Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon 27 ushers in communal computing

Lenovo's 27-inch Horizon Table PC works like a standard all-in-one but also has a battery and it can lie down flat. Combine those features with a custom touch software environment and some unique accessories, and Lenovo hopes the Best of CES Award winner will inspire new multiuser computing

802.11ac Wi-Fi made a strong appearance

802.11ac has been on the market for just about a year, starting with CES 2012. At this year's show, virtually all networking vendors, including but not limited to Cisco, Netgear, D-Link,Trendnet, and TP-Link, presented at least one networking product that supports this new and faster standard. Furthermore, Netgear introduced at this year's show the first 802.11ac router, the D6200, that also has a built-in ADSL modem. For the first time, DSL users can get straight to 802.11ac without having to get a separate router or modem. On the other hand, D-Link unveiled the first router, the DGL-5500 Gaming Router, to be powered by the new 802.11ac chip from Qualcomm. The DGL-5500 comes with StreamBoost technology, which promises to be, by far, the best Quality of Service (QoS) feature to date. All other 802.11ac routers currently on the market run on the first 802.11ac chip that Broadcom unveiled last year.

The first Qualcomm-based 802.11ac router, the Gaming Router DGL-5500 from D-Link. (Credit: D-Link)

WiGig is now the new Wi-Fi

WiGig, or 802.11ad, is a wireless standard that operates on the 60GHz frequency band and offers up to 7Gbps of wireless networking speed. For years, it was a separate standard from the existing Wi-Fi protocol. But starting with CES 2013, it's now part of the Wi-Fi ecosystem. Prior to the show, the WiGig Alliance announced that it has merged with the Wi-Fi Alliance. And at the show, Wilocity, the biggest developer of 802.11ac, demoed the first product, the Dell Latitude 6430u Ultrabook, that comes with a built-in Qualcomm-based Tri-band Wi-Fi adapter. With this adapter, the laptop is able to support 802.11ac/n/g/a/b on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, as well as 802.11ad on the 60GHz band; in fact, all existing Wi-Fi standards. The laptop can now connect wirelessly to an 802.11ad-enabled device at multigigabit speed, such as the docking station used in the demo.

The tiny Powerline AV 500 adapter from Actiontec. (Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

Powerline AV 500 adapters get significantly smaller

Power line adapters turn a home's electrical wiring into network cable, effectively increasing the distance of a CAT5e connection without cable needing to be run all over the place. The power line adapters shown at CES 2013 are much smaller than those released in the past. Trendnet, for example, offers the first adapter, the TPL-407E, that can fit right in your palm yet provide a pass-through power socket so that you can add another device to the same wall socket that the adapter occupies. Actiontec, on the other hand, showed us the tiniest Powerline adapter kit by far. The pricing of power line adapters has also gone down significantly. The Actiontec kit, for example, costs just about $50 for two units.

Hybrid drives are now SSHDs

In the storage department, the biggest trend is the solid-state hard drive (SSHD). This is the new name, used across the industry, for a hybrid drive that combines both solid-state and regular platter-based storage into one standard design.

The first SSHD from WD, the WD Black. (Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

Prior to the show, the only mass-production hybrid drive on the market was the Seagate Momentus XT. Apple's new Fusion Drive is not a single-drive design but one that uses an SSD and a separate hard drive in tandem. At CES 2013, however, WD showed its first SSHD, the WD Black. Seagate as well showcased the first SSHD in its line, including the first that comes in a 3.5-inch design and offers up to 4TB of storage space. Seagate also revealed that it no longer makes 7,200rpm 2.5-inch hard drives, choosing instead to focus on the SSHD as its new high-end drive for laptops.

More Thunderbolt storage devices

Similar to 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Thunderbolt storage has now matured with more vendors introducing devices of their own. The biggest Thunderbolt storage device of the show is the 5big Thunderbolt, which offers up to 20TB of storage space.

The new 5big Thunderbolt storage device from LaCie. (Credit: LaCie)

Seagate Wireless Plus won the Best of CES for Networking and Storage
Another highlight of the show is the Seagate Wireless Plus, which won the Best of CES award for Networking and Storage. This is a mobile wireless storage device that comes with 10 hours of battery life and can support 10 Wi-Fi devices. Users now can not only stream and view content that the device stores, but also upload digital content back to it, all via a very easy-to-use mobile app.

The Wireless Plus mobile storage device from Seagate. (Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

While the Wireless Plus is not the first of its type -- Seagate's Satellite was offering similar features prior to this-- it's the first that combines large storage space (1TB), long battery life, a long list of features, and ease of use in one compact design that costs just $200.

