Mid-Feburary isn’t exactly a season for big sales, but the Stream 7 tablet from HP (NYSE: HPQ) is literally being given away at Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) online store.

For $79 (a 20% price drop from the original price of $99) you get the 7-inch slate plus a one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal (a $69.99 value) and a Windows Store gift card worth $25.

While the sub-$80 price is eye-catching, the Stream 7’s specs aren’t exactly top of the line. The tablet runs Windows 8.1 with Bing and is powered by an Intel Atom Z3735G SoC. For storage the tablet comes with a 32GB eMMC, 1GB of RAM, 802.11n Wi-Fi with Miracast, Bluetooth, 0.3MP front-facing camera, and 2MP rear-facing camera.

Granted, the tablet is nothing special from a hardware point of view. However, considering the device’s low price it has been given rave reviews — much better than some tablets in a slightly higher price point. If you’re in need of a tablet it would be foolish to miss out this chance to get one at such a great price.

Head to the Microsoft Store now to buy one before they are sold out.

The post HP’s Stream 7 is Going For an Amazing Price on the Microsoft Store appeared first on VR World.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and its Taiwan rival Acer (TPE: 2353) finished its fiscal year of 2014 with similar number of shipments for laptops, TrendForce said in its latest research.

Last year, Apple posted a spectacular 46.4% annual growth in laptop shipments, owing to its price-lowering strategy for its MacBook laptops, which resulted in a takeover of the mid-range and premium market segments, TrendForce said.

The high growth boosted Apple’s global market share to 9.3% in 2014, vaulting the company into sixth place in the global rankings, one spot behind Acer, which had a 10% market share.

Acer depended on its remarkable performance of its Chromebook laptops to maintain its shipment volume in the market. Although there was no significant rise in Acer’s total shipments, the company managed to slow its slide, dropping only one place in the global rankings last year, the research firm said.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Asus (TPE: 2357) expanded its global market share to 11%, leaping into fourth place in the rankings.

Its performance was attributed mainly to the success of its 10.1-inch, 2-in-1 model T100 laptop, which accounted for over 10% of the company’s total shipments in 2014.

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) remained the lead in the 2014 global laptop market with a 20.1% share, followed by Lenovo (HKG: 0992) with a 17.5% share, and Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) with 12.3%.

TrendForce said that global notebook shipments in 2014 totaled 175.5 million units, up by an annual 3.6%, boosted by the replacement of the Windows XP operating system and the promotion of low-priced notebooks by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

“In 2015, the laptop market will only be able to maintain the same overall shipment level as last year, and the growth of some brands will come at the expense of others,” said Caroline Chen (陳虹燕), assistant research manager for TrendForce’s WitsView.

She forecasted that HP and its major rival Lenovo will continue to hold the top two spots this year, while the competition will remain tight between the third and the sixth places.

The post Apple and Acer Finish 2014 With Similar Amount of Shipments: Research appeared first on VR World.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) has announced that its latest mobile workstations — ZBook 14 G2 and 15u G2 — feature AMD’s (NASDAQ:AMD) FirePro graphics solutions. The machines may not be the lightest notebooks available, but they do offer creative professionals the ability to get work done on the go.

Both models are powered by a variety of AMD’s FirePro cards, ranging from the entry-level to the high-end. The 14 G2 can be configured with the FirePro M4150, and the 15u G2 can be had with FirePro M4170. Both cards are based on the GCN architecture. While the cards are created primarily to tackle intensive 3D utilities like Autodesk Maya and similar tools, they can also drive games at decent frame rates. For instance, the M4170 is similar to Nvidia’s GT750M when it comes to gaming prowess.

Other hardware on the productivity-focused 14 G2 and 15u G2 include 10-point touchscreens with full-HD resolutions, dual-core Intel Core i5-5200U CPUs, with Core i7 processors available to configure, SSDs as well as mechanical hard drives with storage sizes of up to 500GB and RAM configurations going from 4GB to 16GB. Also included is Wi-Fi ac connectivity, as well as four USB 3.0 ports and Bluetooth 4.0.

Prices for the ZBook 14 G2 start at $1,249, with the 15u G2 coming in at $1,199. Both models are available in the US.

Photo credit: Jimmy Chuang/VR World

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HP (NYSE:HPQ) is making sure that it isn’t left out of any market. The manufacturer sells Chromebooks, and has decided to venture into low-cost Windows notebooks running Windows 8.1 with Bing late last year. Now, HP is getting into the mini-PC segment with the launch of its latest hardware, the Pavilion Mini and Stream Mini.

As the name suggests, the Pavilion Mini aims to offer desktop-level power in a small form factor. The machine can be configured with an Intel Pentium 3558U or Core i3-4025U, as well as 4 GB or 8 GB RAM and as much as 1 TB internal storage. With a power usage of just 45 watts, the Pavilion Mini consumes a fraction of energy of a standard desktop.

Also included is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity along with four USB ports, Ethernet, SD card reader, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. HP claims that the Pavilion Mini can drive dual-monitors over DisplayPort. Prices for the Pavilion Mini start at $319 for the variant with a 500 GB mechanical hard drive. The system is offered in a white color variation.

For users looking for a no-frills system that allows them to undertake basic everyday tasks like browsing and streaming videos, HP is also offering a lower-end variant called the Stream Mini. The system features an Intel Celeron 2957U, 32 GB SSD and 2 GB RAM, and will be available from $179. HP is throwing in a $25 gift card to the Windows Store along with 200 GB OneDrive storage for two years. Considering that the product belongs in the Stream family, the Stream Mini will be offered in a Cobalt Blue color variant. Both systems come bundled with a mouse and keyboard, with sales set to commence from later this month.

The post CES 2015: HP Targets The Mini-PC Segment With Pavilion Mini And Stream Mini appeared first on VR World.

Here is the daily roundup from Japanese consumer tech and tech business websites for Dec. 18, 2014.

Bandai Namco to change its official name

Major game video game publisher Bandai Namco Games announces that it will be changing its official name to Bandai Namco Entertainment.  The change will be officially implemented on the 1st of April next year.

The decision for the corporation’s rebranding was officiated by Bandai Namco Holding’s board of directors today, along with the company’s decision to expand the business beyond video game publishing and out towards the general entertainment industry. A total number of 20 other company subsidiaries will also be rebranded in accordance to this decision, and will also be effective starting today.

