Hardware Archive

"This article briefly goes over six mini systems that you don't have to build yourself. They are an ideal platform for a project or for a silent system for simple tasks like checking your email. The intention was to find systems that are small, Linux-ready, and customizable, but price was factored in as well."

El Reg reviews the HP Touchsmart IQ770 computer, a sort of all-in-one computer with a touchscreen. "Either you're excited by the prospect of an all-in-one PC with a touchscreen or you're not. Judging by our experiences, adults will be thoroughly confused by the split personality of the HP, shocked by the enormous weight and unimpressed by the price - a pound less than GBP 1300. But the kids are gonna love it."

Though we rely on them as a mainstay of modern computing, hard drives are really a mixed bag: part storage blessing and part performance albatross. The ongoing digital media revolution could never have gotten off the ground without plentiful, cheap storage, but even so, modern operating systems and programs are typically designed to rely on the hard drive as little as possible. Hard drive access times haven't kept pace with processor clockspeed increases, so computers increasingly employ sophisticated caching mechanisms (e.g. Intel's Turbo Memory tech) to minimize the need for a hard drive-based transfer. Now, researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands believe they've taken the first step towards solving some of the speed problems of a traditional magnet-based hard drive system.

"At the Research@Intel day last week, Intel had a huge array of technologies and active research initiatives on display for press and analysts. As I toured the company's Santa Clara offices, I was able to piece together a few major themes and directions by stepping back and looking at the places where Intel is currently focusing its forward-looking research. In my next few articles, starting with this one, I'll take an in-depth look at each of these themes and at what it tells us about where computing is headed in the next decade."

"The Series 5 pocket computer from Psion was launched 10 years ago this week. It was a remarkable achievement: entirely new silicon, a new operating system, middleware stack and applications were developed from scratch in just over two years. This was the last time anyone undertook such a daunting task: it may be the last time anyone ever tries, either."

An updated version of the wireless technology will soon allow consumers to beam photos from cameras and use their cell phone to make purchases, reports Business 2.0 Magazine. There is also information about Bluetooth 3.0.