Content and news by Rob Williams

To prepare for their upcoming 45nm processor launch, Intel has opened up a brand new $3B fab in Arizona, named FAB 32. Production is underway now, with Penryn/Yorkfield availability still set for Nov. 12. Fab D1D in Oregon has been churning out 45nm samples for a few months now, so it’s likely that most of the launch product will have been produced there. You can read the full press release below.

CHANDLER, Ariz., Oct. 25, 2007 – Production of a new generation of microprocessors for PCs, laptops, servers and other computing devices officially began today inside of Intel Corporation’s first high-volume 45 nanometer (nm) manufacturing factory in Chandler, Ariz.

Source: Intel Press Release

In our newspost this past Monday, we linked to a rumor that Toshiba was working directly with Microsoft to create an Xbox 360 that would include a built-in HD-DVD drive. Toshiba has now stepped up and firmly stated, “It’s got nothing to do with us.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s actually untrue, as it’s far from unusual for PR to deny something one day and admit to it the next, but chances are that this claim is true. Too bad… it actually sounded like a solid idea.

As with every ‘Microsoft to add HD DVD to 360’ rumour – currently at about one a month – Microsoft is dismissing the claims. But so is Toshiba.A spokesperson for Tosh told us: ‘It’s got nothing to do with us. But we know Microsoft doesn’t want to include the HD DVD drive so as not to limit the user’s experience.

Source: Yahoo! News

We just posted about Toshiba’s latest HD-DVD feat, but according to Home Media Research, Blu-ray outpaced HD-DVD by a huge margin between January 1 – September 30 of this year. While Blu-ray sold 2.4 million titles, HD-DVD lagged behind selling only 60% as many, at 1.4 million. Still, as mentioned earlier, it’s still far too early to declare an actual winner, especially considering how good this month has been to Toshiba.

This announcement, which indicates an almost 2 to 1 ratio of Blu-ray sales to HD-DVD, was a bit of a killjoy for the HD-DVD camp who were thrilled by the record setting success of Transformers on HD DVD, chronicled here at DailyTech. This announcement, which indicates an almost 2 to 1 ratio of Blu-ray sales to HD-DVD, was a bit of a killjoy for the HD-DVD camp who were thrilled by the record setting success of Transformers on HD DVD, chronicled here at DailyTech.

Source: DailyTech

An upcoming firmware upgrade for the PS3 will add DualShock3 support, according to Shacknews. The firmware will also be bundled with Rachet and Clank: Tools of Destruction, thanks to the fact that it’s the first title to support the upcoming gamepad. It’s good to see that DualShock is on it’s way, but the big question is, why in the heck did it take so long? Even at this point, no one is sure when our shores will see it, although Japan will be getting their vibration on next month.

By pressing the middle PS button on a PS3 controller, the DualShock3’s rumble can be toggled on or off from the Controller Setting menu in-game. Listed as the “vibration function,” rumble will obviously only be felt with DualShock3 controllers and not the rumble-less Sixaxis.

Source: Shacknews

Not too long ago, people were beginning to believe that HD-DVD’s days were numbered, but now that’s not even a remote thought. The format war is strong, but neither is close to becoming a clear winner at this point. HD-DVD seems to be pulling ahead though, as the format-exclusive Transformers movie hit a new sales record, selling 100K copies in the first week and 190K to date. It’s still way, way too early in the “next-gen” cycle to be that impressed, but Toshiba still has reason to celebrate.

It’s actually a little sad that this movie didn’t get released on Blu-ray. I imagine that it would have done just as well on either format. However, Paramount received a hefty donation from the HD DVD camp to only release it on the one high-def format. When will this format war end?

Source: SlashGear

Sony will be launching a “Gran Turismo” channel on the PlayStation Network some time next year, and apparently 40+ episodes of Top Gear will be available for download and purchase. I’m a big Top Gear fan, so I look forward to being able to download “on demand” some of my favorite episodes. I do wonder what type of image quality and aspect ratio these episodes will have though. I don’t believe the show is available in HD anywhere, but it would be great to have that option.