HP rolls out new PC and notebook lineup in Japan

HP Japan finally reveals its new product lineup of notebook and desktop PCs. The new models will be available starting this week.

The notebook lineup includes the HP Omen 15 high-end gaming notebook PC and the entry-level HP Stream 11.  Both models will be available in Japan at a base price of $1,680.00 and $220.00 respectively. For its desktop lineup, HP offers the HP Envy 700, HP Pavillion 500, and the HP Pavillion Slimline 400. The HP Envy 700 will be available with a base price of $760.00, while the two other models will be available at $500.00.

Toshiba develops new heavy ion radiotherapy scanner

Toshiba unveils its newest 3D medical scanning technology, in the form of a next generation heavy ion radiotherapy scanner. It was first unveiled last week during the JASPRO 2014 event.

Designed for respiratory-gated imaging and superconducting rotating gantries, the new 3D scanner was built with the purpose of allowing much faster scanning than most other 3D scanners. It was co-developed by Japan’s National Institute of Radiological Sciences, and was in steady development for at least three years since 2011, burgeoning several prototypes and other similar technologies before arriving to its latest iteration.

The company is now planning to commercially develop and release its 3D scanning technology to other countries.

The post Bandai Namco, HP PC, Toshiba Scanner: The Headlines in Japan for Dec. 18 appeared first on VR World.

Here is the daily roundup from Japanese consumer tech and tech business websites for December 11, 2014.

Joysound.TV Plus Karaoke app soon to be available on PS3/PS4

Japanese companies Xing and Faith have just announced that its popular Joysound Karaoke on demand service will now be available on the Playstation 3 and 4 consoles, as the Joysound.TV Plus app.

Previously introduced for the Playstation Vita last month, the PS4/PS3 version of Joysound.TV Plus will feature much of the same karaoke features as its hardware version. The app will have at least 100,000 combinations of singles and duet songs for the family to enjoy.  Needless to say, its obligatory “singing analyzer” feature will also be available, as well as its function to connect to Joysound.TV Plus apps on other compatible mobile devices.

Panasonic offers new monitoring system for solar arrays

Starting this December, Panasonic System Networks will be offering new wireless solar array “string” monitoring systems for buildings and other similar large structures or establishments.

The new monitoring system is claimed to be capable of measuring more accurately photovoltaic input levels of each solar cell “string” in real time, using an easy to use visual interface. Connected to a wireless network, it can instantly report changes in input efficiency due to varying outdoor conditions. This then allows the system to quickly readjust and optimize its energy output, protect a specific part of the array from overheating, or call for maintenance when necessary.

The system will be part of Panasonic’s current integrated solar energy system services.

HP to launch its new Elitebook Folio 1020 in Japan

HP Japan announces that it will be releasing the HP Elitebook Folio 1020 G1 Special Edition in Japan. The official release date will be sometime around mid-April 2015.

The business class HP Elitebook Folio 1020 G1 Special Edition will mainly feature a 12.5-inch QHD (2560×1440) screen, and will sport its classic magnesium-lithium alloy finish on an ultra-thin 15.7mm, 1kg body. The version that will be released in Japan will be powered by a Broadwell Core M-5Y51 (1.1 Ghz) processor, with 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. It will feature FeliCa NFC compabitibility, as well as HP’s Touchpoint Manager. OS will be Windows 8.1 Update (64 bit).

No prices announced for its Japanese release yet.

The post Playstation Karaoke, Solar monitoring, Elitebook 1020: The Headlines in Tokyo for Dec. 11 appeared first on VR World.

Users looking to get a decent notebook in the business segment have had to forego features for design or the other way around. HP is looking to put an end to that with its upcoming EliteBook series, which includes models with minimalist designs built for productivity.

Of particular note in the series is the EliteBook Folio 1020, which features a thickness of just 15.7 mm. Internal hardware is in the form of Intel’s brand-new Core M processors, 8 GB RAM, 128 or 256 GB SSDs. Other features include 720p webcam, HD Audio with DTS Studio Sound and a noise-cancellation software that minimizes external sound during teleconferences. HP is also touting a nine-hour battery life as standard with the notebook.

The EliteBook Folio 1020 comes in two editions: a standard version with a full-HD display and a special edition, which features a QHD display. Also included on the special edition is a shell made out of carbon fiber and a magnesium-lithium alloy along with a red color accent around the frame. There is an option to configure a touchscreen with both models. There’s also a weight differential between the two models, with the former coming in at 1.2kg while the latter at just 1kg.

Business-centric features of the EliteBook Folio series include the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2/2.0, pre-boot authentication, fingerprint reader, HP’s enterprise port and a self-healing BIOS. Other security features include HP Client Security and HP BIOSphere, which are designed to secure data. The notebooks also comply with the US military’s MIL-STD-810G standard, making them immune to drops, humidity, heat and pressure.

The standard version of the EliteBook Folio 1020 will be making its way to shelves February 2015, with the special edition launching in the month of April. No word on pricing yet, but considering the feature-set and the segment HP is targeting, expect to pay a lot for the flagship models. HP states that a consumer-centric model based on a similar design will be announced sometime later next year.

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Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) has launched its latest Tesla CUDA compute card, the Tesla K80 today at Supercomputing 2014 (SC14) in New Orleans.

This follows Nvidia’s announcement last week that it had been awarded a $325 million Department of Energy grant with IBM to help build two 100 Petaflops+ machines for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Those supercomputers are expected to be built in 2017 and will use Nvidia’s yet-t0-be-built Volta GPU which comes after Pascal which comes after Maxwell, which is what Nvidia is currently using in their consumer graphics cards, but hasn’t quite started to use in professional just yet. So, until then, people looking for the fastest compute cards are going to want to look at Nvidia’s new Tesla K80.

Nvidia’s new Tesla K80 dual GPU compute card is an interesting product because it once again brings back Nvidia’s dual GPU Tesla products and increases the amount of compute you can squeeze onto a single card. Logically, you would think that the K80 would naturally be two K40’s smacked together into a single card, but that’s not accurate. In order to build the K80, Nvidia actually went with GPUs with similar shader core counts as the Tesla K20, but what’s most important is that they actually did double the onboard memory of the K80 from the K40 to 24 GB of GDDR5. Whenever we talk to anyone looking to do large simulations or scenes, their number one complaint is that they can never have too much VRAM and Nvidia appears to be listening to them by packing a whopping 24 GB of GDDR5 per card or 12GB of GDDR5 per GPU.

