AMD sells digital TV division

AMD has announced that it is to sell its digital television business to Broadcom for $192.8 million in an effort to return to its core competencies – and, hopefully, profitability.

CNet reports that the assets of AMD's digital TV division – which includes the Xilleon range of integrated DTV processers, NXT receiver integrated circuits, and specialised processors for embedding in display panels to perform motion compensation, frame rate conversion, and high-quality image scaling – will be transferred to Broadcom in exchange for the cash injection.

Stereoscopic 3D gaming is really cool

According to Nvidia, one of the next big things for the visual computing industry is stereoscopic 3D gaming.

Jen-Hsun introduced the concept during his opening keynote speech and in many ways, it’s very similar to what Intel announced with DreamWorks last week. However, instead of being focused on the movie industry, Nvidia wants to bring this technology to gamers.

Down on the show floor, both ViewSonic and Mitsubishi have been demoing stereoscopic screens in conjunction with Nvidia’s new GeForce Stereoscopic 3D technology. ViewSonic’s display is a new 22-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 1,680 x 1,050 native resolution – it should be available worldwide in the next couple of quarters all being well. Mitsubishi, on the other hand, had a 72-inch DLP TV using the same technology and it’s already shipping. However, Mitsubishi said that we’re unlikely to see this TV in the UK because "

Nvidia has a QPI license

Following a discussion with Tom Petersen, Director of Technical Marketing for Nvidia’s chipset business, it became apparent that Nvidia does indeed have a QPI license to make chipsets for Intel’s Bloomfield processors.

Petersen was adamant that Nvidia’s cross-licensing agreement with Intel includes a Quick Path Interface licence, enabling the company to develop chipsets for Intel’s latest processors.

"We chose to focus our engineering resources on developing DMI chipsets [for mainstream Lynnfield and Havendale processors] at this time,

iPhone 3G outsells original in weeks

Despite some customer complaints, issues with the colour caste, and the revelation of a centralised application blacklist, Apple's latest mobile handset, the iPhone 3G, has done extremely well for the company.

Figures quoted by TechCrunch show sales of the iPhone 3G outnumbering the six million original models just seven weeks after the device was made available for sale. By contrast, it took the original iPhone over a year to hit that number.

SLI comes natively to Intel X58

Nvidia will not limit its SLI multi-GPU technology to next generation X58 motherboards that contain the NF200 chip. Previously Nvidia has limited its SLI technology to its own chipsets but without a QPI license on the table which is needed for the next generation Nehalem (Core i7 and others) platform, Nvidia had to limit it to future motherboards containing its PCI-Express splitter chip.

We've heard unconfirmed reports that Nvidia charges $30 for the privilege, or $20 if you only make X58 motherboards with SLI on them but as far as we know no one in Taiwan has taken up this offer.

US judge recommends SiRF ban

Decent GPS devices might be harder to come by in the US soon, as a court has recommended a ban on the import of the popular SiRF Star III chip.

According to Engadget, a US International Trade Commission judge has upheld a complaint by Broadcom alleging that SiRF's well-regarded Star III global positioning chip – as used in pretty much every consumer-level sat-nav system on the market – infringes several patents, and will accordingly recommend that a full ban on the import of SiRF's GPS products is carried out.

No Nvidia product announcements at Nvision

Jen-Hsun Huang revealed his goals for Nvision and much to our surprise, one of them isn’t to focus on his company; instead, he sees it as a show for the visual computing industry as a whole.

"Nvision isn’t just about the PC ecosystem, it’s for the visual computing industry – this includes film, photography, gaming, industrial design and every aspect of the visual computing ecosystem," explained Huang.

"

Motion-based power due 2009

If you're sick of waiting for Tesla-inspired wireless power to become a reality, allow me to offer you the next best thing: motion-based power for your portable devices.

According to eco-blog SmartPlanet a company called M2E power, created last year to investigate the possibilities of charging your devices on-the-go with waste energy from your movements, has succeeded in building prototype mobile chargers based around their technologies.

Asus launches scented laptops

It's a fact that Asus – creator of the Eee PC - has recently been flooding the market with a range of cheap and oft-times bizarre products, but this most recent reveal has to take the cake: scented laptops. I kid not.

