Google's sticking its proverbial fingers into a whole lot of proverbial pies right now: search, social media, advertising, smartphones, restaurant reviews, self-driving cars and a ton more. A rumor swirling around the 'Net says the company's about to offer all those, +1 more: a cloud storage service similar to Dropbox. Yes, the long whispered-about GDrive service has reared its elusive head again -- but now it's just called Drive.
Rolling your own rig is just as much about timing as it is part selection. Consider that around this time a year ago, hard drive makers were practically giving platters of storage away and backing them with longer warranties. Mother Nature ruined all that, and she's partially to blame for rising motherboard prices, which some industry sources predict are getting ready to spike.
Nokia may have just announced a massive quarterly loss due to a precipitous decline in handset sales, but it remains confident of “establishing a beachhead in this war of ecosystems.” The Finnish company is now banking on its Windows Phone lineup to turn things around. But are its plans only limited to the smartphone market, or is it also considering venturing into the increasingly crowded media tablet market?
With the Consumer Electronics Show now in the rear-view mirror, it's time to start looking forward to other tech conventions like the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which will kick off this summer. It's possible Microsoft will announce its next generation game console at E3, and in the process dispel or confirm the many rumors surrounding the Xbox 720.
Millions of smartphone users around the globe swear by Samsung’s Galaxy line, with the original Galaxy S and it’s dual-core successor Galaxy S II boasting combined lifetime sales of over 30 million units. Considering the fact that the S II made its international debut around nine months back and its U.S. debut as recently as late September, there does not seem to be a very strong case for a successor at this time. However, Samsung is widely expected to unveil the next phone in its flagship smartphone family in the near future, something that makes sense given the launch history of the Galaxy series.
With the way things have been going lately, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for Research In Motion if a company swooped in and scooped up the BlackBerry handset maker, especially if said company was Samsung. There's only one problem with that specific scenario: Samsung isn't interested. Never has been and probably never will be.
Apple's first iPad tablet launched in the U.S. on April 3, 2010., while the iPad 2 came out less than a year later on March 11, 2011. It's a small sample size, to be sure, but following the 11-month release cycle, we wouldn't be surprised to see the iPad 3 come out in February, though the latest chatter has Apple's third generation tablet PC making its debut in March.
Jonesing for some performance improved, energy-efficient Ivy Bridge action? You’re going to be waiting for a bit. Just how long is up in the air. Intel’s been mum on release date details for the upcoming line of CPUs, but for the most part, sources have been saying that we’ll see the 22nm chips in May. DigiTimes claims that date may a bit off, however; it points to April 8th as the launch date, and even names the names of models we can expect to see on that date.
Ah, network attached storage; whether you’re building your own or buying premade, nothing beats a NAS box when it comes to storing and streaming media files across a network. For the most part, NAS boxes offer a stripped-down interface and very few bells and whistles, making them fairly energy-efficient compared to full-fledged PCs. Hey – aren’t netbooks low-powered too? Yep, and now that most everybody’s passing up netbooks in favor of tablets, a new report says that Intel may be planning to shift some focus for its low-powered Atom chips from netbooks to NAS boxes.
Keep it simple, stupid: amongst the major computer suppliers out there, only – gasp! – Apple truly lives by the basic axiom. And while us DIY-loving Maximum PC types prefer options, big companies prefer making money for their stockholders, and they’ve noted the monetary bonanza Apple’s drawing in with its slim pickings. If you read the lead news story in our January issue, you already know that analysts expect HP to reduce its number of products next year, and now, a report says Acer plans on taking “slim and trim” to the next level and cutting its lineup by two-thirds of its current size in 2012.Connect with MaximumPC
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