Posted 08/19/09 at 09:26:04 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Many financial savants grabbed their crystal balls and went into hiding when the economy went into freefall. Now that there are signs of recovery, they are again gazing into their crystal balls with renewed hope. According to many of them, including IMF’s chief economist Olivier Blanchard, the recession is behind us.

Tech honchos now believe that the IT industry would lead the recovery. According to a survey conducted by KPMG, two thirds of the 130 CEOs that were surveyed believe the IT industry would recover quicker than the US economy. Furthermore, a vast majority of CEOs feel 2010 would bring glad tidings for their industry. One can expect lesser job cuts in the near future as more than two thirds of tech bosses are not too keen on cost cutting.

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Posted 06/23/09 at 04:53:15 PM by Andy Salisbury

According to a recent poll very few Americans are onboard with high definition media players, given that only 11 percent own an HD-DVD player, while 7 percent own a Blu-ray player.

While these numbers may not seem that high, they are up notably from 2008, where only 6 percent had HD-DVD players, and 4 percent had Blu-ray players. And, while there are a good amount of people with these players, many are still buying standard definition discs to watch on them, with only one high definition disc being bought per six standard definition discs.

Interesting results, especially given that Blu-ray was declared the winner of the format war sometime last year.

If you’d like to see the whole poll, be sure to check it out here (clicking the link will download a PDF).

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Posted 05/07/09 at 10:07:23 AM by Paul Lilly

Several upcoming titles have announced support for Nvidia's hardware PhysX, which could be good news for the GPU maker. However, up until this point, games supporting PhysX have been a mixed bag, perhaps leading to a sense of apathy among gamers. Or at least that's what AnadTech's newest poll seems to suggest.

When asked how important hardware PhysiX acceleration is in buying software, 52 percent of the nearly 9,000 respondents said it was only "Marginal; PhysX is a bonus if a game I like supports it." Thirty-one percent took it a step further calling PhysX 'Not useful,' and 3 percent said it was "Detrimental." Only 13 percent found PhysX 'Useful,' 'Important,' or 'Very Important.'

Things weren't much better (for Nvidia) when the same question was asked about making a hardware buying decision. A slightly less 79 percent of respondents found PhysX to be anywhere from a marginal to detrimental marketing bullet. And the responses weren't overly swayed by ATI videocard owners, either. According to current poll results, 52 percent of respondents own an Nvidia card with support for PhysX.

You can take the poll here.

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Posted 01/05/09 at 09:08:58 AM by Paul Lilly

A little over two decades ago, Kelly LeBrock would have been a shoe-in as the year's sexiest geek for her role as the computer-generated hottie in Weird Science (check out this NSFW trailer). Today, probably not so much. Taking her place are 2008's sexiest geeks as voted by Wired.com readers, the results of which might surprise you.

Taking the top spot is Philip DeFranco, a 23-year-old video blogger (we refuse to say 'vlogger') whose 'The Philip DeFranco Show' boasts over 100 million views on YouTube. At number 7, kooky faux newsman Stephen Colbert checks in as the only other male to make the list.

Marina Orlova, whose HotForWords videos earned her the number 1 spot in 2007 dropped to number 2 this time around. The rest of the pack includes Kari Byron (3) of MythBusters, Electric Playground host Jade Raymond (4), World of Warcraft fan Mila Kunis (5), Tina Fey (6) of 30 Rock, actress Zooey Deschanel (8), math advocate and actress Danica McKellar (9), and actress Alyson Hannigan (10).

Who do you think should be considered 2008's sexiest geeks? Hit the jump and let us know!

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