Launched in Taiwan last week, the new Asus F6 range comes in a variety of colours – each of which has its own individual scent. Purchasers sick of laptops smelling of plastic, solder, and occasionally flaming burny death can chose Floral Blossom, Musky Black, Morning Dew, or Aqua Ocean – which promises an "

Virus-ladened laptops aboard ISS

Just when you thought that computer viruses couldn't get any worse: they're now mobilising to bombard us from orbit.

According to Wired, several laptops aboard the International Space Station have been infected with a password-stealing worm – W32.Gammima.AG – intended to snaffle logins for popular multiplayer role playing games. Which, I would hope, the ISS crew aren't spending the bulk of their time playing – if only for the ping times to orbit and back.

Tricia Helfer gets graphic with visual computing

Actress Tricia Helfer, famous for her role as Cylon Number Six in Battlestar Galactica joined Jen-Hsun Huang on stage during his keynote to talk about how visual computing affects her role in the entertainment industry.

Helfer waltzed onto stage in a tight and rather revealing red dress and towered over Huang. A few corny Tom Cruise jokes later and we were talking about how her role in Battlestar Galactica is influenced by visual computing.

Nvidia, Pegasys announce CUDA support for TMPGEnc

Pegasys has announced that it has managed to speed its TMPGEnc video encoder up by as much as 446 percent thanks to Nvidia’s CUDA platform.

The company is demoing a beta version of TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress, which enables GPU acceleration in the application. The speedups were shown using a GeForce GTX 260 graphics card and a Core 2 Quad Q9450 which by all intents and purposes both fit into the performance segment.

TMPGEnc features support for many popular media formats, including MPEG, AVI, WMV, DivX, FLV and also DVD.

Sony: No PS3 price cut this year

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss David Reeves has confirmed that there will be no price cuts in Europe for the PlayStation 3 this year.

As it is, the PlayStation 3 is the most powerful console on the market in raw processing terms, but is also the most expensive.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, David Reeves that flat out, no, there would be absolutely no price cut for any of the PlayStation 3 models before 2009.

Rumour: Gearbox developing Halo 4

Rumour. Strictly a rumour for now, but still a very juicy one which goes back a long way to the beginning of this year when Gearbox Software announced that they were working on a super secret and unannounced title. It was big, they said. Really, really big.

All very well and interesting stuff, until everyone forgot about it. Everyone that is, except for the Official Xbox Magazine who went ahead and did some investigating and heard from inside sources that the new project was...

Apple sued over iPhone 3G

Apple has found itself in the firing line – and this time, it's the company's customers that are pointing the gun.

BetaNews reports that a displeased purchaser of Apple's latest 3G iPhone, Jessica Alena Smith, has filed a class action suit in Southern Alabama against the company, alleging that the wunderphone doesn't live up to the "twice as fast for half the price" marketing spiel.

The complaint states, rather strongly, that "

Jeff Han gets all Minority Report on us at Nvision

During Jen-Hsun Huang’s keynote, which touched on almost none of the key issues surrounding Nvidia, he invited Jeff Han, founder of Perceptive Pixel, on stage to demo his new multi-touch technology.

Han is famous for his work in multi-touch technology and his demo didn’t disappoint – it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and reminded me of the interface used by Tom Cruise in Minority Report.

He explained how graphics is an important part of delivering a great user interface because, after all, it’s a graphical user interface.

Intel launches SoC aimed at Consumer Electronics

During the Digital Home keynote this morning, Eric Kim announced Intel’s first purpose-built system on a chip for consumer electronics devices, such as set top boxes, digital TVs and "other connected CE devices."

It’s clear that the Internet is going to become more and more ubiquitous and embedded over the next few years, especially after sitting through Pat Gelsinger’s keynote yesterday. Adding connectivity to an increasing number of consumer electronics devices is only going to accelerate the rate of connectivity.

Sony unveils new bundle, PSP, controller

At the Leipzig games convention this year, Sony has unveiled a host of new products which it hopes will entice new users to the PlayStation way of gaming, including a 160GB PS3 bundle, a new PSP SKU and a new add-on controller for the PlayStation 3.

