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12 Aug 2011 21:09

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Tech: One of the masterminds of the IBM PC admits its decline

  • They’re going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs.
  • Mark Dean, IBM’s Middle East and Africa CTO • Talking about PCs. This is the one of the guys who originally designed the IBM PC, which has set the basic template for most desktop computers for roughly 30 years now. He goes on to say that he didn’t ever think that he’d witness its decline. “It’s becoming clear that innovation flourishes best not on devices but in the social spaces between them, where people and ideas meet and interact,” he said. And it’s true — think about all of the different devices we use today. The PC did start it all, but this article highlights why it’s evident that the PC is on its way out. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

31 May 2011 15:46

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Tech: Slimdown: Intel puts laptops on diets to compete with Apple

  • Intel has plans to release a computer to compete with the Macbook Air and the iPad. The new computer — called an Ultrabook — would be extremely thin and have tablet-like features. It’d also be less than $1,000. The Ultrabook is a lot like the Macbook Air, so it’ll be interesting to see how well it can compete. It’s interesting to note that Intel hasn’t been so lucky with things like this in the past, though. A few years ago they tried something similar called an Ultra-Low Voltage notebook and it failed to catch on. But if Mac can do it, why can’t they? source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 May 2011 14:30

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U.S.: Obvious thing of the day: Computers in offices make us fat, lazy

  • We have transitioned from jobs that primarily involved doing physical activity on our feet to ones where most of us make our living while sitting.
  • Pennington Biomedical Research Center researcher Timothy Church • Describing why we use far fewer calories at work now than we did 30 years ago. To put it simply, we sit around a lot, a fact which anyone could tell you by the mere fact that they too sit around at their computers all day. Could someone create … like a Wii version of Excel or something like that? So we might have to exercise while adding things to a spreadsheet or blogging or cutting out a photo in Photoshop? Or could you turn our computers into treadmills that only power on while we’re running on them? Seems like all this technology at our disposable makes us lazy and fat or something. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 May 2011 14:01

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Biz: Hewlett-Packard blames Japanese earthquake for problems

  • $5 the earnings per share Hewlett-Packard, the PC maker, expects to make by the end of the fiscal year; their shares are up from May 2010
  • $5.24 the earnings per share Wall Street expected; their stocks fell because of the predicted hardships that lie ahead for the company source
  • » A leaked memo from the CEO is to blame: The memo by Leo Apotheker caused the company’s stocks to fall. He cited the Japanese earthquake and weak PC sales as reasons to reduce hiring and prepare for another rough quarter. Even though their stocks are up from last year, they aren’t meeting market predictions, causing people to sell their shares in the company. Apparently, it’s causing the stock market to slow down overall. Yikes.
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Mar 2011 10:54

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Tech: HP’s making WebOS an option – for your laptop and desktop (Whoa!)

  • Need any more proof Windows will die someday? Well, here you go. Starting in 2012, HP will start offering WebOS on its PCs, allowing users to choose between Windows and the Web-oriented operating system. This is a huge step, because it means two major companies – Google and HP – are pushing away from the traditional Windows model. But HP’s corner-stoned on the model, so it’s even bigger than Google’s Chrome OS. This is huge. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Mar 2011 13:28

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Tech, U.S.: Really smart computers replacing rooms full of lawyers

  • You tend to split a lot fewer infinitives when you think the FBI might be reading your mail.
  • Cataphora Chief Technology Officer Steve Roberts • Explaining the benefit of his company’s software, which can intelligently parse phrases and figure out when someone is changing their tone (presumably because they have something to hide). This is useful in law cases, particularly ones with a ton of documents – you know, the kind that once required armies of lawyers to do the dirty work. They’re just one of the companies who work in this pretty neat field, and their accuracy rate is actually way better than the people the machines are replacing. “Think about how much money had been spent to be slightly better than a coin toss,” said Bill Herr, a former chemical company lawyer who once herded lawyers in rooms to dig through documents en masse. Like cats. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Mar 2011 15:03

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Culture: Rep. Rush Holt, D-NJ, beats back robotic dominion for another day

  • Holt wins the battle, Watson wins the war: A big humankind hats-off to Representative Rush Holt, who took on Jeopardy mecha-brain Watson in a faux-show in DC yesterday evening. While the contest pitted Watson against successive members of Congress, and those who went after Holt were trounced sufficiently to secure the win for Watson, Holt himself bested the computer by $2,400. Holt was a five-time Jeopardy winner nearly 35 years ago, and serves in the House as a Democrat from New Jersey. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

24 Feb 2011 10:56

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Tech: Apple’s new MacBook Pro makes us long for an upgrade

  • Admit it. They’re MacBook Pros. Of course you want to have sex with these machines. That said – the changes in the new MBP lineup appear to be under the hood rather than cosmetic in nature, with a way faster processor and graphics card, a much nicer camera, and something called ThunderBolt, a potential USB replacement that Apple says is 12 times faster than Firewire and 20 times faster than the ubiquitous port technology. It makes our current unibody Mac seem like a piece of crap we picked up from the scrap heap two years ago. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

31 Jan 2011 11:18

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Tech: Design flaws: Intel has a screwed up chipset! Let’s make fun of them!

  • $700
    million     the cost of fixing the flaw in their new Sandy Bridge chips; fixes will hit the market in late February
  • $300
    million     the amount the company is chopping off its latest revenue forecasts as a result; their stock is down today source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Dec 2010 22:54

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Tech: Nerds devise crazy way to make computers insanely fast

  • [Field Programmable Gate Arrays] are not used within standard computers because they are fairly difficult to program but their processing power is huge while their energy consumption is very small because they are so much quicker – so they are also a greener option.
  • University of Glagsow researcher Dr. Wim Vanderbauwhede • On the amazing technological discovery he and a team have discovered – a method of creating computer chips that runs 20 times faster than modern computers, and can fit 1,000 cores (rather than one or two) on a single processor. Basically if this actually gets on a real consumer-purchasable computer in the next few years, Moore’s Law will be matched – and then some. The programming issue is kind of a big deal – if they can figure out a way to make these mega-processors convenient to program, it could be a huge deal and a major computing breakthrough. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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