Sean Hollister/ The Verge
At CES 2025, Intel let journalists into its private “Innovation Showcase,” where we saw things like prototype next-gen laptops and giant stereo 3D handheld gaming PCs. While I was there, I also spotted a heavy metal handheld on a table that didn’t seem… fully attached… to its screen. When I lifted the screen, it came away easily……Continue reading….
Source: The Verge
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Intel is one of the biggest stakeholders in the self-driving car industry, having joined the race in mid 2017 after joining forces with Mobileye. The company is also one of the first in the sector to research consumer acceptance, after an AAA report quoted a 78% nonacceptance rate of the technology in the U.S. Safety levels of autonomous driving technology, the thought of abandoning control to a machine, and psychological comfort of passengers in such situations were the major discussion topics initially.
The commuters also stated that they did not want to see everything the car was doing. This was primarily a referral to the auto-steering wheel with no one sitting in the driving seat. Intel also learned that voice control regulator is vital, and the interface between the humans and machine eases the discomfort condition, and brings some sense of control back.
It is important to mention that Intel included only 10 people in this study, which makes the study less credible. In a video posted on YouTube, Intel accepted this fact and called for further testing. Intel formed a new business unit called the Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) on completion of its Altera acquisition. Intel has since sold Stratix, Arria, and Cyclone FPGAs. In 2019, Intel released Agilex FPGAs: chips aimed at data centers, 5G applications, and other uses.
In October 2023, Intel announced it would be spinning off PSG into a separate company at the start of 2024, while maintaining majority ownership. Intel has a Diversity Initiative, including employee diversity groups, as well as a supplier diversity program. Like many companies with employee diversity groups, they include groups based on race and nationality as well as sexual identity and religion.
Intel has received a 100% rating on numerous Corporate Equality Indices released by the Human Rights Campaign including the first one released in 2002. In addition, the company is frequently named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers by Working Mother magazine. In January 2015, Intel announced the investment of $300 million over the next five years to enhance gender and racial diversity in their own company as well as the technology industry as a whole.
In February 2016, Intel released its Global Diversity & Inclusion 2015 Annual Report. The male-female mix of US employees was reported as 75.2% men and 24.8% women. For US employees in technical roles, the mix was reported as 79.8% male and 20.1% female. NPR reports that Intel is facing a retention problem (particularly for African Americans), not just a pipeline problem.
Intel has a significant participation in the open source communities since 1999. For example, in 2006 Intel released MIT-licensed X.org drivers for their integrated graphic cards of the i965 family of chipsets. Intel released FreeBSD drivers for some networking cards, available under a BSD-compatible license, which were also ported to OpenBSD. Binary firmware files for non-wireless Ethernet devices were also released under a BSD licence allowing free redistribution.
Intel ran the Moblin project until April 23, 2009, when they handed the project over to the Linux Foundation. Intel also runs the LessWatts.org campaigns. However, after the release of the wireless products called Intel Pro/Wireless 2100, 2200BG/2225BG/2915ABG and 3945ABG in 2005, Intel was criticized for not granting free redistribution rights for the firmware that must be included in the operating system for the wireless devices to operate.
As a result of this, Intel became a target of campaigns to allow free operating systems to include binary firmware on terms acceptable to the open source community. Linspire-Linux creator Michael Robertson outlined the difficult position that Intel was in releasing to open source, as Intel did not want to upset their large customer Microsoft.
Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD also claimed that Intel is being “an Open Source fraud” after an Intel employee presented a distorted view of the situation at an open source conference In spite of the significant negative attention Intel received as a result of the wireless dealings, the binary firmware still has not gained a license compatible with free software principles.
Intel has also supported other open source projects such as Blender and Open 3D Engine.Intel sponsors the Intel Extreme Masters, a series of international esports tournaments. It was also a sponsor for the Formula 1 teams BMW Sauber and Scuderia Ferrari together with AMD, AT&T, Pernod Ricard, Diageo and Vodafone. In 2013, Intel became a sponsor of FC Barcelona. In 2017, Intel became a sponsor of the
Olympic Games, lasting from the 2018 Winter Olympics to the 2024 Summer Olympics . In 2024, Intel and Riot Games had an annual sponsorship valued at US$5 million, and one with JD Gaming for US$3.3 million. The company also had a sponsorship with Global Esports.
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