First up, the bundle. The new SKU that Sony has announced is a 160GB PlayStation 3, with region-specific offers. In America the new console will go on sale in November and will come with a Dual-Shock SixAxis controller, a copy of

MID runs World of Warcraft, 1080p video... poorly

During the Ultra Mobility keynote, Anand Chandrasekher demonstrated the capabilities of the Intel Atom processor by playing World of Warcraft and a 1080p video stream on an OQO device.

Chandrasekher said that the MID featured a single-core 1.86GHz Atom processor, but I wasn’t convinced by either demo.

First of all, the World of Warcraft demo was of a character running around in an empty room and even then the framerate wasn’t exactly smooth – the frame rate was choppy and performance was poor. What’s more, I’d hate to see how the game ran in some of the more intensive PvP zones where there are actually other players running around.

Moorestown is on track for 2009/2010

Anand Chandrasekher, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Ultra Mobility Group, said during his keynote that Moorestown is on track for release in the 2009-to-2010 timeframe.

To reinforce this point, Chandrasekher held up the first Moorestown wafer and announced that the first silicon was back from the fab.

He then said that Moorestown would enable Intel to target the mobile communications market with MIDs designed to deliver a rich Internet experience on a device no bigger than a typical smartphone.

Peter Moore warns against suing filesharers

Piracy is a big problem and everyone has a different idea of how it should be handled and battled, from Cliff Harris and his attempt to understand and negotiate with pirates right through the aggressive lawsuits of Nintendo and others.

One idea which stands out as a little bit remarkable right now though is that of EA's Peter Moore, former Microsoft Xbox 360 boss, who is adamant that prosecuting filesharers and game pirates could prove a critical mis-step for the games industry.

Intel announces mobile quad-core processors

Dadi Perlmutter, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Mobility Group, announced that Intel has launched its first mobile quad-core processors based on the company’s 45nm Penryn architecture during his keynote.

The first processors will be the Core 2 Extreme QX9300 and Core 2 Quad Q9100 and will come clocked at 2.53GHz and 2.26GHz respectively. Both feature a 1,066MHz front side bus and 12MB of L2 cache.

Yahoo! announces widget partnership with Intel

When Eric Kim announced the CE 3100 Media Processor during his keynote, there was one thing needed to complete the picture to show how the new processor would be used in the field.

After all, several parties have attempted to bring the Internet to TV, but have failed because the typical user interface associated with the Internet doesn’t lend itself to the TV. It’s that classic conundrum: without great software the hardware isn’t worth its salt.

Firefox 2 users to be offered 3.0.1

If you're still running Firefox 2 as your main browser, Mozilla would really like you to update – and won't be shy about telling you so.

According to ComputerWorld, the Mozilla Foundation is planning to offer the latest Firefox build – version 3.0.1 – to users currently running version 2.0.0.16 or older. This marks the first time that Firefox users have been presented with an automated message about a completely new build, rather than a 'point upgrade' from their existing version.

Nehalem likely to launch at 3.2GHz

After playing with many of the Nehalem machines dotted around IDF, it looks like the fastest Intel Core i7 processor at launch will be clocked at 3.2GHz.

Intel hasn't revealed the official speeds and model numbers for its new processor yet, but just about every machine we looked at was kitted out with a 3.2GHz processor... with model numbers masked away for the time being.

Even the Lost Planet: Colonies demo during Pat Gelsinger's keynote used a 3.2GHz Core i7 processor to compare performance side by side with a Core 2 Extreme QX9770, which is also clocked at the same speed. Now, I know he was talking about architectural advancements and improvements that Intel had made, but it all seems rather coincidental to me.

Dell extends warranties for Nvidia flaw

If you've been concerned by the news that a range of Nvidia GPUs used in laptop computers may suffer from a design flaw, there's some good news at last – at least, if you're a Dell customer.

First spotted by Engadget it appears that, in reponse to admissions from Nvidia that a range of previous-generation graphics chips developed for use in notebooks have a serious design flaw that adversely affects the product lifespan, Dell has announced that customers with laptops containing affected chips will have their warranties extended by an additional twelve months to cover any failure in the GPU.

