Technology, Computers | featured news

A company based in the Congo says it is the first to launch a smartphone and tablet fully designed and engineered in Africa.

Sales of computers and tablets running Microsoft’s new operating system have been slow this holiday season, underscoring the challenges to the PC business.

Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company will produce one of its existing lines of Mac computers in the United States next year.

Intel is killing the desktop, but not quite as soon as people expect it to, there will be one last gasp, but that is irrelevant. Word is finally leaking there won’t be a desktop PC chip in a bit over a year. In a story that SemiAccurate has been following for several months, Broadwell will not come in an LGA package, so no removable CPU. The news was first publicly broken by the ever sharp PC Watch, english version here, but the news has been floating in the backchannel for a bit now. The problem? This information wasn’t floating around the OEMs or the majority of the PC ecosystem, they had no clue. What does all of this mean? Quite a bit.

The WITCH is back... The 2.5-ton machine, first constructed in the 1950s as part of an atomic research program, became the "world's oldest original working digital computer" after a museum in the UK restored and then rebooted it on Tuesday. Unlike today's nearly mute devices, the massive computer clicks, clacks and flashes like something out of an old sci-fi movie.

Hewlett-Packard Co. said that a British company it bought for $9.7 billion last year lied about its finances, resulting in a massive write-down of the value of the business. CEO Meg Whitman avoided calling it a fraud, but said Tuesday that there were "serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy Corporation PLC."

Chipmaker Intel just announced that CEO Paul Otellini, who has been on the job for eight years, will be retiring in May. People are going to wonder if Intel’s board is forcing Otellini out. They’ll point to Intel’s mandatory retirement age of 65. Otellini is only 62, and his predecessor Craig Barrett retired from the CEO job at 65 or 66. But apparently there’s no hard-and-fast rule at Intel. The legendary Andy Grove, the company’s third employee, served as its CEO from 1987 until 1997, retiring closer to age 61.

Advanced Micro Devices has hired JPMorgan Chase & Co to explore options, which could include a potential sale, as the chipmaker struggles to find a role in an industry increasingly focused on mobile and away from traditional PCs, according to three sources familiar with the situation.

Scientists at I.B.M. are reporting progress in a chip making technology that is likely to ensure the shrinking of the basic digital switch at the heart of modern microchips for more than another decade.

I have a hard drive with valuable information on it, but I can't seem to access it — the drive is either damaged or erased. Is there any way I can see what's on the drive and get it off?