News Blog

The Google Media Server gadget can send audio and video from a Windows PC to another device.

(Credit: Google)

Google has released a software module that can turn Windows PCs into devices that streams media files to other devices.

The Google Media Server is a gadget that works on the Google Desktop software. It sends the data to other devices over a Universal Plug-and-Play connection such as a Sony PlayStation 3, according to the Google Desktop blog.

With it, people can play videos and music and view photos on a PC. In addition, it can connect to Web sites including Google's YouTube for video and Google's Picasa for photos.

Intel is expected to bring out low-cost quad-core processors in the third quarter to compete with AMD's triple-core Phenom chip. One site is also posting specifications for upcoming Nehalem processors.

The Core 2 Quad Q8000 series will include the Q8200, which will be priced as low as $203, according to Chinese-language technology Web site HKEPC.

Tech Web site The Inquirer also cited an Intel slide with the processor.

The 45-nanometer Q8000 series will be relatively low performance and stripped down, running at a clock speed of only 2.33GHz and integrating only 4MB of cache memory.

The currently shipping Intel quad-core processor that comes closest to this is the popular Q6600, which runs at 2.4GHz and packs 8MB of cache memory. This is priced at $224. Typically, the more cache memory integrated into a processor, the better the performance.

An Intel Q8000 quad-core chip priced at $203 would still be more expensive, however, than an AMD triple-core Phenom. A triple-core Phenom processor 8750 (2.4GHz) is listed on AMD's processor pricing page at $195. The Phenom 8650 (2.3GHz) is listed at $165 and the Phenom 8450 (2.1GHz) at $145.

The price difference between a system using a Phenom and one based on a Core 2 Quad is typically even more stark at first-tier vendors like Hewlett-Packard, where it can be as much as $300. Presumably, a system with a Q8000 quad-core processor would fall below the Q6600-based system in price.

HKEPC is also posting specifications on Intel's upcoming Nehalem processor, which is based on a new architecture featuring a high-speed data transfer technology called QuickPath (PDF).

At least three Nehalem "Bloomfield" quad-core processors are slated for the fourth quarter, with speeds ranging between 2.66GHz and3.2GHz, targeted at the mainstream and high end of the market. The processors will also use a new "X58" chipset, according to the report.

Havoc Pennington has long been one of the pioneers of the Linux desktop movement, and a primary GNOME developer. Once at Red Hat, now at Litl (cool name, by the way), Havoc should be the poster boy for Linux desktop advocacy.

Nope.

In a recent blog post, Havoc rubbished the idea of anyone needing a new (traditional) desktop:

GNOME 2.0 and KDE 4 are bad models for change. They rewrote and broke the code, but from a user-goals perspective, they are the same thing as before. We shouldn't feel bad; Windows Vista made the same mistake. Nobody cares about Vista, because XP allows users to accomplish all the same goals. Even if Vista didn't have a bunch of regressions, nobody would really care about it.

The fact is that people already have a desktop. They don't want a new desktop from GNOME, from Apple, or from Microsoft. Making another desktop does not add anything to the world. On average, people who have GNOME want to keep it, and the same for the other desktops.

I agree. I've long argued that what is needed is not Yet Another Desktop, but rather a novel conception of what "desktop" means. Microsoft won the desktop war. Time to move on to the next battle. It's not about Vista or GNOME. It's about what "office productivity" means and where I do it.

Hint: Not in Office.

Worldwide PC shipments are on pace to grow 15.2 percent in 2008, according to IDC. That's above the analyst firm's March prediction of 12.8 percent growth. But laptop shipments, which have become an increasing force in the PC market, will peak.

Shipments of portable PCs should grow 34.5 percent this year, according to a PC shipment tracker that IDC released this week. That's up from 33.9 percent in 2007 and way above the projected 13.4 percent for next year. By 2012, according to the firm, portables will increase by only 9 percent.

PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard are betting big on notebooks. The company this week released 17 new models, mostly for consumers.

(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

By the end of the year, PC makers will have shipped 310 million units, close to half (145.1 million) of which are notebooks. The rest are desktop PCs and servers, which together on a global basis still comprise the largest slice of the market, but the difference is disappearing fast.

Portables are especially expected to take off internationally this year, growing from 78 million in 2007 to 109.4 million units this year. That's good news for the industry because notebooks and laptops tend to be pricier than desktop PCs, and they should keep average selling prices higher for a bit longer.

But inexpensive notebooks are stirring up the market too. A reason for the dramatic 40 percent bump in international portable shipments has a lot to do with how the numbers have been counted, according to IDC.

