Posted 07/14/09 at 03:14:11 PM by Paul Lilly

Like The Little Engine That Could, the worldwide PC market kept chugging onward against all economic odds, pushed in large part by an emerging netbook market that seemingly popped up overnight. But the ultraportable PCs could only do so much to stave off the inevitable, and according to market research firm iSuppli, the global PC market will suffer its first decline in 2009 since the Dot-Com bust of 2001.

"An annual decline in unit shipments is highly unusual in the PC market," observed Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, compute platforms for iSuppli. "Even in weak years, PC unit shipments typically rise by single-digit percentages. The last decline -- in 2001 -- was a 5.1 decrease in unit shipments due to the extraordinary impact of the Dot-Com bust, which caused inflated IT spending levels from the previous years to collapse."

The market research firm predicts global PC shipments to dip to 287.3 million units in 2009, marking a 4 percent drop from the 299.2 million shipments in 2008. Ironically enough, a growing notebook market -- which we assume also includes netbooks -- might be part of the reason for the overall drop in PC shipments. While notebook PC shipments will rise by 11.7 percent, desktop PC shipments, including entry-level servers, is expected to plummet 18.1 percent and is being cited as the "primary factor driving the decline of the PC market in 2009," according to iSupply.

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Posted 06/29/09 at 07:29:29 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Acer’s rise to the top perches of the PC manufacturing industry has been brisk and unceremonious. Now it is almost certain to wrest the number two spot from Dell, according to a New York Times report. To put things into perspective, Acer will become the first non-US company to occupy the number two spot.

It has benefited greatly from being on the vanguard of the netbook revolution – Aspire One is the best selling netbook. Its streetwise, efficient sales model can also be credited for its success.

"We collect the order from the customer, place the order with the manufacturer and they ship it," Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci told the New York Times.  He added that Acer doesn’t lay its hands on the goods. Dell on the other hand has a plethora of troubles to contend with.

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Posted 06/10/09 at 05:08:24 PM by Mark Edward Soper

Could the design philosophy used by Airbus's fly-by-wire electronic flight control systems have been the final death blow to Air France Flight 447? That's the chilling possibility suggested by a recent posting by Information Week blogger Michael Hickins.

Air France Flight 447 used an Airbus A330, which uses a completely electronic fly-by-wire system without manual or hydraulic backups. The leading theory of the cause of the Air France Flight 447 crash is conflicting information from pitot tubes, which are used to transmit flight and wind speed information to onboard computers. While Airbus had begun to replace pitot tubes in May, the pitot tubes had not yet been replaced on the plane that crashed in the Atlantic.

According to a report cited by Hickins, Airbus and Boeing, the biggest rivals in the commercial jet field, have diametrically opposed views on pilot override capabilities. Airbus A320 and newer models include so-called "hard limits" that prevent maneuvers that would overstress the airframe, while Boeing's approach keeps the pilot in charge. While it's impossible to know if a Boeing-style system could have enabled the flight crew of Air France Flight 447 to successfully handle the severe weather existing in the air, some Boeing aircraft have survived stresses well in excess of recommended limits - limits that could not be exceeded if the flight computers are in ultimate charge of the aircraft. Commercial pilots' comments, like the industry itself, are divided over whether the differences in fly-by-wire design make one method ultimately safer than another.

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Posted 02/12/09 at 03:45:37 PM by Paul Lilly

Losing a single USB key from a nuclear weapons lab could be cause for concern, but what happens when 67 computers are unaccounted for, including 13 that were reported lost or stolen in the past year alone? What happens in this case is that officials claim no classified information has been lost. 0_o

The missing computers came to light after the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight released a memo dated February 3 from the Energy Department' National Nuclear Security Administration, which listed the missing PCs. According to Kevin Roark, a spokesman for Los Alamos, the lab has initiated a month-long inventory to try and account for the mysteriously missing machines, and while he admitted it's a cybersecurity issue due to personal information being stored, he maintains that none of the PCs hold any classified info.

"The magnitude of exposure and risk to the laboratory is at best unclear as little data on these losses has been collected or pursued given their treatment as property management issues," a security administration memo read.

