Intel brings vPro to Sandy Bridge CPUs, makes losing your work laptop slightly less painful

Imagine, if you will, business travelers gallivanting across the globe with nary a care in the world -- secure in the fact that should they lose their laptop by hook or by crook, they can disable it with a simple text message. Well, the dream is now a reality as Intel has put its third-gen vPro technology in Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 business chips, giving users the ability to lock down and reactivate a PC remotely via SMS. Not exactly a fresh idea, but nice to see it passed on to more modern chipsets. To further simplify the lives of IT professionals, the new version of vPro also has an encryption login requirement upon awakening from sleep mode, 1920 x 1200 resolution remote management, and host-based configuration to allow the set up of countless PCs at once. Of course, that assumes your employer's willing to pony up for Chipzilla's new gear -- the economic downturn's almost over, right?

Ken Jennings talks about losing to Watson, being human after all

In a piece for Slate titled "My Puny Human Brain," former-Jeopardy-greatest Ken Jennings talks briefly through his experience playing against IBM's Watson. If you were hoping for some sour grapes, you won't find it here, but Ken gives a great insight into what it feels like to be an underdog human up against a PR darling supercomputer. "Watson has lots in common with a top-ranked human Jeopardy! player: It's very smart, very fast, speaks in an uneven monotone, and has never known the touch of a woman." Ken wraps it up on an uplifting, humans-are-going-to-be-alright-after-all note, and we seem to have something in our eye...