Intel puts cloud on single megachip

Intel's research team has unveiled a 48-core processor that it claims will usher in a new era of "immersive, social and perceptive" computing by putting data centre-style integration on a single chip, reports The Register.

This processor, formerly code-named Rock Creek and now known as the Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC), is a research item only.

Intel CTO Justin Rattner emphasised during his presentation in San Francisco: "This is not a product. It never will be a product." But the SCC does provide an insight into the direction into which Intel is heading - and the path the company is treading is many-cored.

Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter, has introduced Square, a mobile payment system that enables credit card transactions to be processed by phone, states PCMag.

The service requires no contracts or fees, giving many small businesses that previously didn't have the hardware or funds to accept credit card payments the ability to do so.

All that's needed is a small, simple device that plugs into the audio jack of almost any phone.

The US government's use of social networks as an investigatory tool is being challenged by two legal advocacy organisations, says InformationWeek.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic, at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, filed a lawsuit against six government agencies seeking to force the disclosure of policies governing the use of social networking sites for investigations, data-collection and surveillance.

The lawsuit follows over a dozen Freedom of Information Act requests seeking this information from the Department of Defence, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of Treasury, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and other agencies.

A group of architects has teamed up with Google to propose a digital cloud concept for the upcoming London Olympics, reports Computing.co.uk.

The project is called The Cloud and will be both a monument for people to visit, as well as a digital display of real-time data. According to a promotional video, the structure will be “as light as air itself” and will “hover above London”.

The Cloud will feature “a satellite with a real-time information display broadcasting breathtaking Olympic moments and a broader range of events that reveal the collective networks of humanity,” according to the video.