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PC

Intel Raises Revenue Forecast as PC Market Improves

by Rajdeep April 4, 2024

written by Rajdeep

Intel Raises Revenue Forecast as PC Market Improves

Intel raised its quarterly revenue forecast for the first time in more than two years as suppliers of parts used in personal computers replenish their inventory amid improving PC demand.

Shares of the world’s largest chipmaker rose as much as 4.1 percent to a more than 15-year high of $38.05 on Friday.

Intel, which helped found the personal computer industry, has been struggling as tech users shift away from PCs to mobile phones for their computing needs.

Sales in the company’s PC business declined 3 percent to $7.3 billion (roughly Rs. 48,811 crores) in the latest quarter. The unit includes sales of chips for mobile phones and tablets.

However, there have been signs PC demand may be recovering.

HP, which houses the hardware business of the former Hewlett-Packard Co, said last month that revenue in its computer business rose 7.5 percent in the third quarter from the second as sales of notebooks improved.

FBN Securities analyst Shebly Seyrafi said commentary from Intel and HP suggested that PCs were “not as dead as people were thinking.”

Research firm IDC said in July global PC shipments fell less than expected in the second quarter, helped by strength in the United States.

“We expect PC units to decline less than the high-single-digit decline consensus in 2017, driven by continued Windows 10 upgrades and accelerating SSD adoption, along with new form factors,” Baird Equity Research analyst Tristan Gerra wrote, raising his price target to $42 from $40.

Intel said on Friday it expected third-quarter revenue to be $15.6 billion (roughly Rs. 1,04,325 crores), plus or minus $300 million, compared with its prior forecast of $14.9 billion (roughly Rs. 99,644 crores), plus or minus $500 million.

That implies the highest-ever quarterly revenue for Intel, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Analysts on average were expecting $14.90 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani said the pre-announcement was a good first step to the PC story stabilizing at Intel, and raised his price target by $2 to $38.

Shares of rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc were up about 1 percent, while those of Micron Technology Inc and HP were marginally higher.

Shares of Santa Clara, California-based Intel were up 2.6 percent at $37.53 in afternoon trading.

Up to Thursday’s close, the stock had risen 6.1 percent this year, underperforming the 20.8 percent gain in the broader Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index during the period.

[Source:- gadgets.ndtv]

April 4, 2024 0 comment

PC Bloatware Isn’t Just Annoying, It’s Unsafe Too

by onkar April 4, 2024

written by onkar

PC Bloatware Isn't Just Annoying, It's Unsafe Too

You think you’re buying a computer, but what you end up with is a platform that is used by its manufacturer to pitch an endless barrage of unwanted software and services. Bloatware, a term popularly used for the pre-installed suite of applications that ship with a computer, continues to be alarmingly popular among PC OEMs, for a number of business reasons that make sense – to them. The unfortunate result though, is that we’ve arrived at a point where it isn’t just the user experience that is at stake. Recent reports have made it clear that these programs often compromise user privacy and security as well.

Bloatware has long been annoying, but it’s not always been a harmful practice. Back in the day, Sonyfor instance (which at the time was still selling laptops) used to put movies from Sony Pictures on its machines. These movies took up gigabytes of hard drive space, and you still had to purchase the titles before you could watch them – they weren’t bundled free, you just didn’t have to download them. Was it annoying? Sure. But was it a deal breaker? Not really.

Things are a lot different now. We’ve entered an era where it appears PC OEMs are not being too careful about the stuff that goes on to their computers. You will find programs such as a free trial of an antivirus suite that you don’t really need, an application to find good marketing deals on the Internet, and programs to convert pdf files and more. These programs are often set to run at startup, which means that every time a user logins to her system, these programs start too, and eat up a substantial amount of memory.

And then things got worse.

The Superfish fiasco from earlier this year, in which Lenovo was caught of installing adware on many of its PCs should have shown OEMs where to draw the line, but that’s not been the case. Since then, we’ve seen Lenovo repeat the same mistake once again, and Dell and Toshiba have been seen doing the same as well. Lenovo is the world’s largest PC OEM, and Dell is also among the top three. Together, these companies ship more than 100 million computers each year.

Microsoft has set an example with its signature machines, including the Surface Pro 3, Pro 4, and theSurface Book, none of which comes with any of this useless software. However, that isn’t enough. The company needs to put a system in place to monitor the kind of programs its partners are putting on their computers. Earlier this year we asked the company what steps it is taking on this front, but at the time, it stated nothing other than to assure that it actively disables reported adware. This is obviously not enough.

The average price of a computer has gone down over the years and increased competition in the space has meant lower profit margins for PC OEMs. This has meant alternate revenue options – like getting paid to install bloatware on their machines – have started to look more appealing to these companies. It’s conceivable things have get even worse in the future, as a number of new entrants are entering the space now, which will only drive up competition further.

The companies need to come up with a standard for software that is preloaded. Some pre-installed programs such as Microsoft Office can come in extremely handy. Similarly, programs that are clearly made visible to the users, and can be removed later if you want, aren’t bad by themselves. But hidden software you can’t remove, spyware, malware, or programs that run at startup and affect performance without this being made clear to the users – these should be avoided at all costs.

