Personal Computer | featured news

Valve head—and one-time Microsoft employee—Gabe Newell has branded Windows 8 "a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space" at videogame conference Casual Connect in Seattle. The Valve boss continued, saying that in the fallout from Windows 8, "we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people." Newell criticised Windows 8 while talking about the future of the gaming industry, and you can read everything he said at VentureBeat.

Microsoft has announced that it will be launching a new music service known as Xbox Music. Xbox Music will offer more than 30 million songs on Xbox 360s, Windows 8 PCs, tablets and phones.

Android developers have released a version of 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich that can run on chips found in most personal computers, from netbooks and laptops to desktop towers.

Once upon a time when you wanted to use a computer you sat down in front of a desktop PC, turned it on and got to work. Then laptops appeared so you could do that work on the sofa, the train or the plane. Then came mobile phones. And the world wide web. And smartphones. And tablets. The poor PC is getting left behind.

IBM topped rival Microsoft in market valuation for the first time since 1996, the latest sign of the technology industry's shift in emphasis away from the personal computer.

Last week, at a large developers’ event, Microsoft formally introduced its next operating system to the world, and it’s nothing like the Windows you’re used to. It’s clear the company has watched and learned as Apple stormed into the marketplace with the iPhone and iPad. Microsoft’s new Windows 8 looks and feels like it’s built from the ground up to do away with the noisy, dated interfaces of the desktop computer, replacing them with a touch-friendly experience that’s focused on a new way of computing.

In a dramatic reshuffling, Hewlett-Packard Co. said it will end its tablet computer and smartphone products and may sell or spin off its PC division, bowing out of the consumer businesses.

Microsoft Corp is set to report a dip in earnings on Thursday, a year after the launch of its Windows 7 operating system blew away Wall Street estimates, as sales of personal computers lag expectations and Apple Inc's iPad eats away at the fringes of its core market.

Gartner cut its global personal-computer shipments forecast for 2010 and 2011 as consumers rein in spending and interest grows in tablet devices such as Apple's iPad.

Roughly 80 percent of computers sold are laptops. But nearly 90 percent of U.S. homes still have a trusty desktop.