CPU is their low-end Pentium G6951 where they have limited both the cache and the hyperthreading features. However you can remove the limitation by paying Intel  $50.00 for an unlock code.

When you pay this blood -money you can then use the unlock code to download and apply some software that unlocks those features of the CPU. This of course means that in order to unlock the features they already had to have been there which means you are paying twice for that processor.

According to the story in Engadget this is just a test being done by Intel in the lower-end processor market.

images courtesy of Engadget

Intel holding your CPU for ransom is a post from: The Inquisitr

Outside of the new processor the units other features are pretty standard for the line with a 12-inch multitouch touchscreen, the option of an integrated Intel graphics card or ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450 GPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and other features.

The units start at $899, with the price quickly jumping upwards as new features and faster processors are added.

Remember when this system debuts with the Intel’s Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor, we sure have come a long way since those days, even if those days weren’t too long ago.

What do you think? Is this system worth buying with the new processor?

HP TouchSmart tm2t Series Now With Core i5 Processor Option is a post from: The Inquisitr

Sony this week unveiled their newest notebook, a Sony VAIO M Series offering with the Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz processor.

The notebook also features a 250GB hard-drive, 1GB RAM and an Intel GMA 3150 graphics card.  Connectivity options are decent with WiFi b/g/n, ethernet, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, VGA output, three USB 2.0 ports  and audio in/out.

Buyers will also get an integrated webcam with a microphone, stereo speakers and a 6 cell battery, although no run times have been announced.

There’s still no pricing or official release date, although the M Series is expected to start selling before the end of March. The N450 netbook will be available initially in black and white.

Sony VAIO M Series Gets Some N450 Lovin’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

Intel is busy this week showing off their new Core i7 980X Extreme Edition CPU at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, California.

To show off the platform Intel has been using several applications including Sega’s Napoleon Total War, Geomerics’ Enlighten and Cakewalk Sonar.

Electronista is also reporting that the system is rumored to run on a 3.33GHz processor, while featuring the first 32nm six-core processor with 12 computing threads and level 3 cache. Intel has also upped the memory from 8MB to 12MB, while the processor uses 130W while processing at full thermal peaks.

Pricing is placing the new processor at $999, although no official word on that price or a release date have been announced.

Intel Shows Off Core i7 980X Six-Core Gulftown CPU is a post from: The Inquisitr

With Intel announcing the Atom N470 processor it didn’t take very long for new device announcements to occur. The first? Gigabyte who announced their Gigabyte TouchNote T1000, a convertible netbook-tablet with a 10.1 inch display that outputs at 1,366 x 768 pixels.

Gigabyte will offer the unit in both N450 and N470 setups, with a 1.86GHz processor, a 4-cell 4,500mAh battery on the T1000X model and a 6-cell, 7,650mAh on the T1000P.  Both netbooks also feature a 1GB RAM setup, 250GB HDD’s and an Intel GMA 3150 GPU.

Both netbooks also offer Bluetooth 2.1 with enhanced data rates and WiFi b/g/n with 10/100 ethernet.

Users will also receive two USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA/USB combo port, audio in/out ports, a VGA slot and an express card option located next to a multiformat memory card. The unit also gets a 1.3mp camera and 1.5w stereo speakers.

No price of availability at this time, but with CeBIT 2010 later this week, we expect to hear more shortly.

[SlashGear]

Gigabyte TouchNote T1000 Gets Atom N470 Love is a post from: The Inquisitr

See what you did Apple. It wasn’t bad enough that notebooks shrunk by two to seven inches, lost half their power and were deemed “netbooks,” but now we’re going to have to put up with thousands of tablet based devices flooding the market. This weeks newest announced tablet is the OpenPeak OpenTablet 7, an MWC debuted device.

The OpenTablet 7 is a sleek looking device with multi-touch capabilities that measures in with a display at 7 inches wide while offering LED backlighting. The tablet also supports WiFi 802.11N and comes with Bluetooth 2.1 and cellular data abilities. It also features a mic and speakers which could allow it to be used as a phone, take that iPad!

Some other notable features include HD video recording and still image taking, an HDMI output and even microSDHC card and USB slots.

The tablet is rather small, measuring 9″ x 5″ with a thickness of just 0.59 inches with a weight of 1.15 pounds.

The device also features a Moorestown Intel Atom processor and provides app development capabilities via Adobe Flash CS4.

No release date or pricing has been made available at this time. [SlashGear]

OpenPeak Debuts OpenTablet 7 At MWC is a post from: The Inquisitr

Intel Huron River CPUs will be arriving by the first quarter of 2011 according to recent reports and will be based around the 32nm Sandy Bridge silicon processor with dual and quad-core processors with built-in Intel Turbo Boost.

The chips are also expected to come with various forms of wireless connectivity, including WiFi and WiMAX depending on the model chosen by the user. Intel is also going to throw in wireless display technology as an added bonus.

According to SlashGear:

Intel are expected to position Huron River processors as suitable for both regular laptops and ultrathin models.  It will replace the Calpella platform, first launched in 2009, as the seventh-generation Centrino.

It’s quite a while to wait, but given the hype the processors have been getting, it’s a wait worth the time.

Intel Huron River CPUs To Be Released Upon The World With WiMax…In 2011 is a post from: The Inquisitr