While it’s not exactly earth-shattering news, Steve Ballmer confirmed yesterday that Windows Mobile 7 is coming next year.

Since Windows Mobile 6.5 won’t begin shipping on new devices until the second half of 2009, it’s safe to assume WinMo 7 will ship at least on year later, sometime in the second half of 2010.  For many, Windows Mobile 7’s release a year and a half from now seems too little, too late, and while we concur with the latter part of that sentiment, Microsoft has an opportunity to do big things with 7.

The iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry smartphone devices are popular, useful devices, of that there’s no doubt.  And while the respective operating systems powering these devices have a great deal to offer on the device end, there’s a lot missing – or at least underdeveloped – when it comes to PC connectivity and working seamlessly with Windows PCs.

Windows, after all, is the the primary computing OS for the overwhelming majority of smartphone users.  That puts Microsoft in the best position possible (at least on paper) to design a mobile OS that taps into Windows, offering the best PC-extension experience for users.

While it must have a strong, attractive and easy to use interface to be a modern and future success, Windows Mobile 7 must also shine in how it works with Windows on the PC.  Windows Mobile 7 should be all about the extension of the PC to your hand with intuitive and drag-and-drop multimedia-productivity-PIM interoperability, no-brainer syncing and backup, and remote access to data.  Videos, documents, photos, contacts, web sites, calendar entries, etc., should be viewable, playable and transferable from the PC to the handheld (and vice versa) without hours of study by the end user.

We don’t know much of anything about Windows Mobile 7 at this point, and until we do speculation is all we have.  But if Microsoft plays its cards right, the next version of Microsoft’s smartphone OS could change the mobile game, making smartphones not only mobile computers, but true mobile terminals for the PC and the Cloud.

Let’s just hope the next 18 months or so are put to very good use.

The single most powerful 9-Series GeForce card available today, the 9800 GTX+ utilizes HybridPower? technology to enable users to switch to their motherboard GeForce GPU to run less graphically intense applications. The 128 cores in the 9800 GTX+ clock in at a new high of 1836 MHz, making it one of the fastest graphics cards in its price range. This deal ends Thursday at 12:00pm ET.

Whether you?re going to your next business meeting or on a road trip, the Magellan Maestro 3200 GPS (Refurbished) will let you drive at ease. Easily navigate to restaurants, gas stations, ATMs and more as you drive locally or across the country. This deal ends Thursday at 12:00pm ET.

Green technology has generated a lot of buzz lately. Regardless of your views of global warming and going green, we can all agree there are financial benefits to products that require less energy to run. Realizing a lot of energy is wasted on idling servers, Microsoft has revealed a new research and development project named Marlowe. This project is looking into more efficient ways of turning servers on and off throughout the course of a day. Through its research, Microsoft has found servers typically process

Microsoft’s latest gaming mouse, the SideWinder X8, is about to hit the physical store and virtual online shelves for an estimated price of $99.95. Microsoft originally announced the 4,000-dpi, wireless, Microsoft BlueTrack Technology-based, gaming mouse last September, and promised that it would be available by February 2009–it looks like Microsoft will deliver it on time with just days to spare. Microsoft claims that its proprietary BlueTrack Technology is “the world’s most advanced tracking technology for

Global semiconductor revenue, hit by the economic downturn, is expected to fall 24 percent to $194.5 billion in 2009, according to research firm Gartner, in a marked worsening from its December outlook. In mid-December Gartner forecast a 16 percent fall in the 2009 chip market.

“We believe that the financial crisis has reset the semiconductor market,” Bryan Lewis, research vice president at Gartner, said in a statement on Wednesday. “After the 2001 recession, in which semiconductor sales plummeted by a record 32.5 percent, semiconductor sales took about four years to get back to 2000 levels.” Gartner forecast the semiconductor industry would bounce back starting next year, but reach its 2008 level only in 2013. Consumer demand for electronics, from computers to digital cameras, is drying up quickly amid the financial crisis and the prospect of a lingering global recession.

Energizer just shot me over an e-mail asking to see if I can stir up some readers that would be interesting in attending design seminars for OEMs that they will be holding in four cities across American on their new Zinc Air Battery technology. If your company has any interest in Zinc Air Prismatic batteries and would like to learn about using them in your product check out the full press release that is located in the forums. If you haven't heard about Zinc Air Prismatic Batteries be sure to check out our preview on them here.

The design seminars will be held the week of March 16 in Silicon Valley, CA, Newport Beach, CA, Chicago, IL and New York City, and will focus on providing device designers with the knowledge they need to utilize Zinc Air Prismatic in their new devices. Specifically, the seminars will feature an overview of the product technology, a description of the types of air management needed to allow the battery to perform at its best, an in-depth look at the battery compartment design and a window dedicated to Q&A.

Cooler Master Storm Sniper Review @ OCC and other reviews from around the web can be found by visiting our forums!

“The Cooler Master Storm Sniper was able to beat out the Cooler Master Cosmos S case at every test except for when the GPU was at a full load reading. I am not very surprised, due to how large the fans that are installed in the Storm case there are, along with the massive amounts of room for air flow that there is.”

Advanced Micro Devices today announced it recently completed live public demonstrations of its upcoming six-core 45nm AMD Opteron processor, codenamed Istanbul. Scheduled to launch in the second half of this year, Istanbul is expected to be the only x86 six-core processor available for two- and four-socket systems and higher.

The demonstration featured a live, seamless upgrade of a system based on 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors to Istanbul processors. Istanbul is socket- and thermal-compatible with currently shipping AMD Opteron processor-based systems. The AMD consistent platform approach helps reduce qualification times for OEMs and solution providers, while giving end-users the opportunity to upgrade their existing systems.

Just about the time that you were going to make up your mind between all those other IBuyPower rigs announced this month comes this: yet another one added to the mix. The Gamer Fire 600 is a gamer-centric PC with loads of horsepower and a case that’s just as menacing. Thankfully, the rig is of the “bargain” type, with an easy-to-swallow price tag of $799. Based on AMD’s new Socket AM3 platform, the Gamer Fire 600 is loaded with the Phenom II X4 810 quad-core processor, Gigabyte’s GA-MA790XT-UD4P AMD 790X CrossFire