Of the thirteen missing PCs within the past year, three were taken from a scientist's home in Santa Fe, New Mexico on January 16th. There's also a BlackBerry that has gone missing after being lost "in a sensitive foreign country."

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Posted 01/15/09 at 08:48:48 AM by Paul Lilly

It's not always easy debating the merits of a Mac versus a PC, especially if you're a Mac user. Things tend to get ugly rather quickly, and before you know it, Mac users are telling us to shut our damn pie-holes, in which we, the PC users, respond by calling our Mac brethren whiny losers before laying the smack down.

But while both sides present intelligent arguments such as the ones above, supplemented with entertaining commercials with celebrity OS pitchmen, the real question remains: If Macs and PCs could become Transformers, which side would win in a fight?

Digital media designer Nick Greenlee is glad that you asked and has created a wicked sick high definition video of a Mac and PC going head to head. Motion capture animation, HDRI, and 3D compositing galore, Greenlee's short film won Best Compositing at Artimation 2008.

Check it out here, then post your smack talk below.

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Posted 09/10/08 at 11:24:19 AM by Paul Lilly

If your ISP goes down during a bad thunderstorm or other unexpected outage, you might find yourself reflecting on just how dependent you've become on this thing they call the interweb. But while most of us only have to suffer through temporary downtime on rare occasions, what about the "other 3 billion" people who lack internet access altogether?

Google hopes to change that, and with the help of Liberty Global and HSBC, the three internet saviors are backing a start-up called O3b Networks (can you guess what O3b stands for?). Initial production of 16 low-cost satellites is already underway and will eventually provide the infrastructure for locales without high-speed networking cable, including emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.

"The O3b Networks system wil completely change the economics of telecommunications infrastructure in the world's fastest-growing markets for communications services," O3b said in a statement.

Look for the service to become active in 2010, with the door being left open for even more satellites down the line.

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Posted 08/01/08 at 05:30:46 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Silicon Valley has played host to innumerable tech startups that promised to be the next Intel or Google only to vanish away without a trace, or an apology for their erroneous claims. Now Tomshardware’s Wolfang Gruener, who claims to have successfully portended Google’s spectacular rise, has placed his bet on Ncomputing to be the next Google.

It isn’t exactly the most perilous punt ever, as Ncomputing is in one of the hottest tech niches of our times, i.e. highly affordable, no-frills computing. No, Ncomputing isn’t building the cheapest netbook or low-cost PC. It is doing things differently by pioneering a viable cloud computing solution for plebeians. Its $70 computing device is like a set-top-box that can be connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and can share the resources of a full-fledged Windows or Linux PC - using an Ethernet connection - to allow a user to surf the internet, watch media and use other essential applications.

The thought provoking details that will rile up a storm inside any geek worth his bytes are "after the jump".

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Posted 08/01/08 at 10:11:31 AM by Chris Moody

While other parts of the economy are definitely feeling the slowdown from the energy pinch, Intel remains upbeat and expects no slowdown in global demand for personal computers.

Eweek quotes Intel Chairman, Craig Barrett, "We gave a relatively upbeat business forecast, saying that despite the economic problems in the United States our business is so international that we didn't see any slowdown in the PC market."

He also seemed to brush off the European Union’s recent antitrust charges saying that price reductions for microprocessors and computers have an "anti-inflationary nature".  While prices are rising globally, prices for computers and processors have dropped which he calls a testimony to high competition in the sector.

On the high end of desktop processors where Intel currently dominates, it is more like a boxer keeping his opponent on the ropes. AMD currently doesn’t have anything to compete directly with Intel’s high end and Intel would like to keep it that way by slashing its prices and keeping AMD safely behind. Good for consumers right now, but without serious competition those prices will go up someday and there may be less reason for rapid innovation.

Barrett went on to say "It looks as the market is functioning as it should, because every year consumers are getting more for less. We continue to say that, please just look at the facts, don't just listen to a competitor complaint."

Last year the European Commission accused Intel of giving computer makers rebates to limit their use of rival AMD's chips or avoid them altogether. They issued additional charges against Intel earlier this month, saying Intel had paid a retailer off to avoid offering computers with chips made by AMD.

It certainly sounds like Intel will use any tool it can lay its hands on to stay ahead of AMD, and when you’re the size of Intel, what is a little economic downturn?

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