Huh, I didn't know about those previous attempts.

A decade is a lot of time for the consumer electronics industry, so I don't think attempts from 10-20 years ago mean all that much for a project today, not to mention the importance of marketing, timing, and industry relationships in stuff like this. "Past performance is not a predictor of future results."

That said, I won't claim to have any idea how this particular product will turn out. So yeah, we'll see.

On a side note, I like the more technical information in those sources. I read through the GE one and the idea of alternating intake/exhaust through one hole makes more sense to me than somehow puling the air in one direction through a plate, but an arrangement like that seems like it would lose some performance to heat building up at the intake... I'd be very interested to see how a fully developed commercial version works in a laptop.