File this in your hard drive under the title of "Given the state of national economies in the EU, doesn't the EC have more important things to do?"

The European Commission opens an investigation into storage industry consolidation, referencing "competition" concerns. Brussels regulators are reportedly "alarmed" there will be only three global HDD makers left standing if two US companies (Seagate and WD) are allowed to--as planned-- absorb their Asian competitors (Samsung HDD for $1.4bn for Seagate Continue reading...

It was only inevitable-- a company (Xi3, in this case) puts Chromium OS in a modular desktop PC, naming the result "ChromiumPC".

Chromium is the open source variant of Google's cloud-based Chrome OS, recently on the headlines with the Chromebooks' announcement.

A single- or dual-core processor will power the ChromiumPC, within a modular design consisting of three components-- processor module (contains CPU and RAM), primary I/O module ("the majority of external communications ports") and secondary Continue reading...

DisplayLink announces the OEM availability of its SuperSpeed USB 3.0 DL-3000 display controller chip series-- now with virtual graphics technology.

The company says the chip series allows the development of high performance, high resolution and compact PC peripherals, such as universal docking stations, USB monitors, PC to TV adapters and zero clients with USB plug and play connectivity.

The platform's features include single IC support for up to x2 HD displays, HDCP 2.0 support, integrated multi-channel Continue reading...

Gartner reports EMEA PC shipments total 26.1m units in Q1 2011-- a 2.8% decline from Q1 2010 (where shipments totalled 26.9m).

This is the first show of decline for the EMEA market since Q3 2009, where the market declined by 8.9%.

Such decline, according to Gartner, is due to excess inventory accumulating from Q4 2010's end. Such stock was reduced slowly, particularly as delayed Sandy Bridge products entered the market in March.

This year also sees Q4 2010's downward trend continuing into Q1 Continue reading...

The 80's are making a comeback-- Commodore USA launches a new version of the classic C64, looking just like one remembers, complete with beige-gray body and chunky keyboard.

Of course the innards are new, as it carries a 1.8 GHz dual-core Intel Atom D525 processor, NVidia Ion 2 graphics card and 2/4Gb of DDR2 memory (as opposed to the original's 64k).

Instead of cartridge and joystick ports customers will find HDMI and USB ports, with DVD/blu-ray drives as an additional option.

The machine ships Continue reading...

Gelid Solutions launches its 1U cooler for Sandy Bridge CPUs, the Slim Silence iPlus.

Designed to fit most Intel sockets (including 775, 1156, and 1155), the 28mm high cooler supports CPU TDP of up to 82W. It carries what Gelid say is a high performance heatpipe, copper plate and a frameless silent fan.

The fan carries Gelid's PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) control to ensure silent operation and only accelerating fan speeds when necessary.

Go Gelid Slim Silence iPlus

Celux upgrades its mini PC range at CeBIT 2011, ideal for customers lacking in space while still wanting a bit of processing kick.

The Micro Two is the smallest of the two, measuring 23 x 23 x 8cm and weighing around 3kg. Inside is an Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge processor, either 2, 4 or 8GB of DDR3 SDRAM and a 128GB SSD for storage. Ports include x2 USB 3.0, DisplayPort, DVI-out and HDMI, while ethernet and wifi provide internet connections.

It comes in either white or black, and comes complete Continue reading...

Formerly known as Light Peak, Intel's connection technology-- now known as Thunderbolt-- is currently available in LaCie and Promise HDDs, as well as Apple's latest MacBook Pro laptops.

Using x5 copper wire pairs (2 handling uploads, 2 handling downloads, 1 for side channel traffic) over PCI-E (on motherboard) and DisplayPort, Thunderbolt carries up to 10Gbit/s of bidirectional data transfer-- 2x faster than USB 3.0 (or 12x faster than FireWire 800).

It also handles data synchronisation across Continue reading...