According to Nvidia’s specifications for the Tesla K80, it has 4992 shader cores (double that of the K20) which turns out to slightly less than double that of the K40, this is because Nvidia is using two GK-210 GPUs rather than the K40’s GK-110B. However, if you look at Nvidia’s performance claims, they state that the Tesla K80 is capable of 8.74 teraflops single-precision and 2.91 teraflops double-precision. This is more than double that of the K40 GPU which it seeks to replace and almost double that of the K10, Nvidia’s first dual GPU Tesla card. That’s the fantastic thing about Nvidia’s own Tesla cards, the K80 is a Kepler based dual GPU card while the K10 is also a Kepler based dual GPU card and the performance difference is nearly double simply by going from the GK-104 GPU design to the GK-110 (full-blown) Kepler GPU design. The Tesla’s K80 two GK210 GPUs each have 13 SMs that are clocked at 562 Mhz base, 875 Mhz boost thanks to Nvidia’s new GPU boosting features for this Tesla card, a Tesla first and something that came over from the consumer cards. Either way, its a great achievement and this is Nvidia’s next step before introducing a Maxwell-based Tesla compute card.

Nvidia’s Tesla K80 Compute Card – Note, no display out since this is a compute card

Also, if you look at the double-precision performance, it is more than 30 times faster than the original dual Kepler GPU card, the K10 and more than twice as fast as the K40 which means that Nvidia makes up for the lack of shader cores somewhere else. One of those places is in the card’s memory bandwidth which is pumped up to a whopping 480 GB/s which pretty much removes memory bandwidth as a bottleneck in most applications. Unfortunately, even though this card does have double the GPUs and double the memory of the K40, it doesn’t quite have double the memory bandwidth, which once again points to a likelihood of lower memory clock speeds than the K40. If one were to simply double the K40’s memory bandwidth, you would be looking at 566 GB/s, not the current 480 GB/s on the K80, but even so, this pretty much dwarfs anything on the market by over 150 GB/s anyways.

That card would be AMD’s own FirePro W9100, which has been very competitive with Nvidia’s K40 and offers 2,816 stream processors, 16GB GDDR5 memory and 320 GB/s memory bandwidth. This comes out to a peak performance of 5.24 teraflops peak single-precision floating-point performance and 2.62 teraflops peak dual-precision floating-point performance, meaning that now the ball is back in AMD’s court with today’s announcement.

In fact, Nvidia’s Tesla compute cards are also enabling some of the most recent scientific breakthroughs like the ongoing Rosetta mission that the ESA has embarked upon, which most recently landed a probe on a comet. “The Tesla K80 dual-GPU accelerators are up to 10 times faster than CPUs when enabling scientific breakthroughs in some of our key applications, and provide a low energy footprint,” said Wolfgang Nagel, director of the Center for Information Services and HPC at Technische Universität Dresden in Germany. “Our researchers use the available GPU resources on the Taurus supercomputer extensively to enable a more refined cancer therapy, understand cells by watching them live, and study asteroids as part of ESA’s Rosetta mission.”

There is currently no pricing information available for the K80 based on the information we were given by Nvidia, however you can probably ballpark that it will cost upwards of $5000 since the K40 originally sold for that price but has since been discounted down to $3,000 very likely in anticipation of today’s announcement. In terms of availability, Nvidia Tesla K80 dual-GPU compute cards will be available from a variety of server manufacturers, including ASUS, Bull, Cirrascale, Cray, Dell, Gigabyte, HP, Inspur, Penguin, Quanta, Sugon, Supermicro and Tyan, as well as from NVIDIA reseller partners.

The post Nvidia Launches Tesla K80 Dual Kepler Compute Card appeared first on VR World.

Here is the daily roundup from Japanese consumer tech and tech business websites for November 12, 2014.

TDK launches high bias voltage, high effective capacitance ‘singing’ capacitors
TDK Corporation announces the release of a new line of CeraLink ceramic capacitors aimed for switching regulators and snubber circuits. While standard ceramic capacitors often sacrifice effective capacitance to achieve high bias voltage, this new capacitor features both high bias voltage and effective capacitance.

Fuji Electric showcases wearable tech for long-distance work support systems
Fuji Electric and Fuji IT have recently opened a reference exhibit for a new glass-type wearable tech at Tokyo’s Monozukuri NEXT 2014 event. The new wearable concept was designed to aid workers at job sites, by combining human instruction and cloud-based data to provide active assistance via transmitted information.

Acer releases new entry-level Aspire E in Japan
Acer Japan announces the launch of a new Aspire E (ES1-512-F14D) notebook PC by the end of this week. This Aspire E is an entry level 15.6-inch screen laptop aimed at casual personal users, and will be catered with an introduction price of about $330.00.

Google opens gadget exhibit at Roppongi
Google recently showcased all of its recent products and developed gadgets at a ‘touch and try’ event, which was held at a café in Roppongi, Tokyo. Among the items exhibited were the Nexus 6, Nexus 9, Android Wear, a few Chromebook models and Chromecast.

IBM proposal introduces new program for Japanese middle school students
IBM Japan held a seminar and workshop earlier this week that centered on the topic of societal and education-based changes in accordance to changes in technology. Together with the Association of Corporation and Education (ACE), the company proposed a new educational program aimed at Japanese middle school students, which introduces big data analytics into the system.

KDDI’s historic trans-pacific feat wins IEEE milestone award
Major Japanese telecom company KDDI (formerly KDD) receives recognition as it is awarded with the IEEE milestone for its participation in the development and deployment of the historical Trans Pacific Cable 1 (TRANSPAC-1 or TPC-1) network.

HP estimates Japan cyber crime losses at $6 million
According to a research made by HP Japan, at least 31 major companies and business in Japan suffered financial losses due to cyber crime. With an increase of almost 76% over the past 3 years, the total losses were estimated to be about $6 million.

The post Singing capacitors, Google exhibits, Cyber Crime Losses: The Headlines in Tokyo For November 12 appeared first on VR World.

When I think back on what I  view as the most gorgeous PC I always come to the last version of classic Voodoo Omen.  Hailing from Canada Voodoo PC was one of the best known boutique PC builders.  The PCs and notebooks that came out of the shop were always stunning hand built machines.

