Michael Brown

Microsoft has announced the availability of Power Pack 2 for Windows Home Server, a collection of important new features and bug fixes for the consumer-oriented server operating system the company first shipped in 2007.

Novatel announces a new device that enables users to create a personal mobile Wi-Fi hotspot using their cell-phone service.

Can’t you just hear Dr. Evil reading this statement: “Logitech announced today that it has manufactured one billion mice since it first started producing the digital rodents for retail in 1985.”

AMD’s success in the mid-range GPU market isn’t going to be enough to compensate for the pummeling it’s gotten in the CPU market. AMD is warning Wall Street that its fourth-quarter 2008 prospects are even dimmer than previously thought.

With USB 2.0 ports becoming a common as dirt—you’ll find them in everything from mobile phones to DVD players these days—you know the time has come to move on to a new version. And that’s just what the USB 3.0 Promoter Group announced today.

S3 Graphics is the Rodney Dangerfield of the graphics industry. The company’s Chrome GPUs just don’t get much respect. But the latest model, the Chrome 530 GT, has a feature that neither ATI nor Nvidia can currently match.

PhysX, the physics-acceleration technology developed by Ageia and later acquired by Nvidia, has always had the capacity to impress. But it’s taking a very long time for the eye-popping effects seen in demos to show up in retail games.

If PC gaming is dying, as many have claimed, why are gaming-oriented PCs selling so well? Market analyst Jon Peddie estimates that the market for PC gaming hardware stands at $20 billion today—and predicts it will expand to $34 billion by 2012.

Microsoft took the wraps off its new Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 today at the RoboDevelopment Conference in Expo in Santa Clara, California.

Check Point Software Technologies is celebrating its 15th anniversary tomorrow by giving away free copies of its vaunted firewall software ZoneAlarm Pro 2009.

AMD will release next month a new version of its ATI Catalyst driver suite that unlocks stream-processing technology that currently lies dormant in ATI Radeon HD 4000 series videocards.

A notebook computer is stolen every 52 seconds, according to statistics compiled by the FBI; 97 percent of them are never recovered. How much sensitive personal information is stored on your machine? Is it encrypted? Probably not.

Meraki hopes it can succeed where larger players such as Earthlink and Google failed: Making a business out of providing the infrastructure for citywide Wi-Fi systems.

When is a standard not really standard? When it’s the proposed IEEE P1901 standard for powerline networking, which the IEEE P1901 Working Group will once again take under consideration when it meets in San Francisco November 4-6.

Graphics processors shipments increased in the third quarter of 2008 by the biggest margin in six years, defying expectations in light of a presumed global recession according to industry analyst Dr. Jon Peddie, of Jon Peddie Research.

The deteriorating worldwide economy had a negative impact on PC shipments in the third quarter of 2008, according to IDC market analysts, but HP managed to retain its leadership position while Dell came in second.

Gateway announced two new desktop PCs today, the gaming-oriented FX6710 and the LX6200, which the company says was designed with “digital media enthusiasts” in mind.

Intel’s Atom processor has shown up in a fair number of portable devices, thanks to its small size and very low power consumption, but Trigem USA has tapped the tiny processor for its Averatec All-in-One desktop machine.

Remember Gamer Grub? Inventor Keith Mullin claims his “cognitive performance snacks” will “boost your brain and speed your reaction time” to make you a more competitive gamer.

The IEEE P1901 Working Group once again failed to reach a consensus on a draft standard for broadband-over-power-line networking at its most recent meeting in Madrid, Spain.

Just in case the whir of fans and the occasional tick-tick of a hard drive doesn’t provide enough clues that that yes, your PC really is powered on, Lexar Media is now offering its LED-laden Crucial Ballistix Tracer SDRAM in DDR3 trim.

EVGA has announced a new motherboard based on Nvidia’s popular nForce 790i SLI chipset. The EVGA 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM delivers a bevy of electronic, mechanical, and BIOS features to facilitate aggressive overclocking.

Considered a water-cooled gaming rig, but haven’t had the nerve to mix electronics and liquids? Visionman Computers has just announced a new gaming PC that features a water-cooled dual-core CPU that sells for $999.99.

If Keith Mullin has his way, we might soon see a sixth food group in the USDA’s Food Pyramid: Cognitive Performance Snacks. Mullin calls his invention "Gamer Grub" and maintains that it is “formulated to boost your brain and speed reaction times."