Hardware Archive

"When I first heard about the LCD used in the OLPC project, I was equally intrigued and sceptical. The claimed specifications put it, on paper, well into the league of the best panels available and, if manufactured using conventional technology, would present a major step forward in LCDs, which you would expect to carry a significant price premium."

VIA Technologies announced this morning that the company's new C7-D processor is now available. That wouldn't seem like such a big deal if it weren't for the fact that VIA has also taken the initiative to make this the world's first carbon-free desktop CPU.

The 'pretexting' technique used in a Hewlett-Packard investigation of board members and reporters has been an embarrassment for the company, Chairman Patricia Dunn said Friday. "I am not happy that the way this investigation has been conducted has led to this major embarrassment," Dunn said in an interview with CNET News.com. Asked if she believed pretexting is illegal, Dunn replied, "I have no idea, but it's wrong."

Also known as 'EPP', SLI Ready memory is something new to memory design. It is JEDEC certified and can be thought of as a continuation of your memory's SPD profile. Using EPP you can overclock your memory, create performance profiles, and dynamically set timings and voltages.

Dell and Sony knew about and discussed manufacturing problems with Sony-made Lithium-Ion batteries as long as ten months ago, but held off on issuing a recall until those flaws were clearly linked to catastrophic failures causing those batteries to catch fire, a Sony Electronics spokesman said. Spokesman Rick Clancy said the companies had conversations in October 2005 and again in February 2006. Discussions were about the problem of small metal particles that had contaminated Lithium-Ion battery cells manufactured by Sony, causing batteries to fail and, in some cases, overheat.

"There is a saying that one year in IT industries is equal to 8 years in traditional industries. One year ago I wrote an article about the workstation market, if I compare this article to the situation today, quite everything has changed in this pretty short period of time. So now it's time for an update."

You would have thought, in view of the week's events, that Michael Dell would show up at a greet-the-folks gathering here Friday looking like some whiter shade of pale. Not a bit: Appearing in a packed hotel ballroom during a brief stopover, the founder and chairman of the computer maker Dell seemed to glow a sort of sun-drenched pink as he defended his company and his actions. "There are a number of things a company might do in this situation - run and hide, wait for the regulators or claim it's not a problem," Dell told an audience convened by the local chamber of commerce. "We've exercised an abundance of caution. Beyond all the hysteria, we're doing the right thing for our customers, and they'll appreciate it in the long run."

Ars' Hannibal takes a look at the announcements concerning quad-core processors from Intel and AMD. "The past few days have seen a burst of quad-core-related news items from both AMD and Intel. In this post, I'll take a look at announcements from both companies and try to put them in the larger context of the Intel-AMD rivalry." He concludes by saying: "This is a tough one to call, but don't expect a blow-out on either end. Also, the performance of the K8L core is the big wildcard, since it could go either way."

Transitive, a start-up specialising in software that translates software for one chip so it can run on another, plans to release software this quarter so programs for Sun Microsystems' Sparc chips can be used on Intel Xeon chips.

Dell plans to announce a voluntary recall of 4.1 million lithium-ion batteries used within its laptops because the batteries could overheat, prompting a risk of fire. The batteries, manufactured by Sony, were found in 25 Dell laptops and eight Dell 'mobile workstation'-class notebook PCs. Dellbatteryprogram.com provides instructions on how to determine whether a notebook battery was affected by the recall, and if so, how to ship it back.

Here's a sober talk about the reality of the mainframe today. This podcast discusses the mainframe's place in the forefront of modern day computing technology and debunks some myths about the mainframe. It also talks about the variety of development environments it has to offer developers, not just the old green-screen approach.

Mercury Computer Systems announced a USD 7999 accelerator card Tuesday that uses the Cell Broadband Engine processor that plugs into a computer's PCI slot. The Cell Accelerator Board, which will be generally available in the first quarter of 2007, can speed tasks such as signal processing or image rendering, Mercury said in an announcement at the Siggraph computer graphics show.

Nigeria has officially ordered and paid for one million of the One Laptop per Child devices, according to the Nigerian Vanguard newspaper. The deal is the first actual order for the project that aims to provide Linux-powered laptops to children in developing economies. Make the cheesiest spam joke, and you get a cookie.

Here is the future of computing according to DDJ: "Worries about runaway power consumption may replace concerns about speed on the next generation of CPUs".