Computers Archive

  • The Amiga is coming back!

    The Amiga is coming back!

    Posted on April 19, 2010 | No Comments
    The Amiga lives! Yes, a company by the name of A-EON will resurrect the famous computer this summer, but not before pumping it full of growth hormone. One stat to whet your appetite: while the Amiga A100 had a maximum of 8MB of memory, the new guy will have 2GB. That's 250 times as much memory.

    Full Story

  • NEC plans to ship 3D desktop PCs later this year

    NEC plans to ship 3D desktop PCs later this year

    Posted on April 19, 2010 | No Comments
    Virtually every Japanese tech company has made some 3D-related announcement in the past months, but one remained suspiciously quiet in that area: NEC. We covered their (apparently very cool) glasses-free 3D 12.1-incher last year (it's yet to be commercialized), and today NEC made some initial announcements about a 3D desktop PC that's supposed to hit Japanese stores by year-end.

    Full Story

  • NetWalker PC-T1: Sharp announces mini tablet for Japan for next month

    NetWalker PC-T1: Sharp announces mini tablet for Japan for next month

    Posted on April 19, 2010 | No Comments
    The iPad hasn't landed in Japan yet, giving domestic competitors some room for their own announcements for tablet PCs. Sharp, for example, today unveiled [JP] the NetWalker PC-T1, which looks like a tablet variant of the PC-Z1 the company introduced last year. Both models look pretty similar, it's just that the older device lost the keyboard to become the T1.

    Full Story

  • Rilakkuma: Ultra-mobile, ultra-cute tablet PC

    Rilakkuma: Ultra-mobile, ultra-cute tablet PC

    Posted on March 16, 2010 | No Comments
    First a Casio Exilim, now an ultra-mobile PC (or UMPC, as the Japanese say): Cult teddy bear Rilakkuma is on his way to dethrone Hello Kitty as the character of choice for Japanese electronics companies when it comes to giving gadgets that extra-cute touch. The bear is now to be seen on a special version of a Kohjinsha tablet PC [JP, PDF] that's part of the company's XS series.

    Full Story

  • Digital Storm Black|Ops certainly looks good

    Digital Storm Black|Ops certainly looks good

    Posted on February 11, 2010 | No Comments
    What's the opinion on buying pre-built gaming PCs? I'm pretty sure there's a certain sense of pride that comes with building your own PC, but I also recognize that not everybody has all the time in the world to research motherboards, RAM timings, and all that jazz. Like, say, look at this PC. It's the Digital Storm Black|Ops (The irony of promoting a black op!), and A) it looks pretty damn cool B) it's sufficiently powerful to run Crysis on Damn High settings. I mean, I think so; Crysis is a mystery wrapped in an enigma hidden in a big box of cliches.

    Full Story

  • PC shipments up 15 percent last quarter (but none of those are the Apple tablet so whatever)

    PC shipments up 15 percent last quarter (but none of those are the Apple tablet so whatever)

    Posted on January 14, 2010 | No Comments
    There was plenty of talk ever since Lehman Brothers exploded in mid-2008 about how would consumers cope. Would they keep buying widgets in the face of insane job cuts? Would they keep buying, but only at a fraction of what they had in the past? Let's take PC sales, a pretty good barometer of where the average person is. (It's a big purchase, but not like buying a car or house.) Shipments of new PCs jumped 15 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. That's worldwide, by the way, and much higher than the people who expect things expected. This is good news.

    Full Story

  • Video: EyeController for iPhone/iPod touch + Marvell Plug Computer

    Video: EyeController for iPhone/iPod touch + Marvell Plug Computer

    Posted on January 8, 2010 | No Comments
    By request from one of our readers (see, we listen!) I zipped over to Marvell’s booth to check out the Plug Computer and got the added bonus of a demonstration of EyeconTroller, an iPhone/iPod touch/computer app that manages media. You can drag and drop media files into various containers, which will play back those particular [...]

    Full Story

  • Adventures in Best Buy ‘optimization’

    Adventures in Best Buy ‘optimization’

    Posted on January 4, 2010 | No Comments
    This is what happens when there's no competition in an industry. Best Buy was the subject of Consumerist/Consumer Reports investigation re: "optimization." Best Buy tries to sell computers to an unsuspecting public that have been "optimized" by the Geek Squad. And while the motives of the individual Geek Squad guy is probably on the up and up, the big bad corporation behind the guy in skinny black tie? The Almighty Dollar reigns supreme.

    Full Story

  • Dell and Goodwill add more free computer recycling drop off sites

    Dell and Goodwill add more free computer recycling drop off sites

    Posted on December 16, 2009 | No Comments
    Ever tried to get rid of an old, sack o’ crap computer? It's not as easy as it sounds. You can't just throw it in the garbage (legally), charitable organizations have finally realized that it takes more time and effort than it's worth to refurbish a 486 DX2/66 machine that nobody’s going to use anyway, and dumping the computer at your municipal recycling center often costs a pretty penny.

    Full Story

  • MSI launches 21.5-inch Wind Top AE2220: 1080p and multi-touch starting at $750

    MSI launches 21.5-inch Wind Top AE2220: 1080p and multi-touch starting at $750

    Posted on November 18, 2009 | No Comments
    Ooh la la, this looks to be an interesting machine right here. Starting at $750, MSI’s latest “Wind Top” all-in-one features a big 21.5-inch 1920x1080 multi-touch LCD, NVIDIA ION graphics, Windows 7 Home Premium, and a wireless mouse and keyboard set.

    Full Story

  • Gift Guide 2009: Netbooks

    Gift Guide 2009: Netbooks

    Posted on November 16, 2009 | No Comments
    Intro The Year of the Netbook. That’s 2009. You can't walk into a consumer electronics store without seeing netbooks everywhere. Actually you can't really walk into a consumer electronics store, period, since they’re closing up faster than costume shops the day after Halloween. But that's another story for another time. While traditional netbooks sales will almost certainly [...]

    Full Story

  • Dell adds Core i5 to their Vostro line

    Dell adds Core i5 to their Vostro line

    Posted on October 1, 2009 | No Comments
    Dell just added a new model to their rather stodgy looking Vostro line, the excitingly named "Vostro 430". This isn't particularly newsworthy, however what IS newsworthy is that their new computers will protect you. From the future!!!11!

    Full Story

  • DIY Lunar Lading Computer

    DIY Lunar Lading Computer

    Posted on July 21, 2009 | No Comments
    Here's a project for a rainy year: a DIY Apollo Guidance Computer with 4K RAM, 32K words of ROM, and a 1Mhz processor. One John Pultorak built his own replica in 2004 and released the plans to the world, giving us a glimpse into what was essentially the first pocket calculator on the moon.
    The Apollo AGC itself is a piece of computing history, it was developed by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory and it was a quite amazing piece of hardware in the 1960s. It was the first computer to use integrated circuits (ICs), running at 1 Mhz it offered four 16-bit registers, 4K words of RAM and 32K words of ROM. The AGC mutlitasking operating system was called the EXEC, it was capable of executing up to 8 jobs at a time. The user interface unit was called the DSKY (display/keyboard, pronounced "disky"); an array of numerals and a calculator-style keyboard used by the astronauts to communicate with the computer.

    Full Story

Newer Entries »