Fallout 3 release date announced

Fallout 3 has been given an official release date now on all platforms, though the bad news is that the game will be launching later in Europe than elsewhere.

While the game will see a multiplatform release on October 28th in the US, us Europeans won't see a release until October 31st...which is a trifle disappointing and may also open the game up to increased piracy as early torrents of the US version hit European servers.

Gelsinger talks Nehalem power management

During his keynote this afternoon, Pat Gelsinger disclosed some more details on Intel’s upcoming Nehalem microarchitecture; this time it was focused on the new power management advancements the architects have made.

With Nehalem, Intel will introduce some more advanced dynamic power management technologies to help to further improve energy efficiency.

The main focus of his talk on Nehalem today was on Turbo Mode, which basically increases the loaded processing core’s clock speeds and voltages when at least one of the cores is idle in order to deliver the maximum possible performance within the chip’s defined power budget.

Mygazines.com faces legal troubles

We've seen what happens when you launch a music-sharing service without the permission of copyright holders, and similarly for movies. With this climate in mind, would you launch a user-driven magazine sharing service?

That's exactly what one company has done with the Mygazines.com website – a Flash-driven collection of popular magazines scanned and submitted by its users. All the big names are available – everything from FHM and GQ to Harvard Business Review and Tactical Weapons Magazine. The interface is pretty swish, too: providing you've got a Flash-enabled browser, each magazine is presented in a two-page spread just like the real thing – complete with page-turning animations. Bookmarks are available to jump straight to the articles that interest you, and considering that the magazines are provided by volunteers the quality is pretty darn good – at least as readable as any official eMagazine service I've used.

Twitter cans SMS service

If you use Twitter from a mobile 'phone here in the UK, you may have wondered why it's all gone a bit quiet – apparently, the bills were getting too high.

According to the Twitter blog, the company has retired the ability to send out Twitter updates – short messages detailing what a given user is doing at the time – via SMS to UK residents. While the text message updates were perfectly feasible in the US – where the recipient bears the cost – the system proved to be too expensive in the UK, where the sender pays for the message to go out.

Intel releases USB 3.0 host controller draft specs

Intel has announced the availability of draft revision 0.9 for USB 3.0 Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) specifications, enabling chipset manufacturers to now include support for the new interface in their next-generation products.

The company says that the xHCI specifications will be available royalty-free to all members of the USB 3.0 Promoter Group along with contributor companies that sign an xHCI contributor agreement.

Crysis Warhead to get September release

Electronic Arts has finally announced the official release date for the upcoming standalone expansion to last year's Crysis, Crysis Warhead. The game is now slated for an early September release.

The game will launch first in Europe on September 12th, followed by a later release in America on the 16th - an unusual release pattern which Electronic Arts has apparently taken to with other PC exclusive games, such as

New Lara Croft unveiled

As we get closer and closer to the release of the new Tomb Raider game, subtitled as Tomb Raider: Underworld, the Eidos press machine is starting to whizz up into fifth gear, starting with the appointment of a new Lara Croft model.

The new Lara is the ninth Eidos-endorsed beauty and is taking over the responsibility of filling those tight, tan coloured hotpants from the popular Karima Adebibe.

Alison Carroll, 23, is a professional gymnast from Croydon who has previously performed for the likes of Prince Charles. Alison managed to beat out hundreds of other applicants for the chance to play the new face of Lara Croft, with the final round of the auditions involving a naked mud wrestling competition...or so we imagine.

VIA to leave chipset market

The competition in the motherboard chipset market just took a hit with the news that VIA has decided to bow out.

Custom PC reports that the manufacturer has made the decision to concentrate its efforts on making its own low-power CPUs rather than chipsets for other manufacturers' processors.

Vice president of corporate marketing in Taiwan Richard Brown told Custom PC that the company has had this in mind for a while, with the company deciding to move into CPU manufacturing "

Nvidia releases PhysX for 8, 9 and GTX 2xx series

Nvidia has made a big deal in recent months about its purchase of Ageia and the potential of PhysX integration on the GPU. With a vast installed user base of Nvidia GeForce 8,9 and GTX series graphics card owners, Nvidia certainly has the potential to mount a challenge against Intel's Havok API, used by hit games like Half Life 2, Soul Calibur 4 and Company of Heroes to name but a few, but we have yet to see a publically released PhysX driver.

