The divide between gaming desktops and laptops just got a bit smaller. Today Seagate announced that its 2.5-inch, 320GB, 7,200-rpm, Momentus 7200.3 hard drive is now available as an option in Dell XPS laptops and will be available soon in some Alienware laptop models.”Seagate’s new 2.5-inch hard drive delivers up to 320GB of capacity and combines a fast Serial ATA 3.0 Gbit/second interface with 7200-rpm spin speed and a 16MB cache to enable the highest-performance laptops ever. The drive also is offered with

Lexar Media today announced immediate availability of Crucial 1.5V DDR2 FBDIMM server memory modules. As part of its commitment to the enterprise-computing space, Lexar Media's new energy-efficient Crucial server memory product line utilizes the industry's first 1.5V, 1Gb-based components to deliver reduced chip count, energy-efficient FBDIMM modules. The DDR2-667MHz FBDIMM modules are available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB kits.

Specifically designed to lower the power consumption of servers in the data center, the modules operate at 1.5V, compared to the industry-standard of 1.8V. This lower voltage, along with a reduced chip count, can translate into more than a 50% reduction in memory power consumption, without compromising the performance or reliability users have come to expect from Crucial memory.

A deadline set by US video game giant Electronic Arts for shareholders in Take-Two Interactive Software to accept a $1.9bn offer has passed. EA revealed its unsolicited $25.74 a share move for Take-Two, the owner of Grand Theft Auto, back in February.

Take-Two's board had refused to discuss a takeover with EA before the 29 April launch of “Grand Theft Auto IV.” Take-Two saw its stock close at $27.10 on the Nasdaq, down 0.8% but 5.2% above the $25.74 per share offered by EA. “The market's probably suggesting that EA should come up with a few more dollars and that may be a likely a scenario,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets.

Intel will start shipping a quad-core version of its Itanium processor to system vendors in about six months, with the first servers based on the chip due in early 2009, Intel said Monday. Intel said the new chip, code-named Tukwila, will roughly double the performance of the current, dual-core version of Itanium. Aside from the additional cores, Tukwila includes 30MB of on-chip cache memory — about 15 percent more than its predecessor — and Intel's QuickPath Interconnect technology, which should speed data transfer between components. We already know that Tukwila's die size is 21.5×32.5mm2, and the first run of chips will reach speeds of up to 2GHz on 170W of power. The diagram of the die can be seen below.

Intel won't say yet what clock-speeds the chip will be offered at, except that it will launch at up to 2GHz. It will be manufactured using a 65-nanometer process, a step up from the current Itanium. Itanium is designed for high-end servers running large databases, data warehouses, and transaction-heavy business applications. Intel positions it as a substitute for RISC-type processors like IBM's Power and Sun's Sparc, and as a lower-cost alternative to mainframes. Most Itanium servers are sold by Hewlett-Packard, although they are also offered by Fujitsu, NEC, and others.

Three of Intel's chipsets, the G31, G33 and 945GC, are seeing an increase in price following the earthquake in Sichuan, China last week, according to sources at motherboard makers. Although Intel's packaging and testing plant in Sichuan was unaffected by the quake, the local transport infrastructure has been severely impacted. The three chipsets occupy approximately 45% of Intel's desktop chipset shipments which has lead to rapid shortages.

The 945GC is seeing an increase from around US$15 in thousand-unit tray quantities to US$18-19, while the G31 will see its price boost from US$23 to US$25-27 and the G33 from US$28 to US$31. However, the price increases are expected to be absorbed entirely by motherboard makers hoping to maintain market share, noted the sources, and so changes to pricing in the channel are unlikely.

From the company powering the visual experience of the two most popular gaming consoles in the world today, AMD announces AMD GAME!. This program is designed to
help consumers select perfectly suited PCs for high-definition gaming. AMD GAME! platforms combine the powerful balance of multi-core processors, exceptional HD digital media , and next-generation graphics processing power. Industry leaders including Acer, Alienware, Logitech and Microsoft are joining AMD to ensure consumers can easily identify PCs that deliver HD gaming and entertainment experiences out of the box.

AMD GAME! systems combine proven AMD technology including AMD
Phenom processors, the upcoming AMD Turion Ultra processors, AMD
Athlon processors, ATI Radeon HD 3000 series graphics, and AMD
chipsets to deliver an enhanced and simplified mainstream PC gaming
experience. AMD GAME! platforms are available immediately on-line from system
builders such as Alienware, Cyberpower, iBuypower, Maingear and Velocity
Micro; retail availability is expected in the second half of 2008.

AUO is expected to unveil today a number of innovative display technologies, including what it claims are “the world’s first Curved Display Technology on glass substrate,” and “the world’s thinnest Ultra Thin 1.9-inch TFT-LCD.” AUO is one of over 550 vendors exhibiting their wares at the Society for Information Display’s Display Week 2008 show in Los Angeles this week.”The world’s first Curved Display is developed and produced by AUO with TFT-LCD process on glass substrate. The curved radius is 100mm, and therefore

On Monday Nintendo officially launched the Wii Fit. Much like the premier of some movies, however, it’s only being launched at one location: the Nintendo World store in New York City. Other retailers will start selling the Fit on Wednesday.At an MSRP of $89.99, Wii Fit comes packaged with the Wii Balance Board™ accessory, a precisely engineered platform that senses both weight and shifts in movement and balance. The Wii Balance Board connects wirelessly to the Wii™ console and serves as the centerpiece

AMD HAS DONE the seemingly impossible and made a logo campaign that looks like it means something instead of being a marketing/advertising scheme. Let's take a look at the new AMD Game programme.

The programme is meant to address the soft middle of the gaming market, people between the hardcore techie (aka most everyone reading this) and people that make your brain hurt when you overhear them talk at the store (Does that CPU come in different colors? Oooh, blue lights!). AMD commissioned a survey asking what percentage of people “plan to use their new PC to play video games” ?

Sixty-one of the US, 49 per cent of Europeans and 48 per cent of Chinese respondents said they would play games on their shiny new box. More numbers, presented in pie-chart format this time, show that enthusiasts (us) make up five per cent of the market, the 'Yes' responders above make up about 20 per cent more of the market. They however lack the technical abilities of the enthusiasts.

This means there are about 50 million people out there that want to game on a PC but don't really have a clue about how to do it or what to buy. If they walk into a Best Buy, more often than not they get shafted and walk out with an Intel $599 i945 based machine with a $999 extended warranty that skips on the solitaire win screen. Stores preying on the stupid, imagine that!