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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Story Of E-Waste: What Happens 2Tech Once It’s Trash


The brand new tablet/smartphone/GPU you grabbed last week is the cat’s meow. But what happens to it – or  to any of the devices you once treasured- when you don’t want or need them anymore? Where do they go? Is there a reliable, “green” way to dispose of them? And hey, does one extra electronic gadget in a landfill really put the big hurt on the environment?

As you’ll see in the pages ahead, there’s a whole bunch of stuff not to like about the way we deal with our old and unloved electronics. We toss way too much of it. We recycle some of it, but even then the machinery behind that recycling is flawed and we’re only beginning to understand the dangers that come from the hazardous materials that lay inside. Changes are afoot, but the evidence of an apathetic past and present, like the e-waste itself, is piling up.

The Break Down: What’s Inside Your Tech

Let’s start simple by looking at one of today’s most ubiquitous electronic gadgets, the mobile phone or smart phone. While there’s no validated evidence to suggest the persistent use of mobile phones will trigger brain tumours – despite lots of hype to the contrary – the mobile phone is far from green. Indeed, it houses a lot of stuff you certainly wouldn’t want to sprinkle on your cereal. Stuff like copper, gold, lead, nickel, antimony, zinc, beryllium, tantalum, mercury, arsenic, and coltan (more on coltan in a moment), among others.

While most of these materials are part of the finished item, others play a critical role in the production process and remain onboard afterward. Some are found on the circuit board, others in the display. Or in the battery. Or in the wiring or the solder that flows between all of the above. And let’s not forget the glue that holds so much of the innards together. Or the packaging, which in many instances is the very definition of excessive. Or the plastic shell, which contains crude oil, natural gas and chemicals.
 
Image courtesy Chris Jordan

Also generally less than green are the methods in which some of the “ingredients” are acquired. Coltan, for example, a vital element in the production of mobile phone-level capacitors, is currently the subject of much controversy. The majority of coltan is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where human rights organisations claim the people who mine it live and work in deplorable conditions, surviving on less than $US1000 a year and digging underground without safety equipment or supplemental air supplies. Animal rights organisations claim the regional gorilla population is impacted in two ways – by dwindling food supplies in the mining zones and because some are used as meat to feed the miners. Add to that the UN, which says that most of the parties involved in the mining and sale of coltan are also involved in the local civil war. Not exactly a glowing summary of earth friendliness.

The Numbers: How Much E-Waste Are We Talking About?



But here’s the thing – this whole mobile phone business wouldn’t be quite so overwhelming to fix if so damn many of them didn’t end up in the garbage. Once trashed, a mobile phone travels to the local landfill, where it’s compacted, smashed, crunched and/or burned until everything that was once safely ensconced inside spews out and over the course of months, years and decades, leaches into the air, ground and water.
And in large doses, the stuff inside a mobile phone – as is the case with most electronics – has been linked to critical health concerns such as cancer, birth defects, brain afflictions and damage to the nervous, reproductive, digestive, lymphatic and immune systems. Even the brominated flame retardants that coat the plastic case of many mobile phones, guarding against the accidental ignition of the materials inside, become potentially toxic once said case is compromised.

Granted, a single mobile phone lying in a single landfill isn’t of tremendous concern. But we’re not talking a single mobile phone. How many are we talking? Well… the United Nations says sixty percent of the world’s total population owns at least one. Think about that for a moment. Perhaps even more telling are recent reports claiming a whopping five billion mobile phone subscriptions are currently in place worldwide.

Now, consider how many of these users are already on their second, third or fourth cell, and you begin to get the picture. But the truly scary part? Most reliable estimates say that no more than 10 to 15 per cent of all mobile phones are recycled. And that figure applies only here in the good old USA. One can only imagine how that figure varies in countries where recycling is a virtual unknown.

Ultimately, one can say with some confidence that literally billions of mobile phones have been discarded over the course of the last three decades, all of which are now in the process of breakdown.  

The Tech Stockpile

Of course, mobile phones play but a minor role in a very big story – the story of electronics at the end of their life cycle. The story of e-waste.

Let’s check out some numbers. There are, right this very moment, more than a billion computers worldwide. Two hundred million televisions were sold is 2009 alone. Eight million dashtop GPS units were purchased in 2008. One hundred and ten million digital cameras were sold in 2009. Apple blew out 20 million iPods in just the first quarter of that same year.

Indeed, according to a November 2010 report published by think-tank Demos and penned by author Elizabeth Grossman (a journalist specialising in environmental and science issues and the author of “High Tech Trash”), there are three billion electronics products currently in use in America alone. That’s a 50 per cent increase since 2007 – and a turnover rate of 400 million per annum.



Clearly, these are staggering figures, and certainly more proof – as if we needed it – that we live in a disposable society. Back in the day, an electronic item such as a table top radio might very well have held its place inside a home for decades. Not necessarily because it was better built than today’s radios – though many would say it was – but because there weren’t a ton of home and personal entertainment options apart from radios. Moreover, evolution moved at a much slower pace. It took some time to build a radio, and even then there were only a precious few options to enhance. Ultimately, there simply weren’t many truly compelling reasons for a consumer to move to a newer model.

