Scientists at Hewlett-Packard have found a new type of component for an electrical circuit that, if developed, would mean that computers will never have to boot up (except for the first time, at least). They call it the memory resistor, or memristor. Details after the "read more" link below.

As more and more businesses across the globe switch to paperless environments and move their data from hard copies to the web, fears that printing may soon become trivial have risen. Hewlett-Packard, however, says it can adapt to the changing times.

The printer giant has introduced an umbrella strategy called "Print 2.0" and it's touted to change the way people think about printing. At the center of the plan are two jewels: a web-based application called Cloudpoint and the Apple iPhone.

In a nutshell, the idea behind Print 2.0 is built on the fact that most of today's printed content come from the web. With the introduction of the iPhone, mobile users were given a true OS with a fully functional browser. However, the small screen of the iPhone  raises the need to print things on its browser, so a software solution must be adopted to bridge the gap from cell phone to printer.

That's where Cloudpoint comes in. By visiting the HP-powered Cloudpoint service site at cloudprint.hpl.hp.com, users will be able to register, enter their number for verification and then select any PC connected to a printer and internet anywhere in the world to print text coming in encoded in PDA form.

"The world is going to flip. We want to ride the wave of the Web," says HP Labs Internet and Computing Platforms director Patrick Seaglia.

Manufacturers of Blu-ray Disc Burners in Taiwan have received a relatively high number of orders for the holiday season.

While Dell and Hewlett-Packard have placed orders only around 2,000 to 3,000 units of BD Burners on a single order for their PCs, retailers from America and Europe have made orders as large as 20,000 to 30,000 units.

The sources that gave the info indicate that the large number of orders may be in anticipation of the peak season for the market on the holidays. For now the manufacturers say that they can cope with the orders but should it increase, they believe they won't be able to catch up. Lasers used in the burners that are supplied by Japan may also fall into supply issues because of the increase in demand.

It's nothing new to the forefront in the high definition format wars. Samsung accomplished the same with their own BD-UP5000 - a decent marriage between Toshiba's HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-Ray. But it seems that hybrid drives (or combo drives as the techie world would like to put it) are the safest bet for everyone.

 

Enter Hewlett-Packard, a consumer and business computer solutions provider. They may lead in the printer camp, but they aren't any slackers in the PC camp either...well, not awful slackers, for the most part. According to a report by CNET News, HP will be sporting a HD-DVD and Blu-Ray internal drive for PCs in two models of their Pavilion line.

The Pavilion Media Center m8010y and the Pavilion d4890y will both sport a "triple writer, dual read" drive, come May 9, 2007. The drive is currently being offered as an optional drive for both systems, but there has yet to be a mention of it's model number, pricing and upgrade options for older Pavilions (including laptops) with HD-DVD drives.

World leader in computer manufacture Dell Computer's rough first quarter was all it took to allow competitors Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Acer to climb back into the fray and rack up some serious growth figures.

Apple Computers was the biggest gainer as it saw a whopping 30 percent increase in its worldwide shipments. Its total U.S. market share rose from four percent to five percent, sealing a fantastic initial quarter performance. Hewlett-Packard also saw sharp increases with a 28.2 rise in shipments and an ownage of 19.1 percent of the total market.

Asian computer powers Lenovo and Acer are also growing. The Chinese firm that acquired the respected IBM hardware wing has showing it can ship PCs by the truckloads to become the third largest computer vendor on the planet.  Acer posted similar figures.

Dell, on the other hand, seems unable to cope with the times. The former king had its shipments drop by a significant 14 percent while its total market share is now only second to HP. U.S. sales are down even though the market grew by a tenth this year.

The woes of the company may have started when bad press spread like wildfire regarding its notebooks with severe, and sometimes explosive problems. The company has yet to regain momentum after the hard blow to its reputation.

Following a media leak scandal involving the officials at Hewlett-Packard, HP chairman Patricia Dunn has agreed to resign from her position after discussing it with the board of directors. Mark Hurd, CEO and President of the company, will be taking over Dunn's position in the meantime, until their next scheduled board meeting to find a new chair.

The long-standing news about this leak scandal, which we haven't covered very much, is that someone leaked information about a strategy meeting HP officials and board members held at a resort, which was then turned into a news article in January. The media leak led to a boardroom fiasco about investigating the origin of the leak itself, and leadership decisions and clashes among directors prompted resignations from two other members of the board, George Keyworth and Thomas Perkins.

Recently, focus has shifted from the leak itself to the methods behind the investigation, which included the illegal access of phone records of at least nine journalists. We'll update the situation once more news has been uncovered.

If you hate doing laundry, the WiFi washers and dryers will enable you to hate doing your laundry from a distance. The brainchild of the Internet Home Alliance, the new Laundry Time system, outfits washers and dryers with WiFi and allows users to control the machines through e-mail, instant messaging, or cell phone. The WiFi washers can tell you when the wash and dry cycles are complete as well as accept commands to start, stop, or change cycles.

However, you can't tell your machines to sort and load your stinking clothes or unload it after washing it. WiFi or no WiFi, you can't make the washer transfer its load to the dryer. That, you still have to do yourself. Isn't that the part you hate?

So far, the only practical use for the WiFi washer and dryer is to alert you that the laundry is ready - if you live in a palace and you have a tendency to wander off and forget, that is. But nevertheless, the WiFi washer is a step forward. Or is it? Analyst Laura Champine says it is a solution searching for a problem to solve. "I've done my own laundry for four decades and I've never been away from my home and wondered how it's doing," she says. "Until the cell phone can load the dryer, I don't know how this technology will work for me."