Tech News Round up...

AMD Phenom II Performance Uplift - VR-Zone posted an article on the performance of the AMD Phenom II processor: 'This slide shows the key areas of improvements for 45nm Phenom II over 65nm Phenom such as more IPC, higher frequency, more cache, and DDR3 support. There is a 5% cache uplift on the cache architecture and a 3% uplift on the core architecture. With all these innovations in place, AMD is touting a 20% performance boost...'

GeForce GTX 295 to be Nvidia's next dual-GPU card? - This GeForce GTX 295 is rumored to have dual 55nm GT200 GPUs each with 240 stream processors, 448-bit memory interfaces, and 896MB of GDDR3 memory riding shotgun

55nm GTX285 Climbs to Head of Single-GPU Cards - GeForce GTX 285 will have the same 240 stream processors, 1GB of GDDR3, and 10.5inch circuit board length as the existing GeForce GTX 280

10 VGA cards run Grand Theft Auto IV - In the test they used the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6800, 2.93GHz overclocked to 3.2GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX260, 9800GTX+, 9600GT, 9600GSO (G94) and ATI Radeon HD 4870X2, 4870, 4850, 4830, 4670, 3870 cards. Except GTX260 all the VGA cards are 512MB.

Left4Dead GTX-280 SLI vs 4870 1GB Crossfire - Valve decided to go with DirectX 9 when they coded Left 4 Dead, and making that choice and coding it in a highly efficient manner produces fantastic FPS results with both the Single EVGA GTX-280 and Diamond 4870 1 GB

NVIDIA Quadro CX Review and Adobe CS4 GPU Acceleration - PC Perspective tested the performance of the NVIDIA Quadro CX under the Adobe CS4 suite.

HD Video Playback Using $20 CPU, $30 GPU - How low cost is this hardware? How about a $20 processor and a $30 video card? Think it's possible?

Logitech announces new G13 Advanced Gameboard - What is the prefect merge between a regular keyboard and one made for gaming? Logitech thinks it has the answer with their newly announced G13 Advanced Gameboard

UnitedKeys keyboard has OLED function keys, costs $260 - UnitedKeys has started shipping a new keyboard that has nine auxiliary function keys each with a small, one-inch OLED display. The keyboard also costs $260, making it considerably cheaper than Art Lebedev's much-hyped Optimus Maximus (current sale price: $1,578.92).

Seagate Lowers Warranty Period from 5 to 3 Years - Seagate has announced today that effective January 3, 2009, the company will be making some important changes to its limited warranty terms for selected drives.

Dell launches tiny nettop for businesses - Dell's OptiPlex 160 includes a 1.6GHz Atom 230 processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, an 80GB 2.5" hard drive

RadioShack Selling $99 Netbook - RadioShack is selling an Acer Aspire One netbook for $99 but there's a catch, you need to sign up for a 2 year contract with AT&T. The Atom powered netbook comes with 1GB RAM, 160 HDD and Windows XP Home. Well, I don't like any Acer hardware. What's your experience with Acer? Neverthless, If you plan to buy a netbook, check out Holiday Guide: Netbooks and this ASUS NJ10 netbook review

New MacBooks Have Faulty NVIDIA GPU, RAM Issues? - While most of the complaints about the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros have focused on things like the screen or the absence of a certain much-loved port, it appears that another problem has been bugging some folks that went ahead and maxed out the RAM on their shiny new laptop. Apparently, loading 4GB of RAM (either from Apple or a third party) has caused at least a few MacBooks and MacBook Pros to freeze up randomly which, for the time being at least, can only be remedied by dialing things back to 2GB or 3GB of RAM (something tested by jkOnTheRun). While Apple isn't saying anything publicly about this just yet, one member of the Apple support forum claims to have heard from an Apple engineer who says that Apple is, in fact, aware of the problem and that a software update is on the way to fix it, possibly within a few days.

HP Wipes Hard Drive To Fix Broken Keyboard - What happens when you have a stuck 'P' key on you HP laptop? Send it in for warranty work and get a free hard drive wipe while you are at it. Ouch!

