Charlotte Web shares a report from SFGate: Despite the popular belief that residents are fleeing California, there is not in fact a statewide exodus, new research out of the University of California finds. For one, while residents are moving out of state, they are not doing so at "unusual rates." Similarly, the research found no evidence of "millionaire flight" from California and notes that the state continues to attract as much venture capital as all other U.S. states combined, despite the recent exodus of Hewlett-Packard and Oracle. The report did reveal net migration out of San Francisco during the pandemic. However, about two-thirds of people who left the city remained in the Bay Area, while 80% stayed in California, which is consistent with earlier trends...

A recent survey by UC San Diego, included in the project, found that the percentage of Californians who plan to leave the state has remained static for two years. In fact, only 23% of California voters said they were seriously considering leaving the state, which is lower than the 24% who said the same in a 2019 survey conducted by UC Berkeley. [...] The myth of "millionaire flight" from California, the project also found, is just that -- a myth. Affluent Californians were actually more satisfied with the direction the state is going and very likely to believe it will be better when their children grow up. Likewise, an analysis of almost two decades of Franchise Tax Board data by Stanford University and Cornell University found that there has been no millionaire flight from California, despite recent tax increases levied on higher earners. "From housing affordability to post-pandemic recovery, California is faced with solving a daunting number of existential challenges. To help inform those important public discussions, UC assembled many of the state's top researchers to provide a data-driven understanding of California's population trends," said UC Regent John A. Perez in a press release.

"Sliced and diced by geography, race, income and other demographic factors, our efforts have produced a clearer picture of who perceives California as the Golden State versus a failed state," he continued. "The empirical data will be, at once, disappointing to those who want to write California's obituary, as well as a call to action for policymakers to address the challenges that have caused some to lose faith in the California Dream."

Westland Real Estate Group patrols its 1,000-unit apartment complex in Las Vegas with "a conical, bulky, artificial intelligence-powered robot" standing just over 5 feet tall, according to NBC News. Manufactured by Knightscope, the robot is equipped with four internal cameras capturing a constant 360-degree view, and can also scan and record license plates (as well as the MAC addresses of cellphones). But is it doing any good? As more government agencies and private sector companies resort to robots to help fight crime, the verdict is out about how effective they are in actually reducing it. Knightscope, which experts say is the dominant player in this market, has cited little public evidence that its robots have reduced crime as the company deploys them everywhere from a Georgia shopping mall to an Arizona development to a Nevada casino. Knightscope's clients also don't know how much these security robots help. "Are we seeing dramatic changes since we deployed the robot in January?" Dena Lerner, the Westland spokesperson said. "No. But I do believe it is a great tool to keep a community as large as this, to keep it safer, to keep it controlled."

For its part, Knightscope maintains on its website that the robots "predict and prevent crime," without much evidence that they do so. Experts say this is a bold claim. "It would be difficult to introduce a single thing and it causes crime to go down," said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington, comparing the Knightscope robots to a "roving scarecrow." Additionally, the company does not provide specific, detailed examples of crimes that have been thwarted due to the robots.
The robots are expensive — they're rented out at about $70,000-$80,000 a year — but growth has stalled for the two years since 2018, and over four years Knightscope's total clients actually dropped from 30 to just 23. (Expenses have now risen — partly because the company is now doubling its marketing budget.)

