Hasta La Gadget!

Just when sales for the PC industry were looking up, computer shipments slipped globally in Q2. Analysts were expecting conservative numbers for the PC industry overall in Q2, and the latest report from IDC published this week shows sales were worse than expected. According to IDC, 86.7 million PC units were shipped globally in Q2.

That 86.7 million unit shipment is down 0.1% from the same quarter the previous year. The sales numbers were significantly less than the conservative expectations of 2.1% growth for the quarter. One reason for the decline in shipments globally was what IDC calls “constrained” demand in the US, Europe, and Asia. The research firm specifically called out Asia as having “its worst performance in years.”

Looking at the US alone, Gartner reports PC shipments fell by 11%, significantly higher than 4.4% decline expected. HP maintained the top spot for PC vendors with 14.9% of the market share. Lenovo was second with 14.7% of the market, and Acer had 11% of the market to grab third place. Dell landed in fourth with 10.7% of the market.

“Consumers are less interested in spending on PCs as there are other technology product and services, such as the latest smartphones and media tablets that they are purchasing,” Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa said in a statement. “This is more of a trend in the mature market as PCs are highly saturated in these markets.”

[via MarketWatch]

PC sales slump with Asian shipments “worst in years” is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Big PC companies are often seen as being at odds with the concept of custom-built computers: apart from letting us tick a few checkboxes before we order, they’d rather we not fiddle with the internals. Fujitsu is breaking the mold and embracing some of that DIY culture with its upcoming Hands-on Custom PC Assembly Service. The Japanese can take classes that teach them how to install their picks (from a limited range) of processors, hard drives and RAM. While the program doesn’t start completely from scratch — the motherboard is already installed — it takes would-be assemblers through many of the experiences of building their own PCs from the ground up. Builders can choose how many components, if they’re not quite so ambitious, and learn smart practices like wearing anti-static wristbands. While there won’t be as many unintentional jolts of electricity as the real deal, the courses should help PC owners feel comfortable working inside a computer — not to mention save Fujitsu a few technical support calls. The variable-price courses start in Japan on August 9th for multiple Esprimo desktops and a LifeBook portable. We can only hope that American PC vendors take a few hints and encourage everyone’s inner technician.

Fujitsu starts build-it-yourself PC service, lets you go homebrew without the electrical shocks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jul 2012 10:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s a pretty incredible story: a contractor working for Apple named Ron Avitzur successfully managed to sneak into Apple headquarters and complete his software project long after it had been cancelled. Avitzur was originally part of a team working on a graphing calculator that would ship with the company’s new PowerPC computer in 1994. Apple scrapped the project and offered Avitzur a place in the company, but he declined, only wishing to work on projects that interested him.

Avitzur knew that the project was worth the time despite Apple’s cancellation, and began hatching a plan to continue it. His manager requested that he turn in his final invoice before leaving the company, and Avitzur realised that by not submitting the invoice he could hold onto his identity card. Avitzur continued going in to work as normal each day, even recruiting some help from interested parties inside the company to help test and design the software.

It wasn’t long before he was discovered, however, when he mistakenly told a manager about his situation. She cancelled the badge the next day, prompting Avitzur to come up with creative ways of sneaking into the building. That would either involve mingling with the morning crowd while avoiding badge sensors, or getting friends to let him in via side entrances.

Eventually Avitzur and his companions did complete the graphing calculator, showing it to a team of Apple managers in a demo that went perfectly. The PowerPC computer came out as planned in 1994, and shipped with the same graphing calculator which found its way onto 20 million machines. Want to read the full story straight from the source? Here you go.

[via World’s Strangest]

Sacked Apple engineer snuck into HQ to complete calculator app is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We’ve seen SSD prices tumble down over the past year, but if you want the best performance possible you’ll still have to cough up a significant amount of cash. ADATA has a high-speed SSD that might take your fancy, the XPG SX910. The company says the SSD is 7% larger than drives that use a SandForce controller, and thanks to optimized firmware can hit 4k random read/write speeds of 50,000 and 85,000 IOPS.

The SATA III 6Gbit/s drive has sequential read and write speeds of 550 and 530MB/s respectively. There will be three capacities offered: 128GB, 256GB,. and 512GB. Whichever option you spring for, you can rest assured knowing that the drive is covered by a five-year warranty. Putting it in a desktop rather than your aging laptop? The company is throwing in a 3.5-inch adapter too, so you can slide it straight into your tower without any troubles.

The 128GB model will set you back $189.99, the 256GB runs $379.99, and the 512GB commands a high $749.99. ADATA say the drives are available now at various retailers across the United States and Canada, so start searching.

ADATA XPG SX910 SSDs feel the need for speed is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sixty years ago, Alan Turing sat down to write a computer algorithm which could play a human at chess. Sadly, he never got to see it running on a computer, but now it’s been coded up and who better to pit it against than… Garry Kasparov? Gulp. More »