pc

Eating your own, Microsoft style

Eat your own, or somebody else will. That's the new mantra in the device world.

Here's what Apple said this week on that topic.

In terms of cannibalization and how we think about this, I see cannibalization as a huge opportunity for us. One, our base philosophy is to never fear cannibalization. If we do, somebody else will just cannibalize it and so we never fear it. --Tim Cook.

This was said in response to an analyst's question during the company's first-quarter earnings conference call. Earlier in the call, Apple, in its prepared remarks, said that … Read more

Whoa. I should have upgraded to an SSD last year

Today I transformed my 2009 laptop into a machine that feels like it's from 2012.

All I did was rip out its 500GB spinning-rust hard drive from Seagate and popped in a 256GB Vertex 4 solid-state drive from OCZ. Now I'm kicking myself for not upgrading to an SSD a year ago.

If you're not up to speed on your PC components, here's the technical background on SSDs vs. HDs. For decades, hard drives handled storage chores by writing data as tiny magnetized patches on spinning platters. SSDs use flash memory chips instead, a design that … Read more

Four great game deals for PC and Wii

For the past several nights, my son and I have been battling orcs, wizards, wargs, and cave trolls -- and having a blast doing it.

Want to get in on that action? Ending today, Steam has LEGO Lord of the Rings (PC) for $14.99. That's half the regular price, and way less than half what I paid for the Xbox version just last month (grumble, grumble).

The LEGO games are all kinds of awesome. They're fun, funny, and challenging, with at least as many puzzles to solve as foes to dispatch. And there's not a trace … Read more

Amazon launches in-app buying for computer and online games

Those of you who play games from Amazon on your computer or over the Web will now be able to buy virtual items directly in the game.

Unveiled today, the new in-app purchasing service allows developers to set up their games so players can pay for virtual goods and currencies using their Amazon accounts. Previously, only Android and Kindle games in the Android Appstore were able to offer the in-app buying option. Now the feature extends to Amazon games for Windows PCs, Macs, and the Web.

Gamers wil find titles for the PC and Mac at Amazon's Digital Games store. … Read more

Sign up for SimCity beta -- if you can

Did you miss the last SimCity beta sign-up event? You're in luck, because EA and Maxis want to give you another chance to get in on the beta for the highly anticipated building game. There's a catch, though: beta builders only get to play a snapshot of game for up to 1 hour at any point between January 25 and January 28.

Amusingly, the actual process of signing up for the beta might be more difficult than playing the game itself, as the sign-up page seems to have some serious problems going on right now -- most likely because of a high influx of interested participants. … Read more

Intel CEO: The PC is shape-shifting into a tablet

In the wake of reporting weak profits today, Intel CEO Paul Otellini couldn't repeat enough that "radical" new PC designs will subsume the tablet experience.

Here are some of Otellini's comments that suggest that Intel and its PC partners are aggressively going after the tablet market with newfangled Windows 8 devices. Most of these comments came in response to analysts' questions.

Radical transformation:

We are in the midst of a radical transformation of the computing experience with the blurring of form factors and adoption of new user interfaces. It's no longer necessary to choose between … Read more

Get nine indie PC games for $5.91

Calling all gamers! Can you scrape together at least six bucks? For about the price of a venti cafe mocha, which takes maybe 10 minutes to drink, you can get enough games to last you maybe 10 months.

Yep, it's another Indie Gala game bundle, this time with nine PC titles that can be yours if you pay at least $5.91.

The games include the fantasy-action side-scroller Trine, city-management sim Cities in Motion, humor-tinged Diablo clone Magicka (along with mission pack Magicka: Vietnam), and blood-and-guts FPS Painkiller: Black Edition.

Most of these date back a few years and … Read more

Windows 8 fails to lift PC market as tablets soar, Gartner says

Research firm Gartner says that an estimated drop of 4.9 percent in worldwide PC sales over the fourth quarter has signaled a shift in the market.

In the fourth quarter, PC shipments worldwide fell by an estimated 4.9 percent, according to the research firm. A total of 90.3 million units were sold, but a shift in both consumer habits and the fragile state of the economy played a part in making sure PC manufacturers had little to celebrate as their products were shunned in favor of tablets.

Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner said:

"Tablets have … Read more

CES postscript: The touch laptop, like it or not

The laptop was reinvented at CES.

Or maybe I should say there was a vigorous attempt to reinvent the laptop. Because we won't know how successful touch has been until next year this time.

Intel's CES booth -- still a large presence in the CES Central Hall -- had one basic unmistakable message: touch has arrived.

Windows 8 convertibles, detachables, touch-screen laptops, and just plain tablets from Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Samsung, Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba, Sony, and others blanketed Intel's booth.

And just to make sure the touch message was crystal clear, Intel issued an edict to PC … Read more