The firm said it had previously not included the rapidly growing low-cost mininotebook segment because of the "use of nontraditional PC designs, including the use of embedded or custom operating systems, (as well as) reduced processing power and storage," IDC said. But now, due to the popularity and computing robustness of the Asus Eee PC, the Classmate PC platform from Intel, and OLPC's XO, mininotebooks are included. Plus, the firm notes, the volume of units shipped are actually rising.

Those three manufacturers have some company in the consumer space. Acer, Hewlett-Packard, and perhaps Dell already have, or plan to release, their own tiny laptops.

AMD says it is on track to deliver a dual-core chip code-named Kuma, refuting speculation that certain Kuma models have been canceled.

"The speculation is completely untrue," said AMD spokesman Jake Whitman. "We're still on track to launch a dual-core--code-named Kuma--part in the second half of '08. It will be 65 nanometers, still be based on the Star's core. So, that's coming."

He also disassociated Kuma from Phenom, as speculated in some articles. "We have never said anywhere along the lines that Kuma was somehow associated with Phenom," he said. "Dual-core Phenom? I've never seen that on a road map."

Phenom is a line of desktop processors available in triple-core and quad-core versions.

AMD did state when the Phenom line was launched that there could be a dual-core variant, Whitman said. But this concept has never been realized and Phenom has never been branded as part of Kuma. "We have never branded that code name."

Probably more germane to AMD's future plans was a report issued Wednesday by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) that projected 2008 chip sales growth of 4.3 percent in 2008, revising down the previous growth forecast of 7.7 percent. This news caused both AMD and Intel shares to fall on Wednesday.

"Continued strong competition in memory chips--principally DRAMs--will result in slower growth in 2008," the SIA said.

However, processors--Intel's and AMD's main business--should still see healthy growth. "Microprocessors, which account for roughly 14 percent of total semiconductor revenues, have experienced healthy unit sales growth to date in 2008, and revenues are expected to grow over 10 percent per year for the next two years," the SIA said.

"Sales of personal computers, the largest single market for semiconductors, continue to be strong, especially in emerging markets," the report said.

With the industry doing back flips about server virtualization, it is only natural to wonder what virtualization technology can do for desktops. Plenty! With desktop virtualization, organizations can manage desktop images in the data center and employ strict security policies without touching physical devices. Enterprises should be able to cut operating costs while bolstering security to boot.

No one would argue that these benefits are worth exploring, but there are a few caveats here. First off, not all desktops are good candidates for virtualization. Anyone who needs massive endpoint compute power, like engineers and designers, would not be a good candidate for desktop virtualization. Road warriors who need to work remotely are also off limits at this point. Finally, employees anchored to local or remote desktop tower computers may be better served by application virtualization (a la Citrix XenApp or Symantec AppStream) or file virtualization (a la F5 or Cisco Systems) rather than a desktop virtualization play.

When the virtualization smoke clears, large enterprises will deploy a number of virtualization technologies best suited for different types of users. Like everything else in the IT world, desktop virtualization isn't black and white but many shades of gray. Alas, as promising as desktop virtualization is, it is not a panacea and never will be.

It may be sitting pretty atop the PC market, but Hewlett-Packard isn't going to sit still.

The world's largest PC manufacturer plans to roll out 50 new products Tuesday at a conference in Berlin, the largest such product refresh in the Personal Systems Group's history. Of those products, HP added new touches to just about everything, freshening up its TouchSmart all-in-one desktop, commercial and consumer notebook lines, as well as two machines within its high-end gaming brand, Voodoo PC.

The new TouchSmart: It lost a lot of weight in the past year. Click on the image to see more pictures of HP's new lineup.

(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

While it's that time of year for product refreshes, this is more than the usual speed bump or spec tweak. Though competitors like Dell, Acer, and Lenovo are increasingly focusing on consumer retail PCs, HP is showing that it doesn't want to give up any of the ground it's gained over the last couple quarters.

"They're fortunate for being in right place at right time: being in consumer, and being in retail," said Richard Shim, PC analyst with IDC. "They're showing they're not taking that for granted, and keeping consumers engaged in the products."

It's a tough task when most PCs are made by the same manufacturers with products from shared suppliers. That's where HP hopes its new and improved TouchSmart PC comes in.

It's slimmed down in size--far more minimalist in design concept--and price compared with the original model, but the key is really the improved touchscreen interface. Exterior design used to be a way to stand out, but with a category in decline like desktops, a unique software experience could be an attention-getter.

Offering an experience that you can't get from a Windows-based Dell, or even an Apple iMac, is complicated, said Shim. "That really separates the major players from the minor players, since only the big guys can afford to do this kind of thing. HP is taking advantage of its position in the market."