The last Omen case was a thing of beauty, it was such a simple design that combined straight lines and squared off edges.  The thing that still confounds me about this is why there hasn’t been a company that has tried to make and sell the cases since they are no longer made.  There is definitely a market for high end cases, either custom jobs or limited editions like the current Titanium Level 10 chassis from Thermaltake.  With the cases today going towards more flashy designs it seems that there are less and less simple designs that focus on minimalism.  There are a few cases that come to mind that have been around since the Omen that have been very nice simple designs, but for me that bar it sets has yet to be reached by any other company.  I think what the Omen had that really captured my attention was the industrial look that used heavy gauge metal with very clean lines and no round edges.  The screen normally would look gaudy on some cases but with the Omen it really fits without disrupting the clean looks.

Other companies have come pretty close to where I think that the Omen left the bar.  Silverstone has some amazing cleanly designed cases such as the FT-03-Mini and the FT-05.  The FT03-Mini really looks elegant with the very clean design and the rounded corners, it is indeed one of the cleanest designs that I have seen.  The FT-05 nearly hits the Omen’s mark, but the addition of a trim line and a few extra lines definitely makes a difference visually.  Corsair as well has done a good job with its 750D and 900D, but they don’t have an option for a solid panel instead of a window.  The window really detracts from the clean but that they achieved in these towers.  It is worth noting that the Omen did have an option for a side window, though it drastically changed the look.  The boutique PC makers Falcon Northwest and Maingear have definitely done a good job nearing the benchmark as well.  The Maingear Shift looks great, but the branding and detail on the front door does detract from the overall look that it has.  The Falcon Northwest Mach V really hit near the mark and looks great, though it is a rounded off design that doesn’t look nearly as good as the squared off edges of the Omen.

Unfortunately, I think that many companies today are going for what is the easiest sell.  That tends to be cool looking cases that cost less than $200.  Heavy duty construction would definitely make the price rise a good amount, but in return that case should be a lot more durable.  There are shops that have done well making custom cases for people who are all about id="666439c6-ac30-4a03-b487-da8298db2cd1" class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark"> ="666439c6-ac30-4a03-b487-da8298db2cd1" class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark">watercooling, with Mountain Mods being one that comes to mind.  Taking the chance to make something that is probably going to be an expensive case that will not appeal to the majority is probably not what most companies want to do.  It would be an interesting venture if some company were to try and buy the rights to re-make the case  and go through with a plan to sell them again.  I know that I for one would want to get one if that were to ever happen.

Is it really that hard to re-create something that was such a big hit?  I don’t think I am too far off base with my thinking as there are many other people who love the simple industrial minimalist design.  I know that I can’t be the only one that feels this way, so in the comments section please let me know what you think.  Is there a special case that you wish were still made?

The post Will We Ever Have Something As Beautiful As The Voodoo Omen Again? appeared first on VR World.

Hewlett Packard (NYSE:HPQ) just announced the brand new Omen gaming notebook, and has its sights set squarely on the Razer Blade notebook.  The premium Omen has the specs that should put it on the short list for the next notebook of many gamers.

The 15″ notebooks is only 19.9mm thick and 4.68lbs, making it one svelt notebook that is more than capable of running the latest games.  With HP naming the notebook “Omen”, it is clearly trying to revive some of the feelings that a PC enthusiast has for Voodoo.  Back in 2006 HP bought up the Canadian boutique gaming computer company Voodoo PC.  Voodoo PC was well known for its gorgeous high end custom creations that were the envy (also a Voodoo PC product name) for so many enthusiasts, and they still are.  One of the most beloved products they had was the Omen, a beautiful gaming desktop computer.  Unfortunately HP killed the brand, but started using the term Voodoo DNA to help market its higher end products that were geared toward gaming.  With logo of the old Voodoo PC as the wallpaper of the marketing shots of the Omen notebook on its site, there is little doubt that they are appealing to those who still love the old brand.

The Omen Notebook is packing the latest Intel i7 4710HQ giving it a fairly powerful processor for most tasks users will have.  The Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M that comes in the notebook is available with either 2GB or 4GB of video memory is also using Nvidia’s latest Maxwell architecture, even though it isn’t part of Nvidia’s most recent GTX 900 series of GPUs, which would be real cutting edge.

8GB of DDR3 is standard, but it has the option to be bumped up to 16GB which will definitely allow this notebook to perform a lot of multitasking or memory intensive operations.  There are options as well to bump up the standard SSD from 128GB to either 256GB or 512GB.  The specifications on the page for the Omen say that the keyboard has a RGB backlit keyboard that has been tuned for gaming.  This should allow users to customize the color of the LEDs in the notebook since it does use RGB leds.  The specs put it in line for competing with the Razer Blade notebook, although the Omen only has a 15.6″ 1920 x 1080 touch screen.  This is definitely the point where the Omen will fall short since it likely has a TN panel giving a worse color gamut and resolution that the Blade’s 14′ 3200 x 1800 IPS touchscreen.  Though in many cases having a panel with that high of a resolution will not make a difference in most tasks since DPI scaling will need to be cranked up.

Overall, this looks like it could be a winner for HP, as the Omen has a starting price of $1499 for the 15t version.

The post The New HP Omen Conjures Some Voodoo appeared first on VR World.

What do you get when you combine a touch interface computer with a scanner, 3D scanner, camera, DLP projector, and a 20-point touch enabled work area?  Well, it is something that Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ) is calling the Sprout and is hoping that it will change the way you work and get projects done.

Sprout is HP’s newest initiative to reinvent the way people work with computers to create art, presentation, and media.  The biggest thing you will see as a change to interfacing with the computer is that it wants you to interact with it using your hands, not a keyboard and mouse.  There are many features that are noteworthy in this machine and the most prominent is the DLP projector that projects on a 20-point touch sensitive anti-slip work mat.  This is how HP wants the user to interact with the PC as it displays the images on the work area and you are able to manipulate it with your hands.  This is where we are with getting as close to the sci-fi movie type computer interfacing.

As it is prominently visible the “HP Illuminator” is the piece that overhangs the LCD screen.  Ths incorporates a DLP projector, a 4 camera system that takes 3D scans of objects with a 14.6MP camera for 2D pictures, and a LED light to illuminate items.  While the unit comes with a wireless keyboard the HP videos prominently show people using a projected keyboard to input characters while creating.  With 3D printing being integrated into the Windows OS, it is nice to see 3D scanners starting to make a presence with todays computers.

