Dell plans to launch the first consumer 5K monitor some time in December 2014, priced at just under $2,000 a pop. This comes in the wake of Apple launching the first consumer product with a 5K display, its latest iMac Retina all-in-one desktop. Dell's UltraSharp UP2715K is a 27-inch display with 5K (5120 x 2880 pixels) native resolution, which lends it a staggering 218 ppi of pixel density. Compare that to the 157 ppi of 28-inch Ultra HD monitors. 5K is four times as many pixels as WQHD.

The UltraSharp UP2715K features a 10-bit IPS panel, with 99 percent Adobe RGB and 100 percent sRGB palette coverage, and a 12-bit LUT. It offers viewing angles of 178°/178°, 8 ms response time, 350 cd/m² maximum brightness, and 1000:1 static contrast-ratio, with dynamic mega-contrast. The display needs two DisplayPort connections for sufficient bandwidth, to beam those many pixels at 60 Hz. There's also a mini-DisplayPort, but using that would either cap resolution at 3840 x 2160 @ 60 Hz, or drop refresh-rate at the native resolution.

In another strong quarter, Chromebook shipments increased by 67% QoQ and are projected to double in size YoY. Acer continues to maintain its lead over other vendors in the market, including Samsung, HP, and Dell. The top three leading vendors - Acer, Samsung, and HP - accounted for 74% shipment share during 1H 2014 and are forecasted to maintain market control through 2H 2014, according to quarterly data from technology market intelligence firm ABI Research.

"Consumers are hungry for a product that is cost effective but also provides the versatility and functionality of a laptop," says Research Analyst Stephanie Van Vactor. "The growth of the Chromebook market demonstrates a niche that is gaining traction among consumers."

The questionable need of Chromebooks by consumers contributed to the slow start of these devices; however, vertical markets such as elementary education still remain a driving force. In emerging markets, especially in Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe, business-purchasing entities account for 75% of Chromebook sales. ABI Research also forecasts that North America will account for 78% of the Chromebook market in 2014, while other regions, especially Asia-Pacific and Western Europe, are expected to grow in market share by 2019.

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 78.5 million units in the third quarter of 2014 (3Q14), a year-on-year decline of -1.7% and a sizable improvement over the forecast of -4.1%, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.

Many of the trends from the second quarter remained relevant and contributed to the 3Q14 results. Commercial PC purchases played a key role in many markets, with the top three vendors - Lenovo, HP, and Dell - all showing solid year-on-year growth. Conversely, fierce competition and a spiral toward tablet-like prices helped to further consolidate the market. Shipments of entry systems, including Chromebooks, continued to inject an important source of volume and sustained improved consumer demand in certain markets over recent quarters.

Worldwide PC monitor shipments totaled 32.5 million units in the second quarter of 2014 (2Q14), a year-over-year decline of -2.9%, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker. IDC expects worldwide shipments to continue on their current trajectory, slipping to 107 million units for the full year 2018.

"Despite the overall decline, there was a strong quarter-over-quarter growth rate of 11% in the United States and a slight increase in PC Monitor shipments in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan)(APeJ). In addition, the shipment totals were stronger than forecast by 4%," said Keerthi Maganti, Research Analyst, Worldwide PC Monitor Trackers at IDC.

Dell today unveiled its most advanced and easy-to-manage portfolio of PowerEdge servers, designed to help customers worldwide address and optimize the evolving spectrum of application and workload requirements. The Dell PowerEdge 13th generation server portfolio features customer-inspired engineering built to optimize price performance for the widest range of web, enterprise and hyperscale applications, and features state-of-the-art advancements in storage, processing and memory technology coupled with industry-leading systems management capabilities.

The new Dell PowerEdge portfolio - which begins with five form-factors across blade, rack and tower servers - provides customers with choice in how they address industry trends including cloud computing, mobility, big data, and software-defined. More than 80 percent of IT decision-makers report these factors as investment priorities for the next 12 months, according to the Future Ready IT survey, recent worldwide research commissioned by Dell and Intel.

