Snow Leopard’s 35 New Desktop Pictures Feature Nature, Fine Art and… Graffiti?

Here are the 35 new desktop images Snow Leopard is shipping with next month, as found by CreativeBits. There are the expected plants and nature images, but there’s also new fine art and graffiti shots. Graffiti?

There’s definitely some new/different stuff here, such as the photos of an actual Snow Leopard, high-res scans of famous fine art and then those graffiti shots. How street of you, Apple! And as for that grey camo shot, well, I don’t even know what to say about that. To each his/her own, I guess.

They’re definitely not as balls-out nuts as the Windows 7 desktops. Is that a good or a bad thing? [CreativeBits via Purnell]

Gold, diamond-leafed Gaiser PCs might just bring Marie Antoinette back from the grave

Don’t get us wrong — we’re all in favor of purposeless, ostentatious, and classless displays of wealth — but we prefer it to be a little less… tacky? German manufacturer High End PCs have the high end part down pat — they’ll dip your desktop in all manners of gold (up to 24 karat!), cubic zirconia and of course, diamonds. Now, we don’t have any specs on these puppies — though we suspect performance is beside the point. Our only real qualm with the product is that it looks like a Kleenex box from Don Johnson’s bathroom in 1986. But, if you have a stack of money hanging around and you just can’t be bothered to think of really awesome things to do with it, Gaiser’s PCs start from about $8,000 and run up to around $33,000.

[Via Oh! Gizmo]

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Gold, diamond-leafed Gaiser PCs might just bring Marie Antoinette back from the grave originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Personal Supercomputers Promise Teraflops on Your Desk

js-personal-supercomputer

About a year ago John Stone, a senior research programmer at the University of Illinois, and his colleagues found a way to bypass the long waits for computer time at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

Stone’s team got “personal supercomputers,” compact machines with a stack of graphics processors that together pack quite a punch and can be used to run complex simulations.

“Now instead of taking a couple of days and waiting in a queue, we can do the calculations locally,” says Stone. “We can do more and better science.”

Personal supercomputers are available in many flavors, both as clusters of CPU and graphics processing units (GPUs). But it is GPU computing that is gaining in popularity for its ability to offer researchers easy and quick access to raw computing power. That’s opening up a new market for makers of GPUs, such as Nvidia and AMD, which have traditionally focused on high-end video cards for gamers and graphics pros.

True supercomputers, the rock stars of computing, are capable of millions of calculations per second. But they can be extremely expensive — the fastest supercomputer of 2008, IBM’s RoadRunner, costs $120 million — and access to them is limited. That’s why smaller versions, no bigger than a typical desktop PC, are becoming a hit among researchers who want access to massive processing power along with the convenience of having a machine at their own desk.

“Personal supercomputers that can run off a 110 volt wall circuit allow for a significant amount of performance at a very reasonable price,” says John Fruehe, director of business development for serve and workstation at AMD. Companies such as Nvidia and AMD make the graphics chips that personal supercomputer resellers assemble into personalized configurations for customers like Stone.

Demand for these personal supercomputers grew at an average of 20 percent every year between 2003 and 2008, says research firm IDC. Since Nvidia introduced its Tesla personal supercomputer less than a year ago, the company has sold more than 5,000 machines.

“Earlier when people talked about supercomputers, they meant giant Crays and IBMs,” says Jie Wu, research manager for technical computing at IDC. “Now it is more about having smaller clusters.”

Today, most U.S. researchers at universities who need access to a supercomputer have to submit a proposal to the National Science Foundation, which funds a number of supercomputer centers. If the proposal is approved, the researcher gets access to an account for a certain number of CPU hours at one of the major supercomputing centers at the universities of San Diego, Illinois or Pittsburgh, among others.

“Its like waiting in line at the post office to send a message,” says Stone. “Now you would rather send a text message from your computer rather than wait in line at the post office to do it. That way it is much more time efficient.”

Personal supercomputers may not be as powerful as the mighty mainframes, but they are still leagues above their desktop cousins. For instance, a four-GPU Tesla personal supercomputer from Nvidia can offer 4 teraflops of parallel supercomputing performance with 960 cores and two Intel Xeon 5500 Series Nehalem processors. That’s just a fraction of the IBM RoadRunner’s 1 petaflop speed, but it’s enough for most researchers to get the job done.

For researchers, this means the ability to run calculations faster than they can with a traditional desktop PC. “Sometimes researchers have to wait for six to eight hours before they can have the results from their tests,” says Sumit Gupta, senior product manager at Nvidia. “Now the wait time for some has come down to about 20 minutes.”

