Business decisions in the PC/IT world often impact on innovation. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has labelled Intel’s new law suit against Nvidia as having just such a goal: "This is clearly an attempt to stifle innovation to protect a decaying CPU business."

Yes, Intel have launched a law suit against Nvidia, claiming that their current licence doesn’t give Nvidia the right to develop new chipsets to support some of Intel’s current CPUs and their future CPUs.

When I first saw a news headline about this my immediate thoughts turned to Atom. Atom and the Ion platform specifically. When Ion was first launched, the possibility of netbooks with Atom and superior NVIDIA graphics was something to be relished. The CPU power of low power consumption processors in netbooks is often not the biggest problem with a netbook’s overall performanc ...

All the kids are home sick today. They’re all complaining of sore throats and headaches. I think it’s from the smoke in the air around here from the bush fires (I’m in Melbourne, Australia). Today it is the thickest it has been in our area and I have to admit that my eyes were stinging earlier this morning in the office. The office is a converted garage so I guess it doesn’t keep the air out as much as an actual office or house does.

Not having to get three school dresses ironed, nor oversee lunch preparation and homework book reminders, I went out to the office earlier than usual.

About two years ago one of the kids had bought John a photo frame in the shape of a nut, with nuts and bolts around the edge. Along the top it says “My Nutty Dad”. With the extra time up my sleeve I grabbed it and s ...

We come across all sorts of technical gripes and compatibility issues when it comes to our videos on tkArena. Sure, there are fabulous products and services out there for consumer and prosumer video wannabees but the list of little tricks and tib-bits of knowledge that pop up out of the blue is just endless. So I’d thought I’d start sharing.

I was hoarding it all so that I could become the all-time font of knowledge of the digital video online world but now I realize that I’d have to live, eat and breath it for that to happen. So here’s lesson number one from a digital video grunt with a bit of experience up her sleeve.

I didn’t know but apparently PAL and NTSC are still relevant to HD content. I would have thought they would go the way of the dodo, but apparently not. Digital video cameras are manufactured to record in a video signal which is either NTSC or PAL.

NTSC is 480 lines, a lesser quality than PAL which is 576 lines. You would thin ...

Last week I was listening to the news on the radio and was shocked to hear that The New York Times had to be bailed out by some South American billionaire. With so many huge companies, that are institutions more than businesses, getting themselves to the verge of closure, I have to wonder what they’re doing wrong to get themselves there. The New York Times crash was due to a sudden drop in advertising revenue, something of a roll-on effect from the global financial crisis. Too many of their advertisers had to cut spending and in the end the whole newspaper was under threat.

But there’s another theme running through the news right now: change. Gordon Brown has said that “that the current financial crisis should be viewed as an opportunity to create a "new global order" [

Yesterday I blogged on the flight from Melbourne to LA, wondering if I'd get a glimpse of the next “it” product for 2009 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week. Maybe it's just the lack of  sleep, or the fact that the 16 hour flight was enough for me to read the whole novel I bought along with me and now I'm bored, but I've been thiking about what that must be.

An “it” item must have a real practical value for most people. As I streteched my legs and waited for the lavatory sign to blink back over to a luminescant green I looked around at how other passengers were passing the hours. The flight had very poor inflight entertainment. There was a large pull down screen in the centre and tiny TFT screens that glarred an over-saturated red hue at the top f each aisle. It didn't make for compelling viewing, especially if you're under 6 foot and the guy in front of you was over 6 foot. So gadget-wise, what was the solution?

Notebooks, p ...

I am writing this blog on the flight to attend the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Of course the blog won't actually be posted for another 24 hours probably. It's a 16 hour direct flight from Melbourne to LA and then there are another two flights from there to reach the show's home town of Vegas via Phoenix.

I must have inadvertantly booked us on a cheap-ass flight. It's a United Airlines boeing 747-400 with no in-flight entertainment and all drinks cost US$6 each! But I'm in good spirits regardless since I've brought along a great book (which I'm already half way through after the first 4 hours of the flight) and the leg room is pretty fantastic – it almost makes up for there being no LCDs on the back of the seats – almost :)

This will be the first time that I attend CES. John's been twice before. He's pretty excited about being able to show Las Vegas to me although I remain dubious about how much I'll like it. He's told me abouthow each h ...

I sat down to write this blog – a somehow appropriate Christmas or end of year type blog and I wondered, what has been the stand out technical item of the year for me? In my personal life, talkie non-tech for a moment, getting two cats has been the absolute highlight of the year. Seriously, if you don’t own a cat your home is not complete. But back to tech. My answer to the question about what is the most useful, couldn’t do without it, tech item of the year is still the Internet. Boring I know, but there you have it. Without it I wouldn’t earn a living. Simple as that.

But what’s the Internet without a PC? It’s very telling that, even though I do have access to new hardware, my PC is about three years old and I’ve found no need at all this year to uproot everything for a day while I upgrade. It’s fast and despite my huge workload, my hard drive space is no where near full after another year. That’s quite ominous for the PC industry when someone who earns their keep in that indust ...

It was John and my 13th wedding anniversary yesterday. A friend looked after the kids so we could go out to dinner. We thought about going to a movie but 1) it’s nice to be able to just talk away without kids around – and with a no work talk rule and 2) it’s almost cheaper to see the movie together at home on Blu-ray than it is to go the cinema. In fact in some ways it may even be better quality.

It costs $14 each for entry to see a movie. That’s $28. Most Blu-ray movies cost about $34. If you watch a movie at home after buying a Blu-ray copy:

• You can watch it again without paying again
• You can make your own popcorn – popcorn and a drink costs more than the ticket at most cinemas!
• You can cuddle up to someone
• You can pause it for a toilet break
• You can comment out loud
• You can cry (if it’s that type of movie) and not ...