Man creates motherboard walls

If you're a geek, you've probably got some decoration in your home environment that reveals your tendancies: I'm talking about Space Invaders fridge magnets, Curse of Monkey Island posters, and a papercraft Companion Cube. The chances are that you haven't gone this far, however: motherboard walls.

Neatorama reports on a monumental achievement in geeky artwork at the Carnegie Mellon University. Chris Harrison and friend Aubrey built a collage out of old motherboards, which caught the eye of Carnegie Mellon staffer Scott Hudson – who, rather than call the men in white coats, commissioned the pair to build a

iPhone app blacklist confirmed

Confirmation as to the existence of a 'kill-switch' feature hidden in the iPhone which allows Apple to remotely disable applications it deems malicious has come from the very top – Steve Jobs himself.

Spotted by CNet's Jonathan Skillings, the admission comes at the bottom of a Wall Street Journal article detailing the phenomenal success of the App Store's first month in business. In the article, Jobs describes the creation of the kill-switch as "

Blizzard has plans for Diablo 4

Blizzard may just be finishing off the current Diablo story arc with the anticipated third game in the series, but it doesn't mean it will end it there, oh no. In fact, the developer behind the likes of Starcraft and World of Warcraft is keen to continue the series.

Speaking to MTV Multiplayer in America, Diablo 3's lead designer Jay Wilson confirmed that there are plans for future Diablo games at a later date.

Fallout 3 banned in Australia because of drugs

Fallout 3 was recently certified for a general released, with the notable excpetion being that the game was refused certification in Australia and was essentially banned as a result.

Now, the Australian version of the game has been edited to fit with the wishes of the certification board and will be seeing a release in Australia after all, but one thing which has remained unclear is exactly why the game was refused classification in the first place. There are a number of edgy issues featured in the game judging from what we saw in our

Positech Games reveals results of piracy survey

Cliff Harris, lead designer of Positech Games and semi-regular bit-tech.netcolumnist has been a busy boy lately. Not only has he been hard at work on the new Kudos 2 simulation game, but he's also been launching a survey into the causes of computer game piracy.

The question Cliff asked was simple; Why do people pirate my games? And yet the results that the indie developer recieved are not nearly as interesting as his own reaction to them as he takes the advice of the pirates on board and starts designing games with them in mind.

Dyack: "Too Human is 15 to 80 hours long"

Silicon Knights boss Dennis Dyack has said that his current opus, Too Human for the Xbox 360, will take players between 15 and 80 hours to complete. That's a pretty wide ballpark admittedly, so Dyack was sure to break it down.

"First play through is probably around 15 hours, I guess, it depends. To get to level 50, it's anywhere from 50 to 80 hours," said the designer in an interview with Kikizo.

"And to get all the epic loot - I don't even know if it's possible to get everything in the game, it's probably not - not for a single person.

No Hitler in the new Wolfenstein

The original Wolfenstein 3D was in a bit of a different age to the one we live in now - one where it was considered mostly OK to have a massive robotic Hitler wielding four miniguns as the end-game boss. Nowadays such things would be frowned on.

As such id Software has announced that in the latest Wolfenstein game, there will not be a Hitler boss character. Nazis, sure, but no Hitler. It isn't for the reasons above though id Software's art director Kevin Cloud cares nothing for the tastes and trends of society, he's just saving Hitler for use in the sequel.

Defcon: 'Subway Hack' talk gagged

The Defcon hacker conference always courts controversy – even though the visitors to said event fit more in the original definition of the word than the media-hijacked cracker synonym – and this year is no exception, with the news that the Massachusetts Transit Authority has been granted an injunction preventing three erstwhile hackers from distributing their presentation "Anatomy of a Subway Hack."

According to CNet, the three MIT undergraduates – Russell Ryan, Zack Anderson, and Alessandro Chiesa – were scheduled to give a presentation on Sunday regarding their successful attempts to "

Defcon: Warballooning goes ahead

You've heard of wardriving, warwalking, and I'm sure someone out there has done warcycling and possibly even warcanoeing, but how about warballooning?

