Hardware Archive

With all the talk about Moore's Law, and doomsday predictions of the industry hitting the ceiling of what's possible with regular transistors, you'd almost forget that a lot of people are already thinking about the next revolution in computing: quantum computers. Researchers at Yale have succeeded in producing the first working solid-state quantum processor. Highly intriguing, but way over my head.

Currently the fastest supercomputer in Europe, the Jugene can process one trillion operations per second, has 294,912 cores that comprise 32-bit PowerPC 450 processors at 850 MHz, has 144 terabytes of RAM, has a bandwidth of 5.1 gigabyte/second with a mere 160 nanosecond latency, and is one heck of a machine mounted on 72 racks. I wouldn't mind having one of these in my basement regardless of the power bill. For pictures and more information, read the linked article.

The ASUS Eee Keyboard, which we drooled over before, has officially been announced - it will be released August 2009. "Asus has confirmed that its Eee keyboard, originally shown at CES, will be arriving in August. The company's marketing executive, John Swatton, revealed the news while launching a bevy of new laptops." Me? Want.

"The magnetic hard disk's tenure as a critical part of the storage technology mosaic is entering its sixth decade, and it shows no sign of ending any time soon. However, certain limitations imposed by rotating media have been coming to the fore lately, and SSDs, which can in theory resolve all these problems, have long been hailed as the eventual successor technology for mass storage. If UK-based startup Dataslide has its way, though, magnetic recording media will get at least one last hurrah, in the form of a new technology called Hard Rectangular Drive."

Software originally developed for the One Laptop per Child project can now be used on any old PC. Sugar on a stick, as it is known, can be run from a USB drive to give aging PCs a new interface and access to collaborative educational software. The software, designed for use by children, was launched at the LinuxTag conference in Berlin. It has been developed by Sugar Labs, a breakaway organisation from OLPC. " is a great new opportunity to breathe new life into these old machines," Walter Bender, founder of Sugar Labs, told BBC News.

IBM has built a new sort of supercomputer that is not only more energy-efficient than supercomputers cooled traditionally with air-conditioning, but the excess heat from the computer can be used afterwards to heat a building. Water siphons off the heat via tubes and small capillaries that take the liquid very near to the chips, cooling it at 60 degrees Celsius. IBM says that the new supercomputer design, which they call "Aquasar," will reduce overall energy consumption by 40 percent as well as 30 tons of carbon dioxide. The heating function of the system will only help reduce heating costs a little, but it has some very promising applications in the future.

Currently, there's a lot of hype around Android on ARM-based netbooks, a type of netbook arriving later this year. However, despite the obvious choice for Android and other Linux systems, NVIDIA has openly stated their preference for... Windows CE. ARM and Asus are also quite sceptical about Android on ARM netbooks.

It's not available in the latest kernel just yet, but if you just so happen to have gotten your hands on a USB 3.0 device you want to use at full spectrum (you lucky jerk) or want to do this for the sake of geekiness, it's now possible to get USB 3.0 support for Debian and Ubuntu systems. The USB 3.0 subsystem will be integrated into the Linux kernel "soon," but if you've got some time on your hands, instructions have been provided to do it yourself.

What is it about gadget geeks? If there's one obsession common to all the generations of geekdom, it's got to be the desire for unification of all needs into one tool. It started out modestly. Maybe with the guy who fashioned his flint so he could easily both scrape and cut the animal hide. Then there was the guy who first put a nail puller on the back of a hammer, and on to to the combination compass/signaling mirror, the Swiss Army Knife, Leatherman, and an astounding array of multi-purpose hand tools. But it was with the advent of electronic gadgets that things really started to get out of hand. Read on for a rumination on multi-purpose gadgets and a review of a combo DSL/Wi-Fi/VoIP router.

A while ago, I made a list of my ten most beautiful computers, which ignited some heavy debate since Cray wasn't mentioned. Anyway, one of the items on the list was the Honeywell Kitchen Computer, the H316. This was a very basic and incredibly difficult to handle machine which was supposed to store and display recipes, but its most awesome feature was a built-in cutting board. Despite its ridiculousness, I think it's a beautiful piece of design, a pre-cursor to a type of computer everyone in the '50s thought we would have now (get it?). Well, the idea of a kitchen computer is supposed to make a comeback. Update: Eugenia just pointed me to a photo her husband took of the H316 at the Computer History Museum in California, as well as a product photo of Be, Inc.'s take on the kitchen computer.

The world's third-largest PC vendor plans to roll out Moblin Linux across a range of machines, including its Aspire One nettops, as well as regular laptop and desktop PCs, the company announced at Computex in Taipei. A number of netbooks running several different versions of Moblin were also on display at Computex, including Suse Moblin, Xandros Moblin, Linpus Moblin, Red Flag Moblin and Ubuntu Moblin running on netbooks from Hewlett-Packard, Asustek Computer, Micro-Star International, and Hasee Computer.

Netbooks, netbooks, netbooks, netbooks, netbooks. That's basicaly Computex in a nutshell. If you've seen one Atom-based netbook, you've seen them all, but luckily for us, NVIDIA is about to shake the world of netbooks up with a new Tegra chipset, the Tegra 650. Full high definition playback, battery life from outer space, and a processor that is always-on. Well, that's what NVIDIA promises, anyway. Twelve Tegra 650 devices were announced, with the first devices shipping before the end of the year - at USD 199 or less.

Back when the whole netbook thing started, Asus was king of the hill with a focus on netbooks with Linux pre-installed. Since they were kind of popular, it didn't take Microsoft long to start working together with Asus to 'port' Windows XP to the Asus line of netbooks, and with that, to other netbooks as well. The result was that Linux netbooks are now harder to find for many people. While Dell committed itself to Linux on netbooks, Asus has decided to just skip the first date and jump right into bed with Microsoft.

"The Serial ATA International Organization today, made the third-generation SATA interface official. The new interface provides a 6 Gbps high-speed serial data connection between the system and most of today's data storage devices such as hard drives, solid-state drives, optical drives, and enterprise tape drives. The interface also provides connectivity to external storage devices in its eSATA port variant. It is 100% backwards compatible with devices that support the SATA 150 MB/s and SATA II 300 MB/s standards."