Intel reveals the future of Thunderbolt technology at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show-- boosting data rates from 10Gbps to 20Gbps in both directions.

Seen in prototype form, Thunderbolt 2.0 (codenamed "Falcon Ridge") allows simultaneous 4K file transfer and display, and improves speeds via implementation of PCIe 3.0 technology outside the PC.

Falcon Ridge makes use of copper cables, is backwards-compatible with 1st generation Thunderbolt cables and connectors, and should Continue reading...

Microsoft confirms its Windows plans following leaks of "Blue"-- an even more tablet-centric Windows 8 update described by pundits as yet another step towards the end of the Windows desktop.

According to the leak Blue overhauls the Windows 8 PC Settings app, putting more Control Panel functionality within a touch-friendly UI. It also includes a handful of new gesture controls, 2 more Live Tile sizes, half-screen app snapping, further SkyDrive integration, 4 new Start Screen apps (Alarms, Calculate, Sound Recorder and Movie Moments) and Android-style screenshot sharing.

The company admits the leak in an official blog entry by Corporate Communications VP Frank X. Shaw, who says "product leaders across Microsoft are working together on plans to advance our devices and services, a set of plans referred to internally as “Blue.”"

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) believe they have the secret to more robust, "self-healing" processors-- building chips able to keep on working even after laser blasts.

The failure of a single transistor often renders most chips out of service. Not with the Caltech chips. The prototypes (power amplifiers of the mobile phones kind) carry a number of robust sensors measuring temperature, current, voltage and power while feeding into an application-specific integrated-circuit (ASIC) unit.

The ASIC unit measures chip performance and adjusts system actuators (the changeable parts of the chip) by drawing conclusions based on aggregate response from the sensors.

Shuttle shows off additions to its All-in-One (AIO) PC range at CeBIT 2013-- including the Shuttle AIO Barebone X70S, a 18.5-inch version of its  15.6-inch machines.

The X70S is the first Shuttle AIO with an LGA1155 socket allowing it to carry conventional Intel desktop processors (Intel Core i3/i5/i7) with up to 65W TDP.

The 5.7 x 46.8 x 36.4cm chassis includes x2 SO-DIMM slots (for a total of 16GB of DDR3 RAM), space for a 2.5-inch HDD or SSD, mini-PCIe slot, x2 USB 3.0 and x6 USB 2.0 ports, Continue reading...

MSI claims its latest all-in-one (AIO) PC on show at CeBIT 2013 is ideal for the more gaming-oriented customer-- the AG2712, a desktop featuring a 27-inch multitouch display and fairly solid specifications.

While it looks similar to other AIO PCs, the AG2712 carries either Core i7 or 15 processor, Nvidia 670MX graphics and THX TruStudio Pro audio processing. Connectivity options include wifi, ethernet, USB 3.0 and HDMI.

The display handles 1920 x 1080 resolution and comes with a wide-angle matte Continue reading...

The PC desktop of the future might leap from the 2 dimensions of old-- MIT graduate Jinha Lee presents the SpaceTop at the 2013 TED conference, a 3D desktop environment where users "reach inside" the computer.

First developed at Microsoft Applied Science, the SpaceTop desktop unites 2D touch-based UIs, gesture-based control systems (such as Leap Motion or Kinect devices) and 3D visuals with the combination of transparent LED display, keyboard and a pair of cameras.

Users place their hands behind the transparent display, which acts as a "box" one manipulates the UI in. One camera tracks hand gestures in 3 dimensions (allowing users to grasp and flick through objects on the display) while the other camera tracks eye position to maintain the illusory 3D environment on the display.

SpaceTop demos shows different interactions, including one where one hand scrolling through a document before the other reaches up and flips through a pile of folders and another where a 3D model is created with free-form manipulation.

Nvidia reveals what it claims is the fastest single-GPU graphics card yet-- the GeForce GTX Titan, a card bringing Nvidia's Kepler technology to the high-end consumer segment.

The Titan carries 2688 CUDA cores (around 1000 more than the previous Nvidia single-GPU flagship, the GTX 690), a GK110 GPU and 6GB DDR5 RAM, allowing it to reach performances of up to 4.5 teraflops (single precision) or 1.3 teraflops (double precision).

Cooling comes through a combination of vapor chamber and extended Continue reading...

A development by University College London (UCL) might just bring an end to the infamous blue screen of death-- a "systemic" computer able to instantly recover from crashes by repairing corrupt data.

The researchers say the self-healing computer takes inspiration from the apparent chaos of nature. The computer divides context-sensitive data and instructions into small systems (each with own memory allocation) before choosing the order tasks are executed via pseudorandom number generator.

Systems carry out instructions simultaneously, with computation results emerging from random interaction. It sounds like something that shouldn't work, but apparently it not only does, but does so much faster than expected.

"[Natural] processes are distributed, decentralised and probabilistic," UCL computer scientist Peter Bentley tells New Scientist. "And they are fault tolerant, able to heal themselves. A computer should be able to do that."