As a global leader in providing the most secure and manageable commercial PC solutions, Dell today debuted sleek, completely redesigned additions to its trusted Latitude and OptiPlex portfolio: the Latitude 7000 Series 2-in-1 detachable laptop; the Latitude 3000 and 5000 Series laptops; the Latitude 14 Rugged laptop; and the OptiPlex 9020 and 3020 Micro desktop PCs. Dell also introduced its Chromebox and Chromebox for meetings solutions and new additions to its monitor line-up further expanding its global leadership in flat panel displays.

"Dell understands the complexity of supporting the wide variety of devices present in today's evolving workforce environment," said Kirk Schell, vice president and general manager, commercial client solutions, Dell. "Our new portfolio enables businesses of all sizes to embrace sleek and innovative form factors their workforce will be proud to use day after day to accomplish their productivity goals. While they look like thin and light consumer devices, these commercial PCs are backed by the industry's best security and manageability that only Dell provides."

Dell is showing the 16:10 aspect ratio some love with its newest UltraSharp model, the U2415, which features a 24.1-inch AH-IPS panel with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels. Seen below, Dell's display comes with a slim (6.9 mm) bezel, a W-LED backlight, a 6 ms G2G respone time (that's with the FAST mode enabled), 300 cd/m2 brightness, 1,000:1 contrast ratio, a 5-port USB 3.0 hub, a stand allowing for tilt, swivel, rotate and height adjustments and one DisplayPort, one mini DisplayPort and two HDMI inputs, plus one DP out for daisy chaining (up to three monitors).

The UltraSharp U2415 can be found on Dell's Chinese website bearing a price tag of 3,299 yuan ($537/409 Euro).

While it's working away on the UltraSharp U3415W Dell is also making updates to its media consumption-focused monitor offer, introducing the 24-inch S2415H and the 27-inch S2715H. Both displays feature a super-slim bezel, an AH-IPS panel with a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, a glossy screen coating, a W-LED backlight, a 6 ms (G2G) response time, 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 250 cd/m2 brightness, VGA and HDMI inputs, and built-in speakers (2 x 3 W for the 24-inch model, 2 x 9 W for the 27-inch). The S2715H also comes with a two-port USB 2.0 hub.

The S2415H is priced at $259.99 while the S2715H can be found listed by Dell China at 2,999 yuan (~ $488/372 Euro).

Dell released its UltraSharp U3415W, a 34-inch curved ultra-wide monitor, which the company claims will provide an ergonomic multi-display workspace with just two displays; to rival those with three full-HD ones. The displays are equipped with blue-light reduction technology, to reduce eye-strain. The U3415W offers an aspect ratio of 21:9 (cinematic), with a native resolution of 3440 x 1440 pixels, refresh rate of 60 Hz, and 8 ms response time (GTG). Display inputs include HDMI 2.0 (sufficient bandwidth to run the panel at its native specs), mini-DisplayPort 1.2, and MHL. The monitor takes both analog inputs, and digital audio passthrough from its HDMI 2.0 and DP 1.2 connections, to drive its inbuilt 9W stereo speakers. The UltraSharp U3415W from Dell will begin selling some time in November, 2014.

Alienware, the leader in high-powered gaming systems, is announcing the return of the legendary Alienware Area-51 performance gaming desktop, packing the newest technologies from Intel, NVIDIA and AMD, to give gamers high frame rate fragging at any resolution. The Area-51 is Alienware's newest flagship desktop gaming system engineered to perform at beyond Ultra HD resolutions and multi-monitor setups, while meeting the requirements of the most demanding gamers on the planet.

A Legacy of Excellence
The Area-51 pays homage to the storied legacy of gaming excellence started by Alienware nearly two decades ago. Fueled by the love of gaming, the original Alienware Area-51 set the industry standard for performance gaming systems. Maximizing performance first and foremost, the Area-51 delivered the best technologies to gamers who demanded only the best. Alienware's newest flagship performance gaming system features a new revolutionary chassis design and packs the latest and greatest hardware to give gamers the ultimate gaming experiences.

