The Genuino 101, known as the Arduino 101 in the US and designed to give makers easy access to Intel's latest Curie system-on-chip, is an impressive beast - but one which has also turned out to shy away from the bright lights of publicity, or any bright lights at all. The problem: a wafer-level chip included on the board for power management.
Typically, integrated circuits are packaged in a hard-wearing and protective layer. Depending on the chip, this may be anything from ceramic or metal to simple plastic. Some chips, though, are built in such a way that the silicon wafer is exposed as the upper surface - and this can result in a problem. Kevin Darrah has published a video demonstrating that a chip on the Genuino 101 exhibits just such an issue, resetting the board whenever it's exposed to bright light from a laser pointer or camera flash.
That's a minor problem in and of itself, but as Hackaday points out Kevin has published a second video which demonstrates that the board can reset itself when exposed to bright sunlight, meaning that there are scenarios in which a Genuino 101 used in a sunlit environment without an opaque casing could end up failing to operate correctly.
This isn't the first time a wafer-level chip has caused these types of problems, and as always the solution is relatively simple: either place the Genuino 101 in an opaque casing or put a small blob of epoxy or other covering over the tiny, shiny chip found in the middle of a column of seven surface-mount components to the right of the USB socket.