Staples Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are slashing laptop prices and expanding their selections for the back-to-school shopping season, banking on the computer demand to sell more profitable accessories and services. Staples, the largest office-supplies retailer, boosted its portable computer selection by 50 percent, while Wal-Mart, the worlds largest retailer, is selling out of a $298 Compaq Presario model in some stores.

Laptop shipments are expected to climb 4.1 percent this year, tempering a 16 percent decline in demand for desktop PCs, according to market researcher Gartner Inc. Revenue may total $113 billion. By Bloomberg calculations, retailers could get a $11.3 billion slice of that, assuming profit margins of 10 percent. That compares with $30.3 billion they could make on accessories.

Fresh guidance from Intel suggests that while the netbook market is booming worldwide, first time computer buyers aren’t driving the market. The company’s statements reflect a significantly different understanding of the role netbooks are playing in the market than what Intel first envisioned. Originally, the Classmate PC, like the OLPC XO that preceded it, were intended explicitly for the developing world. In reality, however, netbooks are playing a supplementary role, even in markets where PC penetration is

After years of delays (including one cancelation), developer change-ups, and a lot of hard work, Terminal Reality succeeded in bringing a Ghostbusters game to market for the PS3, XBox 360, Wii, and PC. Terminal Reality committed to building their own graphics engine—dubbed the Infernal Engine—to facilitate game development; we recently had a chance talk with them about the game, the new engine, and the future of multi-core gaming. The questions were answered by Mark Randel, President and Founder and Joe Kreiner,

ThermalTake Element G Case Review @ Ninjalane and other reviews from around the web can be found by visiting our forums!

Choice is something that end users love to have and the Element G is all about that. The abilities to control everything from fan speed, noise level, and to even the flavor on the day fan color is incredible. On the inside the modular type setup allows you freedom to set things up the way you want them and not compromise layout or cable management.

The Intel Premier IT Professional site offers a new server efficiency tool that gives IT professionals a snapshot of their current performance and energy efficiency versus what it could be by turning up the number of processor cores and use of virtualization. It also compares their data centers with those of other IPIP members.

EBay is building new software to run its Skype Internet calling service, a bid to sidestep a licensing dispute with Skype's founders, who have threatened to take back the underlying technology. The new software will be expensive and might not work, San Jose-based eBay said Wednesday in a regulatory filing. The company said it might have to shut down Skype if the dispute with the founders isn't resolved.

The dispute threatens to interfere with plans by eBay CEO John Donahoe to take Skype public in the first half of 2010. EBay bought Skype in 2005, though the rights to some of its so-called peer-to-peer technology remained with the founders. EBay's plan to create new software is unlikely to work, said Jayanth Angl, an analyst at Info-Tech Research.

With the once-resilient videogame industry mired in a slump, investors are looking to big-name titles and potential price cuts for game consoles in the second half of the year to help spur a rebound in sales. Major game publishers Activision Blizzard Inc and Electronic Arts Inc will report quarterly results next week, on the heels of dismal June U.S. videogame sales, which registered their biggest drop since 2000.

But the 2009 game release schedule is heavily weighted with big-name titles in the second half of the year, analysts say, in contrast to a strong first half line-up in 2008. That has made year-over-year comparisons particularly ugly. The remainder of the year will see the latest installments in major franchises such as “Left 4 Dead,” “Assassin's Creed,” “Call of Duty” and “Halo,” which could give sales a much-needed boost.

AVADirect recently announced that they are now selling the world's most powerful gaming notebook, the Clevo M980NU. AVADirect started taking pre-orders on the notebook as of mid-June and has begun receiving stock of the item and shipping to customers now. The starting price for a fully configured Clevo M980NU notebook is $2493.85.

“This is currently the fastest production notebook that you can buy. The M980NU has support for quad-core mobile processors, two GTX 280m video cards, up to 8GB of 1333 MHz DDR3 memory, and a large 1080P 18.4″ screen. Compared to AVADirect.com's past powerhouse notebook, the D900F, which was a workstation notebook, the M980NU was designed for gamers. With the multi-color LED lighting, quick buttons for games, and touch-sensitive hot keys for control, this notebook is any notebook gamer's dream come true.” as quoted by Misha Troshin, CMO and co-owner of AVADirect.

Another day, another new smartphone (or “featurephone,” if you will) on AT&T’s network. Today, Samsung Mobile is introducing its latest finger-friendly phone to grace America’s largest GSM network, the Solstice. At first glance, the phone actually look a lot like the Samsung Instinct that did so well for Sprint last year, with a thin, polished design and a full 3″ touch screen.There’s also a virtual landscape QWERTY keyboard, TouchWiz interface, one-touch access to frequently used applications and social

AeroCool has released a very stylish LCD touch screen fan controller and temperature monitor with some additional features thrown into the mix. We take a closer look at the Touch-2000 to see if its performance matches its elegance.