At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show today, Intel announced the release of its new series of processors, code-named "Sandy Bridge." Loaded with features catering to people hungry to play games and watch video, the new processors reflect the fact that consumers are responsible for 66 percent of Intel's revenue, a reversal from 2000, when enterprise customers provided 71 percent of revenue.

With Sandy Bridge, which is intended to replace its current line of processors, Intel has integrated a high performance graphics processor directly alongside the two-to -four general-purpose processor cores that are found on each chip. Apart from offering HD video capabilities without the need for a separate graphics card or chip set on the PC's motherboard, locating the graphic processor on the chip has allowed Intel to offer new features. One of these is QuickSync, which allows the system to rapidly transcode between two different video formats, to cater to customers who wish to download a movie on their PC and then later transfer it to a mobile device such as an iPad. Currently, converting videos can be time consuming. The new Intel feature will allow, for example, a 4 minute HD clip to be converted for iPod viewing in 16 seconds.

The ballooning market for on-demand video is also behind another new feature called Intel Insider: Intel has developed this in partnership with a number of Hollywood (and Bollywood) movie studios that have previously been reluctant to offer online HD versions of their movies because of a fear of piracy. It enforces Digital Rights Management (DRM) in the chip hardware, which makes unauthorized playback of the file impossible, rather than simply trying to prevent copying. The technology is believed to be so secure that studios may allow viewers to download movies in advance of their official online release date, preventing playback until the movie is officially released, which would allow viewers to start watching immediately instead of congesting networks by trying to download it at release time. Of course, there have been previous schemes for DRM that have been hailed as unbreakable, so it will be interesting to see what hackers make of this technology in the months to come.

A federal court's smackdown of the Federal Communications Commission's right to force broadband providers to give equal treatment to all traffic--so-called Net Neutrality--may actually make subsequent FCC efforts better, one observer says. (You can read Technology Review's in-depth report on the subject here.)

The decision "is not fatal to the cause of network neutrality," says Wendy Seltzer, an Internet law expert currently at the University of Colorado. She added that "the guidance from this ruling can help the FCC to craft a stronger, more lasting rule." Network neutrality assures that Internet users can enjoy a non-discriminatory network service on which to build and get applications.

The legal battle was launched by Comcast. In the triggering event, the company had slowed access to a video file-sharing service BitTorrent. The FCC told Comcast to cease the slowdown, and later wrote rules requiring all Internet content to be treated equally. The ruling against the FCC came from the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia Circuit, which said the commission lacks the legal authority to enforce net neutrality.

In the short term, the ruling means ISPs can, in theory, do things like charge more to heavy users of the networks, or restrict video content. But the FCC, in a statement, said that the court had "in no way disagreed with the importance of providing a free and open Internet, nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end."

To resuscitate the FCC's regulatory bid, Congress could pass a law explicitly giving the FCC authority to enforce net neutrality. Failing that, Seltzer said "...the FCC can reach deeper into the Telecommunications Act and classify at least part of broadband Internet service provision as Title II "telecommunications service" and demand neutrality based on that jurisdiction."

This device uses magnetic fields to separate cells by size and shape. Credit: Hur Koser

Researchers at Yale have demonstrated a device that uses a magnetic liquid to separate blood cells based on their size and shape in just minutes.

The device applies a magnetic field to a liquid containing magnetic nanoparticles. The nanoparticles create waves that carry cells along depending on their size, shape and mechanical properties. The researchers, led by electrical engineering professor Hur Koser, hope to develop a cheap alternative to cell-sorting techniques that are time-consuming and sometimes require expensive labeling.

Liquid suspensions of magnetic particles, called ferrofluids, are already used as industrial lubricants and in loudspeakers and computer hard disks. These liquids typically contain other chemicals to keep the particles from clumping together and from coming out of the suspension. Magnetic nanoparticles are also being explored for cancer therapies and as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)--both applications that require very low concentrations.

But the Yale group is the first to make a high-concentration, biocompatible ferrofluid that doesn't contain any chemicals that are harmful to cells, yet still keeps the particles afloat. "It was very tricky to find the parameters to maintain live cells," says Koser.

In experiments described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Yale researchers made microfluidic channels lined with magnetic-field-generating electrodes. Cells were then added to a ferrofluid in the channel. When magnetic fields were applied along the device, the particles in the fluid pushed the cells along the channel, separating them by size and shape. Something similar can be accomplished using electrical fields, says Koser, but this can damage the cells. His group used the device to separate live blood cells from sickle cells and bacteria.

Koser believes the device could be especially helpful when trying to detect very rare types of blood cell, such as cancerous ones. Rapidly sorting cells using magnetic fields could improve the sensitivity of tests for these rare cells without adding any costly chemical labels. Tumor cells are squishier than healthy ones--possibly because they grow quickly and so don't form a proper internal cell skeleton--and Koser hopes that magnetic fields will also be able to separate cells based on their elasticity and other mechanical properties.

"The next step is to try this in conjunction with existing sensors to improve their sensitivity and cut down on time," says Koser.

In the video below, a magnetic field creates waves in a liquid containing magnetic nanoparticles (the nanoparticles are not visible) to separate two types of microbeads based on their size.