SSD

Open the Gates – With more than 31 football fields of show space, CES attendees have to crowd in opening day and walk themselves ragged in hopes of not just seeing all the show but seeing what will win/fail big in the coming year.

While a few folks have said CES is on its last leg, we wonder if they were at the same show we were this month.

More than 3,100 exhibitors squeezed into a mere 1.861 million net square feet (31+ football fields) of exhibit space and the show drew more than 153,000 attendees.

There was the urban sprawl of the big boys trying to out-glitz each other (even as they experienced record losses or marginal profits).

Microsoft announced that this was their last keynote, last time of exhibiting; and folks immediately said, "See the show is losing its relevance in a real-time world."

These same folks probably said Ballmer couldn't get out of his own way.

Suddenly he's brilliant?

Folks pointed out that really big things in the past have gone on to bomb, die.

You know Palm/WebOS, netbooks, 3D TV, etc.Read more

"Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma." – Wizard, The Wizard of Oz, MGM (1939)

Maybe the computer never delivered on the promise of the paperless office, but it did open the floodgate on one thing … data.

The result has been a data explosion:

• 1,203 Exabytes of digital info was created, replicated around the globe last year
• 1 Petabyte of new info has been produced every 15 seconds this year
• The annual growth in information is 59 percent

All of this is because people want to do it themselves (O.K., maybe companies "encouraged/pushed us a little") with ATMs, self check-in/check-out, email/video/tweets, online tell your life story, personalized TV/video/music entertainment, online travel/banking/paying/shopping.Read more

Does the sagging economy, national debt and the previous list of the 11 things that will be more expensive in 2012 have you feeling down? Well, here's something to look forward to: to help counteract some of that 2012 gloom, the editors at dealnews have gathered 12 items they predict will cost less in 2012.

From TVs to laptops, cash-strapped shoppers should keep an eye on prices for these items; even wine might see notable discounts this year!

So cheer up and read on for the good consumer news.

12 Things That Will Be Less Expensive in 2012:

1. Apple iPad 2
The iPad 3 will not feature a significant price drop (if any at all), but one thing is guaranteed — Cupertino's forthcoming tablet will most certainly bring down the price of refurbished iPad 2s.

2. Wine
With less disposable income, folks have left wines priced at $30 and above untouched on store shelves. So to move stock, retailers are expected to offer more sales and even flash deals on wines.

3. Desktop Replacement Laptops
Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs may be dominating the laptop landscape, but it's AMD's recession-friendly Fusion APUs that are driving prices down, particularly in the realm of desktop replacements.Read more

Whether it's for school or BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) the iPad or tablet is first on nearly everyone's wish list.

At the same time there are those who are practical and see the need for a new light, high-performance notebook or ultrabook.

Anyone who has tried one of the new systems agrees that the light weight and lightning speed of the new systems make them very enticing.

A lot of the features people find desirable in the new systems are because they're using solid state drives (SSDs) rather than traditional spinning hard drives.

SSDs have been around since 1976, they didn't begin to appear in mainstream consumer applications such as mass-marketed notebooks until 2006.

Today, with SSDs delivering so many advantages over hard disk drives (HDDs), a growing number of notebook/ultrabook manufacturers are offering them as the standard storage solution.Read more