Gran Turismo 5 is not set to release until at least mid-2008, but this year will see the release of the appetite-whetting downloadable-or-retail Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, recently revealed as supporting up to 16 players online. A demo is currently available through the Japanese PSN. The game’s full release, set for December in Japan, will include a virtual version of Top Gear’s well known test track, Hammerhead turn and all (playable The Stig likely not included).

Source: Shacknews

When adding a RAID card into your PC, chances are good that you care a lot about performance, or reliability. Well, I’m not sure how to take this one. Addonics Technologies has just released a $50 PCI RAID card… that allows you to plug in up to four CompactFlash cards. Of course this is not supposed to be a performance option, but it sounds more like a solution for those who have a lot of old CompactFlash cards lying around who just can’t bare to throw them away. With prices of CompactFlash, you might as well just purchase a second hard-drive if extra space is all you care about.

The adapter here is the cheap part. If you want a solid amount of flash storage, the costs quickly go up. For example, an 8GB Lexar 300x UDMA card costs about $170. Multiply by four and you’re looking at $680 for 32GB raw capacity, and less if you configure the RAID to protect your data.

Source: News.com

It’s no secret that were fans of CoolIT, as their products are great for those overclockers who want effective cooling without installing an insane setup, such as phase change. Apparently, workstation and server folks need the same kind of cooling ability, so CoolIT has released a special model for those, which will retail for a hefty $449. The system is designed to be quiet yet effective, and will co-exist with the MTEC Control Center for predictive cooling ability.

CoolIT Systems announces the new Workstation Cooler, a CPU liquid cooling device utilizing CoolIT’s patented, award-winning MTEC technology. With this device, small/medium businesses, video production/pro audio studios, game developers, government offices, and churches can maximize the performance from their workstation PC. Because workstations and servers typically require power-intensive software applications, the CPU and other internal computing hardware are placed under a heavy load which can in some cases, cause the entire system to overheat or fail.

Source: CoolIT Systems

It is not a good time to be the admin of a BitTorrent tracker website. Just days ago, popular UK TV torrent tracking site, TV-Links.co.uk was shut down, with the owner arrested. Now, the same scenario has occurred with Oink.cd (previously Oink.me.uk), a site with over 180,000 members and what’s said to have been the leading source for pre-release albums.

In addition to servers being seized, the 24-year-old Middlesbrough owner was arrested. The past year in particular has been rough on BitTorrent websites, with some being forced to block visitors from specific Countries and others being shut down without warning. Somehow, though, the Pirate Bay folks continue to manage success.

Pre-release piracy is regarded as particularly damaging because it leads to unauthorized mixes or unfinished versions of artists’ recordings appearing months before they are meant to. Often it is those in the industry, who get promotional or demonstration copies of albums before their release, who are involved in leaking them to file-sharing sites.

Source: Reuters

The next major KDE update is due in early December, and early looks are all over the place. This one in particular takes a look at many various aspects of the updated desktop environment, and I have to say, things are looking good. In fact, things are turning out a lot better than I had personally expected. I’m not one who loves “OS bling”, but KDE seems to be doing a good job of mastering a clean design and great usability. There are some areas that still need polish, but it doesn’t look like anything should effect the December 11th launch.

The bottom shows the new panel, the new menu button and one type of the new clock. Plasma at work. The menu is a KDE 4 port of OpenSuse’s new KDE menu and therefore comes with several tabs: Favorites, Applications, My Computer, Recently Used and Leave. While I’m not if I will grow used to this it definitely can help new users. It also supports search for application names or search for meta names (like “Browser”).

Source: Liquidat Blog

Hitachi has unveiled a replacement for their DeskStar series, which will be available in 250GB, 320GB and 500GB densities. The eco-friendly P7K500s will use at most 4.8W on the higher-end models thanks to a few different methods, such as having a lower-powered mode and also switching regulators that prove more efficient for voltage conversion.

The reason we are not seeing 750GB or larger drives is due to the fact that it’s more difficult to have “efficient” drives at those speeds/densities. In order for it to be an efficient drive, it would need to use at least 50% less power, which might be a challenge. Still, such is the way of technology, it shouldn’t take that long before we see drives like this surface.

