Hardware Archive

Howto: Booting From USB

Eugenia Loli 2006-01-16 Hardware 10 Comments

"Booting a computer from your USB flash drive may seem like a daunting task, but it is actually quite easy. With the right equipment and some basic knowledge this very useful technique can be taken advantage of in all sorts of different circumstances. This article goes over booting your Windows or Linux system from USB as well as booting directly into Linux and a few other details of the process."

Submitted by raoulsland 2006-01-10 Hardware 1 Comment

"LIRC is basically a small server which can decode or transmit infra-red signals. This is a tutorial about how to set up the LIRC server and how to use it in order to control your system or specific LIRC-enabled applications with a remote control. Examples of simple or more complicated setups are also provided."

Submitted by carlosdf 2006-01-08 Hardware 48 Comments

The CES ends today, yet we have heard nothing from the Atom Chip corporation-- the company who's claims generated a lot of disbelief six months ago. They promised to show their exceptional technology at CES-- yet no news has surfaced. Is it now safe to call their claims outright lies and deceit? Update: More, including photos, here.

Dell CEO: Direct Model Is ‘Religion’

Thom Holwerda 2006-01-02 Hardware 27 Comments

Despite some challenges in 2005, Kevin Rollins, president and CEO of Dell, insists the company's business model is a strong one, and that he sees no significant changes to it in the year ahead. Rollins recently spoke with eWeek news editor Dennis Fisher and senior editors Jeffrey Burt and Brian Fonseca about such issues as customer server, channel strategies and AMD.

Submitted by Valour 2005-12-29 Hardware 48 Comments

"Over the past several years of computer hardware engineering, raw speed has been the primary goal of hardware manufacturers. This has traditionally come at the expense of power consumption, which has skyrocketed since the first days of the x86-compatible home PC. Just how much electricity does a computer and its related devices use? Are there disadvantages to turning everything off when you're done? This article will give you an insight into computer power usage."

64-Bit Power Struggle Heats up

Thom Holwerda 2005-12-27 Hardware 13 Comments

"In 2005, vendors competed to provide ever-increasing processor power, with 64-bit chips and dual-core technology. Now AMD and Intel are shaping their multicore plans for 2006 and beyond. In the world of hardware, 2005 proved to be the year vendors pushed processor power to new heights as competition in the multicore processor space came to a head. AMD gained a 64-bit head start on Intel last year when it unveiled 64-bit extensions that allow x86 chips to accommodate more than 4GB of memory." In related news, Intel is going to dump its 'Intel Inside' tagline in favour of something new-- after using it for 15 years.

Review: Intel-Powered Alternative to the Mac Mini

Thom Holwerda 2005-12-24 Hardware 66 Comments

"It's finally arrived - the first Mac Mini clone. Our review system was supplied by Evesham, but the barebone chassis is manufactured by AOpen and has been known as the 'Pandora'. Sadly this catchy name is gone - AOpen has re-named it the Mini PC, which is just plain boring. Anyhow, name aside, this is a really cool-looking little machine - it arguably looks even better than the Mac Mini, mainly due to its aluminium case."

30 Years of Personal Computer Market Share Figures

Submitted by Eric B 2005-12-15 Hardware 61 Comments

It's been a long, strange trip for the personal computer over 30 years. Ars takes a look back at the comings and goings of players in the PC market, from Altair to Zeta OS, to see how we got where we are today. "When you step back and look at the big picture, the overall dominance of the PC becomes clear. However, this was not always the case, and in fact it wasn't until 1986 that the PC platform first surpassed 50% market share. This was more than a decade after the first personal computer was sold."

Submitted by Valour 2005-12-11 Hardware 27 Comments

"With the recent introduction of dual-core processors come more questions about system performance. Does a dual-core computer really perform better than a single-core CPU? How does it compare to a true multi-CPU system? What about Hyper-Threading Technology -- is it a thing of the past? Read on for an explanation of dual-core processors and symmetric multiprocessing and what it means to your computing experience."

Intel, AMD Believe in the Power of Four

Thom Holwerda 2005-12-09 Hardware 52 Comments

The race is on to produce four-core processors for PCs. Intel, which is readying a bevy of dual-core chips for release in systems in the next month, is already plotting a move to quad cores, which some reports have said could come as soon as early 2007. AMD has already discussed a plan to begin offering a family of four-core chips in 2007, whereas Intel has only hinted about a four- core server chip thus far.