Network World reports that a team of hackers at the Defcon conference have successfully launched a balloon carrying a computer payload designed to seek out and map wireless networks on the ground via a high-gain antenna and GPS system, despite a few last-minute hiccoughs.

Intel gives Nehalem its official name: Core i7

Intel has formally confirmed that its upcoming line of Nehalem processors will fit under the Intel Core branding scheme, following several weeks of speculation about what processors based on the new microarchitecture would be called.

What's interesting though is the choice of suffix Intel will use with the new chips; instead of opting for the natural successor to Core 2, Core 3, Intel will oddly use the "i7" suffix.

The statement issued by Intel says that "

i34 set to be UK's largest ever LAN party

Multiplay has been running thrice yearly LAN gaming events to give us cooped up geeks something to do over the long summer months, as well as offer the opportunity for 50 hours of non-stop uninterrupted gaming and this summer's event, i34 looks to be the biggest ever.

i34 kicks off tomorrow (or this evening if you've chosen to turn up early), and is basically guaranteed to shatter the UK LAN party attendance record, with almost two thousand gamers making the trip to the i-series' new venue at Stoneleigh park, Coventry. While this is still a ways off of the enormous attendance figures of similar events like Dreamhack in Scandinavia, it does show the UK PC online gaming scene is continuing to grow.

Seven Critical patches due Tuesday

If you were hoping that this month's Patch Tuesday was going to pass by quietly, think again.

BetaNews has tracked down the details of what we can expect from Windows Update this month, and it's a pretty full bag with no fewer than seven patches for vulnerabilities rated as Critical.

The biggest of them all is a fix for a vulnerability, which Microsoft will not be disclosing until after the patch cycle has been and gone, in Windows Media Player running on XP, Vista, and Windows Server 2008 – although why you need a media player on a

Delta to fit WiFi to all aircraft

US air travellers rejoice – now you'll be able to join the digital mile high club with the news that Delta Airlines is to offer in-flight WiFi access on all its services.

According to Ars Technica, the airline is planning to upgrade every last one of its aircraft with the Aircell-provided technology allowing travellers the luxury of poking Facebook profiles from 30,000 feet. Although it's not a completely open system – P2P is unlikely, for example – the service is said to support web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, and VPN tunnels for the corporate and/or paranoid user. What

GTA IV dated, confirmed for PC

Rockstar Studios has officially confirmed and given a release date for the PC version of the massive console hit Grand Theft Auto IV, for both North American and European territories.

In North America the game will be launching on the 18th of November, whereas the game will be released a few days later in Europe on the 21st.

"It looks and plays beautifully on PC" said Rockstar founder Sam Houser. "We can't wait for people to play it.

EVGA: We are 110 percent Nvidia

After chasing EVGA for comment first thing this morning regarding a previous newspost we've finally got a statement from EVGA Co-Founder and Managing Director GmbH, Hans-Wolfram Tismer:

"We have absolutely no plans at this time to make ATI products," he firmly stated, continued by "EVGA has a very strong link to Nvidia"

Mr. Tismer stated AMD was merely making a political statement given its more competitive market position, and that turning down EVGA, which owns a claimed 60 percent of the US retail market, was ludicrous.

Resident Evil 5 on PC?

Capcom has spent a lot of time talking about which platforms the upcoming Resident Evil 5 will be appearing on lately as, although the game is confirmed for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, there have been rumblings of a Wii version on the horizon.

But disregard those Wii rumours for now, as there's a more tantalising promise of a PC conversion too.

Speaking to IGN, Capcom's Christian Scensson was clear that the

Dates for 45nm AMD CPUs and RV710, RV730

Just a short note to say that AMD confirmed with us today that its RV710 and RV730 mainstream and low end products will be available in September - just a month away. At least one of them (RV710) will be Hybrid CrossFire capable and despite the fact AMD were keeping mum about the details right now both should go up against Nvidia's recently launched GeForce 9500 GT and 9800 GT products. It should be a good month of choice for all looking to buy in the mainstream price bracket.

