hewlett-packard

Leap Motion strikes bundling, embedding deal with HP

Leap Motion has struck a deal with Hewlett-Packard to bundle and embed its 3D motion control technology in some of the computer giant's devices.

The San Francisco startup's gesture-control system measures users' movements to an accuracy of a hundredth of a millimeter. It plans to release the technology in mid-May, charging $80 for a small thumb drive-size device that plugs into a computer's USB port.

Already, Leap Motion had cemented deals to bundle its controller with Asus PCs, and to sell it in Best Buy stores and at Bestbuy.com, as well as on its own Web … Read more

PCs hit by an ugly quarterly drop as Windows 8 flops

It's really ugly in the PC market right now. How ugly? About the worst it has ever been, according to new reports from a couple of tech research firms.

First-quarter global computer shipments dropped 14 percent from the previous year, said International Data Corp., much worse than its forecast for a 7.7 percent decline. The pullback marked the worst-ever quarter since IDC began tracking quarterly PC shipments in 1994, and it's the fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year shipment declines.

Rival tech research firm Gartner, meanwhile, said its data showed an 11 percent decline in first-quarter global PC … Read more

Hey, HP board, how do you like them Apples?

commentary Back in 2011, Hewlett-Packard's chairman Ray Lane was photographed using an Apple MacBook Air as he was trying to turn HP around. Personal preference speaks volumes about HP and the fate of the PC industry.

Lane stepped down today as chairman of HP just after, coincidentally, Gartner released a report forecasting dim prospects for the PC industry.

Things seem to get dimmer with each forecast, as the tablet -- which means Apple's iPad for the most part -- takes a bigger bite out of PC sales.

Here's what Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner, said … Read more

HP Chairman Ray Lane steps down

Hewlett-Packard Chairman Ray Lane is giving up his post as the company initiates yet another board shakeup. Lane's tenure featured a few massive debacles.

Ralph Whitworth, a shareholder activist, will be a stand-in until a replacement is named. Lane will stay on HP's board, but John Hammergren and G. Kennedy Thompson will step down.

The moves, initially reported by The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and others, represent another shakeup for HP's historically dysfunctional board. But CEO Meg Whitman and the company had to do something following a series of missteps.

First, there was the HP acquisition of … Read more

Holographic 3D for mobile could become a reality

Current 3D display technology has a lot of limitations. You need to view it wearing special glasses, which can be costly or ill-fitting. With glasses-free 3D, the viewing angle can be small, meaning that if you move slightly too far to either side, the 3D image disappears.

Now, however, a team of scientists, led by David Fattal at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, Calif., claim to have created a new kind of 3D display for small screens that is both glasses-free and has a very wide viewing angle. … Read more

HP's Autonomy acquisition probed by U.K. regulators

Hewlett-Packard has a way of quietly announcing its dealings with Autonomy in its annual and quarterly regulatory filings.

In its quarterly report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today, the company announced that the U.K. Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into the alleged irregularities of HP's acquisition of Autonomy.

Here's what HP wrote in its filing:

As a result of the findings of an ongoing investigation, HP has provided information to the U.K. Serious Fraud Office, the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC related to the accounting improprieties, disclosure failures … Read more

HP's Whitman: 'We're shifting resources from PCs to tablets'

Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman may have stated the obvious when she said today that HP is transferring its attention to tablets.

"We're shifting resources from PCs to tablets," she said during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference.

"The market moved very fast to tablets and smartphones, and we've got to now manage that transition."

She continued. "And it's not that HP didn't try to manage that transition -- they did with the acquisition of Palm. But as you know under the previous [management] that took a little detour to … Read more

Patent suit takes aim at Apple, Dell, others over encryption

A security group has taken aim at some of the biggest computer and software makers, claiming their products infringe on one or more of its patents.

Maz Encryption Technologies, a Delaware company made up of two former employees of Maz Technologies, filed suits last week against Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Lenovo, and Research In Motion (now BlackBerry).

In seven separate complaints, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Maz accuses the companies of infringing on one or more of its three patents covering encryption and user authentication technologies -- low level security found in … Read more

HP chairman to meet with top investors over board spat

Hewlett-Packard chairman Ray Lane, along with three board members, will meet with some of his company's top investors to reassure them about the job they're doing, according to a new report.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in an interview published today, William Patterson, executive director of CtW Investment Group, a large HP shareholder, said that he and his supporters will lead a charge aimed at removing Lane and two of his fellow board members, John Hammergren and G. Kennedy Thompson, at the company's annual meeting on March 20.

That is, Patterson told the Journal, unless HP … Read more