Budget laptops: the processors behind the new breed

Architectural improvements by both Intel and AMD will ensure we continue to see increasingly powerful devices, but without increasing costs

Intel’s Atom processors were always intended to expand the potential of compact, low-cost PCs, but it was only with 2012’s Clover Trail platform that the processor really began to deliver on its promise. Today, Clover Trail’s successor, Bay Trail, brings us fully capable laptops at remarkably low prices.

That’s thanks to the underlying Silvermont architecture, launched in 2013, which represents a few firsts for the Atom line-up. For a start, it’s the first Atom processor to embrace the 22nm 3D Tri-Gate technology introduced in Intel’s mainstream Core line with 2012’s Ivy Bridge processors. What’s more, it’s Intel’s first low-power SoC (system on a chip) to have out-of-order execution (OoOE).

How Photoshop changed the world

Adobe Photoshop has tweaked, brightened and enhanced our lives for 25 years. Adam Banks unmasks its many-layered reign.

It’s hard to believe there was no Photoshop before 1990. Its impact has since been magnified by the rise of digital photography and social media, and continues through an endless variety of rival products, but for a quarter of a century we’ve been living in the Photoshop age.

“Photoshop changed the ontology of the photograph,” said Caroline Bassett, professor of media and communications at the University of Sussex. “It revolutionised our sense of the relationship of the photographic image to the reality it remade. Before Photoshop, it was easier to believe a photograph captured the truth. After, we knew it was constructed. I think it’s the single most influential software package of the PC era.”

Does technology matter in the General Election?

Many of the issues facing the United Kingdom are underpinned by technology. Nicole Kobie reveals where the main three parties stand on key questions

Broadband, surveillance and online censorship are all important issues to the tech community - but they're unlikely to be the factors that any of us votes for in the General Election in May.

Instead, it will be the economy, immigration and the NHS that dominate, according to ComRes pollster Katharine Peacock, speaking at a meeting of the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum (PICTFOR). Yet this doesn't mean technology is an irrelevance. As Peacock explained: “These three are important for technology... It underpins a wide range of issues.”

How Microsoft will make cash from its “free” OS

If Microsoft won’t be charging for upgrades to Windows 10, and it's being bundled free with tablets, how will it keep the cash rolling in? Barry Collins investigates

It’s free on phones, on compact tablets, and now for those who already have Windows 7 or 8 installed on their PCs. Is Windows, as Microsoft’s chief operating officer was asked recently at the Credit Suisse Technology Conference, becoming a “loss leader”? Will it be given away for peanuts to lure people towards more lucrative products, such as Office 365?

Record classic TV & Film from the Web

Jane Hoskyn shows you where to find your old favourites online and how to save them for watching in comfort

Remember the first time you set the video to record a TV programme? VHS felt revolutionary (and a bit naughty) because it let you watch your favourite programmes when you wanted to, instead of when Auntie Beeb or ITV wanted you to. You no longer had to choose between going out or watching Doctor Who. Even better (or naughtier), you could watch it over and over again at your leisure.

Then the internet came along, with its streaming video services like YouTube and the BBC's iPlayer, and you could watch what you wanted, when you wanted, where you wanted. You could search for an old favourite on YouTube and there it was, as clear (well, as fuzzy) as it was in the comer of your parents' living room all those years ago.