Adding to the world's most comprehensive line of workstation solutions, Dell today announced new mainstream and performance tower and rack workstations, the Dell Precision Tower 5810, Tower 7810, Tower 7910, and Rack 7910, designed to address the critical requirements of customers in compute-intensive fields such as engineering, manufacturing, and media and entertainment.

Updated with Intel's latest Xeon processors, DDR4 memory, next-generation graphics technology from NVIDIA and AMD, and doubling the amount of memory from the previous generation, these powerful, scalable systems are optimized and independent software vendor (ISV) certified to run the most demanding applications. In addition, Dell is releasing a new version of the Dell Precision Optimizer v2.0, which automatically configures workstation settings to maximize application performance.

Alienware, a leader in high-performance gaming systems, has announced the pre-order availability of the Alienware Alpha gaming console. Starting August 12, 2014, gamers will have the opportunity to ensure they are among the first to own the Alienware Alpha. Fans that are eager to get their hands on the Alienware Alpha gaming console will be able to secure their system from select retailers like Amazon and Walmart, or direct from Dell, with configurations starting at $549.

Gamers can now secure their gateway to the entire Steam library on a system that was engineered to provide an immersive PC gaming experience, custom-tailored for the living room. The Alienware Alpha merges the open ecosystem and flexibility of PC gaming with the ease-of-use and intuitive interface of consoles. This enables gamers to choose what and how they want to play, whether it's a competitive online FPS with the bundled Microsoft Xbox 360 wireless controller for Windows, or having their friends bring their controllers of choice for a fragfest in the newest indie side scroller.

This November Dell is set to let loose a new Alienware-branded gaming machine, a thin and light notebook dubbed Alienware 13. As its name suggests, the upcoming laptop packs a 13-inch display which, depending on configuration, can have a native resolution of (only) 1366 x 768, 1920 x 1080, or 2560 x 1440 pixels.

The Alienware 13 will also feature an ultra-low voltage Intel processor, a GeForce GTX 860M graphics card, up to 16 GB of RAM, up to two SSDs (HDD options will also be available), Qualcomm Killer 802.11ac WiFi, a TACTX keyboard, and Klipsch audio. No word on pricing yet but since it's Alienware, one might want to start saving already.

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 74.4 million units in the second quarter of 2014 (2Q14), a year-on-year decline of -1.7%, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. The results reflect the smallest decline in global PC shipments since the second quarter of 2012 when declining shipments of mini notebooks combined with a surge in tablet sales to disrupt the PC market.

Buoyed by both continued business PC replacements and returning consumer interest, the preliminary results for 2Q14 are markedly better than the projected decline of -7.1% for the quarter. Despite the end of Windows XP support in early April, it appears many Windows XP migrations continue to take place. Most major vendors saw solid growth, and early indications also point to desktop shipments being stronger than expected in some areas, signaling continued business buying. The consumer side also appears stronger than expected, with growing activity among the lower-priced models as well as Chromebooks.

Technology industry leaders Atmel Corporation, Broadcom Corporation, Dell, Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., and Wind River, are joining forces to establish a new industry consortium focused on improving interoperability and defining the connectivity requirements for the billions of devices that will make up the Internet of Things (IoT).

The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) is focused on defining a common communications framework based on industry standard technologies to wirelessly connect and intelligently manage the flow of information among personal computing and emerging IoT devices, regardless of form factor, operating system or service provider.

Worldwide PC monitor shipments totaled nearly 33.7 million units in the first quarter of 2014 (1Q14), a year-over-year decline of -0.4%, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker. IDC expects worldwide shipments to continue on their current trajectory, slipping to 106 million units for the full year 2018.

"Despite the overall decline, the shipment totals were stronger than the forecast of 31 million units," said Phuong Hang, Program Director, Worldwide Trackers at IDC. "Geographically, Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions delivered the largest gains during the first quarter while Dell and HP both experienced solid shipment growth."

