Monitors to grow half an inch in 2013!

Monitors will grow by about half an inch in 2013, but there's be no sales bulge for resellers according to Taiwanese market-watcher WitsView.

The firm says new manufacturing processes mean it is now just as easy and cost-effective to cut LCD screens 19.5 inches wide as it is to slice them into 18.5 inch slabs. While only one manufacturer – Taiwan's Chimei Innolux - has mastered the trick to date, LG and Acer/Unipac-derived outfit AUO are expected to follow suit as 2013 unfurls.



Today, WitsView says, 44% of all monitors are either 18.5 inches, 19 inches or 20 inches wide. The former two widths are now at risk, as manufacturers take the opportunity to sell a bigger screen at the same price.

But even the prospect of more monitor for your money won't help the industry, the analyst says, as manufacturers and punters alike turn their interest to smaller devices like LCD TVs, tablets and notebook computers. Manufacturers will follow consumers' interests by targeting screens for those in-demand devices, leaving ye olde monitors for desktops a low priority option.

WitsView therefore predicts a decline in monitor shipments for 2013, with the only bright spot being all-in-one PCs. Overall global shipments will reach 165 million, 2.8 per cent down on 2012 numbers.
That's a far smaller number than overall PC shipments, which seems to suggest that fewer PC upgrades involve a monitor upgrade too.

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Google: A Look Inside its data centers

As part of an effort to build appreciation for how it actually runs online services like search, Google is showing off its massive computing resources.

Google only rarely gives outsiders a look at its data centers, but today it's trying to make up for lost time with a large online photo gallery and Street View tour of the computing hardware.

The company launched a new site, "Where the Internet Lives" with a lot of eye candy for people who enjoy racks of computer gear, raised-floor ventilation systems, multicolored cables, and massive air-conditioning chillers. Urs Hoelzle, Google's senior vice president for technical infrastructure, announced the site in a blog post today.

It's short on details for those who want to eye Google's servers up close, but there are some glimpses in the accompanying video about Google's data centers and in a view from last year.
But to a certain extent, Google's individual servers are beside the point. They may be a fundamental computing unit to ordinary people, but Google thinks at much larger scale. Several jewels in the company's software crown -- MapReduce, the Google File System, and Spanner, for example -- are designed specifically to run on massive clusters of machines and to keep on running even when individual servers fail.

Superficially, Google's custom-built servers look similar to the one unveiled in 2009, though: computing components bolted or strapped to an open-topped piece of sheet metal. Steve Jobs might have cared about the aesthetics of his computers' innards, but for Google, the highest calling is the most purely economical and functional object.

Showing off the data center is smart move for a couple reasons. First, it could help outsiders value an operation at Google that's under increasing scrutiny for consuming tremendous electrical power in an era when enlightened companies are supposed to minimize their impact on the environment. Second, it could trigger some ooh-aahs among people who've begun to take Google's truly impressive computing achievements for granted.

It's something Google can genuinely brag about. The company gets grief for alleged privacy invasions and monopoly abuse, but the company has earned respect when it comes to running a colossal computing operation. Not for nothing do people joke that Skynet is most likely to become conscious within Google's infrastructure.

 Article via c|net