Eight of the best projects at Intel’s Research Day

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

I’ve just got back from one of Intel’s occasional research days. The last one I went to – in Santa Clara, California last June – showcased some fascinating projects, including wireless power, a processor with 48 cores and a home energy sensor that could automatically identify when particular devices were switched on and off.

None of them has so far become a real product (though there are definite similarities between the 48-core Rock Creek CPU and the 50-core Knights Corner architecture). But it’s always fascinating to see what the chip giant’s boffins are working on. This week’s event – held at the company’s offices in Leixlip, near Dublin, and opened by Irish business minister Richard Bruton (above) – showcased several intriguing new ideas – as well as one eerily familiar one. Below the cut are some of the highlights. (more…)

The genius of the Lego Printer: video

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Let’s be clear on one thing: Lego is brilliant. The block-based toy started life in Denmark and, since its current design was patented in January 1958, over 400 billion of the little plastic bricks have been produced.

We assumed that this simple toy would never go hand-in-hand with computers, but we’ve been proved wrong by a particularly inventive member of the B3ta forums. While the site is normally full of offensive pictures and jokes that Frankie Boyle wouldn’t tell, this show of ingenuity is guaranteed to put a smile on your face: by combining the diminutive plastic bricks with a Mac and a felt-tip pen, he’s built a fully-functioning Lego printer:

I hope you’ll agree that it’s work of genius. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date with a boxful of knobbly plastic bricks. That Lego server won’t build itself.