Hardware

So old-school uncool, the mainframe computer -- the workhorse of the IT world running the majority of today's global business transactions, the mission-critical platform of choice for virtually every member of the Global 2000 as well as local, state and federal governments -- is said to be going the...

AMD announced Thursday the release of its triple-core Phenom processors, the X3 8000 series. A first for the PC industry, the triple-core chips are aimed at gamers and digital media enthusiasts for whom performance and price are paramount, the company said. The Phenom X3 processors have been designe...

Sun Microsystems has locked down a $44.29 million research deal with which it could develop a "macrochip" that speeds up ultra-complex computing processes through laser technology. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has finalized a 5 1/2-year contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects A...

I was working on two things last week. One was the impact of the recession on the tech market and what would likely happen to tech spending; and the second was the release of Windows Vista SP1, which I've been using for several months on a number of machines. On the recession side, I've been particu...

The Mainframe Lives

IBM has found one way to sidestep the mainframe vs. distributed computing dilemma by simply calling its mainframes something else. Today, IBM refers to its larger processors as large servers and emphasizes that they can be used to serve distributed users and smaller servers in a computing network. T...

Intel this week laid out its lineup of new products, which take dead aim at some of the latest hot buttons in computing. One is the Dunnington CPU, with six cores, which will be introduced in the second half of this year, and will support FlexMigration, a technology that allows live virtual machine ...

Researchers at IBM have moved a step closer toward the creation of an on-chip optical network, the tech giant said Monday. Calling it a "significant advance," IBM announced the development of the world's tiniest nanophotonic switch designed to route optical data between cores on next-generation high...

Over the last two weeks, I attended a huge HP lab event, watched Apple launch the iPhone SDK brilliantly, and saw one of the strongest consumer laptop lines launched by Acer. All three vendors are growing in the 30 percent range in the PC market; Acer just passed Dell for the No. 2 spot in the noteb...

Just 10 months after launching its Gemstone line in May 2007, Acer has introduced refinements to that line's design, unveiling two new notebooks in the Aspire Gemstone Blue line, the 6950 and the 8950. Both are equipped with a Blu-ray Disc drive, full high-definition LCD screens and native 16:9 reso...

OPINION

The Beginning of the iPhone Rebirth

Last week was filled with what could represent the beginning of one of the biggest overall changes to the cell phone market. The short-term change was the announcement of a solid and apparently well-controlled developer platform coupled with the long anticipated Exchange integration announcement. Ho...

A new technology unveiled Wednesday aims to prevent hardware privacy by protecting microchips with the virtual equivalent of an embedded "lock" that can be opened only by the patent owner. Called "EPIC" -- short for Ending Piracy of Integrated Circuits -- the technique relies on established cryptogr...

EXPERT ADVICE

Green IT: Behind the Buzzwords

Conserving energy, reducing floor space and managing utility costs are becoming major priorities for IT organizations. As the number of servers continues to grow and demand for storage capacity increases, companies are faced with the challenge of powering and cooling these systems while controlling ...

AMD on Tuesday introduced its latest motherboard GPU, the AMD 780 Series, in Hanover, Germany, at CeBIT 2008. Styling it as the most advanced motherboard GPU in the industry, AMD said the platform is intended to provide a "rich computing experience" for both casual gamers and multimedia enthusiasts ...

Intel has settled on a new brand name for its family of low-power processors, which formerly were referred to by the code names "Silverthorne" and "Diamondville." Now dubbed "Atom," the new processors will find their way into low-power mobile Internet devices and ultra low-cost computers. Intel also...

IBM on Thursday unveiled a prototype green optical network technology that promises to enable the high-speed transmission of huge files with very little power consumption. By using light instead of wires to send information, the new technology could allow the transmission of 8 trillion bits per seco...

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