Computer Systems News - Page 38

The circuit boards are used in everyday electronics and PCs are based on epoxy glass and solder. The recycling process is tedious in this case as it requires to dismantle components safely. Its because of this, discarded electronic items simply are found in landfills. The National Physical Laboratory (NPL), In2Tec and Gwent Electronic Materials have developed a solution to improve the ability to recycle circuits boards up to 90% with the help of water.

The three British companies have developed a special type of adhesive that can make PCBs recyclable up to 90% using water. This technology is called ReUse, which is short for Reusable, Unzippable, Sustainable Electronics.

"What happens to end of life electronics is one of the fastest growing waste streams," says Chris Hunt, head of the Electronics Interconnection Team at NPL. "Existing electronic circuit assemblies are based on reinforced epoxy glass systems and solder. A circuit board itself is a significant part of a final product, but it's made with a thermoset of glass that isn't easily recyclable."

When LG first unveiled its Chromebase all-in-one Chrome OS-Based PC the tech community was set abuzz, and while many doubted that a Chrome OS desktop was worth the space it took up, more industry experts thought that the Chromebase was an excellent idea, and an indication of where the industry is going. Today LG announced that the Chromebase AIO would be arriving later this month on May 26th at Amazon, Newegg, and Tiger Direct.

"Personal computers have obviously become central to each member of the family, regardless of age, which is why it's important to have one that's easy to use," said Thomas Lee, senior vice president, LG Electronics USA. "Google's suite of programs, ability to update software and cloud-based storage allow the LG Chromebase to offer a simple, modern computing experience."

The Chromebase features a 21.5-inch full HD 1080p display, an Intel Celeron 2955U Haswell Processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of solid state storage. Google will toss in an extra 100GB of cloud storage, and 802.11 n Wi-Fi will handle network connectivity. A single USB 3.0 and single USB 2.0 port will allow for external storage, and an HDMI connector is present for video output to a HDTV. The Chromebase will retail for just $349.99

NVIDIA collaborated with a US based Boutique system builder Falcon Northwest for raising money on behalf of the Philip Scholz Memorial Foundation by auctioning a custom-designed gaming PC via Ebay. The foundation is responsible for providing needs-based scholarships and promotes physical activity among the youth.

Philip Scholz was a 35-year-old graphic design marketer in NVIDIA who lost his life when he tried to save a man who was laying down on the Caltrain tracks at the Santa Clara station in January. Scholz tried to save the man, but both men were struck by the train. Back then, NVIDIA co-founder said that his heroic act resonated Scholz's consistent behaviour as he found to be confident, aggressive and a capable person.

The auction is still active. At the time of writing, the current bid stands at US $7,200 and so far 20 bids were made. There are three days left for the auction to be completed.

Dell has pulled the wraps off some new computer systems including new Inspiron notebooks and All in One PCs. The new notebooks include the Inspiron 14, 15, and 17 5000 series notebook computers. Dell is aiming these machines at students that need a laptop they can take around campus. The 15 and 17-inch machines in the series have backlit keyboards and full HD touch displays.

Those touch screens support 10-finger touch and have scroll, zoom, and tap. The laptops have various 4th Gen Intel Core processors and battery life of up to 8 hours for the Inspiron 14. The Inspiron 15 is good for runtime of up to 7 hours and 33 minutes. The new AIO machines include the Dell Inspiron 20 and 23. The 23 uses 4th generation Core processors and have full HD displays.

They also have 10-point finger capacitive touch. The Inspiron 20 AIO uses Intel or AMD processors and both AIO machines have MaxxAudio for improved audio playback. All of the notebooks are available as of now with both AIO machines landing on May 6. The Inspiron 14 will start at $749.99, the 15 starts at $649.99, and the 17 starts at $449.99. The Inspiron 23 AIO starts at $579.99 with the 20 using AMD power starting at $449.99 and the Intel version starting at $579.99.

GIGABYTE is really expanding its BRIX lineup of small form factor PCs, with the latest one powered by an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 GPU. Not only that, but it had an Haswell-based Core i5 processor, too.

Inside of the new BRIX was an Intel Core i5-4200H processor at 2.8GHz (up to 3.4GHz thanks to Turbo), with a 47W TDP. As for the desktop-class GPU, the GeForce GTX 760 has a total TDP of 170W, so we should expect some serious heat to be pushed out of this particular BRIX. Inside, we have dual SO-DIMM slots, support for both mSATA and 2.5-inch drives, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Gigabit Ethernet.

