PC and Components: Features

Reports have been circulating that online retailer Newegg sold as many as 300 counterfeit Intel Core i7 processors. The inferior packaging, blatant spelling errors, and blank product manual were major red flags for observant customers in this case, but the issue highlights the fact that fake CPU's are out there.

Open-source software is one of the great success stories of the past few decades. The Apache HTTP Server is the world's most popular Web server, Linux has more than held its own against Unix and other proprietary operating systems, and Mozilla's Firefox browser has given Microsoft's Internet Explorer strong competition over the years.

"The netbook is not an experience people are going to continue wanting to have," Apple COO Tim Cook said Tuesday at an investment conference in San Francisco. "When they play with the iPad and experience the magic of using it... I have a hard time believing they're going to go for a netbook."

To understand why I love the tiny, free FlashFire utility/driver, you'll need a little background. I bought an original Acer Aspire One netbook with an 8GB solid state drive instead of a hard drive to keep the weight down. I replaced its custom Linux OS with XP--but XP, not being optimized for a super-slow SSD such as the one on my netbook, froze every half minute or so for 5 to 15 seconds while data was written to the disk. It's not long before such behavior starts driving you nuts.

Have you ever wanted to build your own minicomputer, but felt restricted by the available selection of microprocessors? You may remember Magic-1, the awesome homebrew CPU from the 2007 Maker Faire Bay Area, but were perhaps a little disappointed at the amount of available documentation at the time. Magic-1 creator (and Google engineer) Bill Buzbee has recently updated his Web site to include detailed information on schematics, architecture, as well as his build diaries if you're interested in constructing a similar machine on your own.

As the smoke clears from Steve Jobs launching the Apple iPad, missing details suggest there's less to Apple's tablet than meets the eye.

For more than a decade Arm Holdings has designed chips that have powered mobile handsets and smartphones like Apple's iPhone. The company now faces a challenger in Intel, which recently demonstrated a smartphone, LG Electronics' GW990, based on its upcoming Moorestown platform.

It's hard to believe that 10 years have passed since the dreaded Millennium Bug put fear into the hearts of technology specialists, software developers, business executives, and legal departments everywhere.

As users eagerly await tablets from companies like Apple and Microsoft, Fusion Garage jumped ahead with the demonstration of JooJoo, a handheld Internet and entertainment gadget with a 12.1-inch touch screen. Tablets are a new category of handheld devices with large screens for users to surf the Web and watch videos. JooJoo is due for release in a few months but could be held if a lawsuit is filed by TechCrunch, which originally partnered with Fusion Garage to develop the device under the name Crunchpad.

A robotic forklift picks up a sheet of glass thinner than a credit card and as big as two table-tennis tables, and effortlessly swings it 90 degrees before gently placing it into an oven where it will bake at 200 degrees Celsius. It's a graceful and finely engineered process and one of several that takes place minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day in Sharp's LCD factory in Sakai, western Japan.