There's also a thermal scanning feature, but Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at American University, still called these robots an "expensive version of security theater." And NBC News adds that KnightScope's been involved "in both tragic and comical episodes." In 2016, a K5 roaming around Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California, hit a 16-month-old toddler, bruising his leg and running over his foot. The company apologized, calling it a "freakish accident," and invited the family to visit the company's nearby headquarters in Mountain View, which the family declined. The following year, another K5 robot slipped on steps adjacent to a fountain at the Washington Harbour development in Washington, D.C., falling into the water. In October 2019, a Huntington Park woman, Cogo Guebara, told NBC News that she tried reporting a fistfight by pressing an emergency alert button on the HP RoboCop itself, but to no avail. She learned later the emergency button was not yet connected to the police department itself... [The northern California city] Hayward dispatched its robot in a city parking garage in 2018. The following year, a man attacked and knocked over the robot. Despite having clear video and photographic evidence of the alleged crime, no one was arrested, according to Adam Kostrzak, the city's chief information officer.
The city didn't renew its contract "due to the financial impact of Covid-19 in early 2020," the city's CIO tells NBC News. But the city had already spent over $137,000 on the robot over two years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: With increased demand from the pandemic, Canalys reports that U.S. PC shipments were up 73% over the same period last year. That added up to a total of 34 million units sold. While Apple had a good quarter with sales up 36%, it was surpassed by HP, which sold 11 million units in total with annual growth up an astonishing 122.6%. As Canalys pointed out, the first quarter tends to be a weaker one for Apple hardware following the holiday season, but it's a big move for HP nonetheless. Other companies boasting big growth numbers include Samsung at 116% and Lenovo at 92.8%. Dell was up 29.2%, fairly modest compared with the rest of the group.

Overall though it was a stunning quarter as units flew off the shelves. Canalys Research Analyst Brian Lynch says some of this can be attributed to the increased demand from 2020 as people moved to work and school from home and needed new machines to get their work done, but regardless the growth was unrivaled historically. " Q1 2021 still rates as one of the best first quarters the industry has ever seen. Vendors have prioritized fulfilling U.S. backlogs before supply issues are addressed in other parts of the world," Lynch said in a statement. Perhaps not surprisingly, low-cost Chromebooks were the most popular item as people looking to refresh their devices, especially for education purposes, turned to the lower end of the PC market, which likely had a negative impact on higher-priced Apple products, as well contributing to its drop from the top spot. According to Canalys, Chromebook sales were up a whopping 548% with Samsung leading that growth with an astonishing 1,963% growth rate. "Asus, HP and Lenovo all reported Chromebook sales rates up over 900%," adds TechCrunch.

In late 2019, Microsoft announced Windows 10X, a new flavor of Windows 10 designed for dual-screen PCs. Windows 10X, Microsoft said at the time, will power dual-screen PCs from Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and of course Microsoft. But it appears Microsoft has changed its plans about what it wants to do with this version of Windows 10. Microsoft-focused news outlet Petri reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter, that Microsoft will not be shipping Windows 10X this year and the OS, as was described by the company in 2019, will likely never arrive. From the report: The company has shifted resources to Windows 10 and 10X is on the back burner, for now. For about a decade, Microsoft has been trying to modernize Windows in various ways. We have seen Windows RT, Windows 10S, and now Windows 10X. The question becomes if there really is a future for anything other than traditional Windows 10? Microsoft said during their last earnings call that there were 1.3 billion active devices are running the OS each month and with that context in mind, does there really need to be a 'lite' version of the OS?

It's a fair question at this point because Microsoft's history of trying to overhaul Windows is a journey down a road with many headstones along the way to 2021. The reality is that if Microsoft is going to invest heavily in a modern version of Windows 10, it should be to run Windows 10 on ARM. A watered-down version of the OS to compete against Chromebooks is not working out today, much like it has not worked out in the past and it may never work out either but the future is hard to predict. While Windows 10 was put in the backseat for the past couple of years and many looked at 10X as a possible revival of excitement for the OS, all eyes should now be focused on Sun Valley -- the next major update to Windows 10. If something is going to return the limelight to Windows, it has to be Sun Valley because that's the only thing left. But just because 10X isn't coming to market anytime soon, the technologies that were built for 10X are migrating to Windows 10. Not everything from 10X will show up in 10 but I would expect to see things like UI updates, app containers, and more arrive in Windows 10.

Now that Apple's lost item finder AirTag has officially been introduced, competitor Tile is going on record ahead of its testimony in front of Congress tomorrow about how it perceives Apple's latest product. In a statement, Tile CEO CJ Prober said today: "Our mission is to solve the everyday pain point of finding lost and misplaced things and we are flattered to see Apple, one of the most valuable companies in the world, enter and validate the category Tile pioneered. The reason so many people turn to Tile to locate their lost or misplaced items is because of the differentiated value we offer our consumers. In addition to providing an industry leading set of features via our app that works with iOS and Android devices, our service is seamlessly integrated with all major voice assistants, including Alexa and Google. And with form factors for every use case and many different styles at affordable prices, there is a Tile for everyone.

