Here’s an interesting one. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has just snapped up a substrate manufacturing facility located in Sarawak, Malaysia from Western Digital. You heard right — one hard drive maker is taking some property from a rival hard drive maker. In the release, we’re told that the facility that Hitachi GST is taking over produces aluminum substrates used in hard disk drives, which WD originally ended up with when it purchased Komag in 2007. Steve Milligan, president, Hitachi GST, had this to

MSI Computer, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, is excited to announce availability of the new Wind U123. The innovative Wind U123 features the powerful new Intel Atom 1.66 GHz N280 processor, EasyFace identification software and other MSI exclusive technologies. Like its award winning predecessors, the Wind U123 is equipped with an ergonomically designed keyboard and touch pad, and an enlarged 10.2 LCD display for comfortable typing and browsing respectively.

We are excited to launch another version of our award winning line of Wind netbooks, said Andy Tung Vice President of Sales, MSI US. The U123s brilliant colors, upgraded Atom N280 processor, and aggressive pricing make it our best Wind model yet.

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is the latest addition to AT&T Mobility’s extensive smartphone line-up. 

Originally set to debut tomorrow, the Curve 8900 was posted today in AT&T’s online store.  The price: $199 with a two-year service agreement and a $100 mail-in rebate.

The Curve 8900 boasts Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and aGPS, but does not have HSDPA 3G mobile broadband connectivity.  Other features include a microSDHC memory card slot (for adding up to 16GB of storage), a 3.2MP digital camera, turn-by-turn navigation, a QWERTY keyboard, and a non-touchscreen display.

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is now available for order the AT&T Mobility web site and should come to third-party retailers in the next couple of weeks.

As well as being the smallest HSUPA USB device on the market (just 66 x 17 x 25 mm when closed), the Option Wireless ICON 322 Unlocked Wireless Air Card is also the first Icera-based HSUPA USB device in the world. This deal ends Friday at 12:00pm ET.

HTC has received approval from the FCC to sell a version of the Touch Pro2 in the U.S. with both CDMA and GSM radios onboard, though its GSM will be locked down so that it will not work with U.S. carriers’ GSM networks (AT&T, T-Mobile).  Of course, this limits this particular model to Sprint and Verizon Wireless.

Inclusion of a GSM radio will allow this version of the HTC Touch Pro2 to work outside the U.S.; non-US wireless carriers are dominated by GSM-based networks.  

Versions of the  HTC Touch Pro2 are reportedly destined for release by Sprint (story), T-Mobile (story) and Verizon Wireless in the coming weeks/months.  Read more about the HTC Touch Pro2…

via Engadget Mobile

Just when you thought their goose was cooked and the bad guys won (whoever they are…), Asus busts a Bond-like move and shows cunning with stylish thinness.  What the heck are we talking about?  We have no idea.  Just watch the video… Asus has a pre-order page up now for the Eee PC 1008HA Seashell and if you like you can catch a bit more of the thrills and spills with our hero, Agent 003.14159…  He gets all the chicks with that fancy white netbook, no really, honest.

And the fines just keep on coming. Shortly after Intel was dealt a staggering $1.45 billion fine for alleged antitrust practices against the likes of AMD, Microsoft is now facing a slightly less painful $200 million payment to software ware i4i Ltd. This week, a Texas federal jury ordered Microsoft to pay the aforementioned Canadian outfit nearly a quarter-billion dollars for damages for infringing a patent.Those familiar with such matters will recognize that Texas, particularly Marshall, is somewhat of a patent

Samsung has released a ROM update for the Samsung Epix SGH-i907 Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Smartphone.  This update is recommended by Samsung.

From Samsung:

The software update contains several patches that addresses or implement new functions as outlined below:

”Slog Dump” Fix: On certain circumstances, the handset may report a “Slog Dump” error message. This software provides an update to the network layer which prevents the problem from occurring.

Missed Email Audio Notifications: A previously released cab file for notifications is included in ID1. This enables the EPIX to provide audible notifications alerts for your emails when the device enters an unattended power saving mode.

Outlook Notes SSP Support: The update contains the ability to synchronize the popular Notes feature available within Microsoft Outlook.

Find out more @ the AT&T Mobility Answer Center…

A greater percentage of Americans play videogames than go out to the movies, according to a new report published this week.Extracts from the “Entertainment Trends in America” suggests that 63% of Americans have played a videogame in the past six month, compared to just 53% for those going to a movie.

Based on responses from 11,000 U.S. consumers, the study finds 63% have played video games. During the same six-month period, only 53% report going to a movie.

“Video games account for one-third of the average monthly consumer spending in the U.S. for core entertainment content, including music, video, games,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier in a statement. “While a portion of that share stems from the premium price of console games, were also seeing an overall increase in the number of people participating in gaming year-over-year.”

Remember the Jack PC? Hello, competition! It’s pretty amazing, really — the device pictured here is a full fledged headless PC, capable of handling pretty much every basic task that even a modern day netbook could. Designed and sold by Marvell, the Plug Computer (or the SheevePlug, officially) is a self-contained computer that simply plugs into an AC outlet.The entire computer looks like an average wall-wart, with a 1.2GHz processor, 512MB of flash storage, 512MB of DDR2 RAM, USB 2.0 and Gigabit Ethernet. As