1. Apple iPad a 'buzzsaw' through PC sales
The iPad is wreaking havoc on the personal-computer market.
Hewlett-Packard Co.'s consumer PC sales plunged 23 per cent last quarter, and the company lopped $US1 billion off its annual sales forecast. And while rival Dell Inc. beat analysts' estimates because of corporate demand, its sales to consumers slumped 7.5 per cent. More than 70 million tablets like the Apple Inc. iPad will be sold in 2011, a total that will balloon to 246 million in three years, Jefferies & Co. said yesterday.
“You're walking into a buzz saw,” Jane Snorek, a senior research analyst at Nuveen Asset Management in Milwaukee, said of the iPad. Her firm manages more than $US200 billion in assets. “The tablet is going to replace at least the home computer.”
At 7.3-inches across with a color screen and an array of popular downloadable games like “Angry Birds,” applications for watching movies and reading magazines, and software for word processing and spreadsheets, the iPad has siphoned off more PC sales than analysts and executives predicted.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, and run by Steve Jobs, sold 4.69 million iPads last quarter, for a total of about 20 million since the April 2010 debut. Apple shares increased $US3.73, or 1.1 per cent, to $US339.87 at 4pm New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading, for the biggest gain in almost four weeks.
The PC market, by contrast, declined last quarter. Global shipments fell 3.2 per cent, hurt in part because some consumers bought tablets instead, research firm IDC reported last month.
While rivals including Research In Motion Ltd., Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. have begun selling tablets, the devices have yet to gain wide traction.
Microsoft, Intel Impact
The lack of viable competitors was felt across the PC industry in the first quarter. Microsoft Windows sales fell 4.4 per cent to $US4.45 billion. Its net income of $US5.23 billion was eclipsed by the $US5.99 billion reported by Apple, which topped its rival in that measure for the first time in 20 years.
At Intel, whose processors run more than 80 per cent of the world's personal computers, growth in the PC-chip division came mainly from emerging markets and corporate sales.
Hewlett-Packard, the top PC maker, yesterday cleaved 20 cents a share from its annual earnings forecast, to $US5, excluding items. The revised outlook sent the shares tumbling 7.3 per cent on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday and left the stock down 12 per cent since the last business day before Nov. 1, when Leo Apotheker took over as chief executive officer.
“Leo comes in just as the tablet is taking off, and the consumer PC market is waning,” Snorek said.
2. Lonely planets found which float freely through the Milky Way
Astronomers said they had found a previously inconceivable phenomenon: planets that do not appear to be anchored to a host star but instead wander the heavens.
In a two-year scan of the cosmos, 10 planets with roughly the mass of Jupiter, the largest planet of our Solar System, have been found at such enormous distances from the nearest star that some of them could be said to float freely through the Milky Way.
The investigation, published in the British science journal Nature, breaks new ground in the science of exoplanets, or planets that exist beyond our solar system.
3. Down these animated streets a man must go
A REVOLUTIONARY new video game that has virtually erased the line between movies and games has launched in America to rave reviews from critics and fans.
L.A. Noire, the work of the Australian developer Team Bondi with its partner Rockstar Games, ''changes the face of gaming'', according to USA Today. The Observer in Britain called it an ''entirely new'' gaming concept.
The big somewhere ... a scene from L.A. Noire, developed in Sydney and hailed by critics in the US as ‘‘changing the face of gaming’’.
The game will be released in Australia tomorrow. Its plot involves the adventures of a 1940s Los Angeles police detective. Much of the excitement comes from the use of groundbreaking MotionScan technology, which uses 32 cameras to record actors' facial expressions and then transfers them to animated figures.
The lead actor in the game, available tomorrow, is Aaron Staton, best known for his role in the hit TV series Mad Men.
''What the actor does goes straight into the game,'' said Brendan McNamara, the founder of Team Bondi. ''That brings a level of humanity to it that people haven't seen before.''
Don't lie to me ... a screen grab from the .A. Noire video game. Photo: Rockstar Games
The MotionScan process is so accurate that game players are able to interpret characters' facial expressions and body language to decide whether they are telling the truth.
''People do intuitively have a sense whether they think someone is lying or not,'' McNamara said. ''It's built into your brain to tell you whether you believe somebody or you don't. Everyone responds to that on an intuitive level, which is fun to see.''