Tile has also successfully partnered with top brands like HP, Intel, Skullcandy and fitbit to enable our finding technology in mass market consumer categories like laptops, earbuds and wearables. With over 30 partners, we look forward to extending the benefits of Tile to millions of customers and enabling an experience that helps you keep track of all your important belongings. We welcome competition, as long as it is fair competition. Unfortunately, given Apple's well-documented history of using its platform advantage to unfairly limit competition for its products, we're skeptical. And given our prior history with Apple, we think it is entirely appropriate for Congress to take a closer look at Apple's business practices specific to its entry into this category. We welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues further in front of Congress tomorrow.

The latest data from research firm Canalys shows continued strength in the worldwide PC market in the first quarter of 2021, with shipments of desktops and notebooks, including workstations, up 55% year on year. From the report: Though this growth rate was buoyed by a weak Q1 2020, total shipments of 82.7 million units is still impressive, and the highest Q1 shipment number since 2012. Backlogs on orders from 2020, particularly for notebooks, were a key driver, though new demand is also a factor as smaller businesses begin their recoveries. Shipments of notebooks and mobile workstations increased 79% year on year to reach 67.8 million units. Desktops improved slightly at the start of 2021 after a string of poor quarters in 2020, with the level of shipment decline easing. Shipments of desktop and desktop workstations fell 5% year on year to 14.8 million units.

The strong recovery from a weak Q1 2020 saw all vendors in the top five achieve double-digit year-on-year shipment growth. Lenovo maintained pole position in the PC market, securing a 25% market share and posting year-on-year growth of 61%, with shipments of 20.4 million units. HP, spurred by strong Chromebook shipments, came second with total shipments of 19.2 million units, a 64% increase on Q1 2020. Dell lost market share against Q4, but took third place in the rankings, growing shipments 23% year on year to hit 12.9 million units. Apple and Acer made up the rest of the top five, shipping 6.6 million and 5.7 million units to enjoy the highest and second-highest annual growth respectively. Cumulatively, the top five vendors accounted for 78.5% of all PC shipments in Q1 2021.

HP has announced that it is acquiring gaming peripheral company HyperX for $425 million. The purchase will give HP a major foothold in the gaming accessory market. From a report: This transaction will result in HP buying the HyperX brand from Kingston, the current owner, but HP notes in the announcement post that "Kingston will retain the DRAM, flash, and SSD products for gamers and enthusiasts." HP has been making strides to enter the gaming peripheral space for the last several years but has not gained much traction compared to other brands such as Corsair and Logitech. HyperX is one of the most notable brands in this space, with gaming accessories ranging from PC gaming peripherals to gaming microphones.

PCWorld reviews Intel's recently-released benchmarks claiming Apple's M1 isn't faster than their 11th gen Core i7-1185G7 processor, among other things. Here are the claims Intel makes (visit the article to read PCWorld's "take" on each claim): MacBook M1 is slower than Core i7: Intel says in the WebXPRT 3 test, using the same version of Chrome for both the Core i7 system as well as the Arm-native MacBook, Intel takes the lead. The Intel chip was largely ahead in WebXPRT 3, and the x86 chip was nearly three times faster in finishing the photo enhancement test. Intel doesn't just use WebXPRT 3, though. It also shows the Core i7 pummeling the M1 in a PowerPoint-to-PDF export, and in multiple Excel macros by a factor of 2.3x. And yes, Intel used the Arm-native versions of Office for its tests.

Core i7 Crushes M1 in AI: For content creation tasks, Intel showed the Core i7 to be about 1.12x faster than the M1 in performing a 4K AVC-to-HEVC/H.265 file conversion. In this benchmark, they had the MacBook using the M1-native version of Handbrake. But the real destruction happens once you get to Topaz Lab's Gigapixel AI and Denoise AI, with the Intel Core chip crushing the M1 in AI-based noise removal and enlargement. Or maybe "crushing" is too nice a term, as it's more like the Core i7 outpaces the M1 by so much, the M1 wishes it had never been designed.

