Both laptops are designed to meet the needs of SMBs, offering up to 10th-gen Intel Core i7 processors as well as long battery life, rapid charging support, privacy and security features, and more.

The ThinkBook 14 and 15 laptops feature aluminium materials, a stylish design that maintains a professional appearance while deviating from the common ThinkPad aesthetic, as well as a smart power button with a built-in fingerprint sensor, ThinkShutter webcam privacy cover, a hidden USB port, hotkeys for Skype for Business, and a USB-C Gen2 port.

ThinkBook 14

The ThinkBook 14 is offered with up to the 10th-gen Intel Core i7 processors, 4GB DDR4 Intel Optane memory, up to 1TB SSD storage and a 2TB HDD dual drive, and an optional backlit keyboard. In addition to the aforementioned smart power button, ThinkShutter, and Skype hotkeys, the ThinkBook 14 offers up to 12 hours of battery life with a 57Wh battery — or, alternatively, users can get a 45Wh battery with Rapid Charge support.

As the name suggests, this model features a 14-inch display with a Full HD resolution and 6mm bezels. The ThinkBook 14 is available starting at R16 299

ThinkBook 15

The ThinkBook 15 is similar to its smaller counterpart, offering a 15-inch Full HD display with 7mm bezels, up to the 10th-gen Intel Core i7 processors, up to a 1TB SSD plus 2TB HDD dual drive, and 4GB DDR4 Intel Optane memory.

As with the other model, the ThinkBook 15 features up to 12 hours of battery life with a 57Wh battery or Rapid Charge with a 45Wh battery, an optional backlit keyboard with Skype for Business hotkeys, the smart power button with a fingerprint sensor, ThinkShutter privacy cover, plus there’s a numpad on the keyboard.

The ThinkBook 15 is available starting at R12 499.

On the ThinkBook 13s, users can use hot keys to answer or hang up when making Skype calls. Music can be played while the system is still in standby mode, resuming to full working capacity in less than 0.5 seconds. Its pricing starts at R14 999

At the former Altera facility in San Jose, California, the company better known for powering your laptop and PC outlined its vision for driverless cars over the coming years. While collaboration is the name of Intel‘s game, make no mistake: it sees this as a prime opportunity to sell more silicon.

“We think this is a place where we can be close to potential partners, potential startups,” Kathy Winter, VP of Intel’s Automated Driving Group, said of the center, which will act as a “garage” for the company’s self-driving work moving forward. According to Winter, the positioning is essential because of how it facilitates different teams within the firm working together. “At Intel, this is probably been the best examples I’ve seen of “One Intel”,” she said.

However, there’ll be more than just Intel staff on-site. “The only way we’re going to solve this problem across the industry,” Winter said of autonomous technology taking old, is not by ourselves but by working together.” That means a long list of partners, from automakers, through wireless experts, software developers, and experts in the high-definition mapping self-driving vehicles will demand.

One such example is BMW, which will be providing the donor cars for a new Intel-powered fleet of autonomous testers. Though at first glance they look like your typical 7 Series, look closer and you can see a Mobileye camera array behind the windshield, and a pair of high-resolution GPS sensors on the roof near the satellite radio antenna. Around forty of the cars will be on the road by the end of the year.

The goal isn’t just to make a system for BMW to deploy its own production self-driving vehicles. Instead, the automaker, Intel, and Mobileye will collaborate on a scalable architecture that other car companies can build upon, ranging from select modules – like sensor hubs that pull together camera, radar, and LIDAR data – to an entire turn-key system.

Exactly how that will roll out is unclear at this stage: as BMW’s Kenn Sparks told us, “we have to build it first!” The automaker is counting on the various autonomous platforms in development coalescing into a single, open standard. What BMW is backing may not be the only one to contribute to that, “but we want it to be the best,” Sparks said. BMW has earmarked 2021 as the target for a commercial roll-out.

Whatever the underlying platform, individual cars themselves will have some degree of onboard intelligence, but it’s when technologies like V2V (vehicle to vehicle), V2I (vehicle to infrastructure), and V2P (vehicle to pedestrian) are factored in that autonomous driving will be able to reach a tipping point. That will allow for cars that can report back traffic conditions to their counterparts not yet with line-of-sight to a crash, or for cities to redirect self-driving vehicles around congestion or road works. That, of course, relies on a persistent wireless connection.

“We think of the network like oxygen,” Lynn Comp, senior director of industry enabling for the Network Platforms Group, “people use it, but they don’t necessarily realize they need it.” Comp’s team is working with infrastructure providers like Ericsson to ready the wireless world for the demands of self-driving vehicles and the distributed computing that Intel is betting will be the brains of that.

These three brands have decided to team up to bring what they call a “standards-based program” that they say will “quickly bring autonomous vehicles to market.” We only hope the rest of the automotive industry will be on board for this trip right from the get-go.

To begin, the BMW iNEXT model will be “the foundation for BMW Group’s autonomous driving strategy and set the basis for fleets of fully autonomous vehicles.” This model will be in play for both urban environments and out traveling on highways.

Part of this vision is a set of levels. These levels are what transform the driver experience – beyond what we do today, driving and paying attention to the road, effectively piloting our vehicle.

Level 3, as they’ve named it, is “Eyes Off” – that means the driver still has their hands off the steering wheel, but they are still at least somewhat aware of their surroundings, and still need to pay attention to what’s going on around them. Level 4 is “Mind Off”, which turns the driving experience into one of “leisure or work time.”

Level 5 is “Driver Off”, allowing vehicles to drive themselves, without a human driver inside. According to BMW, “The common platform will address level 3 to level 5 automated driving and will be made available to multiple car vendors and other industries who could benefit from autonomous machines and deep machine learning.”

“Highly autonomous cars and everything they connect to will require powerful and reliable electronic brains to make them smart enough to navigate traffic and avoid accidents,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich.

“This partnership between BMW Group, Intel and Mobileye will help us to quickly deliver on our vision to reinvent the driving experience. We bring a broad set of in-vehicle and cloud computing, connectivity, safety and security, and machine-learning assets to this collaboration enabling a truly end-to-end solution.”

Photos in this article come from BMW Group Headquarters in Munich where a press conference on this development between the three companies has commenced.

The two will collaborate on smart eyewear that you’d actually like to put on your face!

Neither of the two companies are talking specifics, but the aim is to make “premium, luxury and sports” glasses with a dash of intelligence. You won’t have to wait long to see the first fruits of this relationship seeing that the duo expects a product in 2015.

Between this and talk of Intel-powered Google Glass, it’s clear that the chip maker wants a prominent spot on your cranium and Luxottica is happy to oblige given more walk-ins to their stores.

I’ll be a first timer at this year’s rAge and have asked a good gaming friend of ours, Maverick to company me to the world of wrath  (World of Warcraft; Wrath of the Lich King, see what I did there? Ok). Truth be told, I’m quite excited to see what gamers get up to behind closed doors. While it’s sad that we won’t be live-blogging from the event (we’re working on updating our live blogging services) there will be tons of tweets from the expo. Starting with the Intel VVIP pressers at 10h00, Playstation 4 and Xbox One reveal (and hands-on) and continuing onto the floor where we’ll take a look at some of the insane console and gaming releases scheduled for this year.

What, where, how? You can follow the hashtags #SVatRage or #rAge on twitter, facebook or instagram for updates. During the Intel presser, we’ll use the #IntelrAge hashtag. Do join us!