AMDs Piledriver architecture has undergone its next evolutionary step: a push to the 5GHz Mark with the new FX-9590 processor.
Unveiled at E3 today, the eight core FX-9590 is the first CPU which is clocked at 5GHz (with Turbo Core) and represents the final hurrah of the Piledriver architecture which will soon be phased out in favor of Steamroller. But what curtain call it is. With the current flagshipVishera FX-8350 processor running at a maximum of 4.2GHz when Turbo is enabled, the 800MHz jump could allow AMDs latest entry to compete with high end Sandy Bridge-E CPUs. While the FX-9590s baseline architecture remains the same, AMD has integrated their Turbo Core 3.0 technology which allows clock speeds to reach higher levels more often. However, the spectacular speeds on this 32nm CPU will push power consumption to stratospheric levels. The FX-8350s 125W was already high but its entirely possible the FX-9590 will push this into the neighborhood of 200W or more depending on sample variance. AMD is also releasing a slightly slower version of this mega-CPU. Dubbed the FX-9370, it is clocked at 4.7GHz and sports eight Piledriver cores allowing for performance that far outpaces AMDs current lineup. At this point, availability and pricing are the two largest question marks. Hardware Canucks cannot independently confirm this but industry sources have stated these processors wont be available of individual purchase, at least initially. Rather, they will make their way into the hands of a few select overclockers (expect to see records start falling like dominos) and system builders. We will likely see them in high end gaming computers from Hypersonic, Maingear and others sometime during the summer.

Some will likely be disappointed by AMDs decision to quietly launch these processors into the prebuilt system market since it is one area most self-respecting enthusiasts tend to avoid. These new CPUs likely have to undergo a highly stringent binning process before making the cut so quantities will be strictly limited which is why a broad-scale launch wasnt in the cards. With that in mind, gamers may eventually see the FX-9590 and FX-9370 trickle down into the retail channel but not in large volumes.

Micron Technology today announced a terabyte-class solid-state drive for under $600
The 2.5-inch 960GB Crucial M500 SSD will be initially priced under $600, Micron said today. The M500 solid-state drive uses a SATA 6-gigabit-per-second controller to deliver up to 80,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS). The drive's sequential read and write speeds reach up to 500 megabytes per second (MB/s) and 400 MB/s, respectively. Drives in the 2.5-inch form factor will be available in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities. The smaller M.2 and mSATA form factors will be available in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities. The 2.5-inch Crucial M500 SSD is expected to be available for purchase in the first quarter of 2013. The M.2 and mSATA form factors are expected in the second quarter. In other terabyte storage news this week, Kingston unveiled a 1-terabyte flash drive. ASUS PQ321 4K monitor was on display at the companys booth at Computex. The 31.5 inch monitor can push 38402160 pixels, which is four times the resolution of full HD. It has s a pixel density of 140 PPI. The monitor supports 10-bit RGB colour and has a 8 ms grey-to-grey response time.

ASUS is also including something it calls Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO) technology, an evolution over the amorphous silicon usually used in monitors, to cut down the bulk of the screen. Visually, the monitor looked stunning. The content on the screen looked sharp, the colours were rich and it looked more vivid and realistic than 1080p content. The problem with a monitor of this size is the lack of content available for it; most computers wont have the GPU power to push out graphics at 4K resolution. The ASUS PQ321 has an MSRP of $4,000. A release date for North America is not yet set.

As time passes, the technology also changes with it. Therefore, a huge significant change can be observed within the types of computer hardwares that we are using. Obviously, before we only have typewriters but, as the time and technology progressed, we now have computers. Before, these computers are really big, taking up a whole room and can do nothing but compute mathematical problems. But now, slim and sleek computers can be easily found everywhere. The idea of a personal computer and its hardware itself changed. That is why we now have laptops, iPads, tablets and smart phones. Before, we needed actual keyboards but nowadays, a built-in keyboard is available in all our touch-screen gadgets. A mouse is also not needed now for we already have mallow keys or we can do a command with just the touch of our finger. Printers are also now more modern. Less wires and connection stuff are needed and some only needs an intangible connection to be able to command a print. Same is true, of course with CPU. Its now faster and of course, with all the laptops and other new gadgets, sometimes it is not needed at all. Now, there are also WiFis, flash drives and other wireless devices that can be connected to the computer. These are only some of the contrast between computer hardwares that are used then, and computer hardwares that are used now. There will come a time, in the near future when all of this new technologies in computer hardwares that are mentioned will also be a part of the past because like most of the things in this world, as time progresses, so are the technologies that we are able to use to suit our lifestyle.

Submitted by:
Sherna C. Tesara, IV-1

Submitted to:
Mrs. Florabel Tolentino