Contrast old school radios to, say, the television marketplace of  the last decade. First, we dumped our bulky, energy-sucking CRT TVs. (CRT technology, by the way, is widely considered to have the foulest environmental footprint in the entire electronic world – each display housing several kilos of lead and copious quantities of toxic goodies such as mercury, cadmium and arsenic.) We then jumped on the flat-panel bandwagon, but soon thereafter we discovered the joys of true 1080p high-definition. And many of us changed over yet again. Now, for better or worse, there’s 3DTV. All in the span of 10 years. 

 
Now think about the length of time you keep any of your modern electronics before you give them up, either because they’re broken or more likely because they’ve been supplanted by something faster/better. Five years? Two? Look at the iPad as an example. Between the release of the original and the release of the follow-up, complete with its slimmer build, upgraded CPU, superior cameras, and other incremental improvements that Apple maniacs worship, there was just a single year. Apple sold fifteen million original iPads. But now, for many, they’re passĂ©.

And let’s not forget – not all unused products are immediately given the heave-ho. Consumers tend to stockpile stuff they don’t use any longer. Admit it – how many old game consoles or mobile phones or laptops or TVs or cameras or CD players, Walkmans, record players, spare monitors are sitting around your house right now because you’ll either use them again one day (fat chance), or because you just don’t know what to do about it?

There are a lot of people like you. In a 2005 study commissioned for HP by market research firm Penn Schoen Berland, it was said that 68 per cent of consumers stockpile used or unwanted computer equipment in their homes. In a 2008 EPA study of select electronics sold between 1980 and 2007 –specifically items like televisions, computers and peripherals, hard copy imaging devices such as printers and scanners, and mobile phones – it was found that more than 235 million units had accumulated in storage by 2007. We’re willing to bet dollars to donuts that figure has increased substantially since then, given the onslaught of portable, personal devices in the past few years.

The Alternative Option: What Happens When Tech is Recycled?



The answer, of course, is recycling. And reusing. And renewing. And that’s where things get interesting.
For starters, there’s no doubt the process, when carried out in a responsible, forward-thinking manner, works. We asked the folks at Illinois-based Intercon Solutions, a progressive recycler that specialises in electronics and recycles everything it receives – no reselling, remarketing, land filling, incineration or exportation – to give us the lowdown on what happens to our friend the mobile phone when it hits the Intercon facility. And they told us. But not without first advising us that Intercon, like many of today’s top-rung facilities, prefers the term “de-manufacture” to “recycle” – and for good reason, as you’ll soon see.

When Itercon first receives a mobile phone (or a smartphone or an MP3 player – the process is similar), it places the item with others of its own type and weight. This continues until 25 pallet-sized boxes are filled, at which point item teardown begins.

Intercon cautions that although teardown may look similar to a standard assembly line, it’s actually a “de-assembly” line where individual items are de-manufactured or disassembled – by hand. In any case, plastics, glass, and all the different metals found in smart phones and MP3 players are separated. Then each metal – gold, silver, lead, aluminium, iron, copper, brass, palladium, rhodium and more – is further sorted into individual lots.

 
Once separated, each component is passed on to one of Intercon’s domestic smelting partners, all of which must meet the requirements of the company’s ISO 9001 and 14001, OHSAS 18001, RIOS, R2 and NAID AAA certifications. There are no offshore handoffs.

The plastics, glass and metals are smelted into bars, ingots or sows, while the glass, lead and precious metal items are recycled back into new electronic circuitry. The plastics are, interestingly, remanufactured into parking bumpers. You see, recycled plastic from items such as mobile phones have traditionally been used in the fabrication of asphalt roads and composite decking. But parking bumpers, we’re told, aren’t nearly so prone to leaching.

One more thing: Intercon has recently developed a “reverse engineering” method for recycling and reusing what was once considered a wholly unrecyclable product – styrofoam. Though styrofoam (also known as polystyrene) isn’t exactly electronic in nature, it inevitably goes hand-in-hand with the packaging of said electronics and takes hundreds of years to degrade once trashed. In our minds, the less Styrofoam in the trash, the better.   

Irresponsible “Recycling”

Ultimately, the big problem with responsible recycling is not that it can’t be done, but that it often isn’t. For all the Intercons, there are seemingly oodles more non-Intercons. Is there any guarantee that the item you dutifully send for recycling will be recycled properly? Apparently, in many cases, the answer is no.
The people of Ghana know this all too well. You see, Ghana, along with regions of India, Nigeria, China and several other locations, have become the world’s electronic dumping ground. There, old, unused, unloved and outmoded electronics arrive by the boatload, often under the guise of recycling. Sadly, the word “recycle” means something very different there than it does here.


An August 2008 Greenpeace report chronicles the process, and its findings are far from uplifting. In this unregulated and often unmonitored environment where the average annual wage is expressed in the hundreds of dollars, tech products are burned over open flames to separate the plastic from the more valuable metals. Products with little or no value are dumped in nearby pits. Needless to say, the threat of escaping toxins is not a threat at all – it’s a reality. Eighty per cent of the children in Guiyu, China, another region that receives recyclable electronics, are known to have elevated levels of lead in their blood due to the toxins found in these electronics.
Image courtesy Greenpeace

Worse still, the Greenpeace study (a study that has since been corroborated by other organisations) determined much of the hard labour is performed by teenage boys, some as young as 11. Most toil through each long day bereft of protective equipment and with little or no knowledge of safe handling procedures.
Arguably of equal concern is the widespread abuse of the otherwise wonderfully humanitarian “Bridge the Digital Divide” program, wherein nations of wealth pass along older yet fully functioning tech to impoverished peoples. The theory being, of course, that a circa-2000 computer means a hell of a lot more to a Ghanaian schoolhouse than the busy New York executive who parted ways with it. Yet, according to Greenpeace and its sources, anywhere from 25 to 75 per cent of second-hand “reusable” goods that land in developing nations are in fact broken beyond repair and of use to no one. That these devices then end up in the tech killing fields we cited earlier comes as no surprise.

