"Touchscreens, zoomable maps, page swiping, and more, all integrated into one Eames-chair-equipped media room." MIT, late '70s, and noted by Andy Hertzfeld as a direct influence for the original Macintosh. Fantastic story by The Verge. Favourite part: even back then, there was concern among the scientists that the touch screen page flipping animation was frivolous.

Hewlett Packard announced the company would lay off nearly nine percent of its 300,000 person workforce over the next two years, or about 27,000 people. The move is expected to save HP $3 billion to $3.5 billion annually. HP stock went up 5% in response to the news Thursday morning. Research firm Ovum asks "...the key missing piece is long-term company vision and strategy, which hopefully will be revealed to an anxious customer base soon... the question still remains: Just what kind of company does HP want to be next year, three years, five years from now?"

"For their part, most Apple employees seem more than satisfied with Cook. He often sits down randomly with employees in the cafeteria at lunchtime, whereas Jobs typically dined with design chief Jonathan Ive. It is a small difference that speaks volumes about how employees can expect to interact with their CEO. At Apple, Jobs was simultaneously revered, loved, and feared. Cook clearly is a demanding boss, but he's not scary. He's well-respected, but not worshiped. As Apple enters a complex new phase of its corporate history, perhaps it doesn't need a god as CEO but a mere mortal who understands how to get the job done." A must-read. Quite fascinating.

"The Samsung Galaxy One Tablet Projector Concept is a combination of three characteristics from three different devices. It has the lightness and mobility of tablets, the widescreen of desktops backed with the power of a laptop. With the inclusion of a back kick-stand and projector, the device gets additional functionality and of course Windows 8!" I'm throwing money at my screen but nothing's happening.

"Windows 8 has a problem – it really can boot up too quickly. So quickly, in fact, that there is no longer time for anything to interrupt boot. When you turn on a Windows 8 PC, there's no longer long enough to detect keystrokes like F2 or F8, much less time to read a message such as 'Press F2 for Setup'. For the first time in decades, you will no longer be able to interrupt boot and tell your PC to do anything different than what it was already expecting to do. Fast booting is something we definitely want to preserve. Certainly no one would imagine intentionally slowing down boot to allow these functions to work as they did in the past. In this blog I'll walk through how we're addressing this 'problem' with new solutions that will keep your PC booting as quickly as possible, while still letting you do all the things you expect."

This is interesting news. According to WinUnleaked.tk, and given credence by Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrot, Adobe has given Microsoft the source code to Flash, so that Microsoft could fully integrate it into Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 8. Interesting move, and probably not a bad one considering just how popular Flash still is, especially for games.

"Seagate this morning announced plans to acquire LaCie, a Paris-based producer of consumer data storage devices, for at least $186 million. Seagate said it has agreed to buy a 64.5% stake in LaCie held by Philippe Spruch, the company's chairman and CEO. On completion of that transaction, Seagate intends to made an all-cash tender offer for the rest of LaCie's shares."

Google CEO Larry Page was interviewed on Charlie Rose recently, and there was certainly some interesting stuff in there. Sadly, the interview suffers from the curse of modern journalism in that it was all a bit timid and civil (no truly harsh and confronting questions), but despite that, it's still a good watch. Two quotes from Page really stood out to me.

"Sure enough, a product listing provides a lot more detail about the tiny Chrome OS desktop than Samsung gave us in January, including its use of a 1.9GHz, dual-core Celeron B840, 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 16GB solid-state drive and six (not five) USB ports. We haven't seen mention of the promised wireless keyboard and mouse bundle, although the retailer's configuration might reflect a stripped-down trim level: at $330, it's a lot less than the $400 we were quoted at the start of the year." A $400 ChromeOS desktop box? Good luck with that.

Google CEO Larry Page: "It's a well known fact that people tend to overestimate the impact technology will have in the short term, but underestimate its significance in the longer term. Many users coming online today may never use a desktop machine, and the impact of that transition will be profound - as will the ability to just tap and pay with your phone. That's why it's a great time to be in the mobile business, and why I'm confident Dennis and the team at Motorola will be creating the next generation of mobile devices that will improve lives for years to come." Strong hint that the Motorola purchase isn't so much about current devices and patents as it is about acquiring the hardware know-how for the device form factors of the future.

"Over half of PC users worldwide have admitted to using pirate software last year, according to a study by the trade group Business Software Alliance. BSA's ninth annual Global Software Piracy Study has shown a sharp increase in software piracy, especially among emerging economies. In the UK, more than one in four programs users installed in 2011 were unlicensed." If people decide en masse not to adhere to a law, said law is worth about as much as the paper it's written on. Laws become functional not because of the Queen's signature, but because the people decide to adhere to it. It's becoming ever clearer that as far as digital goods go, the law is not functional - for better or worse.

"He's one of 10 reverse-engineers working full time for a stealthy company funded by some of the biggest names in technology: Apple, Microsoft, Research In Motion, Sony, and Ericsson. Called the Rockstar Consortium, the 32-person outfit has a single-minded mission: It examines successful products, like routers and smartphones, and it tries to find proof that these products infringe on a portfolio of over 4,000 technology patents once owned by one of the world's largest telecommunications companies. When a Rockstar engineer uncovers evidence of infringement, the company documents it, contacts the manufacturer, and demands licensing fees for the patents in question. The demand is backed by the implicit threat of a patent lawsuit in federal court." And then people wonder why I call Apple and Microsoft patent trolls. These are the people destroying this industry, with Apple, Microsoft, RIM, etc. money. Sickeningly low.

"Disassembling Apple's diminutive inch-cube iPhone charger reveals a technologically advanced flyback switching power supply that goes beyond the typical charger. It simply takes AC input (anything between 100 and 240 volts) and produce 5 watts of smooth 5 volt power, but the circuit to do this is surprisingly complex and innovative." Quite fascinating, although I'm not sure just how much the mentioned advantages really matter beyond bragging rights.

For Microsoft, the traditional desktop is old news. It's on its way out, it's legacy, and the harder they claim the desktop has equal rights, the sillier it becomes. With companies, words are meaningless, it's actions that matter, and here Microsoft's actions tell the real story. The company has announced the product line-up for Visual Studio 11, and the free Express can no longer be used to create desktop applications. Message is clear.