Intel

Let it not be said that the European Union is playing favorites when it picks on Microsoft. The powerful antitrust regulators have now set their sights squarely on Intel, and the fines could be much worse. The commission began investigating Intel’s sales practices in late 2000 when AMD filed its initial complaint. Both chip makers are US based, but European regulators are historically much more aggressive at punishing monopolistic behavior than their American counterparts.

A laptop's value is more than meets the eye. Intel says stolen laptops cost corporate owners more than $100,000 in some cases, in a study announced Wednesday.

The study on notebook security, commissioned by Intel and conducted by the Ponemon Institute, states that laptops lost or stolen in airports, taxis, and hotels around the world cost their corporate owners an average of $49,246 "reflecting the value of the enclosed data above the cost of the PC," Intel said.

Intel Corp. is projected to release its first six-core microprocessors for desktops in the second quarter of 2010, nearly two years after the company began shipments of six-core chips for high-end x86 servers.

Intel has released a firmware update for its Intel X18-M and X25-M solid state drives addressing an issue first reported back in February. Specifically, PC Perspective had discovered that the write combining feature in Intel SSDs caused internal fragmentation and in some cases saw write speeds dropping to 25-30 MB/s levels. As a result of this fragmentation, PCPer found that a used X25-M will always perform worse than a new one.

Intel introduced 17 enterprise-class processors, led by the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series. Designed for addressing the increasing computing needs of many industries, the new enterprise-class chips can automatically adjust to specified energy usage levels, and speed data center transactions and customer database queries, said R.Ravichandran, Director -- Sales, Intel -- South Asia, at the launch.

Intel’s move into the discrete graphics market is inching closer to reality and the company wants to make sure the gaming industry is paying attention. To this end, the company is revealing at the Game Developers Conference today some additional details of its Larrabee graphics architecture that is aimed squarely at both Nvidia and AMD.

AS THE CHIP INDUSTRY SINKS FASTER THAN THE TITANIC, Intel has decided to send a lifeboat to employees, announcing a revamp of its staff compensation plan including a freeze on top executive salaries and an exchange of 'underwater' stock options.

Security researchers have turned the spotlight on an Intel chip vulnerability that could allow hackers unauthorized access to system management mode code. The hack was disclosed recently by the efforts of two separate researchers, but was apparently first uncovered by Intel employees.

Security researchers have released proof of concept exploit code for an Intel chip flaw that could be abused to compromise computer systems with stealthy rootkits.

Intel smartphone and mobile Internet device concept designs have potential. So, as Intel prepares to enter the smartphone market with LG Electronics and others, will these designs be realized? And would you buy one?

One thing is certain. A re-badged Apple iPhone running Windows isn't going to upset the Apple cart (pun intended). So, one obvious challenge is for Intel to get its considerable weight behind a new smartphone or mobile Internet device (MID) design that resets the market.

AMD WANT PEOPLE TO believe they care about battery life. Intel, however, want you to know it's all too complicated for mere mortal consumers.

AMD's senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Nigel Dessau, recently told the INQ he was well and truly fed up of not getting bang for his buck on notebook batteries, or, at the very least, getting as much battery juice as was estimated on the label.