Microsoft fixes 28 flaws; 6 are critical - The 'critical' bulletins affect Windows GDI, Word, Excel, Internet Explorer and Windows Search. The "important" updates affect SharePoint and Windows Media Components.

Google Chrome 1.0.154.36 - Google Chrome (download) is properly the first Google product that has come out of beta this fast. Yesterday Google announced that there web browser “Google Chrome” has gone into version 1.0.

Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 - Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 (download) is now available for download, and brings quite a lot of new features with it.

Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0 Beta 1 - There are over 750 changes in this release, many laying the groundwork for future changes. Some notable changes include: User Experience Improvements, Tabbed Email, Email messages, folders, and calendars (with the Lightning extension installed) can be opened in tabs, Improved Message Reader Viewer and more.

DAEMON Tools Lite 4.30.2 - Daemon Tools (download) is an application for multiprotection emulation. It is further development of Generic Safedisc emulator and incorporates all its features. This program allows running backup copies of SafeDisc, Securom, or Laserlock protected games. Also included is a Virtual DVDROM drive enabling you to use your CD images as if they were already burned to CD.

Windows 7 Multi-touch App for Media Transfer (video) - Looks like Microsoft has decided to add in some features from its surface technology into the new OS. Software maker PQ-DVD (they make iPod video conversion software) have worked together with Microsoft, and come out with this new interface that allows you to simply place the device on the computer surface and multi-touch that data to its home. Who needs a mouse or keyboard when you've got hands? It's probably not faster than using a keyboard/mouse. It looks like it takes a lot of movement to perform certain tasks that ordinarily just took a slight jerk of the arm maneuvering the mouse and a few clicks. Still, this looks cool.

YouTube Greeting Cards - YouTube is doing the holiday greeting card video thing again this year. My question is this...with all the malware, virus and worms out there, does anyone you know actually click a link to a video anymore? I don't open any greeting card emails since 1996 :-)

Google Android Ported and Running on HTC Touch Smartphone - If you are not satisfied with the T-Mobile G1 but would still like to enjoy the Google Android smartphone platform, it seems that you have a few more options. In fact, here's a video of an old HTC Touch running on Android. That's pretty cool and, by implication, it could almost mean that nearly any HTC Windows Mobile smartphone can be swapped out for some Google-y goodness.

Gravity Balans is the first gravity defying chair - It offers the ultimate in comfort and relaxation, placing ones feet above the heart in the fully reclined position. It's like getting very close to zero gravity

Glow Graffiti - Paint With Light - With the Glow Graffiti powered with UV light you can write, stencil and draw rude pictures to create your very own glowing light show. Don't expect to find out where and when its available yet, but at least plan out your targets from now on :P

Sky TV screens the suicide of a 59 year old MN disease sufferer (video) - A terminally ill motor neurone disease sufferer at the Swiss clinic Dignitas, has his final moments filmed and shown on British Television. Airs at 9pm GMT+1 Sky Real Lives Channel 243, Wednesday December 10 2008. WARNING: Video shows the moments before death. What's your opinion on this?

Fire-Breathing Robo Dog Is Mad Max's AT-AT! (video) - Trying to find that gift for the hard to shop for tech-guy in your family? Get one of these! Made by London Mutoid Waste Company in four weeks, Larry is a walking robot made out of spare parts and a Citroen 2CV engine-an old popular car in Europe that probably nobody knows in the US

Dragonball Evolution Trailer - A new trailer for the live-action adaptation of popular anime/manga series 'Dragonball' (now titled 'Dragonball Evolution,' it seems) has hit the Internet. The film features Justin Chatwin as Goku, the hero of the film, as well as 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' alum James Marsters as the villain, Lord Piccolo. Dragonball Evolution is scheduled to hit theaters in April 2009.

New Terminator Salvation Trailer - I still have some serious reservations about Terminator Salvation... but damn this trailer looks good.

Hello, is it me you'r looking for? (pic) - Clever squirrel :-) What could be a better place to hide from the photographer?