Computing

The current economic crisis has meant that many industries have slowed production down to a snail's pace, and the computer market is of exception.

Economic forecaster iSuppli has cut its forecast for 2009's PC unit shipments by almost two-thirds, according to Yahoo! News.

While iSuppli is confident there will be a rise in the amount of PCs sold next year, compared to 2008, it is predicting that the percentage will just be 4.3 per cent, compared to the company's original forecast of 11.9 per cent.

Netbooks continue to rise

But never fear, there is a silver lining. Netbooks, one of the biggest winners in the computing industry this year, will continue their meteoric rise to the top of the PC food chain, with a year-on-year growth of around 15 per cent. ... read more »

While everyone else is arguing about whether Windows 7 really is faster than Vista or whether Vista is the worst version of Windows ever (or even the worst version of anything ever), I can't help feeling we have all missed the point.

We have allowed ourselves to get tricked into choosing between being hit on the head with a hammer and being hit on the head with a brick. Whereas what we should actually be asking is "Do we really need to be hit on the head at all?"

We need to pull back the focus a little and think about what we really want to do with our lives and then consider whether a computer might help with any of them.

Only then can we really make informed choices about what kind of computer that might be. My current goals may be summarised in this fashion. ... read more »

A major study into teenage development has insisted that everyday tech pursuits like social networking, video games and surfing the internet plays an important role.

A three-year research project into 800 kids insists that teenagers are learning skills that are highly relevant to the modern world in their leisure time.

"They are learning the technological skills and literacy needed for the contemporary world," report author, Dr Mimi Ito told the BBC.

"They are learning how to communicate online, craft a public identity, create a home page, post links.

"All these things were regarded as sophisticated 10 years ago but young people today take them for granted,"

Education ... read more »

It is a poorly-guarded secret that I have trouble settling down to do any serious work. Normally, without a gun or a deadline pointed at me, it takes a long time to get started in the morning.

But last Saturday I had the day to myself. My plans involved travelling to an icy northern continent and whacking the crap out of the indigenous peoples.

And yet when I sat down in front of the computer with a cup of coffee in my hand, I still found myself footling around with Facebook Scrabble, web comics, and videos of people falling over in humorous circumstances.

For almost an hour.

The only conclusion possible, is that the internet itself demands procrastination from us as a sort of tithe.

If you add up the number of minutes wasted in this way, each day around the world, it must come to several lifetimes. We are literally sacrificing entire lives to this. ... read more »

Mini-PC specialist Shuttle has launched the new Shuttle Barebone D10, originally announced at IFA earlier this year, a cutesy-looking small PC with a 7" touchscreen display integrated into its front panel.

The company is pitching it as an ideal "multimedia control centre for home automation, home servers or in the field of video surveillance,"

So basically, should you wish, you can use the machine without any additional monitor or mouse.

Handy as a radio

You might also just want to use the Shuttle as a stereo or radio, in which case you can "play back MP3 files or a radio stream without having to switch on a large, power-consuming flat-screen television." ... read more »

Creative has extended its gaming range with three sets of headphones – including the latest in the Fatal1ty range.

The Digital Wireless Gaming Headset HS-1200, the Fatal1ty USB Gaming Headset HS-1000, and the USB Gaming Headset HS-950 all boast Creative's X-Fi audio technology and have full EAX support.

Creative is one of the powerhouses of audio for PCs and their gaming peripherals are boosted by the Fatal1ty brand – endorsed by probably the western world's most famous gamer Jonathan Fatal1ty Wendell.

"We designed these headsets for gamers who want to deploy the best technology for a competitive advantage," explains Mark Grover, European Brand Manager with Creative. ... read more »

Dell has announced the arrival of its latest addition to the desktop PC market, the Studio XPS.

Designed to be a stylish addition to your home, the computer is as impressive on the inside as it is on the outside.

This is all because of Intel's super-fast Core i7 processor.

By having the processor inside, Dell claims that video editing is 44 per cent faster and image rendering is also lightening-quick.

Whether or not these stats will pull creatives away from their beloved Macs is another story.

Blu-ray compatibility

Optional extras include a Blu-ray drive, up to 1TB hard drive and a 64-bit version of Windows Vista.

For HD heads, there's HDMI connectivity, alongside a whopping eight USB2.0 ports and built-in 7.1 audio support. ... read more »

Psystar's counterclaims that OS X being tied to only Apple hardware violates US antitrust acts have been dismissed by US District Judge William Alsup.

A 19-page decision by Alsup dismisses claims from Psystar that Apple's OS X should not be kept proprietary, bringing the focus back to the clone company.

Apple has already filed a lawsuit against Psystar after it began selling 'OpenMac' PCs which used Apple's OS X – alleging that the company has violated licences, trademarks and copyright.

Legal support

Psystar's response was to counterclaim that Apple keeping its OS to its own hardware was anticompetitive restraint of trade.

However, Alsup's summation suggests that Psystar did not provide sufficient legal support to back up its central point that the Apple OS constituted a market. ... read more »

Apple has released a firmware update to fix the widely-reported problems with the glass-covered multi-touch trackpad on its latest MacBooks.

Users were experiencing and reporting problems on a number of MacBook and MacBook Pros, whereby trackpad clicks were not being recognised.

There were complaints on an official Apple forum that the trackpads were freezing after around 50 clicks.

Baffling fault

The broken user interface would then strangely start working again after 5-10 further unrecognised clicks.

TechRadar could feel the fury and impotence of those users at the time, as there really

Users can grab Apple's MacBook, MacBook Pro Trackpad Firmware Update 1.0 is available to download online now. ... read more »

It seems that while Google is putting a finger in every single pie it can find, it's not finding success in all of them.

The latest data from Clickstream Technologies says that only one per cent of PC / internet users have made use of Google's alternative to Microsoft Office, with the Redmond group still bagging over 50 per cent of users.

OpenOffice.org fared somewhat better, garnering around five per cent of users' actions in document use.

Some way behind

The study used 2,400 regular internet users and monitored their productivity suite use and found that even those that used Google Docs still used Office alongside in an 'on and offline' combo, showing that Google still has some way to go before it is seen as a standalone product. ... read more »