Hardware Archive

Apple’s A4: ARM CPU, GPU

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-28 Hardware 80 Comments

And yet another item on the iPad? Are we serious? Yes, we are, since this one is about something that even geeks who aren't interested in the iPad itself should find intriguing. Steve Jobs said yesterday that the iPad is powered by an Apple A4 processor, but contrary to what many seem to think - it wasn't designed in-house at all.

Submitted by wanker90210 2010-01-18 Hardware 51 Comments

ACM's latest journal had an interesting article about RAID which suggested it might be time for triple parity raid. "How much longer will current RAID techniques persevere? The RAID levels were codified in the late 1980s; double-parity RAID, known as RAID-6, is the current standard for high-availability, space-efficient storage. The incredible growth of hard-drive capacities, however, could impose serious limitations on the reliability even of RAID-6 systems. Recent trends in hard drives show that triple-parity RAID must soon become pervasive."

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-01-18 Hardware 4 Comments

"DisplayPort v1.2 is now all official and it comes with an impressive tally of numbers to get your attention. Doubling the data throughput of v1.1a (from 10.8Gbps to 21.6Gbps), the latest version will be able to support multiple monitors via only a single output cable, allowing you to daisy-chain up to four 1920x1200 monitors, for example. It can also perform bi-directional data transfer, which will permit USB hubs, webcams, and touchscreen panels integrated into displays to communicate over the same cable as the video signal. Backwards compatibility with older peripherals is assured, but you'll naturally need a v1.2-capable computer to exploit all this newfound goodness."

A Short History of the Tablet Computer

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-15 Hardware 30 Comments

In an article about the supposed upcoming Apple tablet, Paul Thorrot made a jab at the hype that has developed, arguing that Microsoft was first with its tablet PC initiative in the early 2000s. Daring Fireball's John Gruber disagrees with Thurrot, and claims that Apple's Newton was the first tablet. In rushing to defend their pet companies, I say both are wrong. Apple nor Microsoft have anything to do with the conceptualisation or realisation of the tablet computer.

PC Market Sees Strongest Growth in Seven Years

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-14 Hardware 10 Comments

It's that time of the quarter again: research firms IDC and Gartner published their PC market share figures for the past quarter, the fourth and last quarter of 2009. Coincidentally, it means I get to break out the chart tools in Word and Excel! Fun (and I'm serious).

Lenovo Alters ThinkPad Keyboards, Removes SysReq

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-14 Hardware 73 Comments

It's funny how while software changes so fast, and many hardware components evolve at ridiculously fast paces (processors, memory, hard drives), the keyboard has remained largely unchanged over the years - until recently, that is. Even Lenovo has now buckled under the pressure, switching to a chiclet-style keyboard for ThinkPads - while also removing the SysReq key.

Intel’s Home Dashboard Research Project

David Adams 2010-01-12 Hardware 2 Comments

Intel has created a web site for its Intelligent Home Energy Management Proof of Concept. In its current incarnation, the device is a beautiful, wall-mounted Atom-based device that allows a homeowner to view and control various home-tech-related displays and dashboards. It's being promoted as primarily a home energy monitoring tool, with real time and historical reports on energy usage. Even the clock feature has an in-line graph displaying current home energy usage. Being a home automation enthusiast, though, I'm more excited about this device's potential as the interface to the home's nerve center.

Submitted by PLan 2010-01-11 Hardware 18 Comments

"Among the many great chips that have emerged from fabs during the half-century reign of the integrated circuit, a small group stands out. Their designs proved so cutting-edge, so out of the box, so ahead of their time, that we are left groping for more technology cliches to describe them. Suffice it to say that they gave us the technology that made our brief, otherwise tedious existence in this universe worth living."

Intel Atom vs ARM Cortex-A9

David Adams 2010-01-07 Hardware 91 Comments

Quite a bit of enthusiasm seems to be building for ARM's upcoming processor for netbooks and other lightweight computing devices. The Cortex-A9 is promised to have substantially better performance than the current crop of AMD processors, and a video released by ~~AMD~~ ARM gives a pretty convincing picture that the Cortex-A9 will have comparable performance to the Atom. Watch the video after the jump.