E-cycling and Health Hazards



So, why do such practices exist? Greed. XYX Recycling picks up a load of goods and instead of dealing with it as it should, it merely chucks it on the next boat to Ghana. Out of sight, out of mind, money in pocket.
In all fairness, electronics recycling is a comparatively new idea, and regulations are continually being initiated to ensure the procedure is conscientiously carried out. Penalties are levied and wayward recycling practices are now being monitored more closely than ever. Case in point: On February 18 of this year, two recycling businesses, Toronto-based Metro Metals Corp and Avista Recycling were hit with a $US31,600 penalty and ordered to properly dispose of the goods at their own cost for relabelling 913 CRT-based monitors as scrap plastic and attempting to ship them off to Vietnam. And in June of last year, the City Council of the town of Plymouth, England, was fined £8000 ($US13,000) for allowing unauthorised firms to remove and sell unwanted computers from its waste plants. It was determined the council breached the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive by allowing firms to take charge of electronics without first ascertaining if those firms were bona fide recyclers.

Having said that, the disposition of electronics clearly has a long way to go, as does the manufacture of such products. After all, wouldn’t it be nice if all the components in our mobile phones and tablets and PCs wasn’t such damaging stuff in the first place? Certainly it would, and not just for us consumers either. Truth is that even the production of high-tech electronics – and in particular semiconductors – can be extremely hazardous to one’s health.

 Image courtesy Greenpeace

You see, there’s a secondary reason for those clean rooms and protective bunny suits you see portrayed in tech industry television advertisements. Sure, they keep the product free of contaminants. But they also serve to shield the employees. Without such safeguards, workers en masse would be exposed to the chemicals involved in semiconductor manufacture.

For many years now, reports of miscarriages, skin disorders, and incidents of cancers such as leukaemia or lymphoma have buzzed about the industry. In 2004, for example, a jury ruled IBM was not responsible for fatal cancers that developed in two former employees at a disk drive factory. The suit claimed harsh chemicals in the factory caused the deaths, and though IBM was ultimately cleared, it’s one of several similar allegations levelled against the company. More recently, Samsung came under fire in 2010 for the death of a former employee who succumbed, at the age of 23, to blood cancer. This was but one of several deaths and afflictions attributed to Samsung’s Onyag South Korea semiconductor facility.

A Long Way to Go: Progress Towards Accountable Recycling

Barbara Kyle, National Coordinator of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, a San Francisco-based organisation that promotes green design and responsible recycling in the electronics industry, says producers are taking steps to improve the manufacturing process, but cautions there is a very long way to go. Kyle tells us that the ongoing elimination of high-concern chemicals such as halogenated flame retardants “is a good start, but understand that this industry uses many, many chemicals that are barely tested for hazards before they are put into commerce.”


Elizabeth Grossman believes the entire process – from product conception to afterlife – should be in harmony. “As someone said to me when I was working on High Tech Trash, it should be as easy to recycle a computer as it is to buy one – this should be true of any piece of consumer electronics – and part of what will make this happen, in addition to making the recycling easy and convenient for consumers (whether for individual, workplace or school use), is to have product design evolve to make the equipment last longer and be designed for extended life through technology upgrades, and ultimately to be made of non-toxic and reusable materials.”

But if manufacturers are only beginning to develop a methodology to reduce or exclude toxic materials while keeping costs in line and to ensure truly green and perhaps semi-immortal machines, the hard, cold truth would appear to be that we, as a people, simply aren’t doing enough in the meantime to ensure large-scale accountable recycling.


E-Waste Protester at CES, Image Courtesy Abby Seiff

We mentioned the recycling ratio for mobile phones earlier – a dismal 10 to 15 per cent. This figure appears to be the norm for all forms of electronics and high-tech devices. According to the EPA, in excess of 372 million electronics products units, weighing 3.16 million tons, were disposed of in the US in 2007 and 2008 alone. Just 14 per cent of this was destined for recycling, leaving fully 86 per cent to be burned or compacted. Computer users, sadly, might be the worst of the bunch – the Electronics TakeBack Coalition calculated that in 2007, some 112,000 computers were discarded in the US each and every day.

Like the manufacturers, it would seem the population in general needs incentive (rebates, discounts, rules, penalties) to make recycling an integral process. Yet in many parts of the world, because it’s legal even right now to toss your tech gizmos in the trash, so most of us apparently believe it’s true.

E-Waste on the Federal Level


The Olusosum dump site in Lagos; Image Courtesy of Greenpeace.
But all is not lost. Approximately half the states in our union have now enacted some form of ban against the dumping of most common electronics products. Most legislation doesn’t go so far as banning the export of e-waste to third-world countries, but it’s definitely a start.

On the federal level, the recently introduced Responsible Electronics Recycling Act of 2010 proposes hefty fines for those who wrongly export electronic waste to developing countries. Critics say the bill doesn’t have enough bite, but proponents claim something is better than nothing. Furthermore, on November 15, 2010, President Obama issued an electronics recycling presidential proclamation, announcing he was creating an interagency task force within the federal government “to prepare a national strategy for responsible electronics stewardship, including improvements to federal procedures for managing electronic products”.

