Paralympic rower Captain Nick Beighton, who lost both legs in an explosion during a foot patrol in Afghanistan in 2009, welcomed themicroprocessor limbs as a "big step up in technology".
Just look at what Intel has done to Advanced Micro Devices over the past 12 months: Thanks to a salvo of new processor designs--and a cutting-edge manufacturing process--Intel has grabbed 76.3% of the market for the "x86" processors that power most of the world's computers in the final quarter of last year, up from 74.4% during the year-ago period, according to Mercury Research.
Instead of building an even more complicated x86-compatible processor, the firm has created an entirely new chip of its own that is specifically designed to execute micro-ops quickly and efficiently.