M1 doesn't support all the features: Intel also gives itself the lead in Adobe Premiere Pro, using the beta M1 native version in Auto Reframe, exporting to H.264 and H.265. They're decent wins, but come on, the code is still in beta for the Mac. That said, Intel points out that important features like Content Aware Fill are outright disabled on the beta version, and that's a concern. If the native version of Photoshop comes out, and there are critical features missing from it, that's a huge problem for Apple (and Adobe).

You can't be faster if you can't run it: For gaming, we see a bit of a back and forth between the Apple M1 and Core i7 in games that actually work on the MacBook. Intel doesn't let it end there, though, and decides to embarrass Apple further by showing the numerous games where the MacBook scores a 0 because game support just doesn't exist. Intel points out that "countless more" games "don't run on the M1," and then for good measure, it rushes Apple's bench with a list 10 more games you can't play on the M1 MacBook: Overwatch, Crysis Remastered, Halo MCC, Red Dead Redemption 2, PUBG, Monster, Hunter World, Doom Eternal, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, Apex Legends, and Rainbow Six Siege.

MacBook wouldn't win Evo certification: You know that fancy Intel Evo program that tries to improve laptop performance in key areas that annoy consumers? Well, Intel pretty much says that if Apple submitted the M1 MacBook to the same program that Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI, Acer and others go through, it would be rejected. The reason? Intel says the M1 MacBook is too slow in doing things that anger consumers, such as "switch to Calendar" in Outlook, "start video conference Zoom" and "select picture menu" in PowerPoint.

Great battery life?: Perhaps the most shocking claim Intel showed deals with battery life. While performance tests can be cherry picked by those looking to prove an outcome, battery life usually can't be disputed. Apple's official claim gives the M1 MacBook up to 18 hours of battery life using Apple TV app to watch a 1080p video with the brightness set to "8 clicks from the bottom." Apple also claims up to 15 hours browsing 25 "popular" websites with the same "8 clicks" criteria. When Intel pitted a MacBook Air M1 against an Acer Swift 5 with a Core i7-1165G7, however, it found both basically dead even. The MacBook Air came in at 10 hours and 12 minutes, and the Acer Swift 5 lasted 10 hours and 6 minutes. The difference? Intel said it used Safari to watch a Netflix stream with tabs open with the screen set to a relatively bright 250 nits. On the Acer, Safari was subbed out for Chrome, but the brightness and Netflix remained the same. Intel did add that Apple's "8 clicks up" is about 125 nits of brightness on the MacBook Air which is pretty dim.

All kinds of things just don't work on the M1: Intel didn't just get into the performance of the M1. It also said it found the MacBook Pro had serious shortcomings, such as an inability to use more than one display with a Thunderbolt dock. And while the PC can use gaming headsets, eGPUs, a third-party finger print reader, Wacom Drawing tablet and Xbox Controller, Intel said it found the MacBook Pro simply doesn't work with eGPUs, and had multiple issues with other devices. That's just hardware incompatibility. Intel's rap battle with Apple also highlights issues with plug-ins for Ableton, Bitwig Studio, Avid Pro Tools, FL Studio, Motu and many others.

During its fourth-quarter earnings announcement, Tesla unveiled the long-rumored refresh for its Model S sedan. CNET reports: On the outside, the Model S has a new front bumper with slightly different intakes, a tweaked rear diffuser and new 19- and 21-inch wheel designs. All of the exterior trim is now finished in black to match the Model Y, but the paint color palette remains the same, with white being the only no-cost option. The interior is the star of the show, though. It's been completely redesigned, marking the Model S' first major update since its debut in 2012. There's a large 17-inch central screen much like that of the Model 3 and Model Y, but the S retains a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster in front of the driver, as well. Tesla says the new center screen is basically a gaming computer with 10 teraflops of processing power, and the released images show it running the popular fantasy RPG game Witcher 3.

