Favorable Refresh Cycle, Windows 10 End Drove 2024 PC Shipment GrowthBy John P. Mello Jr.January 15, 2025 5:00 AM PT ADVERTISEMENTQuality Leads That Turn Into DealsFull-service marketing programs from TechNewsWorld deliver sales-ready leads. Segment by geography, industry, company size, job title, and more. Get Started Now. Shipments of personal computers grew in 2024, fueled by businesses replacing old hardware and Microsofts looming end of support for its Windows 10 operating system.According to market research firm Canalys, PC shipments climbed 3.8% in 2024 to 255.5 million units from 246.3 million in 2023. IDC, another research firm, pegged 2024 shipments higher 262.7 million but it also had higher 2023 shipments 260.2 million, for a year-over-year increase of 1%.2024 was a year of modest recovery and a return to traditional seasonality for the PC market as full-year shipments grew 3.8%, Canalys Analyst Kieren Jessop said in a statement.Growth increased slightly in Q4, with shipments rising by 4.6% year on year, signaling a positive trend as we moved to within a year of the Windows 10 end-of-support date, he continued.Holiday season demand was supported by strong discounting by vendors and retailers, enticing consumers who have become increasingly price-sensitive, he stated.Jessop noted that the use of buy now, pay later services supported that trend, with increasing examples of those offerings being leveraged to drive spending on big-ticket items, such as PCs.Meanwhile, he added that in China, government stimulus in the form of consumer subsidies helped to promote spending on notebooks amid a weakening demand environment.Strong Seasonal SalesThough the market has been experiencing a slower return to growth, there was some room for optimism in Q4 as government subsidies in China led to better than expected performance within the consumer segment, IDCs Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers Research Manager Jitesh Ubrani said in a statement.Beyond that, he continued, the U.S. and some European countries also showed strong performance due to end-of-year sale promotions, as well as enterprises continuing on the path of upgrading hardware before the end of support for Windows 10, which is scheduled for October 2025.Year-end sales were a little bit more aggressive than weve seen in recent years, added IDC Program Vice President for Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers Ryan Reith.Much of the promotional activity in the PC space throughout 2024 was aimed at moving inventory, he noted. PC makers wanted to keep things moving, even if it meant smaller margins because getting people on new hardware means other opportunities like selling them new software, he told TechNewsWorld.Commercial shipments, representing about 50% of the global PC market, were also an important part of the growth story. Companies refresh their PCs at a pretty stingy cadence, Reith said. Usually, its between three and four years in most of the developed markets. It can go a little bit longer in developing markets. But the reason they do that is not because the hardware isnt good. Its usually because of the software.Businesses can only go so long before they refresh. Youre not gonna keep a PC for 10 years in a business, added Jack E. Gold, founder and principal analyst with J.Gold Associates, an IT advisory company in Northborough, Mass.Covid brought in a ton of new machines three, three and a half, years ago, he told TechNewsWorld. Most companies refresh on a three-year basis. So were gonna see an uptick in business buying of PCs.End of Days for Win10Jessop added that a significant factor contributing to PC shipment growth in 2024, which will continue in 2025, is the size and age of the installed hardware base. Its never been larger or older than now, he told TechNewsWorld.Thats why Canalys forecasts that commercial PC shipments will continue to outgrow consumer shipments. Consumer price sensitivity and budget prioritization mean many people are delaying their next purchase, Jessop explained. Another factor stoking PC shipments is Microsofts announcement that it will stop supporting Windows 10 in October 2025. Hundreds of millions of those old PCs are ineligible to update to Windows 11, so businesses will be nudged toward refreshing their devices, Jessop said.Microsoft is getting increasingly aggressive in letting customers know that support is going to be ending, and they really need to upgrade to Windows 11, added Ross Rubin, the principal analyst with Reticle Research, a consumer technology advisory firm in New York City.Given the relatively stringent requirements for that, the only way to do so is to purchase a new computer, he told TechNewsWorld.AI PCs Puzzle ConsumersJessop cited the introduction of AI PCs into the market as an influencer of growth. Theyre being positioned as a halo category and are being used to open the door to conversations around a wider fleet refresh, he said.Paul Schell, an industry analyst with global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, sees AI PCs as having a significant impact on growth. We continue to see the introduction of AI PCs, and in particular notebooks/laptops, as being the driving force behind a shortening of refresh cycles, he told TechNewsWorld.In the AI PC segment, challenger Qualcomm has expanded its portfolio to include fewer premium chipsets including an SKU targeting the $600 laptop range which has a democratizing effect, as the first releases from all vendors, including Apple, Intel and AMD, were more premium, he said. Jessop, though, noted that despite the hype around the PCs at CES last week, the computers have failed to generate much excitement among buyers. Many channel partners we surveyed indicated that their customers are either unaware of Copilot+ PCs or are unwilling to pay a premium price for them, even if they are aware, he noted.This dual challenge limits the ability of the category to create a strong aspirational pull or halo effect, he continued. Customers are prioritizing pricing over perceived innovation, suggesting the value proposition for Copilot+ PCs needs