New PC Info

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HP unveils plans for the gaming interface
from Games (80 articles)

April 10, 2007 Hewlett Packard is expanding into online, mobile and PC gaming. With the international gaming market estimated at US$36 billion, a figure so immense it eclipses the GDP of entire countries, it is easy to see why. HP acquired VoodooPC last September (2006), and last week revealed a number of initiatives that have obviously resulted from the two companies integrating their core skills. The developments promise much more immersion for gamers in the future with HP showing a large, curved screen designed to fill a gamer’s entire field of vision, a high resolution “super projector” purpose-built for projecting multi player games on a large surface and a method of superimposing “multimedia digital experiences” on physical landscapes, enabling people to play a game throughout a city with wireless handheld devices.

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Mobility - Well, sure, it's the big one. If you need to work remotely, a laptop is the way to go. Remember that a 3G card from your cell phone provider can give you high-speed internet access in most urban areas.

Storage - One of the major places where laptops and desktops differ is in how much hard drive space they offer. Laptops use physically smaller drives, which can only offer so much storage space. Though larger drives are available, 100GB is still common on a laptop, while 500GB desktop drives are seen all the time (again, bigger drives can be had). This is a huge difference and it seems to be expanding, not contracting. If you have very large storage needs, desktop is your best bet.

Graphics and Gaming - You said you run a business so I don't expect this is a big deal for you, but with Vista it's important to consider graphics now, no matter what kind of user you are. Laptop graphics have come a long way, but I'd still say only 50 percent have really sufficient graphics processors. On the other hand, you can outfit any PC with perfectly good graphics for $100... and you can upgrade it later.

Upgrades - Speaking of upgrades, it's more difficult to upgrade a laptop. In some cases, it's impossible: Sure, you can pop in a new hard drive later, but adding a second hard drive means plugging in an external disk that will be ***bersome to tote around with you. Many laptop optical drives can't really be upgraded at all, nor can motherboards or CPUs. Laptop repairs are far more expensive and difficult than desktop PC repairs.


Peripherals - Remember that when you're in the office, you can always plug in an external mouse, keyboard, and monitor to your laptop.

Price - Expect to pay $300 to $500 more for a comparably equipped laptop (though this varies widely).


Other considerations are about the same, to be honest. CPU and RAM are about equal on laptops and desktops now, unless you're considering an ultra-high-end PC.

I obviously can't make the buying decision for you, but I'll reiterate my computer plan in case you haven't seen it before. I use both: a moderately-priced laptop is with me on a daily basis, syncing up with an inexpensive desktop that works as a print and file server. The desktop works as a machine for my daily backups, has plenty of storage for stuff I don't need to take with me on the road (or to other rooms of the house), has two printers hooked up to it, accepts incoming faxes, and otherwise stands as a backup in case something fails on my laptop. My laptop, however, is where I do most of my work. Sure I could get by with just a notebook PC, but having both makes things so much easier.

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July 26, 2007 Just how fast does wireless data transfer have to get before it ceases to be a limiting factor in application design? Researchers in Georgia are working on new ultra-high-frequency radio technology that has already achieved a phenomenal 15 gigabits per second (Gbps) over short distances. For reference, that’s a whole DVD worth of data transferred in a little over 3 seconds – and they’re hoping to double that speed within 12 months. With such transfer rates available, high-definition media streaming and file sharing becomes a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair. Backups and full hard drive synchronization between different machines will be quick and painless, and distributed application and file sharing around networks will become, for the most part, something the user will simply not have to think about. It’s estimated at about three years from hitting the market, but this amazing technology is set to make big waves.

New research at the Georgia Institute of Technology could soon make that tangle of wires under desks and in data centers a thing of the past.

Scientists at the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at Georgia Tech are investigating the use of extremely high radio frequencies (RF) to achieve broad bandwidth and high data transmission rates over short distances.

Within three years, this “multi-gigabit wireless” approach could result in a bevy of personal area network (PAN) applications, including next generation home multimedia and wireless data connections able to transfer an entire DVD in seconds.

The research focuses on RF frequencies around 60 gigahertz (GHz), which are currently unlicensed—free for anyone to use—in the United States. GEDC researchers have already achieved wireless data-transfer rates of 15 gigabits per second (Gbps) at a distance of 1 meter, 10 Gbps at 2 meters and 5 Gbps at 5 meters.

“The goal here is to maximize data throughput to make possible a host of new wireless applications for home and office connectivity,” said Prof. Joy Laskar, GEDC director and lead researcher on the project along with Stephane Pinel.

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PC-to-cell sync software: Fellow blogger Chris Null found a couple of cool services that'll help you sync files from your desktop to your phone. DMailer lets you transfer any file to your phone, including all your Outlook e-mail, events and contacts—nice. Meanwhile, Migo does much the same thing, except it specializes in multimedia such as music, video, and photos.

Of course, there were literally hundreds of new devices and services at CTIA that I failed to mention, and I've spared you the details of Steve Ballmer's keynote about Microsoft's wireless enterprise plans (this is a gadget blog, after all). For all that and more, check out FierceWireless' exhaustive coverage of the show.