As cliche as it sounds this is indeed a game changer that HP has brought out, and it will be interesting to see how creators receive the Sprout.  If it does work well this will certainly start a shift in how people create media and it will be reflected in future designs.  It is possible that the Sprout will do well on the novelty of the design by itself, even if it only performs so-so. I for one can’t wait to get my hands on one and play with it for a few hours, it certainly looks like a lot of fun. Read further below to get the official specs.

Specifications:

The post HP's Sprout Wants To Feel Your Touch appeared first on VR World.

According to Gartner’s latest report on the PC market shipments and marketshare, the company is reporting that overall global PC shipments shrunk 0.5% year over year. However, if you look at the US and EMEA figures, you see that the US grew by a sizable 4.2% and Europe more than doubled that by growing a hefty 9.6%.

What this means is that even though the US and Europe, which are considered developed markets, saw significant growth, the losses in Asia and other global markets (Latin America and Africa) ate up all of those growths in shipments. Also, Gartner’s data does not include Chromebooks or non-x86 tablet PCs, which may even skew the US and EU PC market figures downward where we’re seeing a huge resurgence of Chromebooks.

As you can tell from Gartner’s PC Market table for the entire global market, Lenovo continues to see incredibly strong growth year over year mostly at the cost of ‘other’ PC market vendors who saw their shipments decreasee 15.5%. The reality is that the global PC market last quarter was effectively flat when compared to last year since 0.5% is almost within their margin of error. As such, any gains are very likely at the cost of some other competitor.

In the US, HP still continues to be the number one vendor in the PC market even though Dell seems to be catching up to them, showing the largest growth, a whopping 18.4% year over year. Apple also saw fairly good growth, meaning that their overall marketshare of the US PC market continues to grow. Toshiba was actually the only major vendor to see a significant decrease in shipments, which is very likely due to the fact that the company’s overall product line in the US is fairly weak. Globally, Toshiba is not even ranked top 5.

Europe is a fantastic story for the PC market and overall the top four vendors saw fantastic growth with HP seeing 14% growth while Lenovo and Acer both saw over 40% growth year over year. Even ASUS saw over 33% growth in the third quarter compared to last year, which bodes really well for the Asian manufacturers. In fact, the companies’ contraction in Asia is very likely offset by growth in Europe where ASPs are generally higher.

Overall, it appears as though the PC market is nowhere near finished and that tablets are not having the impact that many would have you believe. The developed markets have had their time with tablets and the saturation of tablets has pretty much reached its peak. The PC Market in Asia and other markets is either struggling due to reduced overall economic demand (like in China) or due to tablets still not having reached saturation levels that they have in the developed markets. If you consider that the developed markets are generally more profitable for most PC manufacturers (regardless of where they’re from) then most PC manufacturers will consider the third quarter a good one that could be better.

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On Monday, the CEO of Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) Meg Whitman announced that her company was splitting in two: one of the new companies will focus on the tried-and-true printing and personal computing divisions while the other will spin off HP’s enterprise division.

While Wall Street has been often fond of companies making this split into two more focused selves, the big question on everyone’s mind is whether HP’s personal computing division can compete. It’s printer division is a cash cow, and its enterprise division might eventually find its footing in the services role, but because of massive cutbacks to R&D HP is no Lenovo in the personal computing space (HKG: 0992).

Read the full story on VR World’s sister site, Bright Side of News*.  

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The once mighty titan of the personal computing business Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ) said Monday that it will split itself into two companies, separating its PC and profitable printer business from its enterprise services division.

Both companies will retain some of the HP branding. The PC and printer business will be known as HP Inc. while the enterprise services arm of the company will have the name Hewlett-Packard Enterprise.

By announcing a plan to half the company into two, CEO Meg Whitman effectively follows the position of the company’s former controversial CEO Leo Apotheker who, during his reign, advocated for spinning off of the company’s enterprise half.

In a statement, Whitman said “flexibility they need to adapt quickly to market and customer dynamics”.

“We can now more aggressively go after the opportunities created by a rapidly changing market,” she added, further stating that this splitting of the companies “underscores our commitment to the turnaround plan.”

For the 2013 fiscal year, which ended in October, HP’s Printer and Personal Systems Group,which is home to the company’s printer and PC operations, brought in just under half of HP’s total revenue — $55.9 billion — and earnings of $4.9 billion. The company’s enterprise business, generated about $60 billion in revenue and $6 billion in net earnings.

The plan is expected to finalize in October 2015.

What can turn around the sinking ship?

Lenovo (HKG: 0992) took the crown as the world’s biggest PC maker by volume for one reason: it simply manufacturers better, more innovative, products. HP hasn’t had a compelling notebook for a long time, while Lenovo has stellar offerings such as the Yoga series.

For HP to right itself in its PC division it needs to make some serious investments in  producing compelling products. In comparison to what Lenovo or Dell might be offering, HP’s lineup seems clunky and uninspiring. While the ultra-profitable printer division will buoy the ship for some time, the PC arm will remain a drag until it has its Yoga moment.

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Since we’ve had quite a bit of time between Snowden disclosures of NSA activities, it appears as though Wikileaks has gotten ahold of some secret NSA documents that name names as to whom has been cooperating with them. They claim that they have over 80 different companies in their strategic partnerships.

Wikileaks Tech NSA

The Wikileaks obtained slide states that these 80 “Major Global Corporations” are supporting BOTH missions. However, the document doesn’t specify exactly what both of those missions are, exactly. However, since this slide is labelled as COMINT that means it specifically pertains to communications between people, which may narrow exactly what those missions might be.

They list that those 80 companies are in a long laundry list of businesses including:

Telecommunications and Network Service Providers – AT&T, Verizon and Qwest (now part of Centurylink).

Network Infrastructure – Cisco and HP

Hardware Platforms Desktops/Servers – HP, Intel, Qualcomm, IBM, EDS (now HP)

Operating Systems – Microsoft

Applications Software – Oracle, EDS (now HP) and Microsoft

Security Hardware and Software – Cisco, Oracle, EDS (now HP)

System Integrators – HP, IBM, Cisco and EDS (now HP)

However, if you do look at this list, it only specifically names 12 of the 80 companies that they’re cooperating with. This is the first time that companies are specifically being named as cooperative partners in NSA activities. Back when the NSA’s PRISM activities were disclosed most of the companies were able to feign their being victims of the NSA activities as completely unknowing as to the PRISM program. However, there have been numerous suspicions that many of these companies had been cooperating with the NSA on certain backdoors and such in order to obtain government contracts and such. Additionally, some executives even claimed that they were attacked by the government because they wouldn’t cooperate, namely Qwest’s former CEO Joseph Nacchio.