Most radical is the new steering wheel. It isn't exactly a wheel anymore, instead looking like a yoke right out of Star Wars or Knight Rider. There are no stalks, either, meaning the turn signals, lights and other typical features are now controlled by touch buttons on the "wheel." There's more carbon fiber or wood trim covering parts of the dashboard and door panels, and the door cards and center console have been redesigned for more storage space and better looks. The rear seats look more sculpted and have a new fold-down armrest with cupholders. Rear-seat passengers get an 8-inch screen that offers the same infotainment and gaming functions as the main screen, and it even works with wireless gaming controllers. The Model S has three-zone climate control, a 22-speaker audio system, heated seats all around (and ventilated front seats), ambient lighting and a glass roof as standard. White, black and beige remain the only interior color options. The maxed-out "Plaid Plus" model, which comes in at $139,990, features over 1,100 hp and will hit 60 mph in under 2 seconds. "It also boats a sub-9-second quarter-mile time, a top speed of 200 mph and a range of over 520 miles," reports CNET.

This week Digital Reality data center services announced it was also relocating its headquarters from the San Francisco Bay Area to Texas, citing factors like a low cost of living and "supportive business climate". (Though it will still maintain a "significant" presence in the Bay Area.)

And Align Technology (makers of the Invisalign orthodontic dental aligners) also announced it had relocated its global corporate headquarters from San Jose, California to Tempe, Arizona, citing a "favorable corporate operating environment, low cost of living and overall quality of life."

NBC News writes that "while Silicon Valley is by no means ceasing to be the center of the technology industry," there's still an "undeniable migration" that's happening: Shervin Pishevar, a venture capitalist, bought a house in Miami Beach in 2018. In late 2020, Jonathan Oringer, who founded Shutterstock and became an investor, moved to Miami, as did other notable venture capitalists, including Keith Rabois and David Blumberg. It's not just Miami experiencing this migration. Last month, Oracle, the tech giant, announced it is moving its corporate headquarters from Redwood City, California, to Austin, Texas. Other such moves include Palantir, which decamped for Denver, while Elon Musk said last month he had moved himself to Austin. Hewlett Packard Enterprise also announced last month it was moving its headquarters from San Jose, California, in favor of a Houston suburb...

It's significant enough that while the San Francisco Bay Area continues to gain tech workers, the rate of increase is down by over 35 percent — the single largest drop of any tracked metropolitan area — according to self-reported data tracked by LinkedIn. Experts following this migration predict these numbers may grow. "There's a mini-exodus of tech companies leaving the Valley, and I think that's going to accelerate in 2021," said Dan Ives, a financial analyst with Wedbush Securities. But the reasons many businesses are moving are more complex than people may think. Tax experts say companies aren't moving their corporate headquarters necessarily for business tax incentives. Instead, it may be a long-term play to help them pay workers relatively less where the cost of living is lower... "You're going to always have the vast majority of tech companies coming out of the Valley, and you can't create that anywhere else," Ives said. "But when you look at an Austin: It's creating a mini Silicon Valley at half the cost for an average employee..."

Tax experts suspect Oracle and its peers may over time phase out higher-paid employees in California in favor of lower-paid employees in Texas. These companies can also ease off giving employees raises because they are living somewhere with a lower cost of living. "Even though a lot of companies are saying they can let people work from anywhere, most are saying we're not going to cut salary, but we're going to slow the rate of increase of salary," said Brian Kropp, an analyst with the IT service management company Gartner. Kropp said he spoke with high-level representatives from several "Fortune 200 type companies" who are exploring moving their corporate headquarters. In short, shifting employees from California to Texas could represent long-term corporate cost savings, which means larger payouts for these companies' top executives.

"The compounding effect translates to a 3 or 5 percent margin that moves straight to profit," Kropp said...
Kropp says some companies are also worried about the increase in state laws targeting businesses and executives. But there could be another culprit, argues Darien Shanske, a law professor at the University of California, Davis who NBC identiies as an expert on state and local taxation.

"California has blown it, but not because of tax policy — its decades-long problem of not producing enough housing," he said. "It's probably cheaper and easier to build that in Austin."