Last month L.A. Noire, seven years in the making, became the first video game to be featured at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Film Festival, an experience McNamara called ''humbling''.
4. Sony's Spanking New PSN Security Marred by Password Exploit
Hackers have reportedly hit the PlayStation Network again, sneaking in another attack just days after Sony brought its video game network back online following its weeks-long outage -- which itself resulted from an attack last month. This time, hackers can apparently change users' passwords on the network using only their victims' account email address and their date of birth. Sony asked users to reset passwords after the PSN network was first infiltrated. Personal information on up to 100 million customers had apparently been compromised.
5. Samsung Gets Down to the Nitty-Gritty With Super-Sharp Tablet Display
Samsung Electronics will demonstrate the first 10.1-inch tablet with a WQXGA PenTile screen at the SID Display Week symposium, to be held in Los Angeles May 17 to 19. The display offers a resolution of 2,560 by 1,600 pixels. The screen's resolution translates to 300 dpi, not too far behind the 326 dpi offered by the iPhone's Retina Display screen. Announcing the display, Samsung said it will be commercially available on tablets later this year. Samsung Electronics declined comment when contacted by TechNewsWorld.
6. Geek Wars: Attack of the Chromes
Last week was a really interesting week. Google brought out its Windows-killer product, the Chrome OS, to generally good reviews -- but most of the folks I know who have covered the desktop for years are convinced it will fail. Google also brought out a home automation product and announced a robotic car technology, all of which could benefit from some Apple magic. I actually like the idea of the Chrome OS, but the execution leaves me cold -- and you'd think that given the lack of success with its tablets, Google would take a different approach.
7. The Linux vs. Windows Security Mystery
Of all the many winning advantages Linux has in its favor, security is surely one of the more widely known examples. Why else, indeed, would we see security experts in mainstream publications recommending it over Windows for online banking purposes? That, indeed, is part of the reason it was so disappointing to see Linux get completely ignored in a recent NSA report entitled "Best Practices for Keeping Your Home Network Secure." The report is filled with various suggestions oriented toward Windows and Mac users -- just as one would expect, given that they're by far the majority today.
The iPad is wreaking havoc on the personal-computer market.
Hewlett-Packard Co.'s consumer PC sales plunged 23 per cent last quarter, and the company lopped $US1 billion off its annual sales forecast. And while rival Dell Inc. beat analysts' estimates because of corporate demand, its sales to consumers slumped 7.5 per cent. More than 70 million tablets like the Apple Inc. iPad will be sold in 2011, a total that will balloon to 246 million in three years, Jefferies & Co. said yesterday.
“You're walking into a buzz saw,” Jane Snorek, a senior research analyst at Nuveen Asset Management in Milwaukee, said of the iPad. Her firm manages more than $US200 billion in assets. “The tablet is going to replace at least the home computer.”
At 7.3-inches across with a color screen and an array of popular downloadable games like “Angry Birds,” applications for watching movies and reading magazines, and software for word processing and spreadsheets, the iPad has siphoned off more PC sales than analysts and executives predicted.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, and run by Steve Jobs, sold 4.69 million iPads last quarter, for a total of about 20 million since the April 2010 debut. Apple shares increased $US3.73, or 1.1 per cent, to $US339.87 at 4pm New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading, for the biggest gain in almost four weeks.
The PC market, by contrast, declined last quarter. Global shipments fell 3.2 per cent, hurt in part because some consumers bought tablets instead, research firm IDC reported last month.
While rivals including Research In Motion Ltd., Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. have begun selling tablets, the devices have yet to gain wide traction.
Microsoft, Intel Impact
The lack of viable competitors was felt across the PC industry in the first quarter. Microsoft Windows sales fell 4.4 per cent to $US4.45 billion. Its net income of $US5.23 billion was eclipsed by the $US5.99 billion reported by Apple, which topped its rival in that measure for the first time in 20 years.
At Intel, whose processors run more than 80 per cent of the world's personal computers, growth in the PC-chip division came mainly from emerging markets and corporate sales.
