MANILA, Philippines — Technology improves lives. Computer technology, in particular, has made it possible for humans to eradicate some of the worst diseases that ever plagued cities and villages throughout history. Binary intellect has enabled humans to go to the Moon and back, in occasions that were mostly safe.

For quite some time now, computers have been used to evaluate boxing bouts. CompuBox is a computerized system of scoring punches thrown and landed by boxers. While boxing bouts are not decided by CompuBox statistics, the system provides a data-based analysis of battles inside the so-called square ring.

For example, the recent Pacquiao-Marquez bout was unanimously described as a close fight. Many boxing fans (both of the casual and aficionado varieties), however, believe that Marquez won the fight. CompuBox statistics, however, showed Pacquiao landed more punches.

Nvidia’s Quad-Core Chip

While some consumers and observers believe that single-core processors (especially those with 1GHz clock speed or faster) are more than enough for most of today’s smartphones, and dual cores an overkill, Nvidia apparently believes otherwise.

The chipmaker recently announced the Tegra 3, a quad-core processor developed with mobile devices in mind. This means that aside from the expected boosts in performance and power efficiency of next generations of tablets and smartphones, the overkill continues?

With a design based on the ARM Cortex-A9 processor, Tegra 3 features Nvidia’s Variable Symmetric Multiprocessing (Variable SMP) technology, which in the simplest terms means the chip’s cores are turned on and off depending on the device’s processing-power requirement.

Overkill or uber-cool?

MacBook Air for Business

An increasing number of enterprises are buying Apple computers, including MacBook Airs, for their employees. This, however, has not prevented HP from developing an ultrabook, otherwise known as anorexic laptop, for corporate users.

The HP Folio, which comes with an SRP of $900 (about Php 38,000, with tariffs and other government fees to be added yet), with its thin and light body and battery life that reportedly lasts as long as nine hours, is set to compete with the MacBook Air for corporate fans.

Equipped with a 13.3-inch HD display, the Windows 7-enabled ultrabook is reassuring for corporate warriors who rely on Microsoft software tools for their productivity.

Microsoft Pines for Growth

Bill Gates’ company continues to be profitable. Most other companies, Google and Apple obviously not among them, would envy Microsoft’s ability to turn programming codes into gold.

Investors, however, are quite a different breed.

These wealthseekers are worried about how the software giant’s operating margins are declining for the past decade. Also, these stakeholders think Microsoft has failed to maximize opportunities in the smartphone and tablet computer businesses.

No wonder then that Microsoft’s stock has been perennially undervalued.

Would Windows Phone change capitalization market realities for Microsoft?

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.