One of the biggest trends coming out of this year's CES wasn't something people will necessarily notice at first glance unless they look closely. From a report: After enduring years of cramped, "widescreen" laptop displays, it looks like we're finally starting to say goodbye to the 16:9 aspect ratio. [...] The aspect ratios you'll typically see on laptops are 16:9, 3:2, 16:10 (which, for whatever reason, is called 16:10 rather than 8:5), and (occasionally) 4:3. 16:9 is the most common option and also the one with the lowest amount of vertical space relative to its horizontal space. [...] But this CES showed that 16:10 and 3:2 displays are inching closer to the mainstream. These are some of the biggest laptops announced at the show that are offering non-16:9 display options:

HP Elite Folio (1920 x 1280, 3:2)
Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo Legion 7 and Legion 5 Pro (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
LG Gram 17 and Gram 16 (2650 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Pro (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga (2256 x 1504, 3:2)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 and X1 Yoga Gen 6 (up to 3840 x 2400, 16:10)
Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable (1920 x 1280, 3:2)
Asus ROG Flow X13 (up to 3840 x 2400, 16:10)


That doesnâ(TM)t mean there are no 16:9 displays left â" plenty of laptops still use it, and probably will for the foreseeable future. And some of these devices, like the LG Grams, were 16:10 already. But it's significant that a large number of the flagships we'll be seeing in the first half of 2021 will be either 16:10 or 3:2. In fact, when you include MSI's 16:10 Summit E13 Flip and Razer's 16:10 Razer Book 13 (both of which were announced prior to CES), I can't think of a mainstream consumer laptop company that isn't now selling a non-16:9 flagship-level machine. It's clear that companies across the board are moving toward laptops with taller aspect ratios, and I fully expect to see more of them in the years to come.

According to The Wall Street Journal, failed mobile-first streaming service Quibi is in advanced talks to sell the rights to its content library to Roku for an undisclosed price. The Verge reports: If it were to happen, the deal could give the Roku Channel exclusive access to Quibi's slate of programming. None of Quibi's shows ever really took off, but Roku may feel that the content would stand a better chance when available on the best-selling streaming devices in the US.

Quibi announced it was shutting down back in October, just six months after its much-hyped launch. The service was headed by former HP CEO Meg Whitman and former Disney chairman and movie producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who managed to raise almost $2 billion in funding before the app was released. Katzenberg had already tried to get companies including Facebook and NBCUniversal to pick up Quibi programming ahead of its demise, according to The Information.

An Amazon Web Services (AWS) virtualization engineer has shown what Windows 10 on Arm could be like if Microsoft licensed its Arm-based OS to the public rather than just to Windows 10 manufacturers. From a report: With Apple's new M1 Arm-based system on chip, Mac users who need to use Windows 10 can't run Microsoft's Arm-based version of Windows using Apple's Bootcamp. The key obstacle is that Microsoft doesn't license Windows 10 on Arm to any entities other than its own Surface group and Windows 10 on Arm OEMs like HP, Asus and Lenovo. Technically, there's nothing stopping owners of the M1 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13-inch or Mac mini from running Windows 10 on Arm, as Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi recently pointed out. [...]

But Microsoft's reluctance to create a license for Windows 10 on Arm for end users hasn't stopped creative engineers from putting together a working example of what things could be like if it did. AWS principal engineer Alexander Graf did just that, using the open-source QEMU virtualization software for Windows on Arm. QEMU emulates access to hardware such as the CPU and GPU. [...] "Who said Windows wouldn't run well on #AppleSilicon? It's pretty snappy here," Graf wrote in a tweet. Graf previously worked on the Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) for Linux distribution SUSE for over a decade. Now he's a KVM developer at AWS, which this week announced new Mac instances for AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) based on Nitro System, an AWS hypervisor for EC2 instances. [...] A developer using the handle @imbushuo on Twitter has posted Geekbench versions 4 and 5 scores that compare Windows 10 on Arm on an M1 computer with the Microsoft-made Surface Pro X. Windows on an M1 got a single-core score of 1,288 and multi-core score of 5,685 whereas the Surface Pro X's scores were roughly 800 and 3,000 in those respective benchmarks.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the latest tech company to shift its focus away from Silicon Valley, announcing Tuesday that it will relocate its headquarters from San Jose, California, to Houston, Texas. CNBC reports: "HPE's largest U.S. employment hub, Houston is an attractive market to recruit and retain future diverse talent, and is where the company is currently constructing a state-of-the-art new campus," the company said in its fourth quarter earnings release. It's unclear how many employees the move will affect, though the company said no layoffs will be with the move. HPE will keep the San Jose campus, and will consolidate some of its Bay Area sites there, it said.

