As appliances become more connected than ever, Intel took note of an issue that will arise as the technology evolves. “I’ve only owned two fridges in my life, and when I buy my next one, I expect to own it for the rest of my life,” chuckles Bruce Patterson, marketing manager for the Compute Stick. “But at some point down the road, I may want to update the smart functionality.” That’s where the Intel Compute Card comes in.
The object Patterson produces from his pocket, not much larger than a credit card, is packing a fully functional system — CPU, SSD, RAM, and Wi-Fi — with a pair of ports on one end, which Intel says are USB Type-C with “extensions” that enable advanced connectivity like PCIe — with some room to spare for future improvements.
It may seem like a smaller Compute Stick on the surface, but the Compute Card plays a very different role in the Intel system lineup. Hardware manufacturers, which already include big names like HP, Dell, InFocus, Lenovo, LG, and Sharp, will use Intel’s specifications to build the Compute Card into their new products.
It’s an easy way for a company that does’t have experience producing tiny smart internals to add the functionality into a new device. Now LG doesn’t have to figure out how to produce the computing portion of its fridge, it can just outsource the problem. Even better, it means you don’t need to replace your fridge when you want new features — you can just upgrade the card.
It also allows for some novel new advancements in modular security. The card can be built to physically latch into a device, or only release with software control, preventing unauthorized access. It can even be tied to a specific system, so inserting it into a card dock elsewhere wouldn’t work, thanks to a TPM module.
No word on pricing or system specifics yet, but Patterson says it will scale up from Atom to full Intel Core processors with time. It’s also not the kind of system consumers would buy, although Intel says the idea of a NUC-sized dock for interested enthusiasts has been kicked around.
After five years with Apple silicon, from the original M1 MacBook Air to the M5 MacBook Air released earlier this year, I've watched these chips mature not just on the spec sheet, but in real-world workflows and overall efficiency.
The new M6 chip might sound like a routine generational upgrade, but it's the company's first chip built on a 2nm manufacturing process, which brings meaningful improvements over previous Apple chips.
Gemini Notebook’s mobile app now has a built-in recorder for capturing lectures and meetings as sources. You can record directly where you’ll use the material, skipping the separate recording app and the file upload afterward.
Google announced the feature on X, highlighting classroom lectures and team meetings as potential uses. It also works for capturing your own thoughts, so you can talk through an idea and bring that explanation into your notebook while it’s still fresh.
In 1950, Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. Rather than argue over definitions, he turned the question into a party game, where an interrogator trades typed messages with hidden players and tries to work out who is who. Since then, chatbots have gotten so good that they have already fooled humans in modern versions of the test.
So, four researchers from Paris Cité University asked the obvious follow-up question in a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports: can AI at least catch its own kind?