Barbara Kyle, whose organisation is involved with the “e-Stewards Program”, a new certification standard that keeps member recyclers on their toes and helps consumers identify those recyclers that adhere to its vigorous standards, believes a fully regulated environment is mandatory if we’re ever to see true change. “It’s been very instructive to look at the results from each of the states,” says Kyle. “We see much higher recycling volumes from most manufacturers in states where the law requires them to meet certain performance goals. So most companies do only what’s required under the law.”

“There are a few exceptions, but looking at the numbers from Texas, which has a relatively weak computer recycling law that doesn’t specify any level of performance, speaks volumes. Last year, Dell collected 4.5 million kilograms in Texas, while HP collected about 20,000kg. Dell and HP have roughly the same market share but clearly made wildly different efforts here. Yet Lenovo – a fast-growing company – collected only 4.5kg. Yes, 4.5. What’s the lesson here? Pass strong recycling laws, or you won’t see much recycling by these companies.”

Takeback: Which Companies are Playing Nice & Green



One other consumer option that’s just recently getting play is “takeback”. Essentially, takeback is just that – electronics manufacturers taking back products at the end of their life cycle and thus reducing the need for independent recycling. According to Kyle, “Strong takeback means two major things: making the effort to actually get products back to recycle them, and making sure the products are recycled responsibly – not just exported to developing nations.”

Kyle once again gives the thumbs up to Dell, among others. “Dell is currently making the most effort to take back their old products. Back in 2001, they were the target of our campaigning – they had no free takeback at all. Now they do more than other companies even in states where the law doesn’t require them to. For the TV companies, Samsung has been a leader in some states doing takeback, and in committing to use vendors certified to the e-Stewards recycling standard. Best Buy – which is also a TV manufacturer – has also been steadily growing their takeback program and is working with e-Stewards.”
Greenpeace, in its own study that ranks the most dominant tech producers in terms of their environmental footprint, rates Dell mid-pack, while praising Nokia and Sony Ericsson and slamming Nintendo and Microsoft. Read the Greenpeace guide for yourself.

Newsweek, meanwhile, which ranks the top 500 largest publically traded companies in terms of their greenness, says tech is one of the cleanest sectors of all and rates Dell and HP in the numbers one and two positions. You can see its full 2010 Green Rankings here.

Though all of the above paints a murky picture, it also paints a picture of obvious transition. And certainly, there does appear to be enough independent whistleblowers, responsible manufacturers and government intervention to ensure the future is at least better than the past. But right now, there are steps you can take to help.


Ghana Scrapyard; Image Courtesy of Greenpeace.
1. Do not toss any electronic item in the trash.
2. If you’re in the market for a replacement device, first consider the options. Is your current product upgradeable? Do you really need those new features?
3. Buy products that are part of a manufacturer “takeback” program.
4. Sell your old but functioning products on an online classified ad site, or donate them to a responsible local charity or organisation. And don’t forget – you may be eligible for a charitable donation receipt.
5. Patronise manufacturers and retailers that have strong green principles. Check their websites and the links in this article.
6. Try to purchase sustainable/upgradeable devices.
7. Give yourself a cooldown period before jumping on the Next Big Thing. And if the cooldown fails, quietly ponder the gobs of cash you’ve sunk into the “latest and greatest” in the past. And be sad. 
8. If your state doesn’t have an e-waste law, contact your local representative and ask why.
9. Check the e-Stewards site for a roundup of recyclers that meet the vigorous e-Steward requirements.
10. Consult the EPA page for lots of good information on recycling, takeback and donation programs.
Maximum PC brings you the latest in PC news, reviews and how-tos.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

A New Super-Slim IBM Lenovo ThinkPad Laptop

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 laptop

A new super-slim Lenovo ThinkPad laptop has burst onto the scene this Easter weekend. The laptop named simply, Lenovo ThinkPad X1, has been spotted by multiple sources on a Swiss online computer store. The main highlight for this 13-inch notebook is the 21.5mm in thickness being offered.

The X1 with that 21.5mm number isn’t thinner than the new Samsung Series 9 premium Windows 7 ultra-portable or the most current Apple Macbook Air laptop, but the X1 is the thinnest ThinkPad yet. The thinnest before the X1 was the old Lenovo ThinkPad X300 range of ultra-portable laptops.


Lenovo ThinkPad X1 laptop 02

At the moment reports on internal technical specifications for the X1 are limited to just one model that has been spotted, Lenovo usually launches ThinkPad laptops with various configuration options.

The main features for the laptop include a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5-2520M dual-core processor (Sandy Bridge) with Intel HD graphics, a single 8GB DDR3 RAM SODIMM, a 160GB SSD, an SDXC card reader, a 3G modem, up to 5 hours of battery life (up to 10 with battery slice), 1.36 – 1.72 kg weight and a 13.3-inch HD (1366×768) ‘Outdoor Panel’ with 350nit max. brightness and a Corning Gorilla Glass overlay for protection.

Early pricing being reported for the X1 is for Switzerland only, Tell IT systems an online retailer based in Switzerland has the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 with the main features presented above listed for 2,585 CHF (2,791.80 CHF with VAT).- -Windows 7 Professional 64-bit edition is included at that price.

