John G. Spooner

According to a new report by Gartner, PC manufacturers have cut annual failure rates on their desktop and notebook PCs by about 25 percent over the past two years. But PC reliability—the main enemies are motherboards and hard drives—could still be improved in some areas, especially for notebooks, the Stamford, Conn., firm said in the […]

Advanced Micro Devices on June 23 announced plans to build a new chip manufacturing plant in New York state. The chip maker, which has seen market share gains of late against rival Intel, said it would build the new plant—or fab, in industry parlance—in Saratoga County, in upstate New York near Albany. The plant is […]

Dell says its investigating an incident in which one of its laptops is said to have caught fire. The event, detailed in a report by the Inquirer.net, saw the Dell laptop produce smoke and then catch fire during a business conference in Japan. The Web publication is hosting several pictures of the event on its […]

PITTSBURGH—Robotics industry executives, in an effort to grow their nascent market, are hoping to borrow some experience from the PC business. Several executives, speaking to attendees here at the RoboBusiness Conference & Expo on June 20, said the market for mobile robots—bots that move on their own and can interact with their surroundings—is eyeing steady […]

PITTSBURGH—Microsoft has robot dreams. The company on June 20 released a community technical preview or beta of its Microsoft Robotics Studio. The companys robotics software development suite, previewed here at the Robo Business 2006 Conference, is designed to grant robot designers a framework for creating the code that serves as the brains behind the various […]

Despite having been on the market only a few months, ultramobile PCs, the keyboard-less handheld computers capable of running Windows XP, have already been panned by analysts and many reviewers. Now theyre being targeted by the likes of Sony and startup OQO, who are offering their own diminutive computers for businesses. But Microsoft and partners—the […]

Intel is about to deliver the opening salvo in a wave of multicore processors that could ultimately lead to chips with scores of cores. The chip maker will begin the rollout of its Core Microarchitecture—new chip circuitry that emphasizes power efficiency—June 26 with the arrival of the dual-core “Woodcrest” Xeon 5100-series server chip. But Intel […]

Intel is about to deliver the opening salvo in a wave of multicore processors that could ultimately lead to chips with scores of cores aboard. The chip maker will begin the rollout of its Core Microarchitecture—new chip circuitry that emphasizes power efficiency—June 26 with the arrival of the dual-core “Woodcrest” Xeon 5100 series server chip. […]

The PC markets outlook is improving, a new report says. IDC has raised its forecasts for shipment growth in 2006, 2007 and 2008 following a first-quarter 2006 that topped expectations. The improved outlook for 2006 comes thanks to notebooks continued strength and despite the combination of delays with broad availability of Microsofts Windows Vista operating […]

Dell is still hungry for more. Kevin Rollins, CEO of the worlds largest PC manufacturer, said Dell is going through a shake-up—something he said seems to happen every four or five years at the company—but that it will emerge stronger than ever. The Round Rock, Texas, PC maker has faced a series of problems of […]