Is the PowerPC Due for a Second Wind?

Eugenia Loli 2005-12-06 Hardware 62 Comments

How can a company be just about everywhere, and yet nobody knows its name? Just ask Michel Mayer, chief executive of Freescale Semiconductor.

Dual-Core Chips: AMD Smashes Intel

Thom Holwerda 2005-11-28 Hardware 56 Comments

"After reading the round-by-round account of our dual-core desktop CPU prizefight, it should come as no shock that AMD's Athlon 64 X2 chips are the runaway victors here, laying out the Intel Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition 840 chips pins up. If we had to call out one chip, AMD's Athlon 64 X2 4400+ is an outstanding bargain given the competition, but as our results show, any AMD dual-core CPU will serve you better than its similarly priced Intel equivalent."

Maxell To Offer 300GB Holographic Discs ‘Late 2006’

Thom Holwerda 2005-11-24 Hardware 42 Comments

Maxell will ship its first holographic storage system late next year, the company has pledged. The storage specialist will initially offer a removable system based on 300GB media and capable of transfering data at a rate of 20MBps, Maxell said. However, the company said the technology, designed by InPhase Technologies, is capable of achieving 1.6TB per disk - and that's uncompressed capacity - with a 120MBps bandwidth.

100 USD Laptop Documentary

Submitted by Lunxer 2005-11-22 Hardware 64 Comments

Here is an 8 minute documentary about the recently unveiled 100$ laptop. It shows the laptop in action, and also discusses its aspects with one of the team members, such as the screen, the cheap keyboard, and much more. The video is in Quicktime, and this mirror gives better performance. My take: I am very, very, very impressed. The thought put into the details is just stunning. Every aspect of this machine has a function. Just astonishing.

Motive Behind the $100 Notebook: Profits

Submitted by Ram Singh Thakur 2005-11-18 Hardware 31 Comments

"If you shop around, you can actually get a functional computer for $500 (EUR 425,-). But as we become more budget conscious, $500 seems to be a bit much for a standard machine, so what's our next target? Why, it's an over ambitious $100 (EUR 85,-) notebook. How companies accomplish this is their business; what we are interested in is what they ship out for a product when all is said and done. As of now, however, there is one thing that interests me even more, and that is, why would they want to sell me a $100 notebook in the first place?"

Submitted by anand78 2005-11-17 Hardware 84 Comments

MIT has unveiled its $100 hand-cranked laptop computer to the United Nations technology summit in Tunisia and said that it hopes to make millions of the devices to give to the poorest people in the world. The lime-green machines, which are about the size of a text book, will offer wireless connectivity via a mesh network of their own creation allowing peer-to-peer communication and operate in areas without a reliable electricity supply.

IBM Releases Cell BE Technology

Submitted by anonymous 2005-11-09 Hardware 4 Comments

The Cell Broadband Engine is a breakthrough microprocessor with unique capabilities for applications requiring video, 3D graphics, or high-performance computation for imaging, security, visualization, healthcare, surveillance and more. The following technologies are from the CBE Software Development Kit v1.0 that provides everything Cell software developers need to create, build, simulate, and test Cell applications.

Last Orders for HP AlphaServer Systems Announced

Thom Holwerda 2005-11-08 Hardware 13 Comments

HP has notified its partners and customers of the end of the line for its AlphaServer systems. According to a document seen by the Inquirer, the last order date is planned for the 27th of October 2006, with those systems delivered by December next year. The end of an era.

Microsoft Warns Software Industry Is Ill-Prepared for Multicore

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-28 Hardware 59 Comments

Herb Sutter, a software architect from Microsoft, gave a speech yesterday at In-Stat/MDR's Fall Processor Forum. Addressing a crowd mostly consisting of hardware engineers, he talked about how the software world was ill-prepared to make use of the new multicore CPUs coming from Intel and AMD.

Details on Power Saving in the 970MP; Fujitsu’s 4-Core 2.7Ghz SPARC

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-26 Hardware 7 Comments

Some newsbits from the world of processors. First, IBM detailed power-saving techniques in the new PowerPC 907MP (the dual-core G5). Secondly, "Fujitsu's Sparc64 VI+ processor, code-named Jupiter and due for release in 2008, is a four-core processor with clock speeds of at least 2.7GHz, the company said Tuesday." And to complement today's batch of processor news, IBM unveiled the Xbox 360 processor.