The new HP-only interface is also a kind of "end-run" around Microsoft's Windows we'll be seeing more often, said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for The NPD Group.

It's already happening in the mininotebook category, where instead of being limited to one option for an operating system, PC vendors are offering different flavors of Linux, as well as alternate interfaces that sit on top of Windows.

Design continues to be a priority for HP, as evidenced by the new products, from the high-end to the refreshed line of consumer notebooks, to the new brushed aluminum finish for its commercial Elite line.

But it's the Voodoo brand where HP is most able to experiment with new looks.

Last week, Rahul Sood, Voodoo PC's founder and current CTO of HP's global gaming business, released photos of him cutting his birthday cake with the famously thin MacBook Air. In the accompanying blog, Sood slyly remarked that he "wouldn't be needing this notebook for long anyways."

The Voodoo Envy 133

(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

That's because HP's got its own razor-thin notebook now, called the Voodoo Envy 133. Though the price (starts at $2,099) puts the machine out of reach for most mainstream PC buyers, the ultrathin and light Envy is HP's attempt to position the Voodoo brand name in the same arena as Apple and Lenovo. For now Voodoo still has limited awareness outside the gaming and performance PC enthusiast crowds. As with the Blackbird 002 gaming desktop, the Envy will tie HP's recognizable brand to up-and-coming Voodoo.

The other Voodoo product released Tuesday is a departure for the brand in another way. A new gaming tower, the Voodoo Omen, is unlike anything HP has released before, and has no real counterpart in terms of design in the gaming world. The Omen is stark and simple on the outside, with brushed aluminum tower with the Voodoo logo on the face replacing colorful plastic. It's nearly the exact opposite of last year's Blackbird, or Acer's recent foray into the market.

Despite all this, there's still big challenges for HP ahead as it attempts to differentiate its products from the rest of the field and offer a wide array of products. Not only are they trying to take on Apple in terms of design and innovation, but it's still doing battle with and old, but suddenly resurgent foe, Dell. Plus, Acer is selling notebooks like hotcakes, and even Asus is trying to push its way into the consciousness of the mainstream PC buyer.

So despite the progress the company has made, HP can't get comfortable.

"The challenge for them, is that other guys will do same thing," observed Shim of IDC. "The difficulty for HP is to integrate new technology and new innovation and still remain price competitive."

Pictures of the Eee Monitor, the upcoming all-in-one desktop PC from Asus, have surfaced.

A PC World reporter at the Computex trade show in Taipei snapped a few photos of a company slide showing the Eee Monitor. Head here for the images.

It appears quite iMac-esque--shiny and white with a minimalist design. And although Asus isn't confirming a price just yet, it's a fair assumption that the Monitor, part of Asus' low-cost Eee line, won't have an iMac-esque price tag.

Details surfaced in January suggesting a $499 price point. The Eee Monitor is supposed to use Intel's Shelton platform and include a TV tuner, and a display between 19 inches and 21 inches.

It should be available in September, which is almost a year after new all-in-one PCs from Dell and Gateway began to hit the market.

Everyone in the IT industry is doing back flips over server virtualization, begging the obvious question: What about the desktop?

There is already a lot of tire kicking going on. According to ESG Research, 8 percent of large organizations have already deployed desktop virtualization, 9 percent are piloting desktop virtualization, and 32 percent are currently evaluating desktop virtualization.

Yup, the industry is about to go ga-ga over virtualization again. Desktop virtualization makes a ton of sense because of:

1. Complexity
Since the introduction of the IBM PC in the 1980s, we've yet to figure out how to manage thousands of distributed PCs, let alone mobile laptops. Desktop virtualization could make this a heck of a lot easier when administrators manage desktop images in a data center rather than chase physical devices around the globe.

2. Security
Unless you work at some nouveau fascist organization, you can't go locking down endpoints or imposing draconian security rules on users. Desktop virtualization could solve this quandary. How? Users would have one virtual desktop image with certain policies and privileges for work and another for personal use. Want to take a look at the latest Beyonce video on YouTube from your office? No problem. Switch over to your personal desktop and go ahead.

3. Mobility
Pretty soon, I'm going to want the same desktop image on different PCs and other devices. Desktop virtualization is the best bet to deliver on this promise.

At the risk of sounding like an IT marketing cliche, desktop virtualization could be a win-win. IT gets operational simplicity and security while users get freedom of choice. With virtualization in place, users can bring in their familiar Macs and do their jobs without a hitch. Sure, the burden goes to the data center and the network, but aren't we headed in that direction anyway?