Hardware Archive

India Unveils ‘Laptop’ Costing $35

Submitted by orfanum 2010-07-26 Hardware 19 Comments

India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal unveiled a touchscreen tablet that he claims they will be able to produce for just $35. The device is being aimed at students, and seems to be taking the One Laptop Per Child idea and running with it. "Despite the price, users will get a touch-screen, a PDF reader and a webcam for video conferencing. There has been no confirmation of its specifications but reports suggest 2GB of memory, Wi-Fi and Ethernet and power consumption at just 2W. Naturally, the device will run Linux."

Submitted by strestout1 2010-07-21 Hardware 24 Comments

The Eee Pad, announced at Computex recently, was to be Asus' first foray into the tablet market, running Windows 7 and coming in both a 10 inch and 12 inch versions. The latests rumors, according to German site NetbookNews.de, state the Asus may be dropping Windows 7 in favor of a custom version of Android. With HP dropping their Windows tablet project some months back, and now Asus backing out of their plans, is there any hope for Windows to take hold in the tablet market?

Vibration Recharge Batteries

David Adams 2010-07-20 Hardware 14 Comments

Japanese printer company Brother has invented a battery that can be recharged by shaking it. It's intended for devices like remote controls that use very little power and would normally require infrequent battery charges, so unfortunately you couldn't use it to power a car that could drive forever on a bumpy road.

The Ten Most Short-Lived Gadgets

David Adams 2010-07-13 Hardware 19 Comments

Following up on the news a couple of weeks ago that Microsoft had killed the Kin, its first Windows Phone 7 device, after only a month on the market, we found a list of ten gadgets that, despite their promise, didn't make it in the marketplace. Some of these devices, such as the Modo, laid the groundwork for blockbuster products (iPod). Some, like the Audrey, developed a cult following once their failure made them affordable on eBay. Others just flat out failed (DataPlay). Are there any short-lived gadgets that didn't make the list? What about the CueCat?

64bit Making Inroads on Desktop Market

David Adams 2010-07-12 Hardware 15 Comments

Seven years after AMD first unleashed its Athlon 64 desktop chips, it looks as though the 64-bit revolution is finally about to kick off. Microsoft has revealed that out of all the Windows 7 installations out there, a massive 46 per cent of them are 64-bit.

Guest post by snydeq 2010-07-06 Hardware 61 Comments

InfoWorld's Neil McAllister offers 10 reasons why the PC is here to stay despite Steve Jobs' recent pronouncement that the iPad signals the end of the PC era. 'Depending on whom you ask, the iPad will save journalism, rescue the book publishing business, transform the movie industry, change the way we communicate, and make the perfect omelet. But there are plenty of reasons to suspect that at least some of these predictions will prove overly optimistic. Even more dubious is the idea that the iPad signals a true sea change in computing,' McAllister writes. Chief among the reasons the PC is not dead yet are desktops' comparative cost-effectiveness, the lack of versatility of mobile devices, the fact that desktop and mobile OSes don't mix, and limitations inherent to tablet devices' dependencies on the cloud.

Submitted by Mr.Manatane 2010-07-05 Hardware 12 Comments

The story was first reported by The New York Times, which stated that Dell employees were aware that the approximately 11.8 million affected computers might break or cause fires, but were instructed to downplay the problems when talking to customers.

Submitted by Skeletor 2010-06-30 Hardware 20 Comments

Archivers rejoice! Seagate introduces the world's first 3TB external HDD. One can fit up to 120 HD movies or 1,500 video games on this 3.5 inch thick external hard drive.

Linaro Seeks to Simplify ARM Linux Landscape

Submitted by fran 2010-06-25 Hardware 3 Comments

The ARM processor family is a complicated one, with many different variations, leading to large numbers of separate sub-architectures in the Linux kernel. A quick glance at the ARM directory in a recent kernel tree shows nearly 70 different sub-architectures, each corresponding to a different CPU or system-on-chip (SoC). That complexity has made it harder to develop new products for new or existing ARM devices. A new organization that was formed by six silicon vendors, Linaro, seeks to simplify that landscape, and allow easier--faster--development of ARM-Linux-based products.

MSI To Switch to UEFI, Will Phase Out BIOS

Thom Holwerda 2010-06-08 Hardware 64 Comments

"It's the one major part of the PC that's still reminiscent of the PC's primordial, text-based beginnings, but the familiarly-clunky BIOS could soon be on its deathbed, according to MSI. The motherboard maker says it's now making a big shift towards point and click UEFI systems, and it's all going to kick off at the end of this year." FINALLY.