It also means that research projects that typically would have never get off the ground because they are deemed too costly and too resource and time intensive now get the green light. “The cost of making a mistake is much lower and a lot less intimidating,” says Stone.

The shift away from large supercomputers to smaller versions has also made research more cost effective for organizations. Stone, who works in a group that develops software used by scientists to simulate and visualize biomolecular structures, says his lab has 19 personal supercomputers shared by 30 researchers. “If we had what we wanted, we would run everything locally because it is better,” says Stone. “But the science we do is more powerful than what we can afford.”

The personal supercomputing idea has also gained momentum thanks to the emergence of programming languages designed especially for GPU-based machines. Nvidia has been trying to educate programmers and build support for CUDA, the C language programming environment created specifically for parallel programming the company’s GPUs. Meanwhile, AMD has declared its support for OpenCL (open computing language) this year. OpenCL is an industry standard programming language. Nvidia says it also works with developers to support OpenCL.

Stone says the rise of programming environments for high performance machines have certainly made them more popular. And while portable powerhouses can do a lot, there is still place for the large mainframe supercomputers. “There are still the big tasks for which we need access to the larger supercomputers,” says Stone. “But it doesn’t have to be for every thing.”

Photo: John Stone sits next to a personal supercomputer- a quad-core Linux PC with 8GB of memory and 3 GPUs (one NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800, and two NVIDIA Tesla C1060) each with 4GB of GPU memory/ Kirby Vandivort


Apple Gobbled up 91 Percent of Premium PC Market in June

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Apple may be a small player in terms of overall PC market share, but in the premium price segment, the Macintosh is king.

In June, nine out of 10 dollars spent on computers costing $1,000 and up went to Apple in the U.S. market, according to research company NPD Group. That spells out to 91 percent of the “premium” price segment gobbled up by Macs — up from 88 percent in May.

Granted, Windows PC systems still own 90 percent of the U.S. PC market share. Still, this is a victory for Apple, a company whose focus is on quality products with premium price tags.

These numbers make it crystal clear why Apple continues to avoid stepping into the netbook market with a $400 to $500 offering: Even in a recession, it doesn’t need to. This also illustrates that the recent price cuts made to the MacBook family were indeed an effective move.

Apple has 91% of market for $1,000+ PCs, says NPD [BetaNews]

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Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com


So Long Desktop PC, You Suck

Desktop PCs have been in decline for a decade, and countless people have said their piece about it. But new evidence suggests the desktop tower’s death spiral is underway—and we’re not too broken up about it.

I say this as a guy who was baptized into the tech world with a desktop; who still obsessively follows the latest PC components from Intel, Nvidia, ATI and the like; who has built, fixed or upgraded more towers than I care to remember; and who, until a few years ago, was an avid PC gamer. As someone who would be, by most measures, a desktop-PC kinda guy, I just can’t go on pretending there’s a future for them.

The State of the Industry
This is more than a hunch; a grim future is borne out by the numbers. A week ago, iSuppli issued a broad report on the state of the PC industry. The leading claim was predictable: The PC industry was experiencing lower-than-expected quarterly sales—down about 8% from the same time last year. This included laptops, and made sense, because the whole economy’s gone to hell, right? People aren’t buying computers.

Except that’s not quite what’s happening. In the same period, laptop shipments—already higher than desktop shipments on the whole—grew 10% over last year. Desktops were entirely to blame, dropping by an astounding 23%. That’s not decline—it’s free fall.

Stephen Baker, an analyst for industry watchers NPD, shared with me a wider picture of how retail PC sales break down. The way he put it made measuring the rise and fall of sales percentages seem dumb—there really aren’t any sales to lose: “In US retail, 80% of sales are notebooks now,” he said. “Start throwing in stuff like iMacs and all-in-ones”—which share more hardware DNA with laptops and netbooks than traditional desktops—”and it gets even higher.”

The Buyer’s Dilemma
To understand why this is happening doesn’t take anything more than a little empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of any number of potential consumers, be it kids, adults, techies, or luddites. In virtually any scenario, a laptop is the sensible buy.

Take my dad. Despite spending three decades in front of commercial jet instrument panels, his relationship with computers is, at best, strained. When he came to me a few months ago asking for advice about a laptop to replace his desktop, I assumed it was a just a whim, based on what he saw happening around him. It wasn’t, at all. As someone who uses a computer mostly for news, email, music, etc—like a significant part of the population—he was actually being intensely rational. A laptop would do everything he needs simply and wirelessly, with a negligible price difference from a functionally equivalent desktop. If he wants a monitor, keyboard and mouse, he can just attach them. Choosing a desktop PC wouldn’t just be a not-quite-as-good choice—it’d be a bad one.

