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At the Consumer Electronics Show this year, chipmaker Intel sought to distance itself from two separate issues that have plagued the company for more than a year: conflict minerals and John McAfee. In its press conference announcing all the cool new technologies the people crave, nay demand, including wireless charging bowls, 3D scanners, and baby monitors, CEO Brian Krzanich turned the mood somber for a moment (emphasis theirs): Next, Krzanich says he wants to take a departure, to talk about something that is very important to him personally, but not something often talked about at CES: death in sub-Saharan Africa as a result of the mining of “conflict minerals.” The monitors display a series of images — finger on a trigger, a young man apparently lying dead on the ground — and words such as “murdered.” “The minerals are important, but not as important as the lives of the people who work to get them,” says Krzanich.