omni

Forty years ago, the Ohm F speaker was a game-changer; it still is

Lincoln Walsh died a year before his radically innovative speaker technology made its commercial debut in the Ohm Acoustics F in 1972. The speaker featured an omnidirectional Walsh driver that projected a massive stereo soundstage. At the time of its introduction the $900 per pair Ohm F was hailed as one of the greatest speakers of all time by the international press. It sounded like nothing else, and the single 12-inch, truncated cone driver produced bass, midrange and treble frequencies (37Hz to 17kHz). The driver had a titanium top section, aluminum midband and paper bottom, with a single voice-coil at … Read more

New HP all-in-ones: high-end dreams, big-screen value

You'd be forgiven for feeling puzzled by the branding of HP's newly announced Envy 23 all-in-one. Not because it's strange that HP might want to expand the Envy line to a desktop. It's just unclear why it's this desktop, rather than its 27-inch Omni all-in-one, which inspired HP to extend the generally well-regarded Envy moniker.… Read more

HP adds Ivy Bridge-based all-in-one PCs

Hewlett-Packard has joined the Ivy Bridge festivities with new quad-core all-in-ones.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company has bulked up its consumer desktop line with three all-in-ones (AIO) powered by Intel's third-generation "Ivy Bridge" quad-core processor. That chip was rolled out on Monday.

Two of the new models, the Omni 220qd and Omni 27qd, are traditional AIOs -- that is, they don't have touch-capable screens. The TouchSmart 520xt comes with a touch screen.

HP also announced tower systems, the Pavilion HPE h8t, Pavilion HPE h8xt, and the Pavilion HPE h9t Phoenix. The latter is the company's … Read more

Apple's iMac grabs lion's share of all-in-one PC market

Apple's iMac captured the biggest slice of all-in-one computer sales in the third quarter, according to data out this week from NPD DisplaySearch.

For the quarter, the iMac scooped up 32.9 percent of all sales of all-in-one (AIO) PCs, loosely defined as computers with their inside components squeezed into the monitor chassis.

Taking second place behind Apple in the third quarter was Lenovo, with 22.7 percent of all AIO sales, followed by HP with a 21.4 percent share.

Other PC players, including NEC, Sony, and Fujitsu, managed to eke out only 2 or 3 percent of … Read more

Finally, HP announces a 27-inch Windows all-in-one

More than two years after Apple introduced its 27-inch iMac, HP will offer the first large-screen Windows-based competitor with its new Omni 27 all-in-one.

Available in the U.S. on January 8, the Omni 27 will start at $1,200. Configuration options will include Intel CPUs ranging from the Core i3 to the Core i7 series, with 4GB and 8GB memory variants discrete graphics chip options from both AMD and Nvidia, and up to 3TB of hard-drive capacity.

Respectable specs aside, the 27-inch display is the main attraction. HP is not using the same high-resolution, 2,560x1,440-pixel display as … Read more

Microsoft shows 'touch screen' for any surface

Microsoft Research is unveiling technology that turns any surface into a touch screen at a user interface symposium this week in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Dubbed OmniTouch, it is a wearable system that allows multitouch input on "arbitrary, everyday surfaces," according to a description on a Microsoft Research Web page.

"We wanted to capitalize on the tremendous surface area the real world provides," said Hrvoje Benko of the Natural Interaction Research group at Microsoft.

The technology combines a laser-based pico projector and depth-sensing camera, the latter not unlike Microsoft's Kinect camera for the Xbox 360. But … Read more

HP expands its TouchSmart, Omni all-in-one desktops

HP has updated all of its consumer and business all-in-one desktops today, with new configurations of its Omni and TouchSmart lines. It is also the first new round of desktops since HP said it intends to "evaluate strategic alternatives" for its PC business.

The consumer all-in-one updates fill out HP's desktops across price bands. The TouchSmart touch-capable all-in-one line was previously limited to the high-end, $1,000 TouchSmart 600-series, and more-affordable TouchSmart 300 models. The new 20-inch TouchSmart 320 will start at $600 when it hits the market in October, and it will be joined by the $… Read more

HP's greatest hits: These PCs were good

Hewlett-Packard has been in the PC business for more than 25 years. And, needless to say, it had some good designs. It's worth a quick look at select models that stood the test of time in the wake of the disclosure today that the company is trying to unload its PC business.

Let me preface this with a caveat that was buried in the various HP statements today about its PC business: "There can be no assurance that any transaction regarding PSG (Personal Systems Group) will be pursued or completed." So, it's not a done deal. … Read more

OmniFocus for iPad: Sunny with a chance of productivity

OmniFocus for iPad ( available in the App Store for $39.99) packs a powerful productivity punch, landing right on the jaw of your time management needs. And for a cool $40, it better. Suffice it to say, The Omni Group broke the mold when they created OmniFocus for iPad. I mean that literally. They didn't simply stick to the look they had already cultivated in their Mac application and they didn't just enhance their iPhone App to make it iPad-compatible.

OmniFocus for iPad is a totally new beast with some new, unique features that are really fantastic. Right … Read more