On top of that, we have four USB 3.0 ports, dual HDMI outputs, and a miniDisplayPort output. We should expect the GeForce-powered BRIX PCs to roll out sometime next month, with the company teasing a Core i7-based BRIX being available soon. We should see much more on the BRIX PCs as we get closer to Computex which kicks off in early June.

The last time we talked about Lenovo and a battery recall was back in 2009 when the notebook industry was in the midst of one of the biggest battery recalls ever. Lenovo has recently announced another battery recall that covers battery packs used in its notebook computers.

Lenovo says that the battery packs can overheat and pose a fire risk. Lenovo reports that it has received two notifications of battery packs overheating and resulting in damage to the battery pack, notebook, and nearby property. No injuries have been reported so far.

The recall covers 34,500 batteries in the US and an additional 2,900 batteries in Canada. Battery packs covered in the recall were sold separately and with the following notebooks: Edge 11, 13 and 14 series, the T410, T420, T510 and W510 series, and the X100e, X120e, X200, X201 and X201s.

GTC 2014 - One of the more impressive setups at this year's GPU Technology Conference was from Origin PC, where the custom PC maker had one of its Genesis PCs on display running 4-way GeForce GTX Titan Black GPUs in SLI.

What good are all four of those GPUs if there's not going to be an insane amount of pixels to be pushed, right? Well, are three 4K TVs enough? Yeah - I thought so. The Origin PC Genesis system was pushing out an insane 1.5 billion pixels per second, running Slightly Mad Studios' Project CARS. I didn't get any hands-on time with it unfortunately, but we'll let some of the photos of the setup do some justice.

CeBIT 2014 - We have had some hands-on time with MSI's unique Nightblade gaming barebones PC at CeBIT 2014 in Germany. Take a look at our hands-on video below.

Inside of the Nightblade we have a unique OC Genie button, which is capable of overclocking the Nightblade with just a press of a button. Better yet, the overclock is represented by a red light emitting from the Nightblade. Inside of the MSI Nightblade is a case fan that was custom-made for the chassis. The fan speed is dynamically adjusted depending on what you're doing at the time, with the fan capable of driving up to 3600RPM.

As for GPU support, the Nightblade is capable of housing a full-size GPU, with a maximum length of 290mm and 35mm thick. Even something as powerful as AMD's Radeon R9 290X can be installed into the Nightblade. MSI has installed its own MSI GAMING motherboard inside of the Nightblade, as well as a 600W PSU that should be capable of driving any combination of hardware you desire.

Zotac is well known for its video cards and its series of Zbox mini PCs for a very long time. The company worked with both AMD and Intel based mini PCs in the past, providing very small systems and barebones for its buyers. The company recently introduced some of its upcoming Zbox mini-PC systems during the CeBIT trade show. The Zotac Zbox 'E' series will be using Haswell and Iris Pro integrated graphics and the smaller Zbox unit AQ02 series will be using AMD Richland APU.

Zotac's senior direct Carsten Berger said that Zbox E series can deliver a good gaming experience and maintain balance between size, performance, heat dissipation and energy consumption. Intel's Haswell architecture and Irs Pro 5200 enabled them to do just that within the Zbox form factor. Zotac is confident that the E-Series can deliver smooth medium quality gaming experience and the perfect option for those LAN party gamers who want a compact PC gaming system.

The E series comes in a black enclosure, with the choices of i5 4570R and i7- 4770R. Its 'Plus' series variant offers 8GB DDR3 memory and 1TB 5400 RPM mechanical drive. It features dual DisplayPorts, dual Gigabit Ethernet, 6Gbps SATA and mSATA ports.

Before confirming the order, a buyer found out that Dell was charging an amount to install a free and open source web browser 'Firefox'. It was found that the PC builder has an option to install Mozilla Firefox on behalf of the buyer for a new PC if the buyer agrees to pay £16.25. Dell even put this as an option to select in its 'additional software' pre-purchase custom options selection list.

The Mozilla Foundation has started investigating once they've received this report. The company behind Firefox said that they are consulting with legal teams, though the process is in a very early stage.

As of now, Dell did not make any comment.