Hitachi was mum about whether we’ll be seeing a terabyte model to match Western Digital’s Caviar GP anytime soon. As with any energy-efficient drive, the details are all in the benchmarks. We’ve found that the drives do indeed save a little bit of power — over the course of one year, you get about enough for a Taco Bell meal. However, energy-efficient drives also suffer from slower overall speeds than their similarly configured companions in the storage marketplace.

Source: Maximum PC

Earlier this month, we reported on a story where James Randi was putting audiophiles to the test with a $1 million dollar prize. This all began because of an audio editor who highly recommended a pair of $7,250 Pear Anjou speaker cables, noting they were far better than the Monster cable equivalents, which of course cost far, far less.

Only a week later, Pear offered to take the challenge by offering up the same audiophile who wrote the review. Well, in a move that’s not surprising, Pear has since withdrawn from the contest and now notes that they will not provide the cables for the test. Yeah… that’s not a sign of defeat at all. However, if this audiophile believes so strongly that he can tell the difference between $80 cables and $7,250 cables, then it’s a small price to pay when there’s $1 million right around the corner.

At the request of Michael Fremer, with whom we have been communicating regarding his challenging of your assertions regarding high-end audio cables, we would like to inform you directly of Pear Cable’s decision to not participate in your claimed challenge. While we support Mr. Fremer’s efforts, and believe firmly in the performance of our products, we prefer that he simply use his own reference cables in his proposed test.

Source: Gizmodo

I’ve built little in my time, and I blame the reason on my not planning things through. Apparently that’s not the case for a Nigerian man, who built a HOMEMADE HELICOPTER. Being a physics undergraduate, Mubarak wanted to build some vehicle and actually found it cheaper to build a helicopter than a car. Being a keen junk salvager, he scored some parts from a crashed plane and other vehicles. The helicopter is unable to go higher than 7ft, but it sure beats the desk (which came with instructions) I’ve managed to build in the past!

It is powered by a second-hand 133 horsepower Honda Civic car engine and kitted out with seats from an old Toyota saloon car. Its other parts come from the carcass of a Boeing 747 which crashed near Kano some years ago. For a four-seater it is a big aircraft, measuring twelve metres (39 feet) long, seven metres high by five wide. It has never attained an altitude of more than seven feet.

Source: Yahoo! News

Considering the fact that the PS2 is still selling well in the marketplace, it’s hard to imagine that the console is actually dying. But according to reports, software sales fell 47% in September over last year, whereas August was 33%. For one month, that’s quite a leap.

Despite lingering software sales, it’s unlikely it will effect the console that much immediately. The PS2 is an outstanding offering for those who like to game on a budget. You can score a brand new machine for less than $100 and get games for under $10. What’s not to love about that? Of course, being a “budget” console is the reason the developers are starting to pull the plug on their titles.

Electronic Arts’ sell-through decreased 6%Y/Y (after a 16%Y/Y increase last year), and its market share declined to 16.9% (vs. 26.4% in Sept-06). More importantly, both Madden 2008 and NCAA 2008 football franchises underperformed considerably in the month, putting into question whether EA will need to reduce pricing to drive sales in coming months.

Source: Game Daily

A recent Apple hiring spree is now making more sense, as reports are that over 800 employees have been sacked. The cause? When Apple released those $100 iPhone rebates, it turns out that all of these employees partook in them as well. The only problem is, they got their iPhones for free. That’s a huge problem as far as Apple’s concerned, and who’s to blame them? I’m actually quite surprised that so many were actually foolish enough to risk their jobs over the sake of $100! Don’t bite the hand that iFeeds.

We’ve been told that as many as 800 Apple Store retail associates who received free iPhones have also cashed in on the $100 iPhone credit that Apple issued for early buyers. Apple understandably wasn’t too happy about shelling out an extra ~$80,000 to employees who already scored free iPhones, so pink iSlips have apparently been issued to the bunch.