For its fourth quarter, the company reported:

Revenue: $7.21 billion vs $6.88 billion expected, according to a consensus estimate from Refinitiv.
Earnings: $0.37 per share (adjusted), compared with $0.34 expected, as per Refinitiv.

The company also raised guidance for the 2021 fiscal year. Shares were little changed in after hours trading.

Long-time Slashdot reader 00_NOP is a software engineer (with a PhD in real-time computing) re-visits a historic research paper on the financial trade-offs between disk space (then costing about $20,000 per kilobyte) and (volatile) memory (costing about $5 per kilobyte): Thirty-five years ago that report for Tandem computers concluded that the cost balance between memory, disk and CPU on big iron favoured holding items in memory if they were needed every five minutes and using five bytes to save one instruction.

Update the analysis for today and what do you see?

Well my estimate is that we should aim to hold items that we have to access 10 times a second.
And needless to say, some techniques for saving data space are more efficient than they were 35 years ago, their article points out.

"The cost of an instruction per second and the cost of a byte of memory are approximately equivalent — that's tipped the balance somewhat towards data compression (eg., perhaps through using bit flags in a byte instead of a number of booleans for instance), though not by a huge amount."

In a new essay at EFF.org, Cory Doctorow re-visits HP's anti-consumer "security updates" that disabled third-party ink cartridges (while missing real vulnerabilities that could actually bypass network firewalls).

Doctorow writes that it was just the beginning: HP's latest gambit challenges the basis of private property itself: a bold scheme! With the HP Instant Ink program, printer owners no longer own their ink cartridges or the ink in them. Instead, HP's customers have to pay a recurring monthly fee based on the number of pages they anticipate printing from month to month; HP mails subscribers cartridges with enough ink to cover their anticipated needs. If you exceed your estimated page-count, HP bills you for every page (if you choose not to pay, your printer refuses to print, even if there's ink in the cartridges). If you don't print all your pages, you can "roll over" a few of those pages to the next month, but you can't bank a year's worth of pages to, say, print out your novel or tax paperwork. Once you hit your maximum number of "banked" pages, HP annihilates any other pages you've paid for (but continues to bill you every month).

Now, you may be thinking, "All right, but at least HP's customers know what they're getting into when they take out one of these subscriptions," but you've underestimated HP's ingenuity. HP takes the position that its offers can be retracted at any time. For example, HP's "Free Ink for Life" subscription plan offered printer owners 15 pages per month as a means of tempting users to try out its ink subscription plan and of picking up some extra revenue in those months when these customers exceeded their 15-page limit. But Free Ink for Life customers got a nasty shock at the end of last month: HP had unilaterally canceled their "free ink for life" plan and replaced it with "a $0.99/month for all eternity or your printer stops working" plan...

For would-be robber-barons, "smart" gadgets are a moral hazard, an irresistible temptation to use those smarts to reconfigure the very nature of private property, such that only companies can truly own things, and the rest of us are mere licensors, whose use of the devices we purchase is bound by the ever-shifting terms and conditions set in distant boardrooms. From Apple to John Deere to GM to Tesla to Medtronic, the legal fiction that you don't own anything is used to force you to arrange your affairs to benefit corporate shareholders at your own expense. And when it comes to "razors and blades" business-model, embedded systems offer techno-dystopian possibilities that no shaving company ever dreamed of: the ability to use law and technology to prevent competitors from offering their own consumables. From coffee pods to juice packets, from kitty litter to light-bulbs, the printer-ink cartridge business-model has inspired many imitators.

HP has come a long way since the 1930s, reinventing itself several times, pioneering personal computers and servers. But the company's latest reinvention as a wallet-siphoning ink grifter is a sad turn indeed, and the only thing worse than HP's decline is the many imitators it has inspired.