A possible launch date for the Lenovo ThinkPad is rumored to be May 5th, 2011. That date comes from some leaked info regarding the ThinkPad roadmap for 2011 and 2012. You can see the roadmap below it features the recently launched Lenovo ThinkPad X220 and X220t as well as other new ThinkPad laptops.

Lenovo ThinkPad roadmap for 2011 and 2012

AMD Brazos Fusion Acer Laptop 7 Hours Battery Life Store

Acer Aspire One 722
Acer has a nice diverse selection of AMD Brazos Fusion APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) powered machines at the moment. They have 10.1-inch Acer Aspire One 522 ($324.99), a 15.6-inch Acer Aspire 5253 ($384.99) and soon they will have an 11.6-inch model to team named Acer Aspire One 722.

Acer Aspire One 722 lid design

The Acer Aspire One 722 is reported by Macles as featuring shared features with the 522 and a design that is shared with another netbook named Acer Aspire One D257. For the Fusion side of things the 722 will feature the 1.0GHz dual-core AMD C-50 APU (Ontario family) which is paired with AMD Radeon HD 6250 discrete-class graphics.

The only real difference the 722 has with the 522 netbook which share the same design and APU is in the display size and resolution. According to Macles the 722 will come with an 11.6-inch WXGA (1366×768) resolution LCD. Also battery life is supposed to be rated at max. 7 hours for the 722 while the 522 is rated at max. 6 hours with standard battery.


We will have to play the waiting game for info on pricing and launch on this ultra-portable laptop. Acer hasn’t announced it yet but Macles is a reliable source when it comes to Acer netbook/ultra-portable laptop news.

Toshibaa & Apple Only PC Vendors To See Growth In U.S 2011

Apple and Toshiba Laptops

For most Windows PC vendors it was a rough first quarter in the United States for PC shipments, except for Toshiba. The new PC shipments estimates for the first quarter of 2011 have been released today by research analyst group International Data Corporation (IDC). In the new figures the only two vendors that experienced any growth were Apple and Toshiba.

For Apple they still held tight in their 4th position in terms of market share with 8.5 percent total market share in the U.S. but the Cupertino giant did move 1.375 million Mac systems in the first quarter earning them the number two spot in growth for the quarter.

Toshiba placed just ahead of Apple in U.S. market share with 10.3% total for the country and their shipments for the quarter have been estimated as being 1.375 million units which puts them at the lead for growth in Q1 2011.

HP Pavilion dv6t Quad Edition Series

As for other top PC vendors HP, Dell and Acer Group (Acer, eMachines, Gateway and Packard Bell) were all down for the first quarter. The biggest drop for Q1 went to Acer Group who experienced a drop in shipments by a whopping 42.1%. The next big loser in Q1 was Dell who saw a drop of 11.8% in shipments here in the U.S. and behind them was HP who dropped a mere 2.4% in total shipments.

For the rest of world outside of the U.S. the PC shipments were down on the whole by 3.2%, according to IDC numbers. The biggest market share on a global scale belongs to HP at the moment who has 18.9 percent total market share, Dell places second globally with 12.8 percent.

All of those drops by the way is being compared to Q1 of last year 2010. You can see the full chart just below for the U.S. PC shipments for both Q1 2011 and Q1 2010.

IDC United States PC Shipments Q1 2011

Saturday, April 23, 2011

How The iPad Changes PC Design

Consumers prefer light to heavy. Thin to thick. And that's why more laptops will, slowly but surely, begin to imitate the internals of the iPad.

Reason #1--Flash memory: Apple's iPad (not to mention the iPhone) is a major force driving flash memory development and production. Apple obviously has a thing for flash chips (so much so that it has periodically made headlines about its ravenous appetite for this silicon delicacy).

Laying down a solid-state drive (aka flash drive) on the main system board can alone make for a much smaller, lighter design (see photos). Want more proof? Just look at this teardown of the 2011 MacBook Pro to see the relatively large size of a standard magnetic hard disk drive.

And witness what's been occurring over the last couple of weeks. Flash memory and solid-state drive manufacturers like Micron-Intel, Toshiba, and SanDisk have all been tripping over themselves to announce denser flash memory. Here's what Micron Technology said: "Intel and Micron...expect to unveil samples of a 16GB device, creating up to 128GBs of capacity in a single solid-state storage solution that is smaller than a U.S. postage stamp."

Translation: next year denser, less expensive flash drives and solid-state drives. And, I predict, more laptops like the Air and Samsung's Series 9. Though higher-performance solid-state drives will likely never rival the gigabyte-per-dollar economics of the magnetic HDD, they will finally come down enough in price that 256GB (or larger) solid-state storage won't be a barrier to mainstream market designs in the last half of 2012.

The iPad 2's main circuit board: More ultra-portable laptops will mimic the iPad's internals.

The iPad 2's main circuit board: More ultra-portable laptops will mimic the iPad's internals.
(Credit: iFixit)
 
The 2010 MacBook Air's main board, like the iPad's, packs a lot into a small space. And, come to think of it, the Air preceded the iPad (and the iPhone arrived before both).

The 2010 MacBook Air's main board, like the iPad's, packs a lot into a small space. And, come to think of it, the Air preceded the iPad (and the iPhone arrived before both).
(Credit: iFixit)

Reason #2--Processors: small, power-efficient ARM chips will gain in performance as manufacturing process technology advances and land in more feature-rich personal computing devices. Designs like Apple's A5 (and future A6) and Nvidia's Tegra are already taking on some of the characteristics of PC processors (two cores with symmetric multiprocessing). At the other end of the spectrum, Intel is racing to get its processors into tablets and even smartphones. And, more generally, Intel's PC-class processors are emulating chips like the A5 by packing more functionality onto the main processor, resulting in more power efficient silicon (the hallmark of the A5). Proof of the latter trend will come this summer when Apple puts Intel's most power-efficient Sandy Bridge chips into the MacBook Air.

