Ah, the pleasures of youth. Sunshine, summer breaks and cool Capri Suns by the poolside. It sounds like the good life, but apparently all the rays are baking kids’ brains: a new report says that the majority of American youth would prefer a Mac to a PC. What has the world come to when children are actively seeking out fruit?
The Intel-backed Ultrabook armada is all ready to set sail for an ambitious incursion into the domain of ultraportables. But the real motive is not to make a dent in the Apple-dominated ultraportable PC market but to stop the rapid advance of the iPad and other tablets. Even though Intel and its PC vendor chums have been making a lot of noise about this new breed of ultra-thin and light notebooks, Dell and HP continue to be conspicuous by their absence from the ranks of Ultrabook backers. So where are there Ultrabooks?
For years, the browser race was a one-horse affair: it was Internet Explorer’s way or the highway. Then Firefox crawled out of the Netscape wreckage and established itself as a viable, free alternative to Microsoft’s bundled software. Google’s Chrome may be the feisty new kid on the block, but a new report says it very well may unseat Firefox by the end of the year for the worldwide number two slot in the cut-throat browser wars.
When it comes to microprocessors, Intel’s the 800 lb. gorilla stomping around the room. AMD and ARM offer interesting products and alternatives, but the fact of the matter is that most chips simply carry the Intel stamp. A new report says that if anything, Intel’s slice of the revenue pie has only grown over the past year.
As antivirus programs and end users alike become more adept at identifying badware, malware authors are getting even sneakier in their quest to infect your computer. Social engineering is the name of the game now – just ask the NBC News exec who clicked on an infected Christmas tree attachment from an unknown sender. A new report says that scammers have begun using a novel trick to get users to open malicious files; they send emails that claim to be from the office’s printer/scanner, which is actually pretty friggin’ clever.
More and more streaming music services are launching bigger, more badass and – more importantly – free ad-supported versions these days, whether you’re talking about the gas can-like offering of MOG, Pandora’s ditching of a 40 hour listening limit, or Spotify’s awesome new 6 months free offer (although requiring new users to have a Facebook account flat-out sucks). But are customers really clamoring for free radio? Myxer – itself a popular (and free) mobile music provider – recently polled its listeners, and the results are overwhelming; few people actually pay to listen to tunes online.
When HP named Leo Apotheker as the company’s new CEO a scant 11 months ago, hopes were high that the software-focused former SAP honcho would be able to overhaul the company and help rake in tons of dough. Well, they got it half right; since his appointment, Apotheker has sure shaken things up, but not in a good way; the company’s recent sweeping changes didn’t sit well with the public, and partially as a result, HP’s stock has dropped 47 percent on Leo’s watch. Now, his job may be on the line.
We’ve long suspected that the grass, in fact, wasn’t actually greener on the other side. Unfortunately, up until now, we’ve had nothing but clichés and rumors to back up our hypothesis. The newest American Customer Satisfaction Index put an end to the speculation today; the 2011 report claims consumers are pretty much equally satisfied with all the PC suppliers around.
Whenever you’re talking about the PC market these days, the talk inevitably turns to doom and gloom. HP ditching PCs! Tablets eating into sales! Everyone already has Windows 7! And on and on. Even our ever-optimistic PC enthusiasm can become kind of dulled in the midst of all the bad news. The dark cloud of slumping sales may soon be over, though; a new report expects the PC market to regain momentum in 2012.
Homeland security is understandably a hot topic right now as the U.S. remembers the 9/11 terrorist attacks that took place 10 years ago. In light of the aftermath and the advances in technology since then, a new report by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance warns that the U.S. needs to take steps to increase cyber intelligence that can better predict and prevent cyber attacks.
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