PC shipments fell 20.1% year over year to 62.7 million units in the third quarter of 2026, the worst Q3 decline IDC has recorded. "The top three PC makers -- Lenovo, Dell, and HP -- also saw their shipments fall by over 20% year over year," reports PCMag. From the report: "If looking at all quarters, then we have seen other quarters in recent years with larger declines, such as 2022Q4, which was -28.2%, and 2023Q1, which was -28.7%. Both were coming off pandemic highs," IDC Director Jitesh Ubrani told PCMag in an email. The numbers aren't a great sign, since third-quarter PC shipments usually outpace those in the second quarter as vendors introduce new products ahead of the holiday shopping season. Instead, PC shipments were at 62.7 million units, down 9.1% from the previous quarter. [...] Of course, the downturn isn't a surprise. IDC and other research firms have warned that the ongoing AI-driven memory shortage threatens to sap demand for PCs and phones due to soaring memory and storage costs. "What we're seeing is the result of the strong first half pull-in. Vendors and channels loaded up on inventory early in the year to get ahead of [memory-related] price hikes, and that has thrown off the usual seasonality, where Q3 is typically larger than Q2," Ubrani said in a report covering IDC's preliminary estimates for the quarter. In one bright spot, Ubrani said vendors and retailers might cut prices to generate interest and clear out products they have in stock. "Channels are now worried about carrying too much inventory into a market where high prices are suppressing demand. That could translate into promotions and some short-term relief for consumers, but we don't expect pricing anywhere near what it was a year ago. Prices will remain elevated," he added.

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Over the years, I learned about many gotchas and strange differences between keyboard handling on Mac and Windows – pertinent especially to web apps, which use the same codebase to cater to both. I thought it might be helpful to someone if I compile them all in one place.

↫ Marcin Wichary

I knew most of these, but it’s still nice to have such a reference at hand when needed.

Micron says the global RAM and storage shortage will tighten further through 2027 and 2028, with CEO Sanjay Mehrotra saying the company has already sold most of next year's capacity. "In calendar 2027 as well as 2028, we see demand exceeding supply. In fact, we see greater tightness in the industry in 2027 and in 2028 versus 2026. Overall, supply-demand environment is only getting tighter," Mehrotra said. "We do not have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance." As a result, the company is forecasting record revenue and an 86.25% gross margin. Tom's Hardware reports: The memory and storage industry is not holding back on increasing production, though, with Micron saying that NAND and DRAM shipments are expected to grow in the low-to-mid 20s percentage range for the next two years. However, it seems that this is not enough to match growing demand, as it expects "the industry to remain supply constrained in both years." Still, it seems that manufacturers are prioritizing HBM demand for AI data centers, with the company expecting shipments of these chips to grow faster than conventional DRAM. Micron and other chip manufacturers are bringing new factories online to increase output, but it's going to take years before they can start producing chips. But even as we're amid an unprecedented multi-year memory chip shortage, Micron also announced record financial guidance. It forecasted a record $61.5 billion FQ1 revenue and a gross margin of 86.25%, implying a gross profit of more than $53 billion. After accounting for an estimated $2.06 billion in operating expenses and a tax rate of around 15.5%, the company said its earnings per share sit at $38.15, plus or minus $1.00, for approximately 1.15 billion shares.

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Amazon's October Prime Day sale is over, but some good deals on smartwatches are still live, from traditional smartwatches like those from Apple, Google, and Samsung, as well as fitness-focused watches from companies like Garmin. Here are the best sales still active right now.

The Apple Watch Series 12 is $50 off

The Series 12 is the newest watch in Apple's lineup, and it's one that I think is definitely worth the upgrade. It's been on the market less than a month, but it's already on sale for $50 off its original price. The GPS-only model starts at $349.99 (normally $399) and the cellular model at $449.99 (normally $499). This is the watch with the new heart rate sensor, which I found to be very accurate, on par with the best Garmins. It also has step counts and recovery HRV, features that will unfortunately not be coming to the Series 11 or earlier.