Reason #3--Aesthetics: I think it's safe to say that consumers seem to like the iPad. Form and function combine to make it irresistible for many business users and consumers. By extension, this applies to the MacBook Air and similar laptop designs that emerge.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Android 3.0 Competited Motorola's iPad-Rival Xoom



Google's flagship Android 3.0 Honeycomb competitor to Apple's iPad appears to have failed at launch, with Motorola Xoom sales estimated by Deutsche Bank to have reached just 100,000 units, a figure far lower than initial projections of failure from Morgan Stanley and RBC.

The Xoom has been hampered by a high initial price, low build quality, hardware features that were missing or nonfunctional, operating system and bundled software that was incomplete and unrefined, a scarcity of tablet-optimized applications and what appears to be a general absence of interest in tablets outside of the iPad.

Original estimates suggested Motorola would sell between 3 to 5 million units in 2011, a rate that would require as much as ten times the sales that analysts have estimated over its first two months. Instead, Motorola has reportedly sharply reduced its production orders as it evaluates demand.

In contrast to the estimated 100,000 Xoom units sold in its first two months, Apple sold 300,000 iPads on its first day of sales last year. In the final quarter of 2010, the company sold 7.33 million iPads, or about 2.4 million per month. The company is expected to announce official iPad sales figures for its most recent quarter of earnings later this month.

Apple was reported to have built around 2 million iPad 2s in preparation for launch, and is now estimated to be producing around 2.5 million units per month, with "conservative estimates" saying that Apple will begin producing 4 to 4.5 million per month to meet a growing demand that is outpacing last years'.



iPad enthusiasm fails to raise tide for other boats

While the original iPad was initially estimated to have limited sales prospects and was widely panned as being "just a big iPod touch," the unexpectedly high demand it generated in the market was immediately expected to spill over onto similar devices from competitors, including Dell's Streak and Samsung's original Galaxy Tab, both of which debuted as smaller 5 to 7 inch devices last year.

However, Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs predicted last October that such devices would fail in the market because they could not offer a clear advantage over smartphones, while also failing to provide enough screen real estate to support a real tablet experience.

Jobs also predicted that companies would abandon the 7 inch form factor this year, which both Motorola and Samsung have already done. Samsung announced a 10.1 inch version of its Galaxy Tab at February's Mobile World Congress, but then returned to the drawing board after the release of iPad 2, admitting that its first design was "inadequate." Samsung now hopes to deliver a Honeycomb tablet in June.

Honeycomb buzz suffers colony collapse disorder

Motorola's Xoom was first to market with Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system, the initial version of Android specifically designed for tablets. The Xoom was originally billed as being significantly faster than iPad, capable of running Adobe Flash, and promoted as having a more engrossing 3D user interface, complete with video conferencing capabilities the original iPad lacked.

However, the subsequent release of Apple's iPad 2 erased Xoom's speed advantages, added FaceTime cameras and undercut it on price, while Android's delayed, experimental support for Flash is still not able to deliver reasonable performance even for web videos, let alone the majority of Flash content that was originally designed to work on full power Windows PCs equipped with a mouse.

iPad 2


Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb platform has also handicapped iPad competitors with unfinished edges such as a lack of HTML5 web savvy and a paucity of polished first or third party apps comparable to Apple's own Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iMovie and Garage Band and the more than 65,000 other third party iPad-optimized apps now available.

The openness of Google's Android platform has also distracted customers from getting a clear picture of what Honeycomb tablets actually represent. Prior to Google even finishing its tablet-oriented release, Android licensees such as Dell and Samsung began offering tablets running Android 2.2 Froyo against Google's recommendations, resulting in hardware with clear disadvantages and lacking an ability to upgrade to the planned 3.0 release. Google has since suspended access to Android 3.0 source code to prevent further unanticipated use of its formerly open source code.

Motorola's false start with the Xoom threatens to blight the outlook for Honeycomb tablets in advance of a series of similar offerings from Samsung, Acer and Toshiba expected to hit this summer. LG is also rumored to be partnering with Google to deliver a "Nexus" branded tablet that may divert attention away from other Honeycomb tablets in the same way that Microsoft's Zune destroyed the market for PlaysForSure media players, and as its Nokia partnership may likely starve initial interest from other competing Windows Phone 7 devices.

A high profile failure for Motorola's Xoom could poison the well for subsequent Honeycomb tablets much the same way that the failure of initial Google TV appliances from Sony and Logitech appears to have erased the prospects of mass consumer demand for an Android-based set top box.

Bleak outlook for tablets outside of iPad

Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore warned in a note yesterday that "iPad challengers must either undercut on price (negative margin implications) and/or offer a superior user experience," and said his firm's tablet estimates remain below consensus "due to our concerns that non-iPad tablets will underwhelm."

Whitmore also announced slashed PC growth estimates, from initial 9 percent year-over-year growth in 2011 to just 4 percent, primarily due to weakness in the consumer market due to cannibalization by smartphones and iPads.

