HP appears to be the latest hardware manufacturer to be making a strong push into the VR space, after announcing a range of developments including the pending release of a professional version of its mixed reality headset. The announcements came earlier this week at SOLIDWORKS World, a popular event for those working in the field of 3D CAD. Among the product announcements are an upgrade to the HP Z4 Workstation, the pending (March) release of the commercial-grade HP Windows Mixed Reality Headset – Professional Edition, an HP VR Launch Kit designed for specialized VR deployment, and the extension of HP’s Device as a Service offering
Global quarterly VR headset shipments achieve new record
Uptake of virtual reality hardware continues its upward trend, according to the latest numbers from independent market analysis firm, Canalys. In a report issued Monday, the company indicated that total global shipments of VR headsets set a new milestone, exceeding one million units during the just completed 3rd quarter. Meanwhile, Sony, Oculus, and HTC continue to dominate the VR hardware marketplace, with an 86% combined market share. One driver of headset acquisitions was a temporary-turned-permanent price cut by Oculus in Q3, who matched Playstation’s VR headset price point at $399. This precedes the upcoming release of Oculus’ $199 Go standalone headset, expected next year. “VR
Five Days Later: A Hard Look at New Apple Macs
Apple’s event took place on Thursday, October 27th, 2016. We were on the live stream to see the first new hardware presented and were left wondering is the spirit of Apple, company which sparked a lot of emotions from the second return of Steve Jobs to his untimely departure. The new MacBook Pro, available in Silver and Space Gray configurations, refreshed for the first time since May 2015. It’s available with either a 13- or 15-inch display featuring a touch bar, simply called Touch Bar, replacing the row of function keys. The Touch Bar was initially evidenced by a set of product photos leaked by Apple itself ahead
Microsoft Windows VR Headset Devices Coming in April 2017
Microsoft product lineup surprised everyone today, but the biggest surprise was planned for VR fans. The company revealed a range of Windows VR headsets alongside its upcoming Windows 10 update known as “Redstone”. This update will come to market as the Windows 10 Creator’s Edition, scheduled for April 2017. This new hardware platform will be manufactured respective partners: Acer, ASUS, Dell, Lenovo and HP. Not only are these devices cheaper than the Oculus Rift and Vive, but Microsoft says they’re better too. “These headsets will be the first and only to ship with inside-out, six degrees of freedom sensors,” said Terry Myerson, Executive VP of the Windows
China Now Leads the Server Race: Meet the Phytium MARS Processor
Two decades ago, the US high end microprocessor industry was a lively, diverse market where about five various instruction set architectures battled it out across the workstation and server fields. You had choices like DEC’s Alpha – the speed leader; MIPS – the Silicon Graphics heart; SPARC from Sun Microsystems, IBM POWER, HP PA, the nascent X86, and a few custom architectures for MPP massive parallel processing, for instance. The rest of the world pretty much had nothing – British Transputer and German Hyperstone platforms died out due to lack of funding, while ARM was still keeping to the low end embedded arena after the end of the
Nvidia Launches VR Ready for Professionals
Over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen a number of companies pronouncing that their ‘Mobile First’ strategies are dead, and they’re shifting their focus to develop a ‘VR First’ mindset. Good examples are Samsung, and CryTek approaches, which should lead to an ubiquitous adoption of VR experiences such as Six Flags roller-coaster experiences or movie-becomes-a-VR-experience. With the early success of HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and many other 3rd party vendors looking to find their their place under the (virtual) Sun, content creators are turning their focus on producing content for Virtual and Mixed Reality. Almost all of the content creation is done on a PC, most notably high-end (workstation) systems. Both AMD and Nvidia developed their VR middleware geared
Cost of Meg Whitman: 88,300 Jobs Gone at HP
As the current Hewlett Packard management is proceeding with the company split into two divisions, a move started-and-stopped under the previous management, more jobs are getting cut as the company wants to ‘maximize the shareholder return’ and reduce glut which is somewhat inevitable in an organization that currently employs more than quarter of million people (September 2015: 302,000 employees worldwide). The company management lead by Margaret Cushing ‘Meg’ Whitman claims the latest round of cuts will reduce in a one-time charge of 2.7 billion USD, and produce annual savings in the same range. Two billion dollars are to be saved in the Enterprise division, while the ‘PCP’ division should save 700
HP’s Stream 7 is Going For an Amazing Price on the Microsoft Store
HP’s tablet is somewhat lacking in the hardware space, but for this price and the freebies included you’d be foolish not to buy one.
Apple and Acer Finish 2014 With Similar Amount of Shipments: Research
HP Launches ZBook 14 G2 And 15u G2 Powered By AMD FirePro
HP’s latest mobile workstations allow creative professionals to get work done on the go.
CES 2015: HP Targets The Mini-PC Segment With Pavilion Mini And Stream Mini
With prices starting at $179, HP is looking to entice budget users with its mini-PC offerings.
Bandai Namco, HP PC, Toshiba Scanner: The Headlines in Japan for Dec. 18
Here is the daily roundup from Japanese consumer tech and tech business websites for December 18, 2014.
Playstation Karaoke, Solar monitoring, Elitebook 1020: The Headlines in Tokyo for Dec. 11
Here is the daily roundup from Japanese consumer tech and tech business websites for December 11, 2014.
HP’s Upcoming EliteBook Folio 1020 Is The world’s Thinnest Business Notebook
Nvidia Launches Tesla K80 Dual Kepler Compute Card
Nvidia today has launched its latest Tesla dual GPU card, the Tesla K80, which features two of Nvidia’s own Kepler GPUs with 24 GB of GDDR5 memory at SC14
Singing capacitors, Google exhibits, Cyber Crime Losses: The Headlines in Tokyo For November 12
Here is the daily roundup from Japanese consumer tech and tech business websites for November 12, 2014.
Will We Ever Have Something As Beautiful As The Voodoo Omen Again?
When I think back on what I view as the most gorgeous PC I always come to the last version of classic Voodoo Omen.
The New HP Omen Conjures Some Voodoo
HP just announced the brand new Omen gaming notebook, and has its sights set squarely on the Razer Blade notebook.
HP's Sprout Wants To Feel Your Touch
Sprout is HP’s newest initiative to reinvent the way people work with computers to create art, presentation, and media.
PC Market Sees Resurgence in EU and US, Shrinkage in Asia
The global PC market has essentially been flat for the third quarter of this year, but Europe and the US are bright spots, indicating that the PC is strong