Last night, GMC unveiled the Hummer EV, the company's first electric pickup with a 350-mile range, 1,000 HP and up to 11,500 pound-feet of torque. Although there's still plenty more questions than answers, CNET has compared what we know about the Hummer EV against the Tesla Cybertruck, as well as trucks from startups like Bollinger and Rivian. And just for fun, they've included the tried and true Ford F-150 (Raptor). Here's a summary of the specs/features based on CNET's analysis: Performance

Tesla Cybertruck: Three motors with more performance than the Model S Performance (though tech specs are limited).
GMC Hummer EV: 1,000 horsepower and 11,500 pound-feet of torque (likely axle torque). 60mph in 3 seconds flat.
The Bollinger B2: Dual-motor setup with 614 horsepower and 668 pound-feet of torque.
The Rivian R1T: The top-spec variant will feature 750 horsepower and 829 pound-feet of torque.
Ford F-150: High-output turbocharged V6 with 450 horsepower and 510 pound-feet of torque.

Range

Tesla Cybertruck: 500 miles
GMC Hummer EV: 350 miles; compatible with 350-kW DC fast-charging; 100 miles of range in just 10 minutes
Rivian R1T: 400 miles
Bollinger B2: 200 miles; 120 kWh battery
Ford F-150: 850 miles; 26-gallon tank of diesel

Towing and payload

Tesla Cybertruck: 14,000 pounds; NA
GMC Hummer EV: NA; NA
Rivian R1T: 11,000 pounds; NA
Bollinger B2: 7,500 pounds; 5,000 pounds
Ford F-150: 13,200 pounds; 3,270 pounds

Cost

Tesla Cybertruck: "under $40,000" for base model with rear-wheel drive
GMC Hummer EV: The fancy Edition 1 will cost $112,595 with less expensive versions in following years
Rivian R1T: starts at $69,000
Bollinger B2: starts at $125,000
Ford F-150: starts at $28,495 -> $67,485

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) today announced it has been awarded over $160 million to build a supercomputer called LUMI in Finland. LUMI will be funded by the European Joint Undertaking EuroHPC, a joint supercomputing collaboration between national governments and the European Union. From a report: The supercomputer will have a theoretical peak performance of more than 550 petaflops and is expected to best the RIKEN Center for Computational Science's top-performing Fugaku petascale computer, which reached 415.5 petaflops in June 2020.

Mark Wilson writes: Microsoft has teamed up with HP to work on a fix for a problem affecting various HP Business Notebooks. The flaw not only causes a reduction in performance and battery life, but can also lead to swollen batteries. The problem lies with the HP Battery Health Manager, and the update from Microsoft and HP is rolling out to enable a new charging algorithm to help alleviate the issue. Writing about the update, Microsoft says: "Microsoft is working with HP to distribute a solution to help address a configuration setting issue within HP Battery Health Manager on select HP Business Notebooks that can affect battery life and performance. This update does not require a restart to take effect."

Recently released Canalys data shows the global PC market climbed 12.7% from a year ago to reach 79.2 million units in Q3 2020 as it continued to benefit hugely from the COVID-19 crisis. From a report by the research firm: This is the highest growth the market has seen in the past 10 years. After a weak Q1, the recovery in Q2 continued into Q3 this year, and it even grew on top of a strong market the previous year. Global notebook shipments touched 64 million units (almost as much as the record high of Q4 2011 when notebook shipments were 64.6 million) as demand continued to surge due to second waves of COVID-19 in many countries and companies continued to invest in longer-term transitions to remote working. Shipments of notebooks and mobile workstations grew 28.3% year-on-year. This contrasted with desktop and desktop workstations, which saw shipments shrink by 26.0%. Lenovo regained top spot in the PC market in Q3 with growth of 11.4% and shipments surpassed the 19 million mark. HP posted a similarly impressive growth of 11.9% to secure second place with 18.7 million units shipped. Dell, in third, suffered a small decline of 0.5% in shipments from a year ago. Apple and Acer rounded out the top five rankings, posting stellar growth of 13.2% and 15.0% respectively.