PC sales forecast cut

The International Data Corporation (IDC) today slashed its forecast for personal computer sales this year to a 1.1% rise, saying the key year-end holiday sales period would prove disappointing.

Reuters reports the technology market research firm projected sales for 2002 of 135.5 million PCs, compared with 134.1 million in 2001, and predicted an 8.4% rise in 2003.

The PC market, used to double-digit growth, last year shrank for the first time since 1985. In June, the IDC had expected 4.7% growth this year, although early this year it expected only a 3.2% rise.

The group said shipments in Western Europe and Japan would shrink and US growth would be 0.5% this year, meaning the real improvement was from emerging economies. Desktop PC sales would fall 1.6%, while portable sales globally would rise 10.5%.

Want to take your Xbox somewhere it was never supposed to go? The Xbox Linux Project has released a tutorial on installing SuSE 8.0 on an Xbox. But don`t be fooled, getting the Xbox to run under Linux is a lot harder than it sounds from the tutorial.

TheRegister points out that to get the whole lot to run you`ll need a mod chip, the XBE bootloader, a patched kernel from the Xbox Linux Project site, a SuSE nforce driver and a collection of USB peripherals and adapters. But if you`re prepared to do a little assembly, then the project is more than achievable.

Links: Xbox Linux Project

[More at TheRegister]

Nokia has released the 3650, which includes a digital camera and runs on the Symbian operating system. The 3650 takes the 7650 a step further for business users.

But perhaps the one company that stands to benefit the most from the new release is Symbian, and particularly Psion, which just the other day announced that it needs to sell more than 15 million handsets before it can even conceive of making profit.

The 3650 is pitched at the "road warrior" with its e-mail contact and calendaring options, but the youth market will probably eye the 3650 with its ability to send video, audio and mobile games between phones as well as multimedia messaging SMSs.