A few weeks ago, we announced an exciting sweepstakes in which we planned to give away a full AMD Phenom X4 9750-based system, complete with dual Diamond Multimedia Radeon HD 3850 512MB graphics cards running in a CrossFire configuration, and an awesome, custom painted Smooth Creations case emblazoned with the good ol’ Stars and Bars!  Two runners up would also win AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ processors.  The response we received after the announcement was awesome, with hundreds of new members joining our

Toshibas Digital Products Division (DPD) today announced its support of AMDs next generation of Athlon, Turion and Turion Ultra microprocessors technology. These advanced CPUs are available throughout Toshibas lineup of Satellite laptops, and provide users with greater choice and variety while delivering ample strength to power the most demanding applications.

New models of the Satellite P300D, Satellite A300D, Satellite M300D, Satellite U400D, Satellite L300D and Satellite L350D series will be offered with variations of the AMD Athlon Dual Core QL, Turion Dual Core RM and Turion Ultra ZM processors1 technology. Toshibas AMD-powered Satellite series will be available this summer from a variety of major consumer electronics and computer stores nationwide with models carrying variations of the AMD Athlon Dual Core QL and Turion Dual Core RM to be available directly from Toshiba at www.toshibadirect.com.

Find the Thermaltake DuOrb CPU Cooler Review @ ASE Labs and other reviews from around the web by visiting our forums!

” My first orb was the Thermaltake Golden Orb way back when the Abit BP6 was the thing to have. Imagine having to shave a bit of a heatsink off to have it fit on your motherboard. Those were the days when you had to work hard for every ounce of performance. These days, you can squeeze so much out of new CPUs. Thermaltake has released a brand new orb, the DuOrb. It combines heatpipes and two huge orb coolers. “

Japanese electronics maker Fujitsu Ltd said it aims for 100 billion yen ($951 million) in sales of its WiMax-use microchips in the year starting April 2011, up from virtually none in the year ended March 31. A new high-speed Internet technology, WiMax provides wireless data over long distances, allowing faster Internet downloads while on the move. WiFi, by contrast, only works near a transmitter.

The WiMax chip sales target of 100 billion yen is about 2 percent of Fujitsu's total revenues in the year to March 2008 of 5.3 trillion yen. Awaga said the number of WiMax users globally is likely to reach up to 50 million by 2012. “By 2011 or 2012, certain progress should have been made on commercial operations, and various services will have become available,” Awaga said. “Counting users in the United States, Japan, BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), Asia, and part of Europe, the number will probably be about 40 to 50 million.”

Despite many industry players believing both the memory card and USB drive markets are saturated, Kingston Technology company president John Tu recently said substantial business potential still exists. Citing average monthly shipments of 20 million units for both memory cards and USB drives, Tu said the huge shipments imply that these markets are still growing. He thinks memory cards and USB drives serve as a “platform” for consumers to interact with different kinds of content.

While many people think memory device makers should pay digital content providers in order to add content to their products, Tu said it should be the providers paying Kingston to distribute content via its well-established sales network, brand and market share. He added in saying that shipments of both memory cards and USB drives are set to expand further in the future. However, Kingston remains cautious about solid-state drives (SSDs). Tu stressed that the company will only tap into segments it is certain will grow, but once it extends a presence, it will produce in big volumes in order to grab a large share of the market quickly.

HTC has just announced the HTC Touch Pro, a device we’ve known for the past few weeks as the Raphael. The Touch Pro is the keyboard-less sibling of the Touch Diamond, and is built is similar styling.

Learn more about the HTC Touch Pro…

AMD today announced ATI XGP (External Graphics Platform) Technology, a new external PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 graphics platform, designed to deliver enthusiast-class desktop graphic performance and true multimedia upgradeability to notebooks. ATI XGP is an exclusive technology that capitalizes on PCIe 2.0 to deliver enthusiast-class graphics via a connected cable to an externally powered and cooled device. This unique innovation delivers up to 4.0 Gbyte/s in each direction in bandwidth communication between the notebook and external graphics, whereas previous consumer level external solutions were limited in graphics bandwidth. ATI XGP is fully optimized for new AMD Turion X2 Ultra notebook platforms, also announced today.

The initial offering of ATI XGP Technology features the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series graphics solution giving notebook users a variety of additional functionality:- PCI Express 2.0 offers more than enough horsepower for the most demanding professional graphics applications by boosting 3D graphics performance while providing fast throughput resulting in an excellent overall system performance. ATI XGP Technology is contained in an external chassis connected to the notebook via a specially designed self-latching, easy-connecting PCIe 2.0 cable from Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Limited, a leading provider of electronic devices and connectors. Based on AMDs dedicated research and development, the cable also provides USB 2.0 connectivity directly to the notebook allowing for additional USB functionality. Independently cooled and powered, ATI XGP Technology offers the potential for higher performance than traditional entry-level graphics solutions.

Acer today presented the Aspire one, an all-new communication device designed to make your online activities fast, simple and utterly cool. At just 24 x 17 cm and weighing less than one kilo, the Aspire one is extremely compact! The Aspire one has an 8.9 CrystalBrite LED backlit display with a resolution of 1024×600 pixels and is powered by an Intel Atom processor. It comes with a couple hard drive options too, as one can select a NAND flash module of 8GB or an 80GB internal HDD. The same goes for the operating system as Linpus Linux Lite and Windows XP Home versions are available. The Aspire one comes with a 1-year carry in warranty which can be extended to 2 years with Acer Advantage.

“The Acer Aspire one netbook designed for internet use will help drive growth in the exciting new netbook category,” said Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager, Mobile Platforms Group, Intel Corporation. “Purpose built Intel Atom processors are enabling our customers to innovate and together we will bring the next billion users online.”

AMD today announced the availability of its next-generation notebook platform that has been talked about as 'Puma' since 2007. 'Puma' represents one of the first results of the 'new AMD,' designed as an optimized mobile solution with extended battery life, graphics and video processing enhancements and improved overall system performance. AMD is offering Puma as a complete package that includes the companys own processor, the dual-core Turion x2 Ultra, 7-series chip set and ATI Radeon HD 3000 series graphics.

As a part of the new platform, AMD today also announced a new notebook processor and chipset, which together deliver the ultimate in HD visual performance on the go. The AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile processor includes top enhancements including AMD Independent Dynamic Core Technology, a new mobile-optimized memory controller, and power-optimized HyperTransport 3.0. The new mobile AMD 7-series chipset, AMD M780G and AMD SB700, features integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics and delivers support for Microsoft DirectX 10. The integrated graphics deliver up to three times the 3D graphics performance of comparable competitor graphics and offer ATI Avivo HD Technology for smooth video playback in hi-def format.

Dell’s lineup of flat panel displays have proven themselves to be reliable, stylish, and typically right on par price-wise with some of the most inexpensive LCD monitors on the market. They’ve delivered exceptional bang for the buck, and throughout the years, they’ve managed to improve the quality of the screens and the overall feature sets while overall prices have gone down. While this is also true for the rest of the monitor industry, Dell has retained their reputation for reliability, which still sticks