At a conference in early June, AMD accidentally disclosed its upcoming FirePro W8100 professional graphics card, ahead of its launch. A cut-down of the FirePro W9100, the W8100 is based on the 28 nm "Hawaii" silicon, that's binned for higher durability. It features 2,560 GCN2 stream processors, 160 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 512-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 8 GB of memory. Compare those to the 2,816 SPs and 16 GB memory of the W9100. The core on the W8100 is clocked at 825 MHz, at which, it puts out single-precision floating point performance of 4.2 TFLOP/s. The dual-slot card is built on a red PCB that's unlike anything AMD built Radeon brand cards out of. It draws power from two 6-pin PCIe power connectors, is shorter in length than the consumer R9 290 reference board, and features a back-plate, to cool memory chips on the reverse side of the PCB. The card supports DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.4, and Mantle. It will likely be positioned against NVIDIA's Quadro K5000, at the US $2,500 range. It will also be one of the GPU options in Dell's Precision T7800 workstations.

Dell's Alienware division has previously confirmed working on a Steam Machine and now the fruits of that work have entered the spotlight at E3. Alienware Alpha is a Steam Machine-like Mini PC that is designed for living room gaming without actually utilizing Valve's Steam OS or its (delayed) Steam Controller.

Alpha comes with Windows 8.1 pre-installed and makes use of a Console-mode UI allowing users easy access to Steam Big Picture. The system will be bundled with an Xbox 360 controller and will have a base price tag of $549. For that amount you get an Intel Core i3 (Haswell) processor, 4 GB of DDR3-1600 memory, a 2 GB NVIDIA Maxwell-based graphics card (GTX 750 Ti maybe?), and a 500 GB hard drive. Higher-priced configurations include Core i5/i7 processors, 8 GB of RAM, and 1/2 TB HDDs.

Designed for flexible productivity and personal entertainment, Dell today unveiled its new Dell Venue 7 and Venue 8 tablets, Inspiron 11 3000 Series 2-in-1, Inspiron 13 7000 Series 2-in-1, Inspiron 20 3000 Series AIO, and announced the worldwide availability of the new Dell UltraSharp UZ2715H, UZ2315H, and UZ2215H Multimedia Monitors. The new products include innovative form factors and connectivity options that will liberate families, students, and professionals alike to work when they need to and play when they want.

"The Dell Venue tablets and Inspiron 2-in-1s are designed to be essential companions to power projects, provide entertainment, and share meaningful moments with family and friends," said Sam Burd, vice president and general manager, Dell Personal Computing Product Group. "Dell customers have more flexibility than ever before to have their technology move with them throughout the day and become a seamless part of their lives."

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced the election of new Board of Directors leadership. Alan Kobayashi of MegaChips has been elected Board Chair; Syed Athar Hussain has been re-elected Vice Chair; and Richard Hubbard of Texas Instruments has been elected Secretary/Treasurer. The new leadership slate will serve one-year terms of office.

Alan Kobayashi, VESA's new Board Chair, is Fellow & Executive R&D Management for DisplayPort Group at MegaChips Technology America. Based in San Jose, CA, Mr. Kobayashi has served in a variety of senior corporate technology roles, and he has been an author of VESA's DisplayPort Standard and served as Chair of the DisplayPort Task Group, the Leader of the organization's PHY/Link Layer Compliance Sub-groups, and as a VESA Board member. Mr. Kobayashi holds several dozen patents in the area of A/V transport and display.

"VESA's work developing standards and establishing compliance test protocols is of strategic importance to the entire video display ecosystem," explained Alan Kobayashi. "I hope to help guide the organization as we continue to enhance our existing, widely adopted standards, while also developing solutions for the industry's emerging video challenges."

Dell today announced new sustainability initiatives designed to increase the ways that its IT solutions make lasting contributions to the planet. Dell is the first in the IT industry to introduce carbon-negative packaging, through a partnership with Newlight Technologies, inventor and manufacturer of AirCarbon. Dell also is the first to use UL-Environment certified closed-loop recycled plastics in the manufacturing of computers, in partnership with Wistron GreenTech, a global original design manufacturer and one of Dell's official environmental partners. The independent, third-party verification of a closed-loop plastics process establishes the first industry standard for closed-loop and supports a circular economy for IT.

