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'Snapdragon 1000' chip may be designed for PCs from the ground up
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 850 processor may be intended for PCs, but it's still a half step -- it's really a higher-clocked version of the same processor you'd find in your phone. The company may be more adventurous the next time, though. WinFuture says it has obtained details surrounding SDM1000 (possibly Snapdragon 1000), a previously hinted-at CPU that would be designed from the start for PCs. It would have a relatively huge design compared to most ARM designs (20mm x 15mm) and would consume a laptop-like 12W of power across the entire system-on-a-chip. It would compete directly with Intel's low-power Core processors where the existing 835 isn't really in the ballpark.
Pressure-sensing PC technology knows when you're busy, blocks notifications accordingly
We know better than most that when you're working to a deadline, constant pop-ups, notifications and pings can be a real pain. Our frustrations might soon become a thing of the past, however, with some help from boffins at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Japan. They are working on technology which monitors keyboard pressure and silences those distractions until it deems you're not busy, showing over 80 percent accuracy during volunteer testing. Understanding that quiet time is also appreciated for other tasks, they plan to use similar techniques to spot when you're staring intently at that report or -- more importantly -- attending to a beverage. It's still early days for the project, but if the stress-saving tech ever spawns a product, we'll take two please. [Image Credit: Getty Images / Jean Louis Batt]
Gartner reports Western Europe desktop shipments down, portable PCs up in Q2 2012
When it comes to technology and the end of a financial quarter, you can bet your wage there'll be an analyst report or two letting you what's what. And according to Gartner's latest estimates for Western Europe, PCs didn't fare too well in Q2 of this year, with a 2.4 percent decrease in shipments compared with the same period in 2011. Consignments of mobile PCs (read: not tablets) grew by 4 percent, while desktops floundered, dropping 12.8 percent. Of this, a minor growth of 0.4 percent was recorded in consumer PCs, while the professional market decreased by 5.3 percent. Among the big hitters, HP remained at the top of the pile despite losing some market share, and Acer remained in second position with a mild increase in the same. ASUS put in a healthy performance, moving the company up to bronze medal position, while Dell dropped off the podium to fourth. The vendor statistics for the whole region were echoed in France in Germany, but during the quarter Apple managed to break into the top five in the UK market. Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner, attributes the overall performance to economic uncertainty in the region, as well as lackluster demand in the wait for Windows 8 machines. We don't want to spoil all the fun, so a comprehensive breakdown of the numbers awaits you at the source link.
HP's imaging / printing group combines with PC group, Printing and Personal Systems Group emerges
Rumor had it, and rumor was right. This morning, HP officially announced an organizational realignment that's set to "improve performance and drive profitable growth across the entire HP portfolio." Corporate speak, sure, but what's happening is that the Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) and Personal Systems Group (PSG) are joining forces to create the Printing and Personal Systems Group. The newly merged entity will be headed up by one Todd Bradley, who has served as the executive VP of PSG since '05. Vyomesh Joshi, executive VP of IPG, seems to be getting the better end of the deal, cashing in his "retirement" card after 31 years at the company. In related news, HP's Global Accounts Sales organization will join the newly named HP Enterprise Group, and it will "unify its Marketing functions across business units under Marty Homlish, executive vice president and chief marketing officer." Lastly, the company is sliding its Global Real Estate function from Finance into Global Technology and Business Processes, which is bound to befuddle precisely no one. For the full chair rearrangement, head on past the break.
Bell & Howell Apple II Plus appears on eBay, like a foundling carved out of onyx
You wouldn't know it by the never ending barrage of black PowerBook's throughout the '90s, or even the onyx MacBooks in the mid-00s, but dark-clad casings from Apple were pretty much non-existent until Cupertino got serious about laptops, excluding of course the ill-fated Macintosh TV. Exempt from the prevailing 'Snow White' design ethos however, were clones machines sold by other companies, like the Bell & Howell's variant of the Apple ][ Plus above. Per Wikipedia, the machine in question was only available through educational channels, notable for its A/V outputs (which you can espy after the break) especially for that purpose. Typical eBay caveats apply, with the buyer selling the machine "as is" -- read sans power supply -- but we can't imagine it'll be long before an Apple collector swoops in and steals the pooch. More pics and your chance to bid on a piece of history await at the source below.
IBM exec says PC is 'going the way of the typewriter,' kills our birthday buzz
Well, this is awkward. As the IBM PC celebrates its 30th birthday today, one of its original designers is already mulling the end of its reign. In a blog post penned this week, Mark Dean, IBM's CTO for the Middle East and Africa, reflected on the dawn of the desktop era and looked forward to its seemingly inevitable demise. "When I helped design the PC, I didn't think I'd live long enough to witness its decline. But, while PCs will continue to be much-used devices, they're no longer at the leading edge of computing. They're going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs." Dean added that he's glad his company sold its PC business to Lenovo in 2005, as part of a move that, according to him, allowed IBM to position itself at the forefront of the "post-PC" era. No word yet on when the funeral rites will be held, but you can read the full post at the source link, below.
IBM looks back on 100 years of history, finds plenty to be proud of (video)
Want to know who the self-confessed "mother of the motherboard" is? Or why every piece of organically farmed, tenderly loved food at your local Trader Joe's has a barcode on it? Or perhaps you're curious to learn more about how millions of airline reservations can be made around the world with unfailing reliability? All those queries have their answers in IBM's self-congratulating videos after the break. Commissioned as a celebration of the company's upcoming 100th birthday, they chronicle some of its more notable moments in the global spotlight. Our favorite little nugget of discovery was finding out that testing for the IBM Personal Computer included the question, "would it run Pac-Man?" -- conclusively proving that the foremost reason for the PC's existence is, and has always been, gaming.