PixelQi Shows Off Its Tech at Computex

Thom Holwerda 2010-06-02 Hardware 11 Comments

You have these products and/or technologies that everybody expects to go mainstream, yet never really do. You know, things like desktop Linux (+14 troll), ARM-based netbooks, and... PixelQi screens. Yes, these wonder displays are supposed to take over the world, yet, we've only ever seen them on demonstration devices - never on shipping products we can, you know, buy. At Computex, PixelQi once again showed off its display technology on demonstration devices.

NVIDIA: iPad Set Bar Too Low

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-24 Hardware 30 Comments

Ah, NVIDIA's CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang. This guy is usually to the point, and doesn't sugar-coat his words, so interviews with him are generally good stuff to read. This time around, he had Intel and Apple down his sights. The iPad's A4 processor doesn't measure up to his company's Tegra 2, and Intel's Z6 Moorestown is not competitive in any way. At least, that's what he claims.

Commodore PET 65816 CPU Card

Kroc 2010-05-16 Hardware 2 Comments

Andre Fachat has created a CPU add-in card for Commodore PET machines. "It speeds up your PET to up to 12.5MHz (at least that's the plan for the final stage, but it currently looks good!). The board uses a 65816 CPU that runs at up to 12.5MHz, plus a Xilinx CPLD as logic glue. It includes up to 1MByte fast RAM (run at CPU speed) plus 512k parallel Flash ROM, that can be used as boot ROM". Source code and schematics are provided. Via Commodore News Page.

The Reports of the Netbook’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-06 Hardware 45 Comments

Lies, damned lies, and statistics. A really annoying overused catchphrase which sadly happens to be an adequate description of a story which appeared on Fortune's website, in which a Morgan Stanley report is quoted as saying that the introduction of tablet computers - the iPad specifically - have caused netbook sales to plummet. It seems like the researcher in question, however, needs to learn how to read her own graphs.

Where Are the SmartBooks? Blame Adobe Says ARM

Kroc 2010-05-06 Hardware 60 Comments

In 2009 ARM showed off prototype netbooks "capable of driving HD content, can surf the web for 8 hours, and will cost round and about 250 USD". Yet still, none have made it to the market. Why do you think this is so? Because ARM signed a deal with Adobe in 2008 to bring Flash and AIR to the ARM architecture, a promise they will finally deliver later this year. And you wonder why Apple won't have Flash on the iPhone when it can hold back an entire product category for two years.

Sony Ceases Production, Sales of Floppies

Thom Holwerda 2010-04-26 Hardware 57 Comments

Invented by IBM, the death knell sounded by Apple. Sony has announced it is going to cease selling diskettes altogether, with the last bastion being Japan. Sales will be ceased there too, even though Sony still managed to sell 12 million of them there last year. While Memorex and Imation still produce and sell diskettes, this move by Sony surely means it won't take long for the rest of the market to vanish, too.

The win+p Mess: Will Microsoft Ever Learn?

Thom Holwerda 2010-04-23 Hardware 59 Comments

So, we have Microsoft slowly but surely trying to be a better citizen in the computing world - with the emphasis on trying. After years of dragging their feet, the company is finally implementing web standards in Internet Explorer, there's a boatload of interoperability information now, that sort of stuff. And then, just when you think they're starting to get it - they go behind our backs to do something incredibly insipid. It's small, you'll barely notice it, but dear lord, it's really, really annoying.

Guest post by dizmal 2010-04-23 Hardware 1 Comment

In the past few months, especially after CES in January, there were some stories about a number of new display technologies for colour e-books. IEEE Spectrum ran this thorough article that explains it all.

Submitted by Laurence 2010-04-12 Hardware 8 Comments

"The fundamental building blocks of all computing devices could be about to undergo a dramatic change that would allow faster, more efficient machines. Researchers at computer firm Hewlett Packard have shown off working devices built using memristors - often described as electronics' missing link. These tiny devices were proposed 40 years ago but only fabricated in 2008. HP says it has now shown that they can be used to crunch data, meaning they could be used to build advanced chips."

Android-based Television

David Adams 2010-04-05 Hardware 8 Comments

Swedish company People of Lava has announced an Android-based internet-connected television. Say what you will about this particular product, but I personally think this is a very good idea that is a long time coming. I don't really care that much about having a TV that can do things. I use a TV as a glorified monitor, hooking it up to various boxes like DVRs that do the heavy lifting. But what I do care about is having electronics that don't suck. And I think I can make a blanket pronouncement here: by and large, the software that consumer electronics firms make for their hardware is very, very bad.