Small form factor PCs have traditionally been a story of compromise. In order to fit a full PC into a case the size of a book, they've had to cut back on processing power, storage, and ports for connecting to peripherals. But the advent of fast SSDs, and smaller but powerful processors that don't generate massive levels of heat have changed the equation significantly. Intel has been one of the leaders with their NUC (Next Unit of Computing) range of PCs. The NUC VR Machine is a system that will meet the needs of almost any computer user.

To kick off their keynote at Computex in Taiwan this year, Intel announced they were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the x86 processor with a bit of a bang: the Core i7-8086K, an anniversary CPU that runs at 4.0Ghz out of the box and can hit a turbo frequency of 5GHz.

If you've been trying to install the April Update to Windows 10 and have hit a road block there may be a good reason. Microsoft has stopped the software from installing to computers running Avast Antivirus after some people experienced a blank desktop with no icons. This follows issues with installations on Intel and Toshiba SSDs which Microsoft has issued a patch for.

Intel has announced that another flaw in their processor architecture has been identified. Dubbed "Variant 4", the Speculative Store Bypass may allow unauthorised disclosure of information by allowing memory to be read without appropriate permissions. The flaw was reported to Intel by researchers from Google's Project Zero and the Microsoft Security Response Center.

Intel is finally confirming that its computer processors are vulnerable to an additional variant of Spectre, the nasty security vulnerability that affects nearly every CPU currently in devices and in the marketplace.

Intel has issued a statement saying several processor families will not be patched to overcome Variant 2 of the Spectre bug that was detected mid last year and made public just before Christmas. While the processor company has patched many of their processors, the road has been quite bumpy with some of the fixes making systems unstable resulting in spontaneous reboots. But now, it seems some of the CPUs that were going to patched have been thrown into the too hard basket.

Apple has never been scared to break with the past in order to move ahead. When they moved from Mac OS 9 to OS X/macOS, they offered some backwards compatibility but terminated that once they figured users had enough time to update. They did the same when they shifted from the Power PC platform to Intel processors in 2005, providing Rosetta as a way for older PowerPC apps to run on the new processors. And if reports are correct, we can expect another transition as Apple moves from Intel to their own processor platform.

Mobile World Congress (MWC) is about to launch in Barcelona and Intel intends to make a big splash. Having largely missed the boat when it comes to the smartphone and tablet markets, they are working with a number of OEMs to create portable computers are equipped with integrated 5G comms. At MWC, they'll be showing off a concept device, equipped with an early 5G modem and powered by 8th Generation Intel Core i5 processors.

Uninstalling an update that addresses a security vulnerability like Spectre or Meltdown sounds like a bad idea. But if the alternative is a PC that constantly crashes, you might be happy to take the small risk in exchange for stability. For Windows users, Microsoft now offers a patch that reverses Intel's microcode fix, but you won't find it via Windows Update.

Linux progenitor Linus Torvalds has already shared his feelings regarding the bungles of Spectre and Meltdown. They weren't happy ones. Now that patches are available, Torvalds is even less impressed, describing Intel's effort as "complete and utter garbage".

Worried about protecting yourself from the security exploit that is Spectre? Well if you already downloaded Intel's update patching the flaw, be prepared to download another one soon. Intel's software fix is the cause of some random rebooting issues users are running into, and the company is urging consumers and manufacturers to hold off on distributing the current update until the update is, uh, updated.

Intel has issued new advice telling customers running certain CPUs to hold back on installing patches for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. With some customers reporting system instability after installing previous fixes, the company is scrambling to deliver reliable patches.

If the last week has led you to be wary of having an Intel CPU powering your PC then you might want to get excited, because it seems like AMD might have started actually making CPUs you'd want instead of having Intel inside.

After more than three decades as the leader in desktop and laptop processors, Intel's reputation is in big trouble. Following on the heels of the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, F-Secure has revealed a new flaw that allows a hacker to bypass the need to enter credentials, including BIOS and Bitlocker passwords and TPM (Trusted Platform Module) PINs.

It affects most, if not all laptops that support Intel Management Engine/Intel AMT. Here's what you need to know.

Intel has been working with the industry to develop and distribute software and firmware mitigations for Spectre and Meltdown. The company says that although they don't have information that these exploits have been used to obtain customer data, they now have additional data on the impact on some client platforms.

The biggest tech news of the summer has, arguably, been the revelation that CPUs in a massive number of computer systems are susceptible to three different vulnerabilities. Two of these, CVE 2017-5753 and CVE 2017-5715, have been dubbed Spectre with the third, CVE 2017-5754, given the Meltdown moniker. Tech companies around the world have been scrambling to provide mitigations to these vulnerabilities. Microsoft has provided some detail on what they've done and what performance impact you can expect.

Intel and AMD might be fierce competitors for decades, but that hasn't stopped the two chip makers from teaming up to create a new mobile CPU with souped up integrated GPU that will soon be found in gaming and professional laptops from many major computer makers. We've known about this plan since November, but now we have the details.

There are a pair of security flaws present in nearly every device you've got that could allow hackers to steal information like passwords and other personal information. The exploits, Spectre and Meltdown, take advantage of actual flaws in the design of your device's microprocessor.

This week, news of massive security vulnerabilities afflicting every modern model of Intel processor went public, even as developers for practically every major platform frantically rushed to roll out fixes. Much more information has now become available about Meltdown and Spectre, a group of attack methods malicious parties could use to break into some of the most sensitive inner workings of any device using the affected CPUs.