stronger articulation or refining.AI PCs will be a big deal in 2025, contended Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst with SmartTech Research in Las Vegas. With special chips called NPUs [Neural Processing Units], theyre great for tasks like AI, language processing, and predicting things, he told TechNewsWorld. Businesses and people will want PCs that can use AI to make their work easier, more creative, and more automated.Im not convinced yet that AI will be a dominating factor, but as AI usage models become more compelling, AI PCs will become more attractive to the average mainstream user, he said.Eric Compton, director of technology equity research at Morningstar Research Services in Chicago, maintained that 2025 will be the same as 2024 in terms of fueling growth in PC shipments.The continued PC refresh cycle and the need to replace machines purchased during the boom years of 2020 and 2021 will be the primary factors, he told TechNewsWorld. If AI PCs can improve their functionality and generate some more unique demand, this could be a wildcard for additional demand.John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John.Leave a CommentClick here to cancel reply. Please sign in to post or reply to a comment. New users create a free account.Related StoriesMore by John P. Mello Jr.view allMore in Personal Computers

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When Homo neanderthalensis first came in contact with Homo sapiens around 50,000 years ago, in whats now the Middle East, they encountered a host of diseases for which humans had no immunity for because they had never experienced them before.But, interbreeding would change the human genome, which likely continued until Neanderthals went extinct around 40,000 years ago. And even today humans are left with some Neanderthal genes, many of which pertain to the immune system.Interbreeding and Human ImmunityInterbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals allowed for genetic segments in the genome many of which were deleterious to humans, but some of which were helpful to spread amongst the population, says Dmitri Petrov, an evolutionary biologist at Stanford University. The segments that were adaptive and spread tended to be proteins that interacted specifically with RNA viruses, he says.Other research has shown that these viruses had an impact on the modern immune system. They likely gave humans an immunity boost and provided resistance to diseases that they had not come in contact with previously. RNA viruses can include things like Hepatitis A, dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and West Nile virus, amongst many others, although Petrov and his team did not identify particular types of RNA viruses in their research.This new immunity might also have had a downside in the form of allergies that come with a hypersensitive immune system. The inheritance of some genetic segments as a result of interbreeding left many humans with seasonal allergies, an overreaction to a perceived challenge to the immune system.Did Neanderthal Viruses Lead to Their Extinction?Persistent infections, meaning diseases that dont immediately kill you but instead slowly chip away at your body, have been thought by some experts to be one of the potential causes of the extinction of Neanderthals, according to a study published in the May 2024 edition of Viruses.These diseases, which included adenovirus, herpesvirus, and papillomavirus, were preserved in the bones of Neanderthals. Life-long infections like these would have made it hard for archaic humans living in already difficult conditions to do things like hunt, gather, reproduce, or just get by, thereby shortening their lifespans.If you have ebola, you die in a day or so, but these viruses have a different type of strategy, says study author Marcelo R. S. Briones, a geneticist and professor at the Medical School of the Federal University of So Paulo. Although their mortality is not that high, their morbidity (health problems that they cause) is high.His research has shown that we can go back to the time of Neanderthals and still detect the viruses that were present. Briones downloaded the entire Neanderthal genome from samples found in the Chagyrskaya cave in Russia.These samples were collected with great care to avoid contamination with modern DNA as opposed to earlier Neanderthal genomes, says Briones. Leaving Their MarkEarlier samples were collected and sequenced from museum specimens where people had handled the bones, which causes contamination. While persistent infections are still hypothetical as a cause of Neanderthal extinction, Briones did uncover them in the genome, so we know they were present.Neanderthal viruses had an impact on these early humans before they went extinct. They likely affected their ability to survive and compete with other early humans and may have eventually caused or at least contributed to their extinction.And they also left their mark on humans, who would adopt the diseases that they had never been exposed to before leaving Africa and eventually garner at least some immunity. Today, 40,000 years later, long after the Neanderthal extinction, we still have them locked away in our genomes.Article Sources:Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:The Journal of Biological Research. Hominin interbreeding and the evolution of human variationDmitri Petrov, an evolutionary biologist at Stanford UniversityInstitut Pasteur. Neanderthal genes gave modern humans an immunity boost, allergiesMarcelo R. S. Briones, a geneticist and professor at the Medical School of Federal University of So PauloSara Novak is a science journalist based in South Carolina. In addition to writing for Discover, her work appears in Scientific American, Popular Science, New Scientist, Sierra Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, and many more. She graduated with a bachelors degree in Journalism from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia. She's also a candidate for a masters degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University, (expected graduation 2023).

