Maximum PC

I was very impressed by the impeller style CPU cooler developed by Sandia National Labs in 2012. Heat sink fins = fan blades. Supposed to be smaller, lower profile, more effective, use less energy, and make less noise than traditional CPU cooler designs. I read that Sandia Labs licensed the technology to one or more (unfortunately unidentified) manufacturers in the summer of 2012, but haven't yet seen any product announcements based on that design.

Have any of you heard/seen anything I have missed?

I think one could consider this more or less vaporware, considering I haven't heard anything about it on some well-known tech websites since the initial announcement.

It's an idea; we'll have to see it tested in real world conditions to see if it's viable. Looks cool though. Water cooling isn't the best considering it has more failure points than an fan/heatsink cooler.

There's no water involved. It's shaped like a hockey puck. Looking down on it from above, there's a hollow circle in the middle, from which the heat sink fins radiate to the outer edge of the circle like the swirly striping on a classic (disc shaped) after-dinner peppermint. Instead of separate fans pushing and/or pulling air across static heat sink fins, the fan blades ARE the heat sink fins. Simpler, more elegant design, and according to quite a few articles from June 2012, it's way more effective. And because the heat sink fins are constantly spinning, they don't collect dust, either.

I think he just meant a better and more simple air cooler would be welcome over watercooling we tend to go to when the flooded market of air coolers aren't enough.

I saw a lot of hype about that thing, and just a lot of it doesn't make sense. I have fans that spin now, you have fans that spin...so they're saying spinning things don't collect dust? Hey, I've been told to stop putting heat strip on vertical pipes because water doesn't freeze in vertical pipes too. Guess what happened that winter? It froze and fans collect dust. There were design flaws through and through; centrifugal force being one of them.

I think it's vaporware too. What it sold was a big crummy package that may contain a few tidbits other companies could utilize. Like buying a wrecked corvette not to drive it, but to yank the engine out for your garage hotrod project.