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HP Builds One Desktop PC Around a Speaker, Another Modular PC In Slices (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Ars Technica: HP has announced today two new desktop PCs: HP Elite Slice and Pavilion Wave. The HP Elite Slice is a modular machine, with USB Type-C for power and I/O. The base unit contains all the core guts of the PC -- up to a 35W Core i7-6700T processor, up to 32GB of RAM, up to 512GB NVMe storage, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and several ports. The top cover of the main unit is modular, while the bottom of the unit contains a special connector that can allow for additional modules to be stacked. HP has an audio module that includes speakers and a microphone array, and an optical drive module. It should be available later this month, starting at $699. The Pavilion Wave on the other hand combines a PC and a speaker in a 10.3 inch tall triangular box. As for specs, it features a 35W processor, up to an i7 processor, up to 16GB RAM, with up to 1TB SSD or 2TB HDD. An AMD R9 M470 is optional. In addition to the speaker, the Wave features a microphone array for Cortana support.
Somebody uses a dodgy cable and the power supply explodes. That's the current issue with USB-C.
...in something like this that comes pre-installed w/ SteamOS
Just what I need, another vibration source inside my PC.
I like the modular stack idea, but it's completely and totally worthless to me if it's not an industry standard. That in turn is going to limit the hardware to having a rectangular footprint.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Another hip "all in one" like, irreparable, overpriced, soon to be discontinued piece of crap from HP. My desktop is modular enough thank you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
In the 90s, when NT/RISC looked like it might go somewhere, I recall some companies making something like this - a motherboard w/ pluggable CPU modules where one could insert Pentiums or MIPS cards, as needed.
a regular PC is already modular. Hard drive, power supply, motherboards (ATX), optical drives all have standard sizes and can be easily replaced.
Let's face it, companies like HP need a way to differentiate themselves from the myriad of assemble-it-yourself boxes out there. They are (or at least have been) an engineering powerhouse. Let your designers do cool stuff and you'll end up with better designers and more loyal customers.
For the first time in a long time I am beginning to feel like the big companies of yesteryear like Microsoft and HP are moving in the right direction. It has been a while and it is probably a lesson in "necessity breeds invention".
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
As documented in the book, AppleDesign [https://amzn.com/1888001259], Apple's Industrial Design Group prototyped just such machines in the mid-to-late-80s and early-90s. Too bad that Apple has failed to use its own in-house design history for inspiration. I really expected to eventually see a Mac mini that incorporated the stacking concept, instead they basically emasculated it.
With "cloud computing", the Internet of Things, and concepts like the Intel NUC and Arduino and Raspberry Pi already upon us, modular computing makes a lot of sense. When users have much more personalized devices like iPhones and iPads, big "contained" boxes of computers don't make much sense. Instead, clusters of computing and storage, invisibly inter-meshed with cloud resources will take over and deliver "computing" just as with how electrons are delivered through a mesh of power plants big and small, solar panels, batteries, and generators. As with power, the cost and bandwidth of the delivery pipes compared with localized need will determine the "network".
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
Computing is much less about computation than it is the interesting stuff that you accumulate and create.
The cloud isn't magically piping in MIPS to your local terminal and that's a very important distinction.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Anyway, I think they're relatively clever ideas aesthetically.
Of course with modularization the devil's in the details in terms of connectivity, reliability, and performance. And, also, there's the whole "the point of a desktop is INTERNAL modularity and replaceability - ie video cards, etc" thing which this then violates in it's way, apparently compelling any future upgrades to come from HP and not the PC ecosystem.
-Styopa
In addition to the speaker, the Wave features a microphone array for Cortana support.
You spoiled it.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Look! It's a 1990's Sun Microsystems computer, reborn!
CyberKender
Apparently Appointed Lord Mayor of There
Who ever needed a MIPS card outside of Academia?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The first Athlon CPU models from AMD used the EV6 bus from DEC (albeit on a slot connector like the Pentium 2/3), and plans floated around to build motherboards compatible with both Athlon and DEC Alpha 21264 CPUs only requiring a firmware swap (and an adapter card for the 21264).