Stack CommerceShareWe may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more Theres nothing like the panic of realizing your wallet isnt where you thought it was. Your stomach falls to your butt as you hope its just stuck between the couch cushions and not gone forever. But, when its not there either, you feel defeated. Prevent all that chaos with one of these wallet tracker cards.Not only will your phone notify you before leaving it behind, but you can also see your wallets real-time location on a map. Theyre basically Apple AirTags, except theyre in the shape of a credit card, so they fit perfectly in your wallet. Theyre also cheaper at $26.99 with free shipping compared to $29.Lets go back to that missing-wallet scene. Its nowhere to be found, but this time, you know you have this credit card-sized tracker tucked inside. Heres what to do:Open Apples Find My app on your phone.See its location on a map. Okay, good, its in the house somewhere.Tap play sound to narrow down its exact location.You hear it coming from the fridgeYou might not have found your wallet until it was time to cook dinner because you left it in there somehow. At least now you know where it is.Use the wallet tracker for up to five months before it needs to be recharged. You can see its current battery life on the Find My app, and throw it on any Qi-wireless charging pad for a quick power boost.Order one of these slim trackers for wallets for $26.99 with free shipping (reg. $42.99) and save 37 percent.StackSocial prices subject to change.MagTag Ultra Slim Tracker Card Works with Apple Find My App $26.99See Deal

NewsLifeToxin-gobbling bacteria may live on poison dart frog skinToxic alkaloids are often antimicrobial, but some bacteria seem to be using them as food Alkaloid chemicals bathe the skins of poison dart frogs (such as the diablito (Oophaga sylvatica) of Ecuador, shown). Some microbes seem to thrive in and even feed off the powerful toxins. Stephanie CatyBy Jake Buehler9 seconds agoPoison? What poison? Some bacteria may treat the powerful toxins bathing poison dart frog skin like a buffet.The alkaloid chemicals that poison dart frogs wield on their skin increase the variety of microbial species living there, researchers report December 4 in Current Biology. Some of those microbes even seem to dine on the potent alkaloids.Poison dart frogs (Dendrobatidae) gather and concentrate toxic alkaloids in their bodies from certain poisonous insects and other arthropods in their diet. The chemicals seep out onto the skin and are a potentially lethal deterrent against predators. The alkaloids are also antimicrobial, and biologist Stephanie Caty wondered how they might shape the microbiome on the frogs skin.

Nature, Published online: 15 January 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00050-1The US federal government can harness science to secure the health, prosperity and safety of Americans and the world.

Excavation of a Roman-era cemetery in France yielded nearly two dozen lead tablets inscribed in Latin and Gaulish.

The newest update for PUBG brings back a popular, fan-favorite feature--Recall. With the new 33.2 update, players on the Sanhok map can utilize the Recall system, which allows them to bring back fallen teammates mid-match. Recall was originally added to PUBG in 2023 before being removed.Now, however, Krafton is bringing the feature back. "We heard your feedback!" the developer said in the official patch notes for update 33.2Players can use the Recall system every 2.5 minutes, though the ability to bring back fallen teammates goes away from Phase 6 onwards. The Recall system also works with custom matches.Continue Reading at GameSpot

The story of Tales of Graces is an interesting one. The 12th mainline entry in Bandai Namco's long-running and prolific Tales of series, Tales of Graces was the follow-up to both the much-lauded Tales of Vesperia and the more middling Tales of Hearts. Though that initial release was a Japan-only launch for the Nintendo Wii, Bandai Namco eventually localized the game and ported it to the PlayStation 3 as Tales of Graces f. At the time of its release, Tales of Graces f was a bit of a polarizing entry thanks to the many new gameplay mechanics it introduced. However, it has since experienced a bit of a glow-up in the eyes of series fans who recognize it for its surprisingly strong and heartfelt narrative, along with what's arguably some of the best combat in the series.

