General Motors Corp. said Tuesday its Chevrolet Volt rechargeable electric car should get 230 miles per gallon (98 kilometers per liter) of gasoline in city driving, more than four times the current champion, the Toyota Prius. GM has produced about 30 Volts so far and is making 10 a week, so don't get your hopes up about being able to order one anytime soon. The first-generation Chevy Volt is also expected to cost just under $40,000, which will also be out of the price range of many consumers.

The Volt is powered by an electric motor and a battery pack with a 40-mile (65-kilometer) range. After that, a small internal combustion engine kicks in to generate electricity for a total range of 300 miles (480 kilometers). The battery pack can be recharged from a standard home outlet. GM is marketing the 230-mile (370-kilometer) figure following early tests using draft guidelines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for calculating the mileage of extended range electric vehicles.

Microsoft promised a federal judge it would stop designating Internet Explorer 8 as the default browser on express installations by today.This was part of its antitrust settlement compliance report, in response to an accusation in May by Mozilla and Opera that the software giant was changing users’ default browsers back to IE8 when they used the Windows Update service.One of the options in the update service is “Express,” which – as the name implies – completes the installation the fastest and with the least

Tony Hawk: RIDE, a game that made all sorts of waves when it debuted earlier this year at the E3 Expo in California, has finally notched a date with destiny: November 17, 2009. That’s the date in which Activision’s next must-have Nintendo Wii title will hit stores, and that means you’ll be shoving yet another motion-sensing periperal in your closet.This time it’ll be the lifelike Tony Hawk skateboard, which will allow owners to “pull off tricks, such as grinds and ollies, by stepping on a motion-sensing controller

InHand Electronics has released the latest version of their Intel Atom-based full-function single board computer (SBC), FireFly. The revision has produced new, lower power numbers which are now approximately 4.5 Watts running (S0) and 500mW in sleep state (S3). With the new low power numbers and compact dimensions, InHand has created the smallest and most power efficient full-function Atom-based SBC and the only full-function system with on-board DDR2 and expansion capabilities.

The performance and low power of FireFly far surpass anything weve seen on the Intel Atom system market thus far, stated, Dan Rowland, VP of Marketing at InHand Electronics. In our most recent tests, FireFlys performance is comparable to that of the Dell Mini [Inspiron 1210], at a fraction of the power consumption. And with no need for time or money to create a daughter card for a full-function system, FireFly offers a quick and easy time-to-market without compromising power or performance!

Logitech today introduced the Logitech Harmony 900 remote. With its redesigned RF technology, full-color touch screen and intuitive button layout, the rechargeable Logitech Harmony 900 remote makes it easy to enjoy and control your TV, movies, games and music even when your components are neatly hidden behind cabinet doors. The Logitech Harmony 900 remote is expected to be available in the U.S. and Europe in September for a suggested retail price of $399.99.

Like all Harmony remotes, the Harmony 900 simplifies home entertainment, which is particularly relevant with more and more people staying home to watch movies on their big-screen TVs and enjoying surround sound and hi-def video from the comfort of the couch, said Ashish Arora, vice president and general manager of Logitechs Harmony business unit. Unfortunately, more remotes and more wires tend to be byproducts of increasingly sophisticated home-entertainment systems. With the Harmony 900 remotes RF technology and ability to control up to 15 devices, you can say good-bye to the clutter while gaining better control of your devices.

Intel Corporation and Micron Technology Inc. today announced the development of a new 3-bit-per-cell (3bpc) multi-level cell (MLC) NAND technology, leveraging their award-winning 34-nanometer (nm) NAND process. The chips are typically used in consumer storage devices such as flash cards and USB drives, where high density and cost-efficiency are paramount. Here is a video that explains what this all means if you are scratching your head right about now.

Designed and manufactured by IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), their NAND flash joint venture, the new 3bpc NAND technology produces the industry's smallest and most cost-effective 32-gigabit (Gb) chip that is currently available on the market. The 32Gb 3bpc NAND chip is 126mm. Micron is currently sampling and will be in mass production in the fourth quarter 2009. With the companies' continuing to focus on the next process shrink, 3bpc NAND technology is an important piece of their product strategy and is an effective approach in serving key market segments.

The new-car sales experiment between General Motors and San Jose e-commerce powerhouse eBay begins today in California, and both companies will be closely watching the results particularly GM, which is hoping to increase its market share in the state. I never once thought I could go to eBay and purchase a car made by Government Motors (GM).

The program, announced last month by GM, will involve 225, or 90 percent, of California dealers. Barthmuss said California was selected as the test market for the four-week trial because GM sales in the state have historically been “far below the national average,” and its residents are considered tech-savvy.

Amazon.com has, via a pre-order page, confirmed already leaked prices from a Best Buy tipster for the upcoming Zune HD. The price will be $220 for 16GB and $290 for 32GB. The highlights of the new device, which still appears headed to a Sept. 8th intro, from Amazon’s page, are: Touchscreen: Get quick and instant access to your content with multi-touch navigation. With a 3.3-inch screen and vivid 16:9 OLED display (480×272 resolution), premium entertainment is at your fingertips.HD Radio: Tune into your favorite

Let’s face it: the mobile arena is more crowded than ever, and with that overpopulation comes confusion. Specifications begin to run together, prices seem to be all over the map, and actual standout features are harder than ever to locate. If you know someone that has grown frustrated by trying to separate the worthwhile from the worthless, trust us, we feel your pain. So much so, in fact, that we’ve decided to break it all down in an easy-to-digest mobile computing guide. Within the pages to come, we’ll cover

We’re a little fuzzy on our high school science, but we’re pretty sure somewhere along the line we heard that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Some Newton guy, we think? Anywho, just days after we saw a new USB flash drive from Buffalo that will inevitably get lost in your pants pockets, Verbatim has introduced a drive of its own that you’ll have no excuse to ever misplace.The aptly-named TUFF-CLIP is a super durable USB drive that was engineered to withstand some beatings and to