I also hazily recall some computer vendor that came out around the time of the original BeBox that sold a computer claimed to have a modular motherboard, with expansion slots, memory, CPU bus, etc. on separate modules, but the name escapes me.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
That is assuming that a person's primary job is focused on the PC. Even so they may have extra stuff that they may be plugged in. Keyboard, Mouse, Multiple monitors. A Musical Keyboard, Sound Mixer, Artist tablet.... The CPU may be filling space that can be used for other things.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
TI-99/4A, 1981. That's thirty-five years ago. Get off my lawn.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Acer announced their stackable Revo Build about a year ago, around the same concept.
Unlike the HP system, the Acer system is user-extendable.
Acer was also first (of HP and Acer) with a inductive charging top...
But it is basically like a NUC... with a not very fast CPU, no discrete GPU, no RAM expansion etc.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Is vibration for computers still a problem in the 21st century.
Sure. Particularly if you have rotating platter hard drives. It also depends on the intensity of the vibrations. Material fatigue is still a thing last I checked and there are mounting considerations. Granted it's usually not as much of a problem as it once was but it is a consideration. However, I doubt any speaker would be likely to cause problems at volumes that would not induce instead deafness.
So Moore's law has finally come to an end? Now they're just tinkering with the cup holders.
No, cos they didn't have SteamOS ;-)
LInux will probably run on it eventually if not immediately, at which point, you can install the open source Mycroft system and skip the whole corporate privacy vacuum. Of course, that won't help with governmental privacy issues, but it's probably the best you can do if you want Echo-style interaction.
Until someone manages to do non-cloud speech recognition, anyway. That's the holy grail for this tech as far as the ability to control information distribution goes. Nothing worthy out there yet, though. Tough problem.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Know what I'd like to have?
A computer with a full-bore group of legacy-to-modern interfaces. Video, VGA, displayport, Serial, ethernet, parallel, firewire, USB of every flavor, 8" and 5" floppy controller and bays, stiffies, all sizes of hard drive bays, various card slot types, and so on. Something I could plug damn near anything into and pull up legacy data, operate legacy devices, etc.
Not going to get it, of course -- it'd be expensive, and the market would be minimal... but that's what I'd like to have.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Do you want to get modded redundant? Because that's how you get modded redundant. - Archer
Well some companies still make USB floppy drives, there's USB-to-almost-anything adapters available and for the rest I'm sure a hacker friend could build something custom for you. All you need to do after that is install everything into a custom case.
My initial instinct was to resist but I'm induced to put aside our potential differences, even if it means doing a complete volte-face.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Ohm y god. You should do a volt-face before someone charges you.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I vaguely remember something similar but much more recent. IIRC the thing had proprietary interconnects between the modules, to which my reaction was "nah".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
My experience with USB has been almost uniformly poor.
Maybe it's just OS X.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
How many office workers in a typical corporate setting do you see digging into their computer case?
You're not the customer that matters here because, while I'm sure they'd happily sell you one of their sleek new desktops, you don't represent the corporate-oriented target market.
"Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
I believe that it's actually still possible to build a massive frankenputer with all of those things, using only COTS components. You can bridge PCI to ISA all the way into a sidecar enclosure. You can get a board with both PCI-E and PCI-X, or at least it was easy enough until recently; you could always bridge PCI-E out and get at least PCI if not PCI-X. And you should still be able to find 8-bit ISA interfaces for 8" floppies, etc.
The thing is, you don't actually want that. You really, really don't. Why not? Because some of those interfaces were garbage, and they either won't actually work with a modern CPU or they won't work properly in a multitasking environment. You really want a network of different machines with those devices and interfaces. Then you only have to pay the power budget of the devices you are actually using. The power budget of the machines themselves is trivial.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"