Lets do things differently this time, says Gwen Stacy at the beginning of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The words kick off a three-minute monologue in which she recaps the previous films events and anticipates some of the twists and turns of the sequel, all the while playing an increasingly loud drum solo. Eventually, shes interrupted by her bandmate Mary Jane. Yo, Deaf Leppard, Mary Jane says, as a nod to the classic rock band.You get a different reference if youre watching with Latin American Spanish subtitles, though. Doing a one-to-one translation would have confused audiences unfamiliar with the band, especially as a quick throwaway joke that isnt referenced again. So Miguel Reyes Aldasoro, a translator at Voice and Script International Mexico, knew he had a challenge in front of him.Without giving any context about the project, I asked my girlfriend for help to find Latin American bands that had something to do with deafness, Aldasoro told Polygon. It also got to me personally as a drummer; whenever you mess up during rehearsals, people often say, What, are you deaf? Maintaining the word was very important in the context of a band.This week on Polygon, were looking at how cultural differences affect media in a special issue were calling Culture Shock.In the end, Aldasoro decided on Sorda Stereo, mimicking the original wordplay with the feminine of deaf in Spanish (sorda) and the Argentine rock band Soda Stereo. The reasoning went beyond just finding a suitable match. Aldasoro thought the bands popularity across the region made it a good replacement for Def Leppard.I remember talking to the studio that translated Shrek, which included many jokes that are not only local to Mexico but are also old by now, he said. People nowadays cant understand a reference to a show that hasnt been on the air for decades. Soda Stereo is a band that people will continue to listen to, and the translation will continue to work because of it.Whether its a throwaway joke or a word change to accommodate a nonbinary character, Latin American translators are perpetually thinking about the possible impact of seemingly small decisions. Polygon recently spoke to Aldasoro (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Dune: Part Two, Oppenheimer), Sandra Brizuela (Gravity Falls, High School Musical), Alejandra Valdez (formerly of Paramount, ViacomCBS, and MTV), and Jos Negrete (One Piece, Kraven the Hunter, Venom: The Last Dance) to learn more about the challenges specific to Latin American translations.An ever-changing standardWhen adapting international media to local audiences, Latin American translators have traditionally abided by a standardized version of Spanish, as the language is far from unified across countries, provinces, and demographics. Neutral Spanish, a term that often refers to a version of Mexican Spanish that largely excludes slang and regional idioms to avoid alienating Spanish speakers, has long been the predominant model, acting as a catch-all for Latin America in general.Yet, thanks to the increasing presence of social media as well as cultural norms evolving, the details involved with Neutral Spanish are constantly changing.Media Access Company transcreation supervisor for Latin American Spanish Sandra Brizuela recalls how she used to have internal debates around the word cupcake, which could be translated to muffin, pastelillo (little cake), budincillo (little pudding), or other terms. Nowadays, she says its more common to default to cupcake or muffin, despite those being English words, as theyre terms that people have grown accustomed to.When I started, the idea of Neutral Spanish was very limited, and thankfully that concept has been broadening, said Aldasoro, who has spent time traveling and seen firsthand how different versions of Spanish are more similar than they are different. Thanks to social media allowing for more contact with others, it makes it so [it doesnt feel like] different countries, but almost different cities coexisting in one single country.I think Neutral Spanish is something that doesnt really exist [in the real world], so the language used in dubbing [years back] was very limited and didnt sound natural, VSI production manager Jos Negrete said. Even if its OK for all of us to speak Spanish differently, its not like you wont understand it. Its more about aiming for a good adaptation and transmitting the message of the original source. If we see a film in Spanish from Spain, there may be one or two words I dont understand, and thats OK. We all have our phones and can Google them.Languages natural evolution has also led to more prominent considerations around gendered words, as Spanish makes a distinction between male and female for certain words. As people continue to fight for recognition of gender-neutral terms which are still rejected by the Royal Spanish Academy, despite it recognizing no binario (nonbinary) and disforia de gnero (gender dysphoria) in November 2023 communities across Latin America have been pushing for different variations. Words such as Latino, for example, can be written as Latin@, Latinx, or Latine to accommodate for more than just the masculine term.As of now, there arent set rules for the official translation of gender-neutral terms, with companies having different preferences for each new project. For the character of Raine Whispers in The Owl House, whos nonbinary, Media Access asked Disney about its preferences. The directive was to adapt sentences in a way that they could apply to both the masculine and feminine genders. For example, if somebody said Youre very smart, the most direct translation might be Eres muy listo, but listo is a gendered word for smart in Spanish (masculine, in this case). Instead, the team would adapt it to Eres muy inteligente (Youre very intelligent), since inteligente is a close synonym thats gender-neutral. In the case of Big Mouths Montel, the character being nonbinary was considered a story point story-related elements that must be preserved in the translation. In the end, Media Access discussed it with Netflix, and it was decided to use inclusive language (in which e replaces both o for masculine and a for feminine for