Is an end to the California power crisis in the chips? I'm Fred Fishkin with Bloomberg Bootcamp. Okay... so maybe it isn't the answer to the California power crunch... .but it can't hurt. Intel has introduced a new line of ultra low power mobile processors. Frank Spindler, general manager of Intel's Mobile Platforms Group... .says the line includes a 500 MHz Pentium III chip... that operates on less than one volt... and consumes less than half a watt of power...

"By reducing the power in the processor, we're going to help to extend the battery life of the notebook systems. With the smallest notebook systems, they've always been challenged because the battery has to be very small and doesn't have that great a capacity. So by reducing the power in the processor and the associated circuitry around the processor which we also provide, these systems will be able to get battery life in the four to five hour range."

Or about a fifty percent improvement over what's been available until now. And while we may have been kidding about the low power processors solving the shortage in California... . Intel points out... that one hundred of the processors together... would consume about the same amount of electricity as a fifty watt light bulb. And so while the key selling point is battery life and convenience...

"We might also see businesses or individuals start to adopt them more because of their power saving."

And notebooks using the new processors should be on the market within weeks. Bootcamp, I'm Fred Fishkin, Bloomberg Radio.