The TradeoffsLet’s look at mainly stock examples taken (hastily) from Dell’s current product line. Their configurations could be tweaked and changed to make desktops look slightly better or slightly worse, but we chose them because they are typical budget-minded consumer choices. We are not talking about workstations, and we’re not talking about all-in-ones, because if anything, they are keeping this category alive. When it comes to pure household computer buying, you can hunt for deals all you want, but laptops and desktops are more closely paired than you might expect.

That’s not to say that there aren’t noticeable tradeoffs. Graphics performance, although I wasn’t specifically angling for that with these configurations, is generally better in a desktop. Likewise, hard drives—being that desktops use larger, cheaper 3.5-inch units—are faster and more capacious across the board. Greater amounts of RAM can be had for less in a desktop, the optical drives can be slightly faster, and the ports for those and other drives can be used for expansion.

But these tradeoffs aren’t nearly as pronounced as they once were, nor are they as consequential. On account of the huge demand and sales volume, newer mobile processors have become a hotbed for innovation, now rivaling most any desktop processor, and mobile graphics engines—though still markedly inferior to dedicated desktop cards—have improved vastly in recent years, to a point where most consumers are more than satisfied.

And if you really look out for them, there are some amazing deals to be had on new notebooks. (Look at Acer’s 15-inch, 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM laptop with 1GB GeForce GT130 graphics card and Blu-ray for $750, and then try to build the equivalent in a desktop at the same price.)

The important takeaway here is that the performance sacrifice you make in owning laptop is minimal, and mitigated, or even outweighed, by its practical advantages. Want a bigger screen on your notebook? Hook it up your HDTV. Want more storage? Buy a cheap, stylish bus-powered external USB drive. Want to use your desktop on the toilet? Good freakin’ luck.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The Fall of the Gaming PC
But to say that the average user doesn’t have any reason to buy a hulking beige box isn’t that controversial, and even borders on obvious. The real, emotional, diehard support for the form factor is going to be found elsewhere anyway. I mean, hey, what about gamers? Have you ever tried to play Crysis on an Inspiron? Let’s jump back to the numbers.

Last year saw a huge 26% increase in game sales across platforms, powered mostly by Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS sales, according to NPD. Breaking that number down, we see PC game sales down by 14%. That decrease barely even registered in the broader scheme of things, since total PC game sales amounted to just $700m of the industry’s $11b take. This year is looking even worse. You know what, let’s just call this one too: PC gaming? Also dead. Update: Luke at Kotaku points out that NPD’s numbers only cover retail game sales, where PC gaming is hurting the most. Due mostly to MMOs—hardly the exclusive domain of desktops—the PC gaming industry take is actually higher.

As the laptop is to my old man, the console is to the gamer. Just a few years ago, buying—or just as likely, building—a high-end gaming PC granted you access to a rich, unique section of the gaming world. Dropping a pile of cash for ATI’s Radeon 9800 to get that precious 128MB of VRAM was damn well worth it, since there was no other way to play your Half Life 2 and your Doom 3. PC titles were often demonstrably better than console games, and practically owned the concept of multiplayer gaming—a situation that’s changed, or even reversed, since all the major consoles now live online. We even spotted a prominent PC magazine editor (and friend of Giz) copping on Twitter to buying an Xbox game because it has multiplayer features the PC version doesn’t. Yes, things are different now.

NPD’s Baker sees it too: “Go back two years ago and think about all the buzz that someone like Falcon or Alienware or Voodoo was generating, and how much buzz they generate now, that might be a little bit telling.” He adds, “There’s considerably less interest in high powered gaming machines.” They’re luxury items in every sense, from their limited utility to their ridiculous price to their extremely low sales.

A Form Factor on Life Support
But no matter how irrational a choice the desktop tower is for the regular consumer, sales won’t hit zero anytime soon. As we’ve hinted, much of this can be explained by simple niche markets: Some businesses will always need powerful workstations; older folks will feel comfortable with a familiar form factor; some people will want a tower as a central file or media server; DIY types will insist on the economy and environmental benefit of desktop’s upgradeability; and a core contingent of diehard PC gamers, despite their drastically thinning ranks, will keep on building their LED-riddled, liquid-cooled megatowers until the day they die.

Baker sees another factor—less organic, more cynical—that’ll keep the numbers from bottoming too hard. “Desktops are a lot more profitable than notebooks for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that big shiny monitor, which has a nice margin attached to it. For the retailers, people tend to buy a lot more peripherals and accessories when they buy desktops than when they buy notebooks.” Even if the volumes are ultra-low and concept is bankrupt, retailers are going to keep bloated, price-inflated desktops and desktop accessories out there on the sales floor until they’ve drained every last dollar out of them.