The Apple Watch SE 3 is only $199

Apple Watch SE 3 is still at $199 today for GPS-only models; the cellular models seem to no longer be on sale. The SE is the budget version of the Apple Watch, and these watches normally go for $249 and $299, respectively. The current sale price is the lowest I've ever seen it.

The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is $200 off

It's hard to beat an Apple Watch as a combination smartwatch and fitness tracker. You can read more about how they hold their own against Fitbits and Oura rings, or see which are our favorite models for 2026. If you're looking for an Ultra, try the Apple Watch Ultra 3 for $699.97 (down from $899.99).

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic is $150 off

Samsung's Galaxy Watches tend to be strong in fitness features and are a great companion to a Samsung phone. I'm seeing the 2024 Samsung Galaxy Watch 7, 40 mm, Bluetooth only, for $159.99 (down from $249.99). But what's even better are the deals on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, starting at $219.99 (originally $299.99), and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, LTE, 46 mm, $399.99 (down from $549.99).

The Pixel Watch 5 is $65 off

Google's Pixel watches are good at fitness tracking and everyday smartwatch use, and I loved the ultra-fast charging when I tested a previous version. If you'd like to pick up the newest edition, the Pixel Watch 5, the wifi-only model starts at $349.99 today, down from $399.99. The cellular model is $429.99, down from $499.99.

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Amazon Prime Day FAQs

Is Amazon Prime Day worth it?

Yes, we’ve done the math, and it’s worth it for most people.

Is Prime Day once a year?

Prime Day happens every summer. Prime Big Deal Days (or October Prime Day) happens every October. Big Spring Sale happens every spring.

Is Prime Day a scam?

No. Prime Day is a legitimate online sale from arguably the biggest and most reputable online retailer in the world.

Akihabara, Tokyo’s famous “Electric Town,” is overflowing with foreign tourists these days, drawn by anime shops, maid cafes, and duty-free electronics megastores. But there is one storefront most of them walk past without a glance: Akizuki Denshi Tsusho. It may be one of those pockets of Japan that foreign visitors never see. Step inside and the narrow aisles are packed — not with tourists, but with Japanese customers hunting for electronic parts. It is a scene that has repeated itself here for more than 50 years.

For readers outside Japan, imagine something between Adafruit, SparkFun, and a discount surplus warehouse. If you start tinkering with electronics in Japan, Akizuki’s website is the one you will open before any other. Generations of Japanese engineers, students, and hobbyists have treated it as the default source for parts, the way you might default to Digi-Key or Mouser.

↫ Gakuto Ochi and an uncredited translator

I’ve long been fascinated by places like Akizuki Denshi Tsusho and other places like it in South Korea and China’s Shenzhen. An unending labyrinth of unimaginable amounts of technology stacked floor to ceiling. Whether they be like Akizuki, which focuses on the tiniest of electrical components, or more like the malls in Shenzhen, which seem to focus more on assembled parts, the idea of browsing through them in wonder draws me in like a moth to a flame.

I’m sad these places don’t exist anymore (or in most cases, never did) closer to home, but perhaps someday I’ll have enough time and funds to visit Tokyo or Shenzen and let myself be overwhelmed by things I don’t understand, and people speaking languages entirely alien to me.

Don’t have enough computing devices on your wish list yet? Do you have a need for a graphing calculator? No? What if it can run Linux and even Windows 10? I see I’ve got your attention.

The HP Prime is a graphing calculator on the market since 2013, with a hardware revision in 2018 (the G2 model). It has a touch screen and as far as I can find, most people are happy with it and find it a very capable and fast calculator. Here are some pictures of the opened up calculator and here is a website with some more downloads.

I’m not really interested in the calculator part. For most calculations I do for my day job, embedded programming, the HP-16C is a better fit. I was interested in this device because I found posts online suggesting it could run Linux and even a Windows 10 port.