EA signs Gemma Atkinson for Red Alert 3

EA has officially signed Gemma Atkinson of UK psuedo-soap Hollyoaks to act in the full-motion video sequences of Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3.

Somehow, we don't think this will be a Kane-destroying performance.

Gemma will be playing the role of Lt Eva McKenna, a communications officer for the Allies that EA describes as having a "sexy twinkle in her eye and a British stiff upper lip."

"

"Growing disparity" in Mac vs PC pricing

We all know that Macs are expensive bits of kit, but have you ever stopped to think just how expensive compared to similar off-the-shelf PCs lacking that partially consumed fruit logo?

Joe Wilcox over at EWeek has posted an analysis of figures gathered by Stephen Baker of NPD Group during his investigation of the pricing disparity that exists between what I still mentally refer to as “IBM compatibles” (showing my age there) and Apple Macs. That a pricing disparity exists – and, furthermore, that it's definitely in favour or Apple's profit margins – won't come as any surprise, but the

TJX crackers charged

If you've ever been tempted to sniff traffic on an unsecured (or WEP secured, which is pretty close to being unsecured for all practical purposes) for fun and profit, think again – it's got eleven people in trouble with retail chain TJX.

The international list of defendants – which includes three US citizens, an Estonian national, three Ukrainians, two hailing from China, a shadowy individual who appears to only exist under a web nickname, and a Belarusian according to CNet – stand accused of obtaining credit and debit card details for over forty

LiMo gets new members, handsets

Linux as a valid platform for mobile handsets got a boost this weekend with the announcement of a veritable plethora of new inductees to the LiMo Foundation.

According to news over on CNet, the Foundation – founded to "create an open, Linux-based software platform for use by the whole global industry" - has opened its doors to eleven new members, taking the total to over fifty companies. While many of the names involved – such as the Finland-based Movial Corporation – are unlikely to be recognisable to anybody not in the mobile 'phone industry, there are some very interesting names that jumped out of the list. Freescale Semiconductor is one of the big-names to have joined, famous more for its attempts to revive the ailing PowerVR graphics card technologies in notebooks than its range of microcontrollers and microprocessors. Perhaps modern LiMo handsets could feature powerful graphics chips thanks to this entry in the ranks?

ATI Special Edition Lian Li Case Winner Announced

We have had a fantastic response to the competition we've been running for the past two weeks in association with Immortal Gaming to give away a special edition ATI "Spider" Lian Li case.

We received over 300 entries,but of course there can only be one lucky winner!

Congratulations go to Glen Dixon who correctly answered the question of how many drive bays the case featured (12). Glen wins the special edition ATI "Spider" Lian Li case worth over £300!

Nvidia denies planned MCP exit

Nvidia has been quick to dispel rumours that it is planning to exit the motherboard chipset business, concentrating instead on its core graphics chipset market.

A report in Digitimes claims that the company "has decided to throw in the towel and quit the chipset business", quoting "sources close to the situation at one of Taiwan's top motherboard makers" as the originator of the rumour. It seems that this un-named motherboard manufacturer is claiming that Nvidia called a meeting to gauge the level of support motherboard makers would offer should the company continue creating its popular range of nForce chipsets. A deafening silence from the OEMs has lead to the conclusion that Nvidia has just been granted the go-ahead to drop out of the motherboard market altogether.

John Carmack: Steve Jobs hates games

John Carmack, lord of the geeks and Technical Director at id Software, has spoken out against Apple's policy when it comes to gaming over the years in a recent interview. Carmack reckons that the reason Apple hasn't strayed much into the games market is primarily because of company CEO, Steve Jobs.

"The truth is Steve Jobs doesn't care about games. This is going to be one of those things that I say something in an interview and it gets fed back to him and I'm on his s***head list for a while on that, until he needs me to do something else there. But I think that that's my general opinion. He's not a gamer

VIA launches Nano processor

VIA has launched a new Nano processor as part of the new EPIA-SN mini-itx platform and promises a revolutionary jump in performance compared to previous VIA CPUs.