example, linda, which is the feminine form of the term for pretty, would be linde).Contrasting culturesThe endeavor of trying to break out from the shackles of past language standards gets even more convoluted when translators arent just trying to accommodate or adapt Latin American cultural differences, but international ones as well. Even beyond wordplay and slang, Negrete said that translating from English to Spanish requires consideration of a different mentality and culture from, say, the U.S. or the U.K., which can lead to tonally opposite media compared to Latin American countries.Both Aldasoro and Negrete have noticed that some companies, like Netflix, have been pushing for VSI to be more active in proposing new ideas such as using local slang or references, like the case of Def Leppard and Soda Stereo, rather than trying to translate international terms, even if not all of them end up working in the end. Others tend to want a higher degree of faithfulness to the original source, usually checking the translation before the recordings take place to make sure they cut words that arent part of the studios brand identity in use.Media aimed at kids is hard to translate, not just because you need to be mindful of the language, but because theres quite a bit of wordplay involved, Aldasoro said. Ive had to translate educational cartoons, and you not only need to investigate what theyre saying, but also certain terms when theres talk about physics or architecture. Theres plenty of rhymes and songs. The idea of a kids show may sound silly and boring, but the ones Ive seen lately are very, very smart.As much consideration as the translation teams can have regarding a specific region or demographic, its the audiences that ultimately interpret translations with varying results, sometimes influenced by traditions or what theyve grown used to over the years. Brizuela recalled an experiment by Netflix in which the company took a few films and asked studios to localize them in Neutral Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Argentine Spanish, and at least one additional language. Media Access tackled the Argentine translation of a film about teenagers, mostly set in high school. Brizuela assigned the project to a translator who also works in a schools administration and is constantly in touch with teenagers.Her profile made it so shed have a pretty clear grasp of the Argentine teenage language, Brizuela said. And it was heavily rejected locally. People thought it sounded fake or off, you know? Really, even the dubbing actors, when they had to read certain expressions, theyd automatically lean toward Neutral Spanish.The familiarity with Neutral Spanish can be tricky with legacy media, especially when it comes to comic book, anime, and manga series. For X-Men 97 and Marvels MODOK, Disney asked Media Access to work with Mexican voice actors who had already lent their voices to certain characters in past films for continuitys sake. For Ant-Mans character Ant-thony, the studio asked Marvel whether or not to adapt the name to Spanish, ultimately deciding to keep it as is. In the case of Spider-Man-related media, The Daily Bugle is always translated as El Clarn. In some cases, translations are determined by existing adaptations from comic books and other source materials, such as glossaries, in which certain terms have been kept as is for decades. This is mostly for cohesiveness, maintaining nomenclature over the years out of tradition. This has led to peculiar results, as sometimes English terms might become the norm in Spanish translations, like the case of Ant-thony.Brizuela also highlighted songs as a peculiar element for translation, using High School Musical as an example. Adapting a song shares similarities to adapting poetry, in terms of maintaining the rhyme. Thats what fellow translator Lorena Palacios, who was in charge of making sure everything would rhyme in Spanish, did. But the client said that it wanted a literal translation instead.The person whos listening to the songs in English and understands the language realizes when something is different in Spanish, so the message has to be very direct and plain, Brizuela said.Visible effortsAccording to Brizuela, translation is similar to plastic surgery: When its done properly, you dont notice it. But that doesnt mean that the work itself needs to be invisible. Translation teams help international media reach regions with different languages. The results often make the headlines Inside Out 2 grossed $102.2 million in Mexico and $80 million in Brazil while increasing interest in new demographics.But for the translators responsible for popularizing international media, crediting can be uneven, an issue resonating across different industries and territories. Video game translators, for example, have been wrestling with credit omissions for years, all the way from Nintendo properties like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to the Persona series. The X account named Loc in Credits periodically aggregates examples of some of the latest games, detailing exactly which localization studios are credited or not.I think dubbing used to be seen as the last step in post-production of the original project and wasnt necessarily well renowned, Aldasoro said. Recently, the work has received more visibility, including all of the people involved in these projects. It used to be that only the so-called star talent voice actors would be recognized. But there have been more events, mainly film premieres planned for voice actors, in which theyre the focus and receive the credit they deserve and should have always gotten.To some extent, visibility issues also apply to the language itself, and how adaptations have changed over time. Echoing the muffin and cupcake example, some Spanish words have been replaced by their equivalents in English whereas historieta used to be the go-to translation for comic book, its now common to keep the abbreviated comic as is, Brizuela said. As such, whenever theres a case like the Sorda Stereo joke, it stands out. Its how translators leave a regional footprint that will withstand the passage of time, regardless of the changes that will come in the future.