Computer World-13: "Apple’s Notebook Computer"

Apple cut the price on its entry-level notebook computer to $999 and introduced a line of aluminum-clad machines stazrting at $1,299.

Grateful thanks to Deccan Chronicle, Chennai, Oct.16, 2008.

Computer World-12: "Supercomputer for $ 25,000!"

Cray and Microsoft have come up with a supercomputer. This supercomputer is called CX1 and it uses Windows HPC (High Performance Computing) Server 2008. As it comes with software, one can directly plug in and use it straight away. This will be useful wherever intense computing is required like simulation and modelling studies in life sciences and other areas.

Dotcom World-15: "Google Launches Mapping Tool in India"

Internet search engine giant Google on August 27, 2008 launched a mapping tool called Google Map Maker in India, which was conceived and developed by its Indian engineering team. This tool allows users to add or edit geographical features such as roads, businesses, parks, schools, apartment buildings and localities among others in the exiusting maps of their city, a release said.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Maduria, August 28, 2008 (From the “Business Page”).

Wikipedia articles on “Cartography” (Map Making) and “Google Map”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_maker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Map

Graterful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Computer World-10: "Dell Introduces Low-cost PCs"

Dell Inc unveiled four lost-cost computer models on August 27, 2008 desgined for China, India and otehr emerging economies. Prices for the new Vestro notebooks will start at 3,299 yuan ($475) and for the desktop PCs at 2,999 yuan ($440).

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, August 28, 2008 (“Business” page).

Wikipedia article on “DELL”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Inc

Grateful thanks to The Hindu.

Computer World-9: Laptop Computer for Rs.4000/-

IIT- Madras and IISc-Bangalore are planning on a Laptop Computer for students which will be available at Rs.4000/-.

Courtesy: ‘Ananda Vikatan’, Tamil weekly, August 13, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Ananda Vikatan.

Computer World-8 : “Bamboo PC !”

Dell, one of the biggest sellers of PCs, is aggressively pursuing a ‘green’ agenda. At its main design centre at Austin, Texas, USA, Dell engineers are working on an ultra small, extra light PC, which is small and encased in shiny, brown bamboo.

Bamboo is light, flexible and strong and can be given a great finish.

The new PC to be launched later this year promises to cut the size of a conventional desktop tower by 80% and reduce power requirement by some 70%.

The media has already named the PC as Bamboo PC.

Excerpts from “Coming soon, Bamboo PC?” by Anand Parthasarathy in The Hindu, Madurai, June 8, 2008.

Wikipedia article on “Dell”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell

Grateful thanks to Mr Anand Parthasarathy, The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Computer World-7: “PC sales in India”

30,35,591 Personal Computers were sold in India in 2003-04 as compared to 22,93,643 in 2002-03.

Courtesy: The Week, May 29, 2005.

Detailed article on “Personal Computers” from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computers

Article on “Gartner Says More than 1 Billion PCs In Use Worldwide and Headed to 2 Billion Units by 2014″
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=703807

BBC News article, “Computers reach one billion mark”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2077986.stm

Grateful thanks to The Week, Gartner Inc., BBC News World Service and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Computer World-6:" Intel Celebrates 40 Years of Innovation"

Bangalore: As part of its 40th anniversary celebrations, Intel Corporation on Friday (July 18, 2008) unveiled a ‘World Mural Project’, a digital artwork that “captures the vision of young people on how computers will transform the globe over the next 40 years.”

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, July 19, 2008
Article on “Intel Corporation” from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel
Grateful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia.

Computer World-5: "Videogame chips used to find oil!"

Repsol YPF, SA, Spain’s largest oil company, is using chips that IBM designed for videogame to find oil in water, as much as six times faster. The chips are an updated version of the PlayStation 3 game machine.

Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle, July 2, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Deccan Chronicle.

Computer World-4: "1000 GB OneTouch External Hard Disk” comes to India! – Anand Parthasarathy

Seagate’s ‘Maxtor OneTouch 4’ (one terabyte) external storage disk is coming to India. You can link it to a PC using USB connector. There are no buttons or switches. It sits alongside your PC like an oversized 1-kg aluminium paperweight. But connect it to your PC, most operations are reduced to a click or two, downloading and back up various drives of your PC or even retaining an exact mirror image of all the files on your PC or laptop using SafetyDrill Recovery CD provided.

The Hindu received for review, one of the first units to reach India and it is indeed “made for dummies.”

The asking price for the 1 TB (1000 GB) model is Rs.14,000, though you can also buy smaller capacity units starting at Rs.5,200 for 250 GB.

But be warned, if 1 TB seems like infinity now, it will be barely adequate next year. That is how the appetite for storage grows.

Excerpt from “OneTouch External Disk that can back up 1000 GB of Data” by Anand Parthasarathy, The Hindu, Madurai, May 25, 2008.

Articles on “Hard Disk Drive” and “Terabyte” with lot of interesting info from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabyte

Grateful thanks to Mr Anand Parthasarathy, The Hindu and Wikipedia.

Computer World-3: Healthy Growth in the Sales of PCs, Notebooks and Servers

The sales of PCs, Notebooks and Servers show a healthy trend.

Overall Personal Computer (including Notebooks) sales register a 16% growth in 2007-08, touching 73.4 lakh units. Of this, desktop computers account for 55.22 lakh units. During this period, server sales touched 1.22 lakh units.

PC sales expected to touch 85 lakh units in 2008-09.

While the number of active Internet entities (including individual and business users) was 60 lakh subscriptions by March 2008 and 72 lakh by March 2008.

Based on “Notebooks drive personal computer sales” by Special Correspondent, The Hindu, Madurai, July 9, 2008.

Grateful thanks to the Special Correspondent and The Hindu.

Computer World-2: Seven New Printers from Samsung

Samsung has identified its printer business as one of its “key growth engines” in 2008. The company has launched seven new printer models, including the Laser Printer-ML 2245, which has been specifically developed for the Indian market.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, July 9, 2008 (‘Snapshots’)

For an article on ‘Samsung Electronics’ from Wikipeida:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Electronics

Homepage of ‘Samsung Electronics’:
http://www.samsung.com/in/

Grateful thanks to The Hindu, Samsung Electronics and Wikipedia.

Computer World-1: AMD’s ‘Teraflop’ Graphics Cards

US-based chip maker AMD unveiled new graphics cards under its ATI label that promise a quantum jump in the ability to process and render visual still and moving images by taking the underlying processing power to the teraflop region.

On Tuesday ((July 8, 2008), the company announced the availability in India of two graphics cards in the ATI Radeon 4800 series that claimed to achieve industry milestones that were thought to be a decade away.

In effect, the cards will enable content creators to marry the ultra realism of today’s digital cinema with the interactive sensory experience of cyber games.

While dramatically cutting the time to perform compute-intensive tasks like rendering, from 30 hours for each frame to a few thousandth of a second, the cards would help film-makers add hitherto unachievable levels of audience participation in new cinematic products.

Vishal Goel, CEO of IndiaGames said , “This is a great boon for Bollywood… I am excited as a game developer at the opportunities for synergy between cinema and gaming that this opens”.

Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 would be available in India for about Rs.12,000 and Rs.16,000.

Excerpt from “AMD launches ‘teraflop’ graphics cards”
by Anand Parthasarathy, The Hindu, Madurai, July 9, 2008.
Grateful thanks to Mr Anand Parthasarathy and The Hindu.