You’ll see plenty of desktop towers for years to come, in megamarts if not in people’s homes. You’ll still hear news about the latest, greatest graphics cards, desktop processors and the like. Enthusiasts and fansites will stay as enthusiastic and fanatical as they’ve ever been. These, though, are lagging indicators, trailing behind a dead (or maybe more accurately, undead) computing ideal that the computer-using public has pretty much finished abandoning.

Edelweiss PC casemod goes above and beyond insanity

Sure, these days, it can be pretty hard to get super-stoked over a casemod… after all, they’re basically a dime a dozen. We’re always impressed with the crazy ones though, and this one — the Edelweiss (possibly named after our least-favorite song and flower) really takes the crazy and turns it up to 11. We’re not even sure what’s going on, to be honest, but we can assure you of this much: we’re really, really fond of it. Two more shots after the break.

[Via Case Mod Blog]

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Edelweiss PC casemod goes above and beyond insanity originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gateway unveils DX mini-tower and SX small form factor PCs

Nettop? All-in-one? Sometimes you just want a good ole’ fashioned desktop, and that’s where Gateway‘s new DX and SX PCs come into play. The SX small form factor, pictured above, has packed in a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Quad with GMA X4500 integrated graphics, 4GB DDR3 SDRAM, 640GB HDD, a 18x DVD writer, multi-card reader, nine USB 2.0 ports, multi-card reader, firewire and eSATA, HDMI and VGA outputs, and Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit. Asking price for that setup is $499, but if you’re looking to game, we don’t see much room for adding a hipper graphics card. On the slightly heftier side, the DX mini-tower boasts either an Intel Core 2 Quad or AMD Phenom X4 with NVIDIA GeForce G210 / ATI Radeon 4650 graphics cards, respectively, up to 8GB DDR3 and 1TB HDD, eight USB 2.0 ports, and all the other amenities of the SX for a starting price of $750. Both models are expected for release end of June, which means pretty much now-ish. To top it off, the company’s also just released a new FHD display series in 21.5, 23, and 24-inch varieties, and it looks like there’s been a spec refresh to its LX and FX desktop lines. Full press release after the break.

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Gateway unveils DX mini-tower and SX small form factor PCs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: hands-on with ASUS’ Eee Keyboard at Computex

We first caught sight of ASUS’ totally weird Eee Keyboard — a full PC with an Intel Atom N270 CPU built in — way back at CES in January. Well, our friends at Engadget Chinese have laid hands on it at Computex, and it’s looking a bit different than what we expected… and a whole lot more awesome. The 5-inch, 800 x 480 pixel touchscreen display/trackpad on the right side of the keyboard, is, as it turns out, running a standalone version of XP, and serves as the shortcut screen to most of the included software — including Skype, MSN, and music playback controls. Our friends found the touchscreen to work extremely well, and though we don’t know anything rock solid about pricing or availability yet (we hear it will launch by the end of June, we do know that it will come in two flavors — wired and and UWB wireless — with the wireless version housing a battery which gets about two hours of use before needing a charge. There’s a video (in Chinese) showing this badboy off after the break. Hit the read link for a full gallery of photos.

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Video: hands-on with ASUS’ Eee Keyboard at Computex originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Studio One 19 reviewed, deemed totally sufficient but not awesome

Dell’s touchscreen Studio One 19’s been showboating around the States for a few weeks now, so it’s no surprise to see the verdicts start rolling in. Computer Shopper’s just reviewed the unit, and while they give it points for its slim and stylish form factor, and for the implementation of the touchscreen, they take away a few for the cloth-laden accents, and complain that the high-end models are expensive and underpowered. They’re basically fans of the lower-end configurations, but warn that they don’t really think the unit would be very family friendly. There’s one more shot of the 19 after the break, and hit the read link for the full review.

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Dell Studio One 19 reviewed, deemed totally sufficient but not awesome originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 May 2009 12:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Insane Russian casemod shamelessly puts good taste to bed once and for all

We see plenty of wild casemods around here — staying on the pulse of what’s new with the cool kids is part of our jobs. We’ve never really seen anything like this one, however. We don’t know a terrible lot about the case — just that it’s made of what appears to be solid evil dipped in bronze, and lit by the blood of a terrifying hellbeast. Regardless: it’s going to look great in your living room… once you convince Satan to sell it to you for a reasonable price, that is. One more terrifically horrendous photo after the break.

Continue reading Insane Russian casemod shamelessly puts good taste to bed once and for all

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Insane Russian casemod shamelessly puts good taste to bed once and for all originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 May 2009 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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