↫ Remy van Elst

I had no idea just how overpowered – for a graphing calculator – the G2 really is. It’s basically an Android smartphone from a few years ago, and that means that yes, it can run Linux, including X, Doom, and tons of other applications. It’s not the easiest of devices to get custom software onto, but also not particularly difficult – you need to open it up and short two pads – so if you have one, it’s definitely a fun project. Apparently, someone also ported EUFI for Windows 10 to this thing, so you can do silly stuff like run the Windows calculator on the G2 calculator.

Wild. Now I kind of want one.

It was only a few weeks ago that we got a massively improved Alpha emulator, capable of running VMS, Windows 2000, and Tru64, including X11 support and a variety of other exciting features. Today, we’ve got another major emulation milestone (update: sadly, with “AI” support, so odds are this will fizzle out. Bummer!).

The emulation space is going crazy, after my previous post on Windows booting on DEC Alpha es40 emulator, there is now another huge breakthrough in the emulation of other non-x86 CPU emulation. Yufeng Gao with help from gdwnldsKSC (the man behind the updated es40-fork) has released version 0.1 of his Intel Itanium (IA-64) emulator that boots the Itanium version of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP 64-bit. No OpenVMS or HP-UX yet and Linux/BSD also don’t boot. But Windows is amazing already.

↫ Remy van Elst

Much like Alpha hardware, Itanium hardware is quite hard to come by – especially Itanium workstations are a nightmare to find; I think I’ve only ever seen one or two Itanium workstation come up for sale on eBay in recent years, and their rarity obviously commanded hefty prices. The sooner we are able to run Itanium version of operating systems comfortably in a virtualised environment the better. As long-time OSNews readers know, my heart beats for HP-UX, but the Itanium versions of Windows and VMS would be of more interest to most people, I’m sure.

Excellent news.

As of writing, the Zilog Z80 processor was officially launched 50 years ago, in July of 1976, less than 4 years after the last human had walked on the moon, decades closer to WWII than to the present day, roughly at a half way point between the Kennedy assassination and the fall of the Berlin wall, closer to the Korean war than to 9/11 which is itself an event that happened a quarter of a century ago. (Sorry…)

The processor was extremely successful, being used in many 8 bit microcomputers, including early personal computers, home & hobby computers, as well as many embedded, industrial applications.

Together with the 8080 & 8085 that it is binary compatible with, it contributed to creating a de facto hardware standard for 8 bit micros, allowing a de facto software standard of CP/M, and Microsoft BASIC.

↫ David Oberhollenzer

The only device I actively remember using with a (sort-of) Z80 in it was the Game Boy, but most likely I’ve used a ton more over the decades that I don’t remember or simply was never ware of. I did a little surface-level digging, and there we are: the TI-83, one of Texas Instruments’ stupidly popular and eternally overpriced graphing calculators, release in 1996.

I was part of the first wave of high school children in The Netherlands for whom a TI-83 graphing calculator was mandatory. During my high school years I used that thing extensively, for far more than just math class – I programmed applications for and on it, and played so many games on it. A friend and I even bought a communication cable so we could play competitive 1v1 Bomberman in class.

Good times, made possible by the Z80.

After I mentioned a Jurassic Park anecdote the other day, I watched the movie again. I must have seen it at least ten times now. This time, I researched every computer/software I spotted.

↫ Fabien Sanglard

We are all aware of the infamous “This is a UNIX system, I know this!” meme, but many more computers make their appearance in Jurassic Park, and Fabien Sanglard documents all of them. Apparently, there’s even a Motorla Envoy running Magic Cap on Dennis Nedry’s desk, which I almost find more exciting than the SGI powerhouses he uses.

What’s also quite interesting – but not surprising – is that all of the computers used in the movie were real. The value of all of this hardware combined, when adjusted for inflation, adds up to about $4 million. A lot of money, but don’t you worry your pretty little heart, as SGI and Apple all loaned this hardware to the studio. They didn’t have to pay anything for it.