Earlier today, at Fortune Brainstorm Green, Dell CEO Michael Dell said today's announcement is the next milestone in Dell's 2020 Legacy of Good plan, which includes 21 ambitious sustainability and social goals Dell is committed to reaching by 2020. The overarching goal is to ensure that the good that comes from Dell's technology will be ten times what it takes to create and use it. "We have a long-standing commitment to conduct our business responsibly," said Mr. Dell. "Air Carbon packaging and closed-loop recycled plastics are terrific innovations and big steps forward as we work with our customers and partners toward our 2020 goals."

Dell has once again expanded its popular UltraSharp line of monitors, this time with three models that are aimed towards office use due to their video conference capabilities. Named UZ2215H, UZ2315H and UZ2715H, the new 21.5-inch, 23-inch and 27-inch monitors respectively feature a built-in 2 megapixel camera, dual (Omni-directional) microphones and two built-in 5 W speakers.

Dell's displays use IPS panels and have a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, an 8 ms GTG response time, a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, a two-port USB 3.0 hub, and D-Sub, dual HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2a outputs. The UZ2315H and UZ2715H are selling in the US for $299.99 and $449.99 while the UZ2215H can be found in Hong Kong at HK$2,399 (~ 309 USD ).

Intel Corporation and other companies today introduced a new lineup of Chrome devices, including the first designs using Intel Celeron processors based on the Bay Trail-M system-on-chip (SoC). A new class of Chromebooks based on the 4th generation Intel Core i3 processor were also unveiled. The announcements were made at a press conference in San Francisco hosted by Navin Shenoy, vice president and general manager of Intel Mobile Client Platforms Group and Caesar Sengupta, vice president, product management, Chrome OS at Google as well as representatives from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG Electronics USA and Toshiba.

"Intel has grown to become the No. 1 microprocessor in Chrome systems," said Shenoy. "We've been working on five generations of Chrome and after Google, Intel is the largest contributor to the Chromium OS. Intel chips are the first and only to support 64-bit Chrome OS. This deep history and investment combined with our stellar Bay Trail and Haswell SoCs mean Intel can offer the best performing devices at every price point in the Chrome category. When people are shopping for Chrome devices, they should look for Intel Inside."

Dell cloud client-computing today at Citrix Synergy 2014 announced additions to its industry-leading cloud client portfolio with the Dell Wyse 5000 series all-in-one thin client, the Dell Wyse quad display 7000 series thin client and the Dell Wyse Xenith 3 zero client for Citrix. Dell also announced a new version of its end-to-end VDI offering, Dell Wyse Datacenter for Citrix XenDesktop, which accelerates deployment time and improves manageability with the addition of Dell Foglight for infrastructure monitoring.

"More than 200 million people interact with Dell Wyse solutions every day-from ATMs to kiosks to classrooms to hospitals. We continue to raise the bar for thin client manageability, security, performance and value, as well as lead the way with innovative form factors and OS support," said Steve Lalla, vice president and general manager, cloud client computing, Dell. "When these new portfolio additions are combined with Dell's data center infrastructure solutions for Citrix, customers from a broad range of industries can improve security, better protect their content, and sharply reduce ongoing costs - all while delivering the computing experiences their people demand."

Today Dell introduced new Inspiron 14, 15 and 17 5000 Series laptops, its Inspiron 20 3000 Series and 23 5000 Series All-in-One (AIO) desktops just in time for the Back-to-School season. These new laptops and desktops are designed with power and comfort features aimed at helping people achieve through every phase of their lives. Powerful processors, massive hard drives, and responsive 10-finger touch displays up to Full HD resolution are some of the options designed to meet the needs of consumers' diverse lifestyles. New features that make life easier include 20GB of Dropbox cloud storage for sharing, saving and collaborating, and facial recognition software to make using password-enabled web sites safer. All of these products seamlessly fit into your life on your terms.

"Students and parents alike want technology that helps them to be successful in their personal and educational pursuits," said Ray Wah, vice-president, Dell Consumer PC Group. "Our new Inspiron laptops and AIOs are a smart investment for families, providing the latest technology for productivity and entertainment in thin, space-saving designs."