The Nano, formerly codenamed Isaiah, features a x86-64-bit superscalar design and is built on a 65nm process technology between TSMC and Fujitsu. This technology is further complemented by the fact the entire design is completely lead and halogen-free and is fully compliant with RoHS and WEEE regulations.

Levine: Developers should avoid focus groups

Ken Levine, lead designer on last year's BioShock has warned fellow developers against the issues presented by early focus group testing as part of a speech given at the Develop conference this morning in Brighton.

Speaking at the conference, Levine said that focus groups often struggle to see the whole view of a game at the early stages and that there had been issues with groups testing BioShock as nobody wanted to play a game in an underwater objectivist utopia.

EA clamps down on Sporn

When you give gamers the opportunity to create creatures of any shape and size, it was only inevitable that the juvenile teenager inside us all would rear his spotty head and start drawing knobs.

When the Spore Creature Creator first hit over a month ago, YouTube was soon flooded with penis, testicle and boob monsters and for a time it was funny, but then we all got bored of the joke and moved on to the next internet comedy masterpiece.

Mass Effect DLC free for PC

The PC version of Mass Effect has had a fair share of trouble in its short time on shelves - mainly to do with the later release date and the anti-piracy DRM bundled inside the software, but finally there's some good news.

EA Bioware has just announced that the downloadable content pack for the game, titled as Bring Down The Sky, has been made available for PC gamers to download free of charge. That's a powerful spite for all those Xbox 360 owners who paid top dollar for it!

Nvidia PhysX pack due shortly

Hot off the phone to Nvidia we found out that the GPU-PhysX pack will see public release as soon as next week. Current game releases like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare #1 and #2, Unreal Tournament 3 and some other games no one really cares about (well, it's true!) will get GPU-PhysX functions.

PhysX driver updates will be a regular (quoted monthly) feature and future games that include PhysX are touted to include the much anticipated

MS wants Xbox 360 MMOs

Shane Kim, head of Microsoft Game Studios, has once again stated his desire to see the Xbox 360 become an alluring platform for MMO developers and gamers.

Shane, who was responsible for the cancellation of the comic-book MMO Marvel Universe on PC and Xbox 360 earlier this year, says that just because Microsoft hasn't done it yet doesn't mean that the console is unsuited to MMO development.

"I'll admit MGS has not had success in the MMO space, and that happened under my leadership, so I take full responsibility. It's a tough and challenging space that's evolving all the time - a lot of shifting sands,

Capcom making Resident Evil comics

Capcom has announced a new partnership with DC comics which will see the creation of a new line of comic books based around the the Resident Evil and Devil May Cry franchises.

There are currently no details on when the comics will be available, but the promise of more zombie-based comics is more than enough to get us excited.

"We're ecstatic that Resident Evil is returning to [DC Comics' publishing imprint] WildStorm, where we have already established deep roots into the mythos of this world. We can't wait to continue, and bring a freshness and excitement to the property to match the amazing things they are doing with the game,

C&C Tiberium not due until 2010

EA's new and upcoming squad-shooter set in the Command and Conquer universe is going to be a fair old while in the making it seems.

Although the game was announced and first unveiled this year, the game has not been shown at E3 and Kotaku has confirmed that EA isn't expecting the game to be released until 2009 or 2010 at the earliest - between April 2009 and March 2010 to be exact.

The game was originally slated to be on shelves this year, but EA has obviously decided that it would be best to push the game back by a year or two to give the development some more time.

Asus AOCC prepares to break world records

This week we’ve been in humid Hong Kong covering a sporting event of far more significance than the upcoming Beijing Olympics – the Asus Advanced Overclocking Championships.

With twenty teams from as far afield as the USA, South Africa and Portugal facing off against each other to achieve the highest overclocks and using some monstrously extreme cooling apparatus and ultra high end hardware, it has been on geek-tastic event.

Gears of War 2 to feature linked achievements

At Comic-Con 2008, Epic has announced some new features for the next Gears of War game - including the ability to use backwards-compatible and linked achievements that tie in to the original game.

What does that mean? Well, basically it means that if you've got certain achievements unlocked in the first game then the new Gears of War 2 will detect that and unlock some bonuses and extras for you. If not, well, boo-hoo then.