CES Roundup: ARM, Netbooks, Tablets

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-06 Hardware 23 Comments

Even though CES hasn't even officially started yet, the gadget news is already coming in at a very steady stream. We can't report on all of them, obviously, but we can make a selection of the most interesting ones we've seen so far.

Submitted by SReilly 2009-12-30 Hardware 63 Comments

What laptop does Richard Stallman use? A Dell, HP, maybe even an Apple? No - RMS uses a rather odd laptop, a netbook powered by the Chinese Loongson processor: the Yeeloong, a completely Free laptop. From BIOS to operating system, this machine is completely open source. Wired is running a very interesting article on the Loongson processor effort.

Review: Litl Webbook

David Adams 2009-12-30 Hardware 20 Comments

OSNews reviews the Litl Webbook, an Atom mini-notebook with an innovative convertible form-factor and a custom, web-centric Linux-based OS. (Includes video review). Update: Turns out that Havoc Pennington, proponent of the Gnome Online Desktop, now works at Litl. No coincidence.

Submitted by OSGuy 2009-12-29 Hardware 48 Comments

Earlier this month, Psystar suspended all sales of its hardware products, honouring the court's decision which favoured Apple. This week, Psystar has also temporarily halted sales of Rebel EFI while the former clone maker confirms the tool's legality with the court. Psystar also announced it will continue hardware sales in the coming days - with Linux rather than Mac OS X.

For NVIDIA and Intel, Flash Video Is a Double-Edged Sword

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-26 Hardware 12 Comments

"Adobe's Open Screen Project, which puts Flash acceleration support on a variety of platforms, has killed Intel's 'full Internet' rationale for mobile x86. But the same project has also brought HD YouTube and Hulu to Intel's Pine Trail platform, which hurts the case for NVIDIA's Ion."

Worst Gadgets of the Decade

David Adams 2009-12-24 Hardware 32 Comments

Gizmodo has compiled a rogues' gallery of buggy, disappointing, and just plain pointless gadgets that all made their mark during the 2000s. If you've been following computing news over the past ten years, you probably remember lots of them, and may have been personally disappointed by some of them. Some highlights: Segway, wearable PC, n-Gage, Rokr.

Psystar Closes up Shop Does Not Close up Shop

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-19 Hardware 22 Comments

In a very unsurprising move, Psystar is closing up shop. It will fire its eight employees, and be done with it. There isn't more to say, really, except this: one down, at least four to go, of which three in Europe. Good luck bullying those three, Apple. Update: Psystar's lawyers have stated that the original story wasn't true. Psystar will continue to litigate the legality of Rebel EFI through the motion process described by Judge Alsup. They will also continue the Florida case.

Dell Launches Adamo ‘For the Rest of Us’

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-08 Hardware 111 Comments

On a number of occasions, Apple has stated that it cannot design a laptop at around 400-500 USD that isn't total crap. This seems like a reasonable point to make - but why, then, is Dell - of all companies - seemingly able to do so? Dell just launched the Dell Vostro V13 (official press release), and it looks pretty good.

Submitted by Yama 2009-12-08 Hardware 156 Comments

We've seen a lot of reports going back and forth about whether or not Linux is doing well in the netbook space. As it turns out, research firm ABI Research as well as Dell say about one third of their machines ship with Linux pre-installed - which is pretty darn impressive.

Should Smoking Void Warranties?

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-27 Hardware 106 Comments

Now this is an interesting case. Late last week news got out that Apple is refusing to repair machines still under AppleCare from customers who smoke, citing health risks from second-hand smoke. Wait, what?

Review: Acer Aspire One AO751h

Eugenia Loli 2009-11-22 Hardware 28 Comments

Geeks.com, home to cheap laptops and discounted netbooks sent us over the Acer Aspire One AO751h for a review. The AO751h is in-between of a small laptop and a netbook and so it makes it an interesting item to investigate.