Can you handle the truth? In the past seven days, Reg Hardware reviewed many products from the worlds of consumer electronics and mobile communications.… Full published article at: Read More »

Dawinderpal Sahota, Computing, Friday 3 September 2010 at 16:19:00 NASA's preferred headset provider uses disk fragmentation software Headset manufacturer Plantronics has deployed Diskeeper software to prevent disk fragmentation slowing down its PCs. The company has installed the product across its 250 associate offices across Europe, at a price of “£20-something per user, per year”, according to Philip Jones, IT manager at Plantronics Europe. “Prior to having Diskeeper, we were like a lot of companies; we had hard disk failure, data corruption and performance slowdown. Performance slowdown is very common, at work or at home, we’ve all...Read More »

The opposite of NIL desperandum Seagate may be facing the abandonment of a favoured future technology as the price for hard disk drive (HDD) industry unity.… Full published article at: Read More »

Evolution and management of the client computing environment Let's face it, the desktop and laptop environment is one of the major points at which the rubber meets the road when it comes to business computing.… Full published article at: Read More »

Dave Bailey, Computing, Friday 3 September 2010 at 13:26:00 It's a broadband beauty contest, says analyst. BT's infrastructure arm Openreach is to trial a scheme allowing communication providers (CPs) to nominate exchanges they want upgraded to fit in with their fibre rollout plans. However, Openreach said the scheme is only open from September to December 2010, is limited to CPs already buying Openreach’s Generic Ethernet Access (GEA) product, and that involvement in the scheme is subject to "certain commercial commitments" being met. The exchanges would need upgrading due to fibre being required to run...Read More »

IBM looking peaky IDC's latest quarterly disk storage tracker shows EMC and HP competing for the market lead, with EMC growing faster than HP. NetApp is growing faster still but has a lot of ground to make up.… Full published article at: Read More »

Dave Bailey, Computing, Friday 3 September 2010 at 11:17:00 Network giant making waves in the smart grid metering services market Network giant Cisco has announced its intention to acquire IP wireless smart grid pioneer Arch Rock Corporation. Buying the San Francisco-based firm would "position Cisco as a strategic partner to utilities working to better manage power supply and demand," said Cisco's smart grid business unit general manager Laura Ipsen. "Arch Rock's wireless mesh technology enhances Cisco's IP-based, end-to-end smart-grid offerings," added Ipsen. Arch Rock's IP wireless mesh technology is designed to allow utilities to connect...Read More »

Apple flavoured? More laptops have been announced at the IFA show by Samsung. This time it's the "premium" QX series - given a "airfoil design exterior" that's aluminium clad like as certain fruit-branded manufacturer's notebooks.… Full published article at: Read More »

Worldwide recall of ball burners Toshiba and US and Canadian consumer watchdogs are recalling three laptop models after receiving reports that people have been burned by the AC adapters.… Full published article at: Read More »

Mobile chips warming up as PC chips chill While chip makers are not white-knuckled with fear as they were during the economic meltdown of late 2008 and early 2009, they were hoping that the recent boom in chip sales would hold for a couple of quarters — and it probably won't.… Full published article at: Read More »