• UEFI BIOS explained
  The new way to get PCs booted up is explained at PC Pro by Darien Graham-Smith
• Guide to Codecs, Container Formats and Transcoding
  Want to know what all those multi-media terms like H.264, DivX, MP4, AVI, MPEG-2, AVCHD, AAC, OGG, MKV mean? Online Tech Tips explains.
• Move to SSD: migrate your PC to solid state
  TechRadar step-by-step guide shows how to clone your existing boot drive to a fresh new drive for free
• Solid-state revolution: in-depth on how SSDs really work
  Ars Technica explains solid state drives
• What Are The Different Computer Cable Types You Should Know As A User?
  There are a lot of different types of cable. MakeUseOf tries to help you keep them straight.
• The PC inside your phone: A guide to the system-on-a-chip
  As chip manufacturing processes have improved, it’s now possible to cram more and more of previously separate components into a single chip. This not only reduces system complexity, cost, and power consumption, but it also saves space, making it possible to fit a high-end computer from yesteryear into a smartphone that can fit in your pocket. It’s these technological advancements that have given rise to the system-on-a-chip (SoC), one monolithic chip that’s home to all of the major components that make these devices tick—At Ars Technica, Andrew Cunningham explains SoCs

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Source: ReadWrite

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• It’s Time to Reinvent the Personal Computer
  Although Windows and Macintosh are both showing their age, I think there is enormous opportunity for a renaissance in personal computing. (By personal computing, I mean the use of purpose-built computers for productivity tasks including the creation and management of information.) I’m not saying there will be a renaissance, because someone has to invest in making it happen. But there could be a renaissance, and I think it would be insanely great for everyone who depends on a computer for productivity.
  In this post I’ll describe the next-generation personal computing opportunity, and what could make it happen.—Michael Mace at his blog
• The Numbers Are Clear: Mobile Is Taking Over The World
  Take a moment to think about it. The mobile market – hardware, software, apps, services, infrastructure – is expanding to just about every corner of the wold. And as mobile connects the entire planet – linking billions of people in real-time from almost any place you can imagine – it is re-constructing how people everywhere engage in shopping, banking, entertainment, work, healthcare and learning—Brian S Hall at ReadWrite
• How to Keep Yourself Updated With the Latest Internet Memes
  Online Tech Tips gives tips for keeping up with the hot Internet memes. In case you aren’t sure what a “meme” is, here is the Wikipedia explanation.
• Raspberry Pi and the rise of small computers
  If small is beautiful, then in recent months the computer world has been burgeoning with beauty thanks to the growing number of teeny, tiny machines being released.
  The Raspberry Pi has led this pack, purely because more than a million of them have been sold since orders started being accepted on 29 February 2012. Also available at this lower end of the market are devices from VIA, Rikomagic, Mele, Texas Instruments and Hiapad—BBC News
• Coming Soon: Desktops Hosted On The Cloud, Usable Anywhere
  A new video technology quietly announced late last week could mark a landmark change in how apps are deployed on PCs, tablets and smartphones for years to come – and also have big ramifications on how companies like Apple do business—At ReadWrite, Brian Proffitt describes a new codec from Mozilla that will allow the streaming of desktop applications.

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Source: McAfee

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The world of computing is changing rapidly as mobile platforms proliferate. Also the sheer amount of data is leading to new ways of utilizing information. Recently, there has been speculation about how this is affecting Google search and here are two interesting articles.

At Time Tech, Harry McCracken writes about where he sees Google going:

Under the surface, however, Google has changed plenty, in increasingly profound ways. The way we interact with it has also evolved. And if the company’s ambitious plans pay off, the Google of just a few years from now could be a new kind of search engine.

McCracken continues:

But Google Now, and the Star Trek computer approach to search in general, aim to be far more personal than classic Google Search. Already, Now uses your phone’s GPS to keep tabs on your location — not just where you are at the moment, but where you’ve been — so it knows where you live and where you work. It scans your Google Calendar and Google Contacts to help it figure out what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with. It peeks in your Gmail to find items such as tracking information for packages on their way to you. And it checks your search history to deduce stuff like which sports teams and stock quotes you follow. Then it displays cards showing information you might be interested in.

In other words, Google Now provides a form of search which isn’t search at all, strictly speaking. It’s anticipatory rather than reactive, and the only reason it works at all is because it’s so plugged into your life.

A different point of view comes from James Green at Search Engine Land in an article, Why Vertical Search Is Threatening Google’s Reign. He writes that people search differently on mobile devices and that this is going to impact Google search:

As people explore the options provided by Google, they quickly move out of the search engine and visit topical sites – such as Best Buy or Apple – and carry out specific searches. Although the initial search activity often originates in Google, a majority of the follow-up searches – “specific searches” – have shifted to vertical and topical sites.

According to Google, in just five years, the Internet has gone from 1 trillion Web addresses to 30 trillion. With the addition of many more top-level domains coming over the next year, that explosion is continuing unabated. With so many sites and so much information at consumers’ fingertips, it’s increasingly common for users to skip search engines all together and conduct their specific searches within vertical or topical sites.

How about you? Are you using Google or other major search engines less?

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