hp

If we didn't know better, we might think that some of the marketing people at Hewlett-Packard had discovered some new recreational activities. It started off simple enough, with a mildly interesting design for a new Bluetooth mouse. Then the "Clay" laptop was a little weird, but we thought it just wasn't our taste.

But its latest offering is about as subtle as a Peter Max litho. The "HP Pavilion dv2800t Artist Edition" laptop bears the work of a Portuguese artist who won a global design competition held jointly by MTV and the traditionally staid … Read more

HP is poised and ready to send a barrage of printers to our office, and to that we say, "Bring it on!" This won't be the first time we've been deluged with printers from HP, and we're eager to get back in the ring. Need proof? Just last August, we became a storage shed for HP's massive photo printer rollout. This time around, it's the small and medium business side that gets a product boost with 11 new inkjet and laserjet printers that HP claims will increase flexibility and grab attention at a … Read more

GALWAY, Ireland--Think of the Multis Group as sort of the Antiques Roadshow of the server world.

The Galway, Ireland-based company specializes in refurbishing, and then selling, used servers. Refurbished PCs and servers are increasingly in vogue because remanufacturing represents a more environmentally efficient way to recycle old electronics than harvesting components from these old machines or melting them down for raw materials.

Multis, in fact, plans to open a 70,000-square-foot facility in Union City, Calif., later this month to refurbish and sell servers for North American customers. That marks a reversal in the usual U.S.-Ireland tech relationship. … Read more

AMD's quad-core Barcelona chip for servers is ready to launch--really launch this time.

AMD is shipping the quad-core Barcelona Opteron to channel and distribution partners this week, according to an AMD representative on Thursday. System vendors such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard are readying systems for shipment in the second quarter.

(Correction: AMD is shipping samples of the Barcelona processor to channel and distribution partners not production versions of the chip.)

AMD is shipping the B3 version of the processor that fixes a TLB bug. Large vendors such as Dell, HP, and IBM have been waiting for this version of … Read more

The headline read, "Dell's business priorities drive revenue up 10 percent in fourth quarter." The real story was that profits slumped 6.5 percent because of a bevy of charges.

What it means is that Michael Dell still has a lot of work ahead. Dell has already fired 3,200 employees in the last eight months to get costs down. But the restructuring work isn't over and it will impact future earnings. (In the press release, Dell's PR team put it more delicately, allowing that "the company will continue to incur costs as it … Read more

Long before you had Hillary versus Obama, you had Carly versus Hurd. (Strange how both women were commonly referred to by their first names--but let's leave that to another day.)

Even before Hewlett-Packard dumped her, I was on record arguing that Fiorina was under-appreciated and was drawing flak, in part, because of her gender. I also thought she did HP a huge favor by shaking up its sclerotic corporate culture and planted seeds that ultimately would bear fruit for the company.

By now, that's only interest as a bar room argument. What's clear is that Mark Hurd has HP … Read more

PDAs aren't dead yet. Nor is Intel's XScale chip technology. Hewlett-Packard's new, attractive big-screen handheld packs an application processor that still includes plenty of Intel's XScale DNA.

HP is now shipping production units of the long-awaited iPaq 210 (originally slated to ship last year) that features a 4.0-inch, 640x480 (VGA) resolution screen. The 210 (which is rebranded internationally as the 211, 212, and 214), comes with a Marvell PXA310 processor running at 624MHz, 128MB of memory, and 256MB of flash ROM.

Though Intel sold the business that made XScale processors to Marvell more than a … Read more

I finally got my hands on a MacBook Air. Though I'm sure I'm repeating what some others have said already, I needed to state one thing before I do a more extensive evaluation: this unbelievably thin notebook is rock solid.

NOTE: This is not an official CNET review. And is not by any means a full review. Just a quick first-look. Official CNET product review is here.

One of the concerns I had--and I'm sure I'm not alone--is whether a notebook this thin will be flimsy and overly delicate. The answer is a resounding no. It … Read more