COMPUTER REPAIRS BOURNEMOUTH

Apologises for 'gremlins', promises doubles all round

Updated  An email that arrived in the inboxes of an unspecified number of Virgin Media customers on Friday that promised "faster broadband, for less" was embarrassingly pulled by the telco just hours later.?

Next-gen Wi-Fi beamforms in

Wireless networks are never fast enough, but for the moment at least they are generally quicker at shifting packets of data than the broadband connections they're typically linked to.?

Fondleslabs to be a bigger seller for years

Ultrabooks will not outsell tablets, the next five years at least, though the new skinny laptop category will experience unit-shipment growth three times as fast as the tablet.?

Replacement boxes rolled out due to faulty chip

National telco BT has been sending letters out to its Infinity broadband customers saying that it will swap their modems for a better version for free, but failing to mention that the real reason for the generous offer is because they could be faulty.?

Desktop 360

Alienware joined the mini PC biz this week, revealing a powerful games machine roughly the same size as an Xbox.?

Installing OS will be a pain for newbies, says Red Hat bloke

The question of whether Secure Boot technology in UEFI firmware could exclude Linux from PCs running Windows 8 has taken a fresh twist.?

Just what does a £5k laptop get you these days?

Review  While currently every notebook manufacturer seems to offering the thinnest, lightest and easiest to carry around notebook ever, in a bizarre way, it?s quite refreshing to find a company wandering off message and offering notebooks at the other end of the scale. Enter Eurocom?s Panther 2.0, the heaviest, most amazingly specified, most expensive and without doubt the fastest performing notebook I?ve ever come across in over ten years of laptop testing.?

Skates out, slates in

Toy Fair 2012  Here at the Toy Fair 2012, the fact technology dominates kids' entertainment is clear as day. Inspiration Works aims to capitalise on this trend with a tablet specifically targeted towards nippers.?

No beer? Tap for more

Samsung's 46in see-through LCD screen will go into production this month, paving the way for the transparent tech's appearance in ordinary folks' living rooms.?

'Ultrathin' PC, anyone?

How powerful is the Ultrabook brand? AMD is betting it is less important to punters - and laptop vendors - than price. The chip maker is to launch a platform for skinny machines in Q2.?

First Nvidia Tegra 3 five-core fondleslab

Review  It?s only been a little over six months since the original Eee Pad Transformer landed but Asus has already launched a new model that advances the breed to such an extent that the original model appears obsolete and with it every other 10in Tegra 2 Android tablet on the market.?

Employees sink teeth into hefty $500 Macbook discounts

As if the joy of working for Apple wasn't reward enough, all Apple employees will now get a $500 discount off Macs and $250 off iPads.?

Asus inspired?

Monster multi-touch fondle... wall

HP unveiled a behemoth this week, catering for the BFGs of the world with a 132in multi-touch display.?

...and its fall at the hands of smartphones, tablets

A map of the rise and rise of the personal computer over the past 30-odd years shows that the platform's popularity may have at long last peaked.?

We're not playing games now

Tablet fondlers can finally get some work done thanks to streaming cloud supplier OnLive, which now pipes the full Windows 7 experience from its data centres to punters' palms.?

But sells so many iPads it needn't care

Apple may have topped the US smartphone chart in Q4 2011, thanks to the iPhone 4S, but it needs a revamped iPad if it's to reverse the trend in the tablet market.?

Consumers too price-wary for skinny tech, says analyst

Ultrabooks are still too darn pricey for punters, with the new skinny laptops' average selling price during Q4 2011 63 per cent higher than that of regular notebooks.?

Graphics tablet and trackpad in one

Review  Take TWO pointing devices into the shower? Not me, I use Wac-and-Go.?

No s**t

Apple may be looking to incorporate the latest version of a new technology, the company's many fansites are reporting.?

Freshly squeezed fondleslab, anyone?

So many options, so little room to work in

Researchers from Microsoft have proposed running Wi-Fi in White Spaces, by slicing up the Wi-Fi signal into bundles small enough to fit between the broadcast TV channels.?

'Send to Kindle' for Macs coming soon

Amazon has released an application that will let Kindle users synchronize and view Microsoft files held in cloud storage via their devices.?