While Wikileaks has been known to leak documents that the US government doesn’t particularly like being seen by the public, this is a rare disclosure by Wikileaks that doesn’t come with much more information. While we would like to know the full list of companies involved and the rest of the slides in this deck, we’ll have to go off of what we have now. However, we will be contacting our people at the companies mentioned above to see what they have to say about their involvement with NSA security programs. On the record.

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According to Glenn Greenwald, who seemingly quotes himself in his own titles, the NSA has routinely been intercepting US-based networking hardware bound for countries abroad. While Glenn Greenwald doesn’t specifically implicate any networking companies, it would be safe to assume that companies like Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, Dell, HP and many more. This is in the face of the fact that the US government had been criticizing the use of Huawei networking hardware due to the beliefs that the Chinese would be presenting a security risk to the US. They essentially claimed that Huawei was bugging their networking equipment for the Chinese government and that their routers weren’t safe, meanwhile the NSA was doing exactly what the US was accusing the Chinese of doing.

Glenn Greenwald states that this is among many other revelations in his new book due out tomorrow, called No Place to Hide which chronicles Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. It is a bit curious that he would release such news from Edward Snowden a day before his book’s release and alluding to the fact that there would be more details buried within his book. A lot of people are going to look at this as an obvious money grab and are going to question his motives and whether he’s doing all of this to personally enrich himself. While he doesn’t address this in his interview with GQ directly, he clearly has a lot to say about a multitude of topics, including Edward Snowden himself. This is in addition to having left The Guardian, the publication that had originally helped him run all of the Snowden documents and gain worldwide attention to the US’ vast surveillance apparatus to start The Intercept.

So, How does the NSA do it? Well, according to a 2010 NSA document obtained by Glenn Greenwald, they would receive (intercept) routers, servers and other computer networking devices planned on being exported from the US before they were to be delivered to their final international destination. The NSA’s secret division would then implant backdoor surveillance tools and repackage the hardware with a factory seal and send them on their way. The NSA would then be able to gain access to those companies’ networks and all of their users and possibly data through these backdoors. He even states that the NSA document gleefully states that, “SIGINT tradecraft … is very hands-on (literally!),” clearly alluding to their physical tampering with hardware. Eventually, the bugged hardware connects back to the NSA and provides them with the data they want. The report continues, “In one recent case, after several months a beacon implanted through supply-chain interdiction called back to the NSA covert infrastructure. This call back provided us access to further exploit the device and survey the network.”

Clearly, the NSA has a very detailed and well-established structure for these activities and likely has been doing so for quite some time. The NSA are probably much more careful about how they do things nowadays with all of the attention drawn to them because of the Snowden disclosures, but it would be foolish to assume they’ve stopped.

If you’re interested in getting Glenn Greenwald’s book, I recommend you head over here.

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Last week ARM invited a group of journalists and analysts to Austin Texas to hear about their server, mobile, and wearable developments. ARM and their partners presented in-depth explanations of their version of the ARM architecture.

On the first day of the conference, HP’s Dwight Barron gave an overview of their Moonshot system.  They have been refining the specifications since its late 2009 inauguration.

Moonshot’s design differs from the traditional servers which have been the general-purpose workhorses of the data center. These boxes have proved to be jacks-of-all-trades, able to run operations for organizations of every shape and size. They started with proprietary operating systems and a warehouse sized room with less computing power than today’s smartphones. In the past, one could choose from several operating systems and server architectures. Today, operating system options are limited and most run on the Intel x86 architecture.

Barron explained that the cloud and mobile applications have changed the assumptions of traditional IT departments. Now IT has to balance rack space density, power consumption, thermal efficiency, and costs. Power is one of the major controlling factors in the data center.

The cloud uses more power than Japan.

The microserver SoC (System on a Chip) typically has a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 15 to 20 Watts or below, compared to 90 plus Watts for a high-end server. The microserver chassis has the circuitry related to networking, storage, and cluster communications along with integrated cooling and power supply. Thus, the shared resources reduce the complexity of the overall design.

Barron showed a typical dual processor, HPC server motherboard versus the SoC based Server motherboard. The dual processor general purpose motherboard requires system RAM for the processors, dual GPU’s with their RAM as well as the overhead of a PCIe switch, storage controller, and NICs. Each of those separate chipsets consumes power and creates heat. The SoC server motherboard starts with an integrated die having all those features in silicon, which greatly reduces required power and significantly decreases heat. The SoC cartridge and the Moonshot integration will reduce the latency of the wires between the traditional HPC server’s sub-systems.

New era app focused silicon

To prove that Moonshot is a viable approach, HP put in a production configuration. At the HP.COM website there are approximately 100 applications for browsing and downloads. HP.COM’s website gets approximately 300 million hits per day. It was running on 46 HP legacy servers consuming just over 115,000 Watts per day. Replacing that legacy configuration with six Moonshot systems lowered the power consumption to 6,000 Watts and reduced the rack space usage by 89 percent.

HP 300m hits 94% less power

Barron gave a lengthy explanation of why mobile users and cloud services require application focused silicon for the servers. HP will offer server cartridges from multiple vendors – AMD, Applied Micro, Intel, and Texas Instruments. Applied Micro and Texas Instruments are based on the ARM architecture. This provides customers with the option of picking a server cartridge tailored for specific services, like High Performance Computing (HPC), gaming, telecommunications, finance, seismic imaging, Big Data analysis, web serving, and video analysis, to name a few.

TI  has developed hybrid ARM processors that mix anywhere from one to four Cortex-A15 (32-bit) cores with one to eight TMS320C66x digital signal processors into a single SoC. These combinations in the Moonshot can be used in application specific work such as pure cloud infrastructure workloads – servers, switches, routers, network control planes, and telecommunication switches with applications such as VoIP and LTE.

Applied Micro’s X-Gene 1 eight core SoC with ECC (error-correcting code) memory. The platform is capable of running a full LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) software stack. The X-Gene implements the ARMv8 ISA which is a full 64-bit architecture that is backwards compatible with 32-bit ARMv7. The CPU features hardware virtualization acceleration, MMU virtualization, and advanced SIMD instructions.

