The Tesla Effect

The technological wizardry that powers our digital lives can be traced back to famed 19th and early 20th century inventor Nikola Tesla. In 1898, Tesla patented the first radio-controlled device, a small boat that could be piloted remotely. It was a revelation. He presented it to the world at a lavish press conference beneath the ornate Beaux-Arts architecture of Madison Square Garden. Inside the circuitry of Tesla's boat lay the future of modern computing.

It boils down to this: Tesla invented a system where different electrical signals triggered different actions. Engineers call this a Logic Gate.

Fifty years later, the first transistor was invented. The Logic Gate was the transistor's inspiration. And in 1974, when Intel produced the revolutionary 8080 processor, the company that Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore founded put 4,500 transistors into a microchip half the size of a dime.

A clear line emerges from Tesla, to Noyce and Moore, and to the generations of engineers at Intel. Their creations are beyond what even Tesla could have imagined. The Tri-Gate processors that power Ultrabook™ and the next generation of computing devices might be a hundred years removed from Tesla's ideas, but they share the same spirit of ingenuity.

In ELECTRIFIED, David Blaine and Intel will rouse the spirit of the once-forgotten genius. Tesla's life work and legacy existed at the crossroads of science, technology, and the bounds of the imagination.

And just like Tesla, Intel and David Blaine will push the limits of imagination and find out what's possible when David Blaine's amazing performance is connected with the world's social energy through Intel's technology.