Hewlett-Packard, the top PC maker, yesterday cleaved 20 cents a share from its annual earnings forecast, to $US5, excluding items. The revised outlook sent the shares tumbling 7.3 per cent on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday and left the stock down 12 per cent since the last business day before Nov. 1, when Leo Apotheker took over as chief executive officer.
“Leo comes in just as the tablet is taking off, and the consumer PC market is waning,” Snorek said.
2. Lonely planets found which float freely through the Milky Way
Astronomers said they had found a previously inconceivable phenomenon: planets that do not appear to be anchored to a host star but instead wander the heavens.
In a two-year scan of the cosmos, 10 planets with roughly the mass of Jupiter, the largest planet of our Solar System, have been found at such enormous distances from the nearest star that some of them could be said to float freely through the Milky Way.
The investigation, published in the British science journal Nature, breaks new ground in the science of exoplanets, or planets that exist beyond our solar system.
3. Down these animated streets a man must go
A REVOLUTIONARY new video game that has virtually erased the line between movies and games has launched in America to rave reviews from critics and fans.
L.A. Noire, the work of the Australian developer Team Bondi with its partner Rockstar Games, ''changes the face of gaming'', according to USA Today. The Observer in Britain called it an ''entirely new'' gaming concept.
The big somewhere ... a scene from L.A. Noire, developed in Sydney and hailed by critics in the US as ‘‘changing the face of gaming’’.
The game will be released in Australia tomorrow. Its plot involves the adventures of a 1940s Los Angeles police detective. Much of the excitement comes from the use of groundbreaking MotionScan technology, which uses 32 cameras to record actors' facial expressions and then transfers them to animated figures.
The lead actor in the game, available tomorrow, is Aaron Staton, best known for his role in the hit TV series Mad Men.
''What the actor does goes straight into the game,'' said Brendan McNamara, the founder of Team Bondi. ''That brings a level of humanity to it that people haven't seen before.''
Don't lie to me ... a screen grab from the .A. Noire video game. Photo: Rockstar Games
The MotionScan process is so accurate that game players are able to interpret characters' facial expressions and body language to decide whether they are telling the truth.
''People do intuitively have a sense whether they think someone is lying or not,'' McNamara said. ''It's built into your brain to tell you whether you believe somebody or you don't. Everyone responds to that on an intuitive level, which is fun to see.''
Last month L.A. Noire, seven years in the making, became the first video game to be featured at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Film Festival, an experience McNamara called ''humbling''.
Hackers have reportedly hit the PlayStation Network again, sneaking in another attack just days after Sony brought its video game network back online following its weeks-long outage -- which itself resulted from an attack last month. This time, hackers can apparently change users' passwords on the network using only their victims' account email address and their date of birth. Sony asked users to reset passwords after the PSN network was first infiltrated. Personal information on up to 100 million customers had apparently been compromised.
5. Samsung Gets Down to the Nitty-Gritty With Super-Sharp Tablet Display
Samsung Electronics will demonstrate the first 10.1-inch tablet with a WQXGA PenTile screen at the SID Display Week symposium, to be held in Los Angeles May 17 to 19. The display offers a resolution of 2,560 by 1,600 pixels. The screen's resolution translates to 300 dpi, not too far behind the 326 dpi offered by the iPhone's Retina Display screen. Announcing the display, Samsung said it will be commercially available on tablets later this year. Samsung Electronics declined comment when contacted by TechNewsWorld.
6. Geek Wars: Attack of the Chromes
Last week was a really interesting week. Google brought out its Windows-killer product, the Chrome OS, to generally good reviews -- but most of the folks I know who have covered the desktop for years are convinced it will fail. Google also brought out a home automation product and announced a robotic car technology, all of which could benefit from some Apple magic. I actually like the idea of the Chrome OS, but the execution leaves me cold -- and you'd think that given the lack of success with its tablets, Google would take a different approach.
7. The Linux vs. Windows Security Mystery
Of all the many winning advantages Linux has in its favor, security is surely one of the more widely known examples. Why else, indeed, would we see security experts in mainstream publications recommending it over Windows for online banking purposes? That, indeed, is part of the reason it was so disappointing to see Linux get completely ignored in a recent NSA report entitled "Best Practices for Keeping Your Home Network Secure." The report is filled with various suggestions oriented toward Windows and Mac users -- just as one would expect, given that they're by far the majority today.
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