by Amar Toor on April 4, 2011 at 12:40 PM

Apple and Intel have both decided to stop using conflict minerals to manufacture products, as part of the Conflict-Free Smelter program.
Conflict minerals include valuable commodities such as gold, titanium, tungsten and tin, which generate massive revenues used to fund wars in Central Africa, and, more specifically, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Beginning next year, all U.S. ...
by Matthew Zuras on January 19, 2011 at 03:05 PM

Kraft Foods -- the manufacturer of such wholesome vittles as Oreo Funstix, Easy Cheese and Handi-Snacks -- would like to scan your face, and then stuff it. Hooray!
Among other enormous and fantastical "innovations" on view at last week's National Retail Federation show was Kraft and Intel's 'Meal Planning Solution' kiosk. According to Fast Company, the kiosk scans your face with some kind of ...
by Caleb Johnson on January 13, 2011 at 04:20 PM

Adidas and Intel recently unveiled a massive touchscreen wall that allows shoe retailers to house a large inventory without taking up so much floorspace. The adiVerse Virtual Footwear Wall, which was designed by U.K. group Start Creative, was recently unveiled at the 2011 National Retail Federation Convention. When a shopper approaches it, the wall determines whether the person is male or female, ...
by Terrence O'Brien on October 28, 2010 at 02:05 PM

China just knocked the U.S. down a notch by unveiling the Tianhe-1A, the world's fastest supercomputer. Chugging along at just over 2.5 petaflops, the supercomputer outpaces the former title holder, the Cray Jaguar, which can plow through calculations at 2.3 petaflops. The Tianhe-1A is powered by 14,336 Intel CPUs and 7,168 NVIDIA GPUs, which should make for one hell of a gaming rig. ...
by Amar Toor on September 5, 2010 at 05:10 PM

Take a moment to glance down at your laptop. Chances are, you see a bunch of hideous, glittery stickers, with the names or logos of companies like Skype, Intel or Microsoft [Ed. Note: Nope! Just see white. Cult of Mac!]. Don't try and remove them, though. Scratching off these stickers, as with Chicken Pox, will only result in even uglier scars and residue. So, why are they there? The New York ...
by Warren Riddle on August 19, 2010 at 11:50 AM

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines....
Intel recently received a stern lecture from the federal government about how to play fairly with others, and the folks at security firm McAfee must be pleased with the chip giant's desire to expand. Intel is doling out $7.68 billion for the antivirus software company, reportedly because security has become something that "people ...
by Warren Riddle on August 5, 2010 at 11:40 AM

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines....
Apple claims to have created a fix for the iPhone 4's PDF vulnerabilities (sparked by JailbreakMe), saying its patch "will be available to customers in an upcoming software update." [From: Engadget]
According to a new Nielsen survey, the U.S. surprisingly ranks 36th in the world's online video usage, but that could be part ...
by Terrence O'Brien on July 6, 2010 at 04:55 PM

Not content to rule the PC market, Intel is trying to shoehorn its chips into everything it can find. The latest target of the chip giant is the automobile, which it hopes to make truly "smart" by way of processors, sensors and wireless transmitters. At the company's latest Research Day event, it showed off an electric vehicle equipped with cameras and sensors that stop just short of turning it ...
by Matthew Zuras on June 28, 2010 at 06:50 PM

There's a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can't cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web.
The entire Switched team was too busy sitting face-first in front of the AC this weekend to attend Vice Magazine's and Intel's 'Creator's Project' exhibition -- a ...
by Matthew Zuras on June 28, 2010 at 03:50 PM

Thanks to Apple's rabid PR push and to media coverage, almost every little detail of the iPhone 4 has been documented -- except for one minor factoid, that is. The phone, like several other luxury electronics on the market, may contain minerals supplied by bloodthirsty Congolese paramilitary groups. Most of us should recall the controversy over the origins of so-called "blood diamonds," or ...
by Terrence O'Brien on May 18, 2010 at 08:20 AM

Google and Intel are widely expected to announce a new "smart TV" initiative this week. The new platform will see the chip maker's Atom processor (normally found in netbooks) paired up with the Android OS (normally found in cell phones). The combined technology will be finding its way into set-top boxes and TVs, bringing Web connectivity and applications to the boob tube.
To date, efforts to ...
by Jon Chase on May 10, 2010 at 12:45 PM

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/05/10/bad-men-the-five-worst-tech-ads-and-five-who-got-it-right/';
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While we'd love to think we're immune to the coercive powers of advertising, we're confident that a lie detector test would shame us all. For the companies hoping to sell us their wares, that would seem like great news, but the blade of advertising cuts both ways; a bad commercial ...
by Warren Riddle on May 7, 2010 at 11:31 AM

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines....
Various studies have contributed contradictory evidence about whether or not the majority of DVR owners actually view commercials. The latest survey, performed by Duke University, claims that 95-percent of the material viewed by the focus group was actually watched live, and that the fast forward-ers and live viewers spent roughly ...
by Terrence O'Brien on April 8, 2010 at 01:20 PM

The Climate Group, a group of tech companies including Google, AT&T, Intel, GE, HP and Verizon, has written a letter (.PDF) to President Obama urging him to explicitly support the building of a smart grid and the deployment of smart metering technologies to every home and business in the U.S. The use of smart grid technologies is believed to be an essential ingredient in creating more ...
by Warren Riddle on February 15, 2010 at 11:50 AM

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines....
Nokia and Intel are forging an unlikely alliance, as the two companies are combining their incomplete Linux-based operating systems into one entity known as MeeGo. The odd coupling of Moblin and Maemo, which is expected to begin producing results later this year, was reportedly created in order to provide service for "the broadest ...