July 1 - 12:40pm EDT   Large PC builders are dragging their feet when it comes to environmental promises, claims Greenpeace. The activist group has once again updated its Guide to Greener Electronics, which assigns relative rankings to major high-tech corporations. A new development is the assignment of "penalty points" to major PC builders, including HP, Dell and Lenovo. The companies have delayed plans to strip PVC and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from computers, Greenpeace says, and in the case of HP, none of its current systems have reduced toxicity. [full story]

July 1 - 8:45am EDT   HP today stepped up the power of its xw9400 workstations with the addition of AMD's six-core Opteron 2400 series to the mix. Also nicknamed Istanbul, the chips give a system as many as 12 cores. HP maintains AMD's view that the chips offer about 34 percent more performance per watt when compared to earlier quad-cores, which often use the same amount of energy. [full story]

June 29 - 11:05am EDT   Taiwanese PC builder Acer is poised to outpace Dell and get second place in PC industry market share, new insights show. The New York Times notes that Acer gained 3 percent world market share last year compared to a near-flat 0.1 percent for Dell and that the gap closed this past quarter to just 2 percent. The difference is attributed to a clearer focus on PCs than Dell as well as an emphasis on lower-cost systems and a much leaner inventory system that sees Acer worry less about stock. [full story]

June 25 - 6:45pm EDT   Apple has taken top honors in a consumer-satisfaction survey conducted by Vocal Laboratories. The research firm spoke with 1147 consumers immediately following a support call, with 58 percent of respondents "very satisfied" after calls placed to Apple. Of individuals speaking with Dell representatives, only 46 percent gave the same response. Approximately 43 percent of HP callers were very satisfied. [full story]

June 25 - 12:55pm EDT   Computer builder HP has launched several new groupings of desktop PCs, which it says are timed to coincide with the beginning of the school shopping season. Updated options include the Pavilion Slimline s5000 series, which starts at $290 and consists of low-end hardware designed to fit in a half-sized tower case. The Pavilion p6000 systems are similarly low-end, but start at $270 as a result of using regular-sized components. [full story]

June 25 - 9:55am EDT   Microsoft this morning outlined its final pricing for Windows 7. Extending an olive branch to Windows XP owners refusing to upgrade to Vista, the company says it's allowing both these and Vista owners to pay $120 to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium, $200 to move to Windows 7 Professional, and $220 for Windows 7 Ultimate. Full, non-OEM copies will cost $200, $300 and $320 respectively. [full story]

June 24 - 12:00am EDT   HP on Wednesday introduced several devices geared for businesses, the Mini 5101 netbook and ProBook 4310s notebook, along with new accessories. The Mini 5101 features a 10.1-inch LED-backlit display, with options for 1024x600 resolution or a 16:9 aspect ratio with 1366x768 resolution. The device is powered by Intel's 1.66GHz Atom N280 CPU and 945GSE chipset, with 1GB of DDR2 RAM which can be expanded to 2GB. [full story]

June 22 - 1:50pm EDT   HP on Monday morning launched a new $399 wireless all-in-one printer that offers integrated Web-access. The "HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web" enables users to easily navigate and print directly from specific web-enabled apps (no ability to surf the internet). The device features an embedded Linux client for access various Web-enabled apps along features a full touch-enabled 4.33-inch widescreen LCD with integrated access to various online services for easy printing. The company showcased full access to coupons.com along with ability to print coupons directly with a few-clicks. HP said that the printer includes full customizations to allow users to create apps ... [full story]

June 10 - 12:20pm EDT   In response to last week's accusations by the Russian government that Microsoft is pulling copies of its Windows XP operating system from store shelves early, the Microsoft Russia CEO Nikolai Pryanishnikov on Wednesday said the software maker will fully resolve the related issues. The regional chief said Microsoft Russia has received documents containing the issues and believes they can be addressed "without any problems." [full story]

June 10 - 12:05pm EDT   HP today acted on two of its planned system updates by launching them through its online store, including an unannounced processor. The new dv2z costs slightly more than promised at $625 but now has a white color trim option and starts with a single-core 1.6GHz Athlon Neo, 1GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive with Radeon X1250 integrated video. Adding a dual-core 1.6GHz processor costs $25; in a surprise, an option now exists for a 1.6GHz Turion Neo that likely boosts performance still for an additional $75. [full story]

June 9 - 7:45am EDT   HP this morning rolled out a trio of notebook refreshes it's gearing towards students, particularly in price but also in design. The Pavilion dv6 is being given a headlining dv6z Artist Edition 2; the 16-inch notebook has special lid artwork that won a recent MTV design contest and also comes with relatively high specifications for an AMD-based system, including a 2.3GHz Turion X2 Ultra, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive and a Mobility Radeon HD 4650 for its video. It also gets a bundle of three Corel audiovisual editing apps and will launch on June 10th for $950. [full story]

June 8 - 10:05am EDT   NVIDIA hasn't seen a drop in orders for its mobile graphics chips in the wake of the wide-scale failures that have prompted major repair costs, the company's marketing VP Ujesh Desai said at Computex. Despite the effect on the firm's reputation, computer builders are still choosing NVIDIA's graphics cores and are actually increasing their usage this year. Trying to fix the problem quickly has reportedly helped preserve much of that business. [full story]

June 4 - 4:25pm EDT   AMD this afternoon confirmed that its new dual-core Athlon Neo should show in a new version of HP's Pavilion dv2 ultraportable next week. The upgraded system is due on June 10th and, according to CNET, should have the same power use as the present-day single-core model but run much faster in multi-threaded tasks. Integrated graphics will also get a lift through the Radeon HD 3200 chipset, though HP's notebook currently uses dedicated Radeon HD 3450 video. [full story]

June 3 - 4:40pm EDT   At a press conference at Computex in Taiwan on Wednesday, PC maker Acer announced it will soon offer the Moblin Linux operating system in its products. This will include Aspire One nettop PCs and regular notebook and desktop PCs. Several Moblin-powered Aspire One netbooks are currently being shown at Computex, along with netbooks from other manufacturers, albeit there was more than one version of Moblin. The Linux-based operating system was developed by Intel to get the most out of the Atom CPU used in ultra-portable netbook PCs. [full story]

June 3 - 3:55pm EDT   At the Computex show currently taking place in Taiwan, MSI has shown off its WindBOX nettop PC powered by NVIDIA's Ion chipset. The computer's presence at the show indicates MSI is the latest to jump on the NVIDIA Ion bandwagon, with Acer and Lenovo confirmed to be releasing Ion-based PCs, with ASUS, Foxconn, Pegatron and, most recently, Dell and HP, rumored to be releasing their own as well. [full story]