Paperback swiper

Korean researchers have developed an app which makes reading e-books more like flicking through the pages of the real thing.?

ARM twist tactics

Review  Netgear?s ReadyNas Duo v2 appears to be identical to its predecessor from the outside, yet it actually represents a rather radical shift in hardware design for the company. This dual bay ReadyNas model does away with the Infrant Technologies IT3107 SPARC processor featured on earlier models and replaces it with a 1.6GHz ARM CPU in the form of a Marvell 88F6282.?

USB 3.0 Flash drives ahoy!

Sony has upgraded its MicroVault line of USB Flash drives to USB 3.0.?

Enterprise iPhone activations dwarf rivals

Smartphone owners working for big business are activating far more iOS devices than they are Android ones - at least those who employed by firms using Good Technology's corporate email system are.?

iDevices, Macs, PCs even

Apple has begun paying punters for any of its old products they own but no longer want.?

Manufacturer moles fling FUD

The message from Taiwan's computer manufacturers: lower the price of Windows 8 tablet components and software or the devices will be so expensive that consumers won't want them.?

'Year of the tablet? Nope. Year of the iPad'

If purchases of the successful-if-flawed Amazon Fire bit into iPad sales during the holiday season, Apple CEO Tim Cook didn't see it.?

Size of relief

Review  Like Goldilocks with porridge, I?ve yet to find a tablet size that I think is just right. Seven inch models are too small, 10.1 inchers too big. The iPad with its 9.7in screen should do the trick but it?s just too square for me ? physically and metaphorically.?

Toffs to tune in to iTech

Apple is set to open a shrunken version of its Apple Store in the toffs' shopping establishment, Harrods.?

Quad-core CPU too

Apple's upcoming iPad 3 will incorporate LTE connectivity, it has been claimed.?

Pandas might eat the fans

"What we do with an old bamboo makes everybody cheer," sang Caractacus Potts, who would no doubt be impressed at what fellow inventors use the material for nowadays.?

Quad-core keyring

No Windows Starter for the suits

HP clearly thinks there's still mileage in the netbook - many of its rivals don't - at the very least as a business device. It has launched a new model, the Mini 1104, to prove it.?

Catch it if you can

Cut-price 32GB Android tablet, anyone? Dixons is now pricing the 32GB Motorola Xoom at £249 - if you can find one.?

Volumes of demand

Tablet and e-book reader ownership almost doubled in the US over Christmas.?

Buyers offered patches, refunds, extended warranties

Asus has begun rolling out a firmware update for its Eee Pad Transformer Prime that some owners are suggesting goes some way to solve the tablet's GPS problems.?

LCD orders suggest 25m old iPads to ship this year

Apple is ordering fewer 9.7in, 1024 x 768 IPS LCD panels but it hasn't cut out the part entirely. That suggests it does indeed plan to continue selling the iPad 2 after the LTE-equipped iPad 3 has gone on sale in March.?

Touchscreen desktop entertainer

Fondleslabs? Pshaw!

We already know that, having failed to set the world alight with its tablets, Acer is keen to talk up alternatives, most notably Intel's Ultrabook platform. So it comes as little surprise that the PC maker is saying it's going to sell a lot of them this year.?

Up to 58 per cent off launch cost

RIM has taken an axe to the prices it charges for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablets in the UK - again.?

Gadgets to go

Product round-up  Those of you with laptops will undoubtedly agree that even with all convenience of portable computing, there remain compromises aplenty. Yet add a gadget here and there and mobile working can be improved tremendously.?

We really wanna blow you some cable, dears

BT is on the lookout for around 1,000 residential buildings to sign up to a pilot to allow the national telco to test superfast broadband speeds in apartment blocks.?

Flip instantly from telly to tablet?

Sony left fans drooling today with a video-clip that teases an upcoming feature called "Dot Switch".?

Second time lucky?

RIM seems unwilling to give up on tablets, if what's claimed to be a leaked roadmap is correct.?

Routing gear fingered for nationwide outage

Virgin Media was hit by a major broadband service blackout early last night that affected an unspecified number of the telco's five million customers.?

The year's best products... and the worst

Denies it knowingly sold dangerous kit

HP has coughed up $425,000 to lay to rest allegations made by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission that it sold lithium ion laptop batteries it knew were dangerous.?