Source: Ars Technica

Oh Canada, what the hell? If a new measure goes through, it means that those who purchase legal music online (iTunes, Puretracks, etc) will be taxed. The requested charges would be $0.021 per individual song or $0.015 per song if a full album is purchased. Users of streaming music services would be charged 5.7% – 6.8% of their total monthly fee.

These prices might not seem like much, but the fact is, Canadians would be charged extra on their legal music to compensate for piracy. How does this make any sense? The surcharge on blank media was ridiculous enough, but this is something I will never be able to wrap my head around. The only thing this will accomplish is making piracy look that much more attractive.

The tax may have a significant impact for online stores such as iTunes and Canada-based Puretracks, which will have to factor the amount both into future and past sales. The new tax would be retroactive to January 1st, 1996 and would effectively cover all sales and subscriptions from such services since their beginnings, which typically followed shortly after those in the US. Free services are not currently subject to the added cost.

Source: MacNN

According to DigiTimes, the ASUS Eee is going to cost more than we originally anticipated, at around $360USD. Part of this is due to the fact that the 7″ LCD panels cost more than expected. The other part is the fact that the US was never meant to see the $199 version of the Eee to begin with, so the extra cash is used for “higher-end” specs. Still, even at $360USD, the Eee has a great chance in the marketplace.

As demand for small- to medium-size LCD panels was running tight during the first half of 2007, prices for 7-inch panels increased to US$30 during the second quarter, compared to less than US$20 at the beginning of this year, noted the sources. The quotes are far more expensive that those expected by Asustek.

Source: DigiTimes

Considering that NBC broke up with Apple early last month, it should be no surprise that they’ve also just broken up with YouTube. But, it’s hard to put the blame at them since they are going to be launching their own online video site shortly, which is supposed to house completely free ad-supported videos. At least they are not breaking off with YouTube simply to begin charging folks.

The new site is set to launch sometime this month, and with Halloween quickly approaching, and this news, it would seem safe to say that the beta will be launching any day now. YouTube has a lot to be thankful towards NBC with as many people credit this nod from a large media company with finally adding credibility to the video site. And also, possibly, what led to their buyout by Google.

Source: Mashable

It looks like the Xbox 360 might become even more of a media center, come next year. Rumor is that Toshiba is working with Microsoft on a brand new Xbox 360 console, which will include an HD-DVD player. Of course, this is what most were expecting the original 360 release to entail, but they (and myself) were wrong.

Though still a rumor, it’s one that’s difficult to not see happen. The PS3 includes a Blu-ray drive, and look at how well that format is doing on the market. As it stands, competition is incredibly tight between Sony and Toshiba, so for an integrated HD-DVD drive to happen, it would no doubt help sell both more consoles and more HD-DVD movies. Sounds like a win/win. The new console would also include a much larger hard-drive and other media-centric additions.

The device is being developed in response to the PS3 driving sales of games software and Blu-ray content in several countries. A recent Sony Brand Wave study conducted in five countries including the UK, Australia, France Germany and Spain revealed that a key reason that consumers are buying a PS3 is because it includes a Blu-ray player.

Source: Smarthouse

The Ring is an ultimate test for any car and all drivers. It offers intense corners, constant change in elevation and one massive straight-away that allows most cars to hit their top speed before reaching the end. It’s no surprise that so many car manufacturers use the Nürburgring to both prove their cars worth and also to find faults that need correcting.

It’s also a track that doesn’t see that many new records, for obvious reasons. The last “road car” record was set in July, 2004 by a Porsche Carrera GT, which set the record of 7:27:84. Well, the Pagani Zonda F now holds the new record by hitting a 7:27:82 lap time. Yes… it took the top spot thanks to a 2 millisecond lead. But, a record is a record!

The Pagani Zonda F recently lapped the track that claimed Lauda’s ears in a scant 7:27:82, edging out the previous ruler, the Porsche Carrera GT (which it also rivals for carbon-fiber content in its construction). The Zonda’s hot lap shaved a mere two milliseconds off the Carrera’s time, but those are two milliseconds the German supercar evidently couldn’t muster on its own home track. How embarrassing, ja?

Source: Autoblog