microchip

In 2005, IBM’s $2-million BlueGene supercomputer took 80 minutes to process the same data that eight million cerebral-cortex neurons—a fraction of the brain’s total—handle in one second. Now bioengineer Kwabena Boahen of Stanford University has built a microchip that could help computers catch up.

I/O, I/O, it's off to develop I go!

Sure, it might sound cheesy, but the new UBW32 is a low-cost development board that sports 78 I/O pins! Roughly the size of a big stick of gum, the UBW32 is literally ringed with I/O pins.

Making processors for mobile gadgets is mostly an afterthought. Hone a chip from a desktop PC, tweak it to suck less power and vent less heat, and stick it in a laptop. Not so with Intel’s Atom. It’s Intel’s smallest-ever microprocessor, a 24-square-millimeter chip crammed with 47 million data-carrying transistors, and it’s paving the way for the next era of affordable, power-saving gadgets.

Dept.: Maxed Out
Tech: Pet Gadgets
Cost: $1,840 plus dog
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