The PC industry has been hit hard this year, but it has fared better than initially predicted.

Gartner, which in June forecasted a 6 percent fall in PC shipments this year, reports that the actual total will be 2 percent, with 285 million PCs shipping in 2009.

“Mobile PC shipments have regained substantial momentum, especially in emerging markets, and the decline in desk-based PC shipments is slowing down,” said Gartner research director George Shiffler.

In the first half of 2009, sales were down 4.4 percent year-over-year.

Gartner’s predictions have gotten increasingly positive as 2009 has progressed. In March, the research company projected an 11.9 percent drop in sales, the worst-ever industry decline.

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On September 22nd, celebrate OneWebDay, a day inspired by Earth Day and intended to help shrink the digital divide.

OneWebDay is both a celebration of our digital lives and an attempt to make those lives available to all.

“The Web is a vital shared resource, but most people are not empowered to take part in defining the direction of this now indispensable resource,” according to the event’s website.

“Some take it for granted, some cannot breach the barriers to access, and some relinquish control to authoritative institutions that are all too happy to fill the void of public leadership,” according to the site.

OneWebDay was founded in 2006 by Susan Crawford, professor of law at the University of Michigan and President Barack Obama’s Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy.

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A new study by The CleanTech Group reinforces the argument that e-readers are ultimately more eco-friendly than print.

The production of one e-reader is the equivalent of the production of 22.5 paper books.

CleanTech predicts that e-readers will save 9.9 billion kg of CO2 over the next 3 years, when e-reader sales are expected to reach 14.4. In 2012, CleanTech predicts, e-readers will save 5.3 billion kg of CO2.

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Analysts predict that e-paper, the display technology used in e-readers, will reach nearly $10 billion in revenues in 2009.

Research group DisplaySearch predicts that 1.8 billion units will ship in 2018, totaling $9.6 in revenue.

DisplaySearch forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 41 percent for revenues and 64 percent for units shipped. Total revenue in 2009 is expected to be $431 million, more than triple last year’s $129 million.

“E-paper displays are taking off with consumers due to their low power consumption and ease of reading, especially in sunlight,” said Jennifer Colegrove, director of display technologies at DisplaySearch.

“In addition, e-paper displays are ‘green’ because they reduce paper consumption,” Colegrove said.

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Broadband speeds in the U.S. grew 6.4 percent in Q2 to an average of 4.2 Mbps, according to Akamai’s Q1 “State of the Internet” report (PDF).

Year-over-year speed growth was 15 percent.

Yes, we’re still far behind. Globally, 20 percent of internet connections were faster than 5 Mbps in Q1, an increase of 30 percent year-over-year.

In Japan, which replaced South Korea as world speed leader, 57 percent of connections were over 5Mbps.

South Korea does retain the highest percentage of the fastest connections. Twelve percent of connections in South Korea were over 25 Mbps in Q1.  Only one percent of U.S. connections were this fast.

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One of my favorite scenes in film is the recreation of the 19th century glass-and-iron Les Halles market in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s recreation of 1920’s Paris in A Very Long Engagement.

The film’s CGI visualization of the building, demolished in the 1970’s for the construction of the RER regional train system, is the best piece of architecture porn I know. Seeing the extinct building reconstructed on film is one of the few ways people can experience an approximation of this treasure’s place in space.

iTacitus, anagrammed after the Roman historian (and standing for Intelligent Tourism and Cultural Information through Ubiquitous Services), is an augmented reality application that will bring a similar experience to smartphones, allowing tourists to visually reconstruct monuments, both extant and left to memory.

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A crowd-sourced Voyager 1?

Anyone can send a text-like 160-character message to a planet light years away with Hello from Earth, which until August 23rd is collecting messages to be sent to the “super Earth” planet Gliese 581 2.

As part of Australia’s National Science Week, Hello from Earth was created by Cosmos magazine with participation from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSRIO) and NASA.

Discovered in April 2007, the planet, 20 light years away and eight times the size of Earth, is one of the best possible candidates for hosting life. It’s nearness to Earth makes it one of the most ideal planets for sending and receiving a message within our lifetime.

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A new survey has proved once and for all that children are indeed homunculi, a theory first posited by Haley Joel Osment’s early films.

Well, nearly homunculi.

The survey, done by Symantec security and reported on CNET, reveals the top internet search terms used by tiny adults aged 8-13, between February and July of this year. Here they are:

1. YouTube
2. Google
3. Facebook
4. Sex
5. MySpace
6. Porn
7. Yahoo
8. Michael Jackson
9. Fred
10. eBay

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Last week, Ignite Social Media published a fat social network demographics report which covers more than 40 of the top sites (PDF).

Ignite’s numbers were culled from search data, so they have to be taken with a grain of salt, but they do highlight some popular conceptions that might have to be reexamined, especially in regards to the idea of Twitter’s population being considerably older and more male than Facebook’s.

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The convergence continues, as dumb phones and desktops cede passage to smartphones and notebooks, two devices that in a few years’ time will likely become one.

Mobile phone shipments fell 10.8 percent year-over-year in Q2 2009, dropping from 302.2 million unit shipments in Q2 2008 to 269.6 million in Q2 2009, according to IDC.

“The challenges from the previous nine months – aggressive channel destocking, foreign exchange volatility, and uncertain demand – continued to plague the mobile phone market in the second quarter, but were not as severe as before,” says IDC’s Ramon Llamas.

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