Windows 7 sends PC sales up 40% in first week |
Not surprisingly, the launch of Windows 7 has triggered at least a temporary spike in PC sales according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katheryn Huberty. Computer sales jumped about 40 percent during the week of Microsoft’s OS launch compared to the same period a year earlier.
That number is in part offset by buyers holding off on their purchases during the previous two weeks, when sales dropped 29 percent and then 2 percent versus 2008, but is well above earlier weeks, when sales were up by at most 19 percent.
The slow global economy is hurting the PC market. Demand for computers is up and what computers are selling are being sold at lower than traditional retail prices leading to reduced revenues for computer makers. Many consumers are also resorting to cheaper computers like netbooks as well.
When customizing your PC at Dell, you can now click on a $19 option called “Iron Man movie with bonus content?” Say what? We love Iron Man, but surely it’s full of evil DRM. It’s what Dell’s Global Consumer Group Director is calling Dell’s “slow immersion into content as a major piece of the puzzle in terms of what consumers want from a PC.” 
Alienware has been showing off today a new desktop PC which offers up quad graphics processors for advanced gaming needs. It is call the Alienware ALX CrossFireX.
After 18 years spent playing the game and millions of matches won and lost, a computer has now solved the riddle of whether there can be a perfect game of checkers. Computer scientists working at the University of Alberta in Canada used a program called Chinook to factor out the 500 billion positions possible in any one game of checkers. The result was that it is possible to reach a draw against your opponent but it’s exceedingly rare to happen. Chinook was able to plot out every possible move and reach the determination but for flesh and blood players, thinking ahead 20 or 30 moves down the line is asking a little too much from the software in our heads.
