So, why did the company feel the need to make touch a mandatory component of Haswell-running Ultrabooks, given the added cost and power-demands associated with the hardware.

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There is a huge amount of cost associated with keeping extra hardware and software around just for testing purposes.

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With traditional IT models, a decision to prototype a new system generally involves the procurement and installation of expensive hardware, with the associated checks and delays that conventional purchasing requires.

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All these steps, to say nothing of the research and development and procurement costs associated with the next generation of military hardware simply cannot be paid for within existing budget limitations.

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The European sites of Amazon.com temporarily went offline Sunday because of a hardware failure, according to The Associated Press, not a cyber attack by WikiLeaks supporters Anonymous.

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Indeed, the bottom line for Moscow appears to be the goal of making its military-industrial complex more efficient, achieving higher productivity even as the costs associated with the manufacture of state-of-the-art military hardware are reduced.

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The BUG platform is a collection of discrete hardware modules, Verizon Wireless network-ready 3G modems, and associated software that can be easily combined and re-combined to create new, custom wireless devices.

ENGADGET: Bug Labs to offer pre-certified modules for Verizon's network