Hardware

Cisco Systems' new ASR-9000 edge router promises faster delivery of all that rich Internet media destined for personal computers and mobile devices. The $80,000 question for potential customers: Will it prove to be too rich during challenging economic times? The company's new piece of telecommunicat...

After some back-and-forth in the medical community, it has generally been decided that iPods and MP3 players do not seriously interfere with pacemaker functions. However, a study points to an entirely new concept of the risk involved with these devices. It is not the music player itself that can cau...

More details about Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 operating system emerged Wednesday. The OS will have a shorter boot time; offer greater reliability; more efficient memory usage and improved battery life for laptops, according to Microsoft's Jon DeVaan, Steven Sinofsky and Mike Anguilo, who spoke a...

SanDisk unveiled new technology Wednesday that it said could increase solid-state drive performance by up to 100 times in computers running Windows Vista. Dubbed "Extreme FFS," the next-generation flash management system is an advanced file system for SSDs that accelerates performance and reliabilit...

Fujitsu debuted two updated models and an entirely new model in its LifeBook line of notebook computers Tuesday. The new U820 and P1630 are new versions of models the hardware maker released in 2007. The all-new LifeBook N7010 features two screens -- a traditional 16-inch wide display as well as a 4...

PRODUCT REVIEW

System Mechanic 8.0: Smooth Layout, Rough Start

Putting Iolo Technologies' System Mechanic 8.0 through its paces was a long-overdue reunion with an old friend of sorts. I had used a much earlier version when it was a different label years ago. I had forgotten how adept the program's design was even back then at rooting out the hundreds of glitche...

In the current US election, I would argue the winner actually will benefit from the excessive negative campaigning done by his opponent, who sacrificed trust and in many cases implied the U.S. voter was too stupid to go to the Web and look things up. The well-executed Mac vs. Windows ads, while at l...

CONSUMER ALERT

Flaming Laptop Batteries Prompt Sony Recall

Sony issued a recall Friday for roughly 100,000 notebook batteries. Conducted in partnership with the U.S. Consumer Product and Safety Commission, the recall affects laptop users worldwide. The lithium-ion batteries can overheat and pose a fire and burn hazard to users. There have been 19 reports of...

I can remember the day, way back, when the U.S. was the most important market in the world and companies from all over fought to build a presence and establish themselves here. Our politicians have creatively fixed that advantage, and now China is the place to be. According to projections, the Chine...

Rackspace Hosting has significantly expanded its cloud computing offering with the acquisition of two companies and the inking of two new partnership deals. These moves have fundamentally reshaped Rackspace's cloud computing capabilities, prompting the company to rebrand its existing hosting and sto...

Intel showed off its latest platform aimed at mobile Internet devices Sunday at the company's Developer Forum in Taipei, Taiwan. Dubbed "Moorestown," Intel said it expects to ship the platform in 2009 or 2010. "Moorestown is the first ultra mobile platform and is much, much better than Atom on curre...

I was tempted to pick FUD as a topic and talk about how McCain's use of it killed his campaign. However, last week we had two major launches, one of which was Apple releasing its latest notebooks and embracing graphics as a defining feature but avoiding Blu-ray and HDMI. Apple works to drive the ma...

Crisis breeds change, and given people don't like change, this can result in market shifts in months that otherwise might have taken years. This week, three things happened that I can tie back into this theme. AMD, driven by crisis, provided a strong example of how the U.S. could address its financi...

OPINION

Schwarzenegger for President?

After watching the first presidential debate, one person on that stage clearly showcased the leadership, focus and bipartisan attitude the U.S. needs to turn itself around. Unfortunately, Jim Lehrer isn't actually running, so it didn't help my own decision process much, and I remain decisively undec...

Microsoft on Monday announced its latest software release, Windows HPC Server, at the 2008 High Performance on Wall Street Conference in New York. The application, aimed at industries like financial services, marks Microsoft's latest entry into the high-performance computing market. The software is ...

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