Offering partners and customers another cost-effective way to benefit from the performance and efficiency of AMD Opteron processor technology, AMD yesterday announced a global AMD Opteron Upgrade Program. The program includes 2000 series and 8000 series dual- and Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors along with the upcoming six-core processor codenamed Istanbul. Channel partners and customers can receive up to a 35% discount in price ($50 off 2000 series, $100 off 8000 series) by upgrading the generation of their AMD Opteron processor, providing a fast upgrade path to improve performance and energy efficiency within the data center without needing to replace and buy entirely new systems.

AMD Opteron processors have always provided exceptionally long life cycles and consistent platforms, said John Fruehe, director, Business Development, AMD. In the current economic environment customers are trying to stretch their IT budgets and to extend the life of their technology investments more than ever, all while improving performance and energy efficiency. This program offers a unique value to our partners and customers, particularly when you consider the enhancements to the 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor and upcoming six-core Istanbul processor.

NVIDIA and Acer reshaped the PC landscape last night by setting a new standard for small PCs with the introduction of the worlds first NVIDIA ION -based PC, the Acer AspireRevo. No larger than a typical hardcover book, the AspireRevo is a fully capable desktop with advanced graphics and impressive multimedia features. Equipped with NVIDIA ION graphics, the system can handle a wide variety of computing needs including high definition video, gaming, sharing digital photos, surfing the web, and other tasks consumers expect from full-size systems. You can see our coverage on the NVIDIA Ion Reference Platform to see what we thought of this platformWe also posted not one, but a dozen pictures of the AspireRevo in the forums, so follow the link below if you want a closer look.

The AspireRevo is small and quiet enough to go anywhere, yet big enough to handle all the needs of your digital lifestyle, said Gianpiero Morbello, corporate vice president of marketing for Acer. Its perfectly suited for the living room, because NVIDIA ION provides a brilliant graphics experience with digital photos, watching video, and playing family-friendly games. The Acer AspireRevo with our new NVIDIA ION GPU is so small and powerful its unbelievable, said Dan Vivoli, senior vice president of marketing at NVIDIA. Watch Blu-ray movies1 and HD movie trailers, or clean up jerky, dim cell phone videos for internet streaming. This is the perfect PC for todays consumers.

Viruses have plagued mankind since before recorded history, but we’ve only been studying the little buggers since they were first identified in the late nineteenth century.  That 100+ years of study has yielded many benefits; scientists have not only learned how to protect us from many of their devastating effects, they’ve begun to use viruses to help us, too.

The latest human-friendly virus? A genetically engineered bacteriophage redesigned to create a new generation of nanowire batteries.  Essentially, these tamed viruses are set loose, given a supply of battery-making materials and a friendly production environment.  The results: a battery that could outlast our current Li-Ion batteries three times over.

This M13 virus was designed by Angela Belcher and her team at MIT, and the batteries the virus make possible not only promise longer life for our battery-powered gismos and machines (MP3 players, cell phones, computers and even cars), they’re also more environmentally friendly to produce than today’s batteries.  In addition, these new batteries can be “very lightweight, flexible, and [able to] take the shape of their container.”

So far, the team has only built a prototype good for 100 charges, but this could be the start of something great for mobile devices.  And the so-called “molecular production process” employed for this type of battery could spread to many other types of computing hardware as well.

GlacialLight the new sub-brand of GlacialTech is at the forefront to launching an innovative new LED lighting product. The Light bar is ideal for replacing current Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFL) or incandescent lights for all kinds of on display lighting. This extends from cove lighting, cabinet and bookshelf low intensity lighting, to something brighter and more appealing, ideal for attracting eyes to a display in a showcase. For the first time, these LEDs are dimmable without the risk of breakage. These huge advances in LED technology bring LED lights and bulbs that much closer to completely replacing traditional lighting. Not sure how these can be used by case modders, but GlacialTech claims these can be used on PCs as well.

The light bar is a completely unique array of LED lights which spread light uniformly across a narrow bar, similar to CFL tubes. The LED light bar has a built-in driver for Voltage regulation, with special non-polar connection links, so that many light bars can be connected in series. The products come in eight (8) different models, varying in size from 30, 60, 90 and 120cm , while the different models cater for different light temperatures from 2300Kelvin(K) to 6300K and a variegated light Intensity between 190-1000 lumen depending on the model. A unique feature includes different connectors which can be added as spacers between the light bars in series.

Antec Signature 650 Watt Power Supply Review @ Tweaknews and other reviews from around the web can be found by visiting our forums!

“Antec has scored a major coup with their Signature Series 650W power supply. Its efficiency, features and warranty are at the very top of its class and the hybrid modularity and easily identifiable rail distribution are welcome additions to an outstanding product. The subtle good looks belie the clever design features, both internal and external, that set this unit apart from the crowd.”

Last week NVIDIA told us to expect availability of GeForce GTX 275 on or before April 14, 2009. It seems that they got cards to market a little early, so we wanted to let you know that availability of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 graphics cards in North America is finally here. The first card to show up is the EVGA GeForce GTX 275 at both Newegg and MWave for right around $250. NVIDIA told us that they expect many other vendor products to be coming online at Newegg and other e-tailers shortly over the next few days.

The EVGA GTX 275 Graphics Card delivers best-in-class graphics performance in the hottest games such as Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II and Far Cry 2. And with full GPU-acceleration for NVIDIA PhysX technology, EVGA GTX 275 will change your 3D gaming with insane PhysX gaming effects by bringing dynamic forces of nature and massively destructible environments to games such as Sacred 2 and Mirrors Edge. With up to 1792MB of super fast DDR3 memory, you get enough memory to handle the highest of resolutions and texture quality. A graphics card that does just graphics isnt enough anymore, the EVGA GTX 275 with NVIDIA CUDA technology delivers Graphics Plus. Go beyond traditional graphics with Graphics Plus and experience Stereoscopic 3D gaming, video processing for transcoding HD videos in minutes to your portable video player, and lightning-fast image processing using Adobe CS4.

The green technology movement is obviously in full swing now. Better efficiency through technological innovation has a trickle down effect to many facets of life style, technology and the environment. Whether motivated by cost or environmental reasons the benefits of eco-minded innovation will eventually be felt by all. When products can be produced cheaper through the use of green technologies due to cost savings to the manufacturer, consumers and the planet will eventually reap the benefits. Widespread adoption

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced that it is now shipping the MasterDrive RX family of Solid State Drives (SSDs) in capacities up to 512GB.The MasterDrive RX features Super Talent’s proprietary RAIDSSD Technology to enable extremely fast sequential read and write speeds. The MasterDrive RX with MLC NAND Flash comes in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB densities and is rated for a maximum sequential read speed of 230MB/sec and a maximum sequential

Man, we like how Intel parties. Rather than standing around in front of all manners of junk food just waiting for presents, the aforementioned chip maker has decided it best to give us — the loyal consumers of the world — a gift on Atom’s 1 year birthday. Over at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, the company is joyously celebrating the first anniversary of the world-changing Atom CPU. Just think — prior to the Atom, we were forced to deal with notebooks that could barely last two hours and didn’t have

BFG Technologies, a leading North American and European supplier of advanced NVIDIA-based 3D graphics cards announced today that the Phobos Performance Edition Gaming/Home Theater System now comes standard with two BFG GeForce GTX 275 OC graphics cards running in SLI. In addition, Intel solid-state drives are now available as an upgrade option.BFG Technologies recently updated the default configuration for the Phobos Performance Edition after tests showed that two BFG GeForce GTX 275 graphics cards running in