"We believe weak end demand in Europe and the U.S. is directly related to pressure from both the iPad and smartphones, where consumers continue extending the lives on existing hardware," Whitmore wrote. "On the other hand, corporate demand remains healthy with no signs of a slowdown as the upgrade cycle continues unabated."

He added that it "appears that iPad cannibalization [of PC sales] is tracking above our original 30% cannibalization estimate. As discussed in prior research, Apple remains the primary beneficiary of this technology transition which is increasingly coming at the expense of PC vendors (Acer, HPQ, etc)."

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Would You Like To Experience The Future Of Mobile Computing Today?

The future of mobile computing, specifically for laptops, has arrived and you might not have even been aware of it. An advanced, powerful and yet still affordable range of central processing units (CPUs) with 3D graphics solutions have arrived for all mobile computers.

Ultra-Portable Laptop

What does this new technology mean for you? Well the new technology allows you to playback smooth Full HD video content, partake in 3D PC gaming, output Full HD 1080p video and games smoothly using HDMI to an HDTV or other external display all without spending a lot of money. How does all of that sound?
Well now that you got a rough idea of what this fantastic new mobile computing technology can do it’s prudent for me to tell you just what it is. The new technology is from Advanced Micro Devices or simply AMD, the new technology AMD has launched that is of special benefit to mobile computers is called an AMD Fusion APU. APU stands for Accelerated Processing Unit.

Introducing the AMD Fusion APU

AMD Fusion APUTo bring the technological feet that is the APU into reality AMD implored acquired skills from their processor business as well as their 3D graphics business. The blend of the accrued knowledge experience has lead to the creation of the Fusion APU, which uses AMD processor technology as well as AMD graphics technology all on a single chip.
AMD Fusion APU Design


The single Fusion APU chip is miniscule in size, offers great performance, low power usage which helps extend battery life and of course the price is very affordable when compared their only competitor Intel and their current offerings.

AMD is currently offering four different APU’s under the same platform, the AMD Brazos Platform. The AMD Brazos platform offers two distinct families of APU’s the Ontario family –offers APU’s with just 9W power usage– and the Zacate family –APU’s perform harder but still only consume 18W of power–, each family has two APU’s at the moment.

AMD Fusion APU Ontario Performance Compared The Ontario family offers the 1.2 GHz AMD C-30 APU which offers 1 processing core and AMD Radeon HD 6250 graphics all one chip, also the Ontario family has the 1.0 GHz AMD C-50 which offers 2 processing cores for dual-core performance and AMD Radeon HD 6250 graphics all again on one chip.
AMD Fusion APU Zacate Performance Compared


 Inside the Zacate family there is the 1.5GHz AMD E-240 APU which has 1 processing core and is joined by AMD Radeon HD 6310 graphics, also in the family is the 1.6GHz AMD E-350 APU which has 2 processing core for dual-core performance and AMD Radeon HD 6310 graphics.

 

What Exactly Do The New AMD Fusion APU’s Mean For You

AMD Fusion APU battery lifeThe AMD Fusion APU’s in either the Ontario or Zacate families all very low amounts of power. These new APU’s actually lead the industry for the performance in low power consumption. What lower power consumption means for you is more unwired computing due to prolonged battery life featured for your Fusion APU powered machine.
Also given the performance offered with the new APU’s you’ll be able to do real tasks like photo editing, video editing, office application work or on the more laid-back side of things you’ll be able to watch up to Full HD digital movies stored on your hard drive or Full HD movies from websites like YouTube or Metacafe.
Full HD playback and Full HD output over HDMI -
AMD Fusion APU Full HDTo go deeper into the Full HD video capabilities of the new class of AMD chips, they allow you to watch 1080p Full HD content without stuttering just silky smooth video playback. Also the Full HD content doesn’t have to stay on your laptop either, using HDMI output from your Fusion APU powered mobile computer you will be able to output 1080p Full HD content to a Full HD computer monitor or HDTV if you wanted to, and again with no stuttering just smooth performance.


AMD Fusion APU save moneySomething that should be important to you, the price tag is like the power consumption quite low for the performance delivered as compared to competing technologies. The price of a Fusion APU powered mobile computer will be on average much cheaper by up a few hundred dollars in some cases to competing technologies that you don’t get the guarantee of smooth Full HD video performance or real 3D PC gaming like you do with Fusion APU machines.

Sony VAIO YB Series group

All too often when you go computer shopping almost all of the machines look exactly the same but with the APU powered machines currently available there is something for every unique individual out there. There are laptops with designs more in line with a business professional just as well there are designs that are in line with the high school student or college student.

It’s not even the styles that vary with APU powered machines currently, small and large screened laptops are both available. You can get a netbook which has a screen size of 10.1-inches and is very portable, or an 11.6-inch ultra-portable laptop, or a 13-inch ultra-portable, or a 15.6-inch full sized laptop. The variety will benefit you by giving you more choice in the experience you want to have with your new advanced mobile computer.

Where To Get A Mobile Computer With An AMD Fusion APU?

AMD Fusion APU 15.6-inch Laptop

To see the latest offerings at very well respected online retailer Amazon just hit this link. Currently Amazon plays host to a great selection of Fusion APU backed mobile computers. Prices on Amazon are most often the best price you can get through the online medium and their prices constantly beat offline retailers.

Something to keep in mind if you want the most maximum Fusion experience you should get the dual core APU powered mobile computers. That would include anything with an AM C-50 APU inside or an AMD E-350 APU inside. For quick links just see the E-350 backed offerings at Amazon here and the C-50 powered offerings here.

