Global PC market to double by 2010

The number of personal computers worldwide is expected to double to about 1.3 billion by 2010.

It will be driven by explosive growth in emerging markets such as China, Russia and India, according to a report released yesterday by Forrester Research.

China will likely lead the growth, with 178 million new PC users by 2010, while 566 million new PCs are expected to be in use in emerging markets by 2010, based on a study of adoption rates across 16 emerging markets.

Of the 16 emerging markets included in the study, Mexico is expected to see the deepest PC market penetration, with 46% of Mexicans owning a PC by 2010, reports Reuters.

Mature markets in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific are expected to add 150 million new PCs by 2010.

Internet Explorer (IE) continues to fall in the US, dropping 1.09% to 91.80% of the browser market between 5 November and 3 December.

According to an independent study from WebSideStory, the drop is more than triple the rate of loss of the previous month.

In contrast, Firefox`s US browser usage share has grown by more than a third. According to the study, for the one-month period from 5 November to 3 December, Firefox`s usage share grew from 3.03% to 4.06%. This compares to a gain of 13% during the previous month, from 8 October to 5 November, reports LinuxInsider.

Toshiba says it is close to commercialising a new data storage technology that could significantly increase the capacity of hard disk drives.

The new method is called perpendicular recording, and unlike current longitudinal recording in which the bits lie flat on the disk surface, they now stand upright and thus take up less space. This means there is room for more of them on the disk and so the storage capacity is higher, Computerworld reports.

The first two drives expected to use the technology will have a recording density of 133Gb per square inch, which is 37% greater than current drives. The method will be used in portable consumer electronics products, such as digital music players.

Toshiba won`t provide an estimate of the likely price, but said sample drives are available now and cost $1 145 (R6 870) for the 40GB model and $1 422 (R8 532) for the 80GB model.