Select the directory option from the above "Directory" header!

"hardware systems" news, interviews, and features

Features about hardware systems

  • How Windows 8 rewrites the rules of PC gaming

    PC gaming is primed for a renaissance—or at least a reinvention—like we haven’t seen since the advent of 3D acceleration in the late 1990s. For this, we can thank the mobile revolution and all its attendant technologies. Game developers can now tap into accelerometers, touchscreens, and the cloud to add new features and gameplay scenarios. And even Microsoft’s comprehensive approach to Windows—merging desktops, tablets, and smartphones under a common code base—is changing the ways in which game creators should approach their work.

  • Hackintosh vs. Macintosh

    If you're thinking of buying a computer from Apple and opt for its cheapest "Mac mini" line, you'll be presented with several upgrade options at checkout.

  • Tablet smackdown: iPad vs Surface RT in the enterprise

    IPads are already making their way into businesses via bring-your-own-device efforts with Microsoft Surface RT tablets hoping to follow suit as employees lobby for their favorite devices. But which one makes more sense from an IT perspective?

  • 2013: Year of the hybrid cloud

    The time for dabbling in cloud computing is over, say industry analysts. 2013 is the year that companies need to implement a hybrid cloud strategy that puts select workloads in the public cloud and keeps others in-house.

  • "The Human Face of Big Data" offers a geek-out-worthy coffee-table book

    "The Human Face of Big Data" is an ambitious and attractive new large-format book that aims to give readers, through photography and short articles, a glimpse of how powerful new data processing capabilities are changing people's lives. Author Rick Smolan is a photographer who gained fame for his "Day in the Life" series, which included an edition focused on the Internet in 1996, "24 Hours in Cyberspace." He says that his latest work is based on the premise that "our planet is beginning to develop a nervous system."

  • Bye-bye, mouse. Hello, mind control

    When workplace computers moved beyond command-line interfaces to the mouse-and-windows-based graphical user interface, that was a major advance in usability. And the command line itself was a big improvement over the punch cards and tape that came before.

  • The TV is the new tablet: How gesture-based computing is evolving

    Few people watch television alone today, even when they're by themselves. Most are gravitating toward the multi-screen experience, in which viewers keep a smartphone, tablet or laptop close by so they can access the Web while they watch TV. But as televisions become smarter and gesture-based computing evolves, viewers may be able to mount and control everything they need on the living room wall.