Fujitsu Intros 12.1 Ultra-Portable Laptop With SuperFine Display

Fujitsu has introduced a brand new ultra-portable 12.1″ laptop for business and regular mobile computer users alike. The Fujitsu LifeBook PH701 has been introduced in China with an Intel Sandy Bridge (latest generation) Core i5 processor and all sorts of other great features like the SuperFine LED backlit display with anti-glare technology.

Fujitsu LifeBook PH701

The PH701, like other LifeBook laptops, offers a sturdy build that is really meant to last, but this particular model is also not too heavy with a final weight of just a tad over 3 lbs. the PH701 will be an easy carry. The dimensions leave the PH701 measuring just about 1-inch in thickness and with the 6-cell 5800mAh battery that is included carrying this laptop will most likely be a pleasurable experience.

Fujitsu LifeBook PH701 01

Other features included with the laptop can be seen in the specifications breakdown at the bottom of the post but the price can be seen right in this paragraph. ePrice of China, a guest at the official introduction event for the PH701, states this ultra-portable 12.1″ laptop is priced at $15,980 HKD (Hong Kong Dollars) and you get 4GB of DDR3 RAM for that price along with the other features listed below. ePrice is also the source for the wonderful pictures included with this post and you can see the rest of the photos in the gallery below.
Fujitsu LIFEBOOK PH701 Technical Specifications:
  • Intel ® Core i5-2410M processing technology (2.3GHz, 3M L3 cache)
  • - Intel HM65 Express Chipset
  • Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (Traditional / Simplified Chinese / English)
  • 12.1-inch SuperFine WXGA back-light LED wide-screen
  • (1,280 x800 resolution, 200nits brightness)
  • 4GB DDR3 1066MHz memory
  • 500GB SATA hard drive, dual split 50/50, support SMART
  • Intel HD Graphics 3000
  • RealTek ALC269 HD Audio codec with built-in Dual Stereo Speakers and Digital Microphone
  • HD Audio-in: HD Audio-out: Headphone-out
  • Bluetooth ® V3.0 + EDR, 1000/100/10Mbps3 Gigabit Ethernet LAN and 802.11 Wi-Fi b/g/n
  • (Independent switch button)
  • 2MP built-in webcam
  • seepage keyboard :82-key, 18mm key pitch, 2mm key stroke
  • Intelligent Touch Pad with adjustable vertical / horizontal scroll / scroll control ergonomic round
  • Support SD / SDHC Slot, ExpressCardTM / 54 Slot card bad
  • USB 2.0 x 3, VGA-out, RJ45 (LAN), HDMI-out x 1, Power Adapter DC-in, HD Audio-in, HD Audio-out
  • BIOS Lock, Hard Disk Lock, Anti-theft locks bad
  • Approximately 284mm (W) x 215mm (D) x ~ 26mm (H)
  • Battery :6-cell Li-ion battery 5800mAh
  • Weight: approximately 1.5 kg
  • Color: Piano Black, Snow White
  • 2 on-site maintenance services of local
  • Suggested Retail Price: HK $ 15,980 (first threw in 4GB RAM; while stocks last)

Alienware M14x Gaming Laptop Reviewed Before Release

The Alienware M14x isn’t available for purchase just yet but the latest ultra-portable gaming machine from Dell and Alienware has been reviewed already. The laptop has made its way this week to a review website in China named Zol. In their review more specifications for the M14x get exposed, earlier this week we had most of the planned specifications available for the M14x.

Alienware M14x review

After reading through the full review using a language translator, Zol is in Han Chinese, I have been able to grab the major specifications for the review unit. The M14x reviewed featured an Intel Core i7-2820QM quad-core processor and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M dedicated gaming graphics.

Alienware M14x review front


The second generation Intel Sandy Bridge Core i7-2820QM processor included in the review unit according to Intel’s own info features 4 cores and 8 processing threads, a base clock speed of 2.3GHz and a turbo boost (auto-overclock) clock speed of 2.80GHz, the chip also has 8MB of smart cache.

As for the Nvidia GeForce GT 555M dedicated graphics included in the M14x reviewed unit it features according to Nvidia info has 144 CUDA cores, a processor clock speed of 1180 MHz, a texture fill rate of 14.2 billion/sec., the 128-bit or 192-bit interface DDR3 memory included with the graphics card has a memory clock of 900 MHz and a memory bandwidth of 43.2 GB/sec. GPU technologies featured include Nvidia 3D Vision, Nvidia Optimus (hybrid graphics switching), video decode acceleration, Nvidia Verde drivers, Nvidia PhysX, Nvidia CUDA and DirectX 11.

You can see the translated version of the review by hitting this link.
Other specifications leaked earlier for this portable gaming laptop:

LCD14-inch LED; 1366×768 or 1920×1080 options
CPUIntel Core i3-2310M up to Intel Core i7-2820QM
RAM1GB-4GB DDR3 1333MHz or 2GB/4GB DDR3 1600MHz
StorageHDD: 250GB to 750GB 7200RPM; SSD: Samsung P810 256GB 2.5-inch SATA2 or Unnamed 256GB 2.5-inch SATA3
Mobile BroadbandLTE or WiMax 4G options
Multi-mediaSiBeam WirelessHD card+antenna option*
Battery8-cell Li-Ion battery with 63Whr
ColorBlack and Red options
Lights etc.Typical Alienware lighting and custom name plates

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