[“source-gadgets.ndtv”]

April 4, 2024 0 comment

Gadgets News

Max Payne 1 and 2 Remakes Are Coming to PC and Consoles

by Loknath Das April 9, 2022

written by Loknath Das

It’s easy to be dismissive of the increasing popularity of classic game remasters — after all, why create something new when you can sell something that already exists? That said, some of the most beloved games from previous generations deserve to be updated for modern hardware, and Max Payne is one of them. Rockstar Games and Remedy Entertainment have announced remakes of the first two games in the series: Max Payne and Max Payne: The Fall of Max Payne.

We’ve seen numerous older titles reemerge in the last few years, including but not even remotely limited to Warcraft III, Command and Conquer, Mass Effect, and Diablo II. Some of these projects have been more successful than others, but starting with content people like is a safer bet than launching a new franchise. And that brings us to Max Payne, which I and many others played obsessively in the early 2000s.

The writing is a little overly dramatic, especially by today’s standards, but that’s what you’d expect from a hard-boiled detective story. The Max Payne games were third-person shooters with a bullet-time mechanic, allowing players to dive through the air in slow motion as they fired round after round at enemies. The first game came out just two years after the original Matrix film, and it no doubt benefitted from a similar combat style. There was even a mod you could install to replicate the famous lobby scene from the movie.

Remedy will develop the remakes in the Northlight engine, which has been used most famously in 2019’s Control. This “physically based render system” seems like a great match for Max Payne, which had elaborate physics for a game of its era. I remember being floored by the way bullets from different guns actually looked different as they floated past the camera in slow motion. Targets that were struck by shotgun blasts behaved differently than those you only managed to wing with a low-caliber pistol. Hopefully the new engine will let them fix Max’s permanently constipated expression.

The remake will include both of the original titles. While there was a third installment, developed and published by Rockstar, it didn’t launch until 2012 and had only limited connections to the first and second. It’s too early to assign the remake a launch date, but it will be available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.

[“source=extremetech”]

April 9, 2022 0 comment

Gadgets News

LIVA Q Mini PC is probably India’s tiniest computer! And its cheap too

by Loknath Das April 3, 2018

written by Loknath Das

Like every other piece I have written, let me start this one with a question too. Or rather a thought. Have you ever wondered how our units of measurements are standard but out unit of acceptance ﬂuctuates? What I mean to say is, for us, big keep getting bigger, thin keep getting thinner and small keeps getting smaller. This inherent nature of more/less takes our need to larger phones, with smallest bezels and thinnest possible dimensions.

The nerds in the crowd will point towards a certain something called “ease of mobility and maximum functionality.” And that is why we are talking about the smallest, mobile-est,somewhat functional and most of all, a cute little PC that is now available in the Indian marketplace.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, heres the new LIVA Q Mini PC. With Liva, the abbreviation PC now stands for “Pocket Computer”, quite literally.

Sitting at just 70mm x 700mm x 31.4 mm, and weighing in at 260 gms, this is the smallest and the lightest computer available. Its powered by Intel Apollo Lake processor manufactured by Goldmont. This is the same company that manufactures low power SOCs like Atom & Celeron. The literature on this processor reads something like this; this SoC offers 30% more boost than the Braswell, and can be used for power-efﬁcient, low-end devices, like Cloudbooks, Kindles, 2-in-1 Netbooks, CCTV Camera platforms and in-car/aircraft infotainment systems.

The company has launched two variant priced version of this PC, the one without an operating system will cost at MRP, INR 13500/- and the other with a Windows 10 installed variant will cost MRP, INR 15500/- only. So now when your school going child asks for a computer, don’t dare cheap out and surf the OLXs and Quickrs, buy them this PC instead.

The LIVA Q Mini PC comes with a 4 GB RAM and 32 GB internal space (teehee!!!) but fret not, its expandable to 128 GB via MicroSD Card. Talking about what is there on this little box, there is a Power button, two USB ports, one HDMI port and one RK45 LAN connector. The top section of the device houses a cooling fan almost as bog as the device itself and the motherboard beneath it. Efﬁciency is goos in terms of design. You also get Bluetooth 4.1 connective capacity.

The company says it is capable of supporting 4K playback, but I honestly don’t get this obsession of 4K HDR thing. In my opinion if 4K is my deciding criterion, I probably would not be looking at a mini PC in the ﬁrst place. And even if I am bound by space and mobile constraints, I would rather spend some more money and get the Apple Mini.

Now for those of you who have never heard of LIVA, here is information that will help get you on speed . LIVA Q is manufactured by a Taiwanese company, called the, Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) and they have been actively manufacturing computer peripherals since 1987. LIVA Q is actually, their second mini PC. The ﬁrst being the LIVA HDR MINI PC. The LIVA Q has been upgraded and interns of hardware and build. Its smaller and packs all things better than the predecessor. However, the LIVA MINI HDR had three USB port and a VGA port in addition to the HDMI. Getting rid of the VGA makes sense, but reducing the number of USB ports on the latest model doesn’t justify.

All in all, this Mini PC trend has just started in the Indian market and it will still take time for carve a niche in the consumer space. Till then this Mini PC is a nifty little gadget, that is not as costly and can deﬁnitely be considered as an addition on your geek bench. I think, this device is custom made for any POP- UP businesses, be it restaurants, food trucks or stall space type shops.

[“Source-cartoq”]

April 3, 2018 0 comment