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Starting this Monday, Apple Computer's World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC 2017) is slated to start in San Jose, Calif. The conference is held annually to discuss Apple's new technologies, and software creators are encouraged to interface with Apple Engineers in labs and workshops.  Ticket prices this year were $1,599 and since demand exceeds supply, a lottery had to be held to disburse the tickets. The conference is as much show as technology, and we probably can expect CEO Tim Cook to condemn Trump's pullout from the Paris Climate Agreement. But what has everybody on edge are the rumors that...

Many people don't know the history of the Kenbak-1 Digital Computer, but it's considered to be the world's first commercially available personal computer, and one is going up for sale in just a few minutes. [...] It didn't have a microprocessor at all, and contained only 256 bytes (you read that correctly) of RAM. No more than 50 units were ever made, although a few have been popping up for sale in the last few years. ...

The PC is in trouble. Big trouble, if you believe research firm IDC's new data, which shows that shipments of PCs plunged 14 percent in the first quarter of this year. That's the sharpest decline in sales of personal computers since the firm started tracking the industry in 1994. Since the numbers have been released, technology experts and pundits have hypothesized about the causes of the ailing personal computer market. IDC, specifically, cited Windows 8, Microsoft's new computer and tablet operating system, as one of the main reasons people turned away from buying computers. That's certainly a possibility, but one...

Open ... and Shut Despite threats to its software hegemony from Apple and others, Microsoft's stranglehold on enterprise IT has been its saving grace. Yet this advantage has started to fade as Apple and Android increasingly invade the enterprise through smartphone adoption, with IT departments scrambling to devise security policies that plug the holes created by this bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon. While many expected Microsoft to respond by shoring up its enterprise credentials, arguing that Office will be the big driver of Windows tablet adoption, the software giant has apparently elected to take a much riskier, and gutsier, approach: turn Windows...

As a signpost on the road to the so-called Post-PC Era we’ve been hearing about for so many years, this one is pretty hard to argue with: As of this year, personal computers no longer consume the majority of the world’s memory chip supply. And while it may not come as a terrible surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to personal technology trends during the last few years, there’s nothing like a cold, hard number to make the point crystal clear. Word of this tipping point came quietly in the form of a press release from the market research...

On Aug. 12, the IBM PC — the classic machine from which all modern Windows computers descend — turned 30. IBM's Mark Dean, who helped engineer the original PC, commemorated the anniversary by congratulating his company for having abandoned the PC business back in 2005. He declared that we live in a "post-PC era" and said his main machine now is a tablet. Some celebration! Less than a week later, HP — today's biggest PC brand — had some news of its own. CEO Léo Apotheker announced that the company was thinking about spinning off or selling its PC group,...

Can anyone tell me if market prices of old vintage home computers have started going up yet? I'm talking about things like the Apple II and the commodore 64 and other pre-windows using home computers. I heard a rumor the original game consoles(atari and such) have started being collected and prices are going nuts.

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography. Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen. Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites. Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on...

Okay, a question for you techies out there. I just renewed my Norton Anti-virus system and the renewal for my SpySweeper is coming up as well. Is it necessary to have SpySweeper also? If Norton Anti-Virus is sufficient then it doesn't make sense to renew SpySweeper. Some have said they might even be interfering with each other. So to renew or not to renew SpySweeper? That is the question.

Last week, when I condemned the flood of crippled trial software, ads and offers that come loaded on new Windows Vista computers, readers reacted strongly. I received roughly 700 emails, all but a handful agreeing with me. The column was the most popular article that day on WSJ.com and was cited on numerous other Web sites. Clearly, many people are furious about these unwanted programs and icons, which are sometimes called craplets. Many would like to smite them without going through the laborious process of uninstalling them manually, one at a time. Some readers suggested strategies. The following are some...

An Al Qaeda terror training video has been seized during a police raid on an Islamic school in southern Thailand. Almost 700 people have been killed in the region during a 16-month-long insurgency blamed on Muslim separatists. Acting on a tip-off, the security forces staged the raid on several Islamic boarding schools in southern Thailand's Pattani province believed to be insurgent training grounds. At one, they confiscated electric wire, PVC pipes, a personal computer along with a video cassette on Al Qaeda's terrorist training. Reports say police also recovered several notebooks containing records of the movement of security officials and...

"Why aren't Apple Macintosh computers more popular in large mainstream organizations? Whatever the gigahertz numbers say, Macintoshes are comparable in performance to Windows or Linux machines. Whatever the conventional wisdom or the Microsoft marketing message, Macs aren't dramatically more expensive to buy and on a Total Cost of Ownership basis they are probably cheaper. Nobody would argue that Macs are harder to use. Clearly, they are easier to use, especially on a network. So what's the problem? Why do Macs seem to exist only in media outfits," asks Robert X. Cringely for PBS? Cringely writes, "Apple is clearly wondering the...