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The article is in Dutch.
Just click the movie, it is in English
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/86067/bedrijf-ontwikkelt-koeler-met-dikte-van-enkele-millimeters.html

very, very interesting idea and technology!

i expect smaller devices next year !

great tip, thank you

Amazing technology, has a huge future in ultra thin devices. Only concern is the noise it will make.

It will make less noise than coolers with a fan and it use less energy.

Here is another cooling concept.
Already licensed the technology to partners.
We will see this within a year
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/sandias-floating-spinning-heatsink-promises-30x-better-cpu-cooling-20120625/

Seems cool (ha ha pun!), lots of limitations though, can only be placed horizontally, and in immobile situations (heaven help you if your 2500rpm spinning heatsink is tilted). Will be interesting to see what kind of casing they come up with as well, as again, unlike many traditional fans, touchy = baddy.

The piezo fan I like, though I don't think that it's a given that it will be quieter, as you are creating a jet stream, and depending on your application this will require some sort of jiggery-pokery, as mentioned in video. I'm also curious if there are any problems with air re-circulation in ultra-thin, cramped-quarters applications (say the inside of a phone or tablet for example), especially as these devices trend higher in power consumption.

Wow finally a way to cool phones

Those Sandia coolers designs were released this summer, but they still have a ways to go before you see them in a desktop. First, they can only be run horizontal. Most desktops are vertical. Second, there's still issues (last time I looked into it) trying to get the heat out of the CPU and into the spinning heatsink. Because there's no direct contact, heat transfer is a big issue at that point. Once the heat makes it to the heatsink, it's pretty easy to cool.

Intersting solution, just imagine high end GPU with those :)

Another few thoughts about the cooling in the OP. Wouldn't the oscillation cause more vibrations than just a normal fan? A fan vibrates a little, but the inherent design of the blades always having a counterweight spinning negates most movement. If these "pockets" were expanding and contraction out of sync, even just a little, wouldn't it "jump" and cause some movement?

Also, it never actually said how much airflow you can cool. They replaced a laptop fan, but some laptops hardly even need a fan to begin with. They also cooled the vertical sheet with 6 of these, but from 80C to 40C. 40C is not exactly a high performance cooling solution for an entire board.

a vibrating piezo fan is nothing new. I saw this as a concept more than 10 years ago. They are violating several patents if they market this..

it's all well and good until it gets clogged with a bit of dust ;)

maybe they could rub some nano particles all over it so the dust just slides right off.

Hmmm I'll give you the second point, as transferring heat from a stationary heat source to a rotating heatsink seems a little iffy. However, I think you're wrong on the first account. Surface area is not the main concern in cooling. Did you watch the movie? This heatsink has a lower surface area, but is still better at transferring heat from the metal to the air because the spinning motion minimizes the boundary layer or air bubble on the heatsink. You cut the surface area by 1/3, but make it 3x more efficient at heat transfer, and you've got the same amount of heat dissipation.

That's a pretty slick idea. My favorite idea so far though is a powerless (IE doesn't use electricity)  sterling engine fan/cooler setup (search YouTube). The idea is to convert the heat energy into mechanical energy to turn a fan, cooling down the heatsink. The hotter the chip, the larger the heat difference, the faster the fan spins. As it cools down, the heat difference decreases, and the fan speed decreases. By mechanical design, it'll regulate it's temperature. Its a pretty slow startup, which wouldn't work too well with a GPU, but for minor applications (northbridge, supplementary fan on the motherboard, Raspberry Pi, etc), it works great!

As far as i know it can be placed how you want, not only horizontally. And it will have a proper case.

How would a floating heatsink be able to placed in a different orientation than horizontal? Seems like any other orientation would decrease its efficiency or cause it to simply break down altogether.

Not an expert, but did a little research on the sandia cooler and air bearings in general.

If it's fixed on an axis and given sufficient spin/force the air bearing can maintain separation in other orientations (of course inverted would be bad).  I'd venture to say that the gap is less predictable in any orientation other than horizontal.  Maintaining the smallest gap possible is very important for this application.