Hardware

This past weekend, we spent some time among the computer enthusiasts at the Vintage Computer Fest East, hosted by the Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists. The event was a mix of things: part history lesson, part nostalgia trip, and a bit of swap meet thrown in. All in all, it was fascinating to see some of the hardware that had been preserved in working order. In a lot of cases, I was completely unaware that the hardware maker ever existed. In others, there was a certain nostalgia for long-deceased platforms. But the big surprise was probably how people had merged some of the old hardware with modern tech to create some things that were very modern.

IDC's has released its market report for the second quarter of 2009, and it contains little in the way of good news for beleaguered PC vendors. Worldwide PC shipments are down 2.4 percent year-over-year, as businesses and consumers continued to hold off on upgrades and new purchases. Adding to the misery was serious margin compression—aggressive discounting meant that the value of PC shipments declined by 19.1 percent during that period.

The forthcoming Intel Developer Forum will double as a coming-out party for the company's 32nm fabrication process, and, if you've been following Ars' coverage of the mobile space since 2007, then you know that 32nm is the point at which an x86 chip can reasonably be crammed into a smartphone of non-embarrassing size and battery life. (Intel seems to believe that the smartphone threshold is 45nm, but I don't see it.)

This isn't to say that 32nm will magically put an x86 system on a chip (SoC) neck-and-neck with a 45nm ARM SoC in platform-level power draw, but it probably will mean that if you absolutely must use x86 for your smartphone (for whatever reason), you'll finally have that option. The problem is that it's just not at all clear that there's a smartphone scenario that absolutely requires the insurgent, x86, to unseat the incumbent, ARM. I'll have more to say on why this is the case, and why I've come around substantially from my original x86 uber alles stance, in a forthcoming RISC vs. CISC retrospective.

Intel has filed an application for annulment with the European Union's Court of First Instance seeking to have its record €1.06 billion (~$1.45 billion) fine thrown out. In its application, the chipmaker says that the European Commission finding that it engaged in illegal anticompetitive behavior was erroneous, that the investigation itself was flawed, and that there's no indication that consumers were harmed by Intel's actions.

When Intel originally filed its notice of appeal in July, it also said that the EC violated its human rights by levying such a large fine as the result of an administrative proceeding. In Intel's most recent filing, it doesn't directly raise the rights issue. Instead it argues that investigators failed to meet the standard needed to prove misconduct, noting that they never made a link between the volume discounts and rebates that Intel offered to OEMs and any real harm to consumers.

In a bit of a shocker, word got out late last night about a management shakeup at Intel—CTO and 30-year Intel veteran Pat Gelsinger is out, while Intel mobile chief Dadi Perlmutter and top marketing guy Sean Maloney will both move up to share the number two spot, with Perlmutter taking charge of all of Intel's engineering efforts and Maloney overseeing the business side.

Gelsinger is moving on to be COO of storage maker EMC, and his name is already on the short list for the top slot there. His departure from Intel marks the fourth time he has quit the company—he loves to tell an anecdote about how disappointed his mom was that his repeated re-hirings by Intel kept him from ever completing his PhD at Stanford.

A teardown of the just-updated iPod touch reveals that a camera may still be forthcoming, as well as possible 802.11n support in the iPhone OS. iFixit has been quick on the draw at taking Apple’s latest offerings apart, first with a dissection of the new iPod nano and today with the 32GB iPod touch. According to the site’s hardware experts, the new iPod touch supports a newer Broadcom chip that supports 802.11n, though the touch doesn’t make use of it just yet.

The chip in the 32GB (and presumably 64GB) iPod touch is the Broadcom BCM4329—slightly newer than the iPhone 3GS’ Broadcom BCM4325. The ‘329 chip is capable of going up to the faster 802.11n while the ‘325 is only capable of 802.11b/g, which iFixit notes is “a big deal.” (In case anyone’s curious, we agree.) It doesn’t appear as if the faster WiFi speeds are supported in software just yet, but the inclusion of the chip indicates that it’s in the works for the iPhone OS and that future iPhones.

A new GPU architecture wasn't the only thing that AMD launched Thursday at its event on the USS Hornet; the company also unveiled its latest rebranding, along with two new notebook platforms. Let's take a look at both, in turn.