Barron said that ARM architecture and HP’s Moonshot will bring new performance levels and reduced power consumption to the data centers.

There was an interesting announcement in last Friday’s Digitimes. “Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) and Hewlett-Packard (HP) will establish a joint venture specifically for producing servers for cloud computing and offering related supporting services, according to Foxconn.”
“The partnership reflects innovation in HP’s server business model through combining Foxconn’s R&D capability and manufacturing expertise, with HP’s market leadership in cloud computing products and related services to enable both companies to offer cloud computing solutions which will change existing market game-playing rules, HP CEO Meg Whitman said.”

Paul Teich, CTO and Senior Analyst, Moor Insights & Strategy, said, “HP and Foxconn’s partnership should help both of them address substantial challenges in continuing cloud computing R&D investment in spite of purchasing pressures that might lead to a ‘race to the bottom’ for prices and margins.”

BSN is planning a hands-on evaluation of the performance of an HP Moonshot with the Applied Micro X-gene cartridge. We will let you know the results as we did with our May 2011 comparison of ARM to x86.

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Based on his article, which speaks about the death of high-end PC computers (neatly, some years after Rahul sold his own boutique PC manufacturer to HP for a large sum of dead presidents), the world is going to evolve into small and neat things. And that is a nice pitch to launch a product like the upcoming Blackbird 003, as insinuated in a follow-up post.

And this is where it hit me. The perception of human species is that we’re an exclusive kind. One cannot co-exist with another, starting in kindergartens, throughout school, rivalry between brothers/sisters in a family or nations – does not matter, we all think of ourselves as God/Allah/Manitou-given right to exterminate the opponent because “we’re better”. However, when we look at the world in general, we see that everything is inclusive, even our position in the food chain. We cannot be different, because we would belong to a different position in the food chain, not on top of it. We are predators (Orca the killer whale is also a mammal, so don’t pull that argument that we’re cute as dolphins), we take all the best qualities, them being good or bad, and use them for our own interests. However, we do not cancel each other out. It is the competition that drives us to the best or worst of our potentials, and it does not matter who comes second, it is the matter of who makes the best product, that being your performance in a family, or a company.

The IT industry – error in global economy DNA
Factor of inclusiveness comes to life the moment you walk into the world of IT industry. This industry is best described as “disruptive”, because it continuously shakes up the world order, like it or not. We change the level playing field in every industry that we touch, that being weapons of our own destruction, or tools of our own creation. Now, why all of a sudden this industry is turning into an exclusive one, or just keeps talking about exclusiveness?

For starters, a lot of my mainstream colleagues are now writing about Apple products like nothing else exists in the world. For starters, Apple did not invent multi-touch nor does it own the technology. But, Apple is the first company that took the existing technology and did a brilliant job to create currently the best interface between humans and machines.

Tomorrow brings a whole another ballgame of alternative interfaces that will change the way how we communicate with the digital world. Perceptive Pixel, Dragon Systems/Nuance, Google Voice-activated search, and E-Plus Speech-to-Text (SMS) technologies – all of these companies are bringing technologies that are utterly brilliant, but in the end, they will be adopted by other companies. Following exclusive logic, all of these companies will keep technologies to themselves, regardless of Google being an American company, E-Plus a German mobile operator, Dragon a small UK company that exchanged more hands (corporations) than Microsoft has employees… but all of these companies bring stuff that will be adopted by other companies and they will deliver their stuff.

At the end of the day, we all will benefit – smaller and big companies, but only those that think outside the box.

What a Ferrari F1 car has to do with my car?
In order to be able to draw parallels with current situation, let’s compare computers to cars, since both share emotional similarities. There is a world crisis in car sales, as a consequence of recession. But, let’s take a deeper look into numbers, shall we? Big Three in US are in trouble, because they have millions (sadly, not exaggerating) of unsold cars. Why? Because people don’t want to buy them. Car industry missed the way what car drivers’ desire and that was punished with a dramatic decrease in sales… from makers of bog standard automobiles.

No wonder, you might add – because these cars don’t give us that buzz, that emotion. Now, let’s take a look into the world of supercars… are the sales down? Judging by the appearance of numerous supercars manufacturers, the answer is a very loud – NO. Ferrari increased its production from 4999 cars/annum in 2005 to 6700 cars in 2008, followed by 7500 cars in 2009. Current leadership of the company told yours truly that they won’t increase production for more than 10,000 cars a year, because they want to keep the exclusivity. Then again, they told me the same thing back in 2005, so don’t hold your breath. Porsche makes 80,000 cars/year, and they plan to pass the 100,000 mark with the introduction of baby SUV and a four-door limo. Crisis? What crisis?

I won’t even explain how start-ups companies like Tesla, Carbon Motors and many others are preparing the stage for either a takeover, or big ones “stealing” a lot of ideas from their 2010 cars. Let’s move forward. In the past five years, more supercar manufacturers appeared than in 10 years between 1990 and 2000. Whoever heard about companies such as British Atom or German Gumpert? Yet, these manufacturers are finding their customers than GM or Ford. Different volume? Certainly. Profitability? Well… if GM was any smart and produced real sport versions of their cars, they would not be in such a doodle. Honda Type-R was a stuff legends were made from, yet their current Civic Type-R is a heavy and non-responsive PoS of a car. What happened to sales? You’ve guessed it. In today’s world, we’re pampered by dream visions wherever we go. These marketing visions make our emotions work and make us want things. In all honesty, can a Chevy Tahoe make us drool? Hardly. It’s a workhorse, regardless how you like present it. Range Rover Sport or chrome alloys on Tahoe are nothing else but “pig with a lipstick”.

Getting back to the world of computers, did Dell, IBM, HP, Gateway and others really thought they could continue to sell beige boxes forever? The answer is very simple – NO.

HP had to buy VoodooPC, Dell had to buy Alienware, and Acer had to buy Gateway, eMachines. Why? Because all of these companies need to generate buzz around their products. Raise hands who want to buy “beige or maybe grey” PC with “ultra-interesting” 19″ LCD display (connecting to PC with analog D-SUB connector, DVI cable is more expensive) and a beige PS/2 keyboard (still have on stock) that will change color the moment you touch it?

What happened after these acquisitions? HP launched all-carbon fiber Envy 133 and more importantly, All-in-One PC with a massive 22″ or 25.5″ touchscreen. Dell implemented Alienware DNA in its XPS series while keeping the company intact (and learned to live with the fact that there are tens of thousands of people want to buy their screens, but not interested in their computers). Gateway launched a sold out notebook which specs are now emulated by ASUS, Toshiba and others. The list goes on.

How to create an industry – sandboxes anyone?
At the dying years of 20th century, the need for better coolers created a whole new industry – premium cooling that became premium cases. Could you imagine Antec Skeleton, Cooler Master Stacker, Cosmos Black Edition, and Blackbird 002 – or imagine that a Ferrari-designer Pininfarina worked with Spire to create a design case for 70 greenbacks. And all of that happened because a small group of people went nuts and overclocked Celeron 300A to 450 MHz and Duron 650 to 1.1 GHz and started to build systems around it (sorry, omitted Athlon 550 and 650 to 950 courtesy of legendary “Gold Finger” device).

This grassroots movement turned into an industry of premium components, yielding companies such as Corsair, OCZ, Mushkin from the world of system memory, BFG, Diamond, EVGA, XFX, Sapphire in the world of graphics cards, Extreme Edition and FX processors from Intel and AMD and completely changed the way how Dell, HP, Acer, ASUS and others market their computers.

Tesla Supercomputer is the latest example of taking an underground movement and creating an industry. Five years from now, every scientist will have a minimum of 100 TFLOPS on his desktop, and supercomputers will become 10-20-40 PFLOPS machines capable of solving world’s greatest problems. Because of who? Because a group of young doctors of science took four gaming cards and turned a gaming machine into a processing monster for computational topography http://fastra.ua.ac.be/en/specs.html and inspired Nvidia to launch an ecosystem around Tesla cards for aspiring scientists.

Would that ever happened if there weren’t for gamers who demanded more and more realistic graphics in computer games, forcing companies to turn regular video processing chips with some texturing power into TFLOPS monsters that eat CPUs for breakfast in any stream-like application?

The answer is very simple. NO. Liked it or not, it all started with bilinear filtering of textures. 3Dfx had it, S3 and Matrox didn’t. Games looked awesome even on Pentium 100 machine, looked like crap on Matrox and Pentium 233 MMX. ATI and Nvidia came later and with wiser moves, moved ahead. End of story.

Personally, I consider that the most important product that HP has in its complete PC lineup is its TouchSmart series. Yet, I don’t see HP advertising this system wherever you go, I don’t see discussions about how controlling the computer by our own fingers is changing the world. No, that’s left to Apple and be honest; iMac does not come close to level of interactivity offered by HP’s system. Apple’s buyers used to be consisted out of dreamers, visionaries and people that don’t want to live in bog standard world. Judging by the rate of market share growth, people want to dream, live the vision and they don’t want to live in a bog standard world. That’s why Apple stuff sells like hotcakes – not to enthusiasts, but to grandmas and grandpas that want to own something beautiful. This is the place where CE industry missed the boat completely and it will get eaten by IT industry (not getting “destroyed”, but adopting IT technology to a point where you can’t tell a difference). Your telly in the living room will have a complete computer inside, or just connect to a home server that will become more important than ever. Is it a Sony TV or Sony Vaio with a larger screen? Wait and see.

High end PC – what can we make of it?
Here comes the ultimate failure of PC industry as such – it lacks people that will spark that creativity, all in the name of cutting costs, even if $2 means the difference between PoS product that nobody wants to buy or will buy only when forced (enterprises tied into their own cycles).

The problem of high-end PCs does not lie in the fact that there is no market between ultra-high end PCs and mainstream crowd. The problem, as some like to see it – actually does not exist. There will always be a market for those 300.000 people (Steam Hardware survey November 2008). That number accounts to 300 million greenbacks of revenue for graphics subsystem alone. Even in five years spread, that’s a hefty number to overlook for anyone, and this exlcuded rest of components that also belong to premium world. Most of motherboard manufacturers now focus on catering overclockers, spend hundreds of thousand of dollars on organizing overclocking competitions… all in the name of better products.

Is this market something that is going to disappear? Nope and yes, I will shave my head if I am wrong. This industry also has its heroes, like Shamino who came from overclocking world to help EVGA design ultimate motherboards, Macci who helped AMD to create an attack on Intel and change the way company markets its CPUs… examples are numerous. And no, these people will not go away, they will actually – get company.

Conclusion
In conclusion, boutique vendors like Biohazard Computers, HyperSonic-PC, SolidWavePC, Smooth Creations, YOYOTech and others will not just continue to exist, but expand their line-ups and put their DNA into more volume products. I won’t make a distinction between Biohazard and McLaren Group, or stop to mention similarities between VoodooPC/HP, Alienware/Dell and AMG/Mercedes relationship.
This industry is huge, there is more than enough room for everybody and guess what? AMD, Intel and Nvidia are not making enough chips to satisfy world’s need for computing. Once that this trio starts making 3-5 billion chips a year, we can start saying that the industry is saturated.

Then, we can start talking about exclusiveness – until then, whenever you hear an industry leader saying that users “don’t need that”, with “that” being TV-out on 3dfx Voodoo cards (Alex Leupp, 3dfx CEO), “that” being 64-bit instruction set (Patrick Pat Gelsinger, Intel’s CTO at time)… is setting its company for the fall or a hefty portion of humble pie.

The new site will have open discussions with the industry leaders outside of this industry, and then it will be interesting to see what IT industry leaders will say. Bear in mind that everybody is talking about netbooks today. First netbook in present form was a computer that a lot of industry executives and journalists claimed that it is impossible to make. Nicholas Negroponte, AMD and Quanta created netbook; ASUS came with Intel platform and created EEE. The rest is history.

And again, this would not happen if there wasn’t for Ferraris and Lambos of this industry. The future is bright for high-end PC manufacturers, but not just that. The future is bright only for open minded manufacturers that will push the envelope in their respective market.
Slow giants will be overrun, regardless of how you look at it. It is the real evolution and exclusiveness in the all-inclusive world.

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Amazon

All in all, I’ve been playing around with Amazon’s new web interface, and I have to say I am thoroughly impressed with what this guys did. It reminds me of CoolIris a lot (formerly known as PicLens) and I am just in love with it.
It will be a great add-on to Windows 7 touch-screen interface, or on an iPod. Congrats to the Amazon call on this one. You should go and check the Amazon’s Windows Shop.

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