July 14 - 11:05pm EDT   As part of a sweeping update of its notebook line to Intel's new Centrino 2 mobile platform, Sony tonight unveiled what it says is the first media-centric notebook with a 16.4-inch, 16:9 ratio display. The VAIO FW replaces the FZ and uses its extra-wide 1600x900 resolution not just to play Blu-ray movies and other widescreen content without black bars but also to offer an ideal size mix: the image is closer to a 16:10 ratio 17-inch display but has the depth of a 15.4-inch notebook, rendering it easier to carry. It also more easily fits two documents side-by-side, the company argues. [full story]

July 14 - 4:45pm EDT   Taiwan's TUL Corporation today launched its PowerColor PCS HD4850 2GB graphics card, becoming the first company to offer home users a video card with as much memory. Part of the HD4800 series launched late last month, the PowerColor PCS HD4850's RV770 core chip is rated at 663MHz. The HD4850 card is also available in 512MB and 1GB GDDR3 memory sizes but it's the 2GB version that will allow the most room for textures and improve performance at higher resolutions, resulting in smooth, fast-moving graphics. The flagship card features a maximum memory bandwidth of 57.6GBps, further enhancing performance. All three cards will support 7.1-channel surround audio via a built-in ... [full story]

July 14 - 7:20am EDT   NVIDIA this morning confirmed its planned price cuts and today slashed the costs it dictates for GeForce GTX graphics cards. The top-end GeForce GTX 280 sees the steepest decline and drops from $649 to $499 for a typical 1GB card; the more mid-range GeForce GTX 260 also drops from its earlier $399 to $299 for an 896MB card. The prices should take effect almost immediately but may vary for non-standard cards from certain board makers. [full story]

July 3 - 4:10pm EDT   HP today became one of the first companies known to be shipping systems based on AMD's new Turion X2 Ultra processors and platform. The 14-inch Compaq 6535b and 15.4-inch Compaq 6735b are HP's flagships for workstations and pros and use the new architecture to support up to 8GB of DDR2 memory (with 64-bit operating systems) as well as give faster integrated graphics through the Mobility Radeon HD 3200. [full story]

July 3 - 2:50pm EDT   NVIDIA will soon cut prices for its GeForce GTX cards despite releasing the hardware less than three weeks ago, the company confirmed today. Although unwilling to provide specific details, company spokesmen Bryan Del Rizzo and Ken Brown say the company is "adjusting the prices" for the GTX 260 and 280 downwards from their respective $400 and $650 markers and should be more affordable by next week. The costs will vary by card manufacturer, many of whom produce overclocked or otherwise non-reference versions. [full story]

July 3 - 8:35am EDT   AMD is preparing a dual-chip version of its Radeon HD 4870 card within a matter of weeks, say board designers. The 4870 X2 would be a direct sequel to the 3870 X2 and would once again graft two high-end graphics processors on to one card with a similarly doubled amount of memory; the 4870 edition would be the first home card to carry 2GB of total memory. Past cards have also been underclocked slightly from the single-chip version to avoid overheating. [full story]

July 1 - 10:30am EDT   AMD is gearing up for the launch of a special Radeon HD 4800 card designed explicitly to push past the GeForce GTX 280 in sheer performance, according to a new leak. The unnamed hardware would use the extra energy headroom of the card along with a custom water cooling system to clock the card well above the company's best individual card, the 4870: the core would reach 950MHz or more, while the video memory would be pushed to a 1.2GHz actual speed. [full story]

June 30 - 11:15am EDT   After having left the market for several years, Lenovo today returned to home desktops and launched the IdeaCentre K210. The mini-tower is a parallel to the IdeaPad notebooks and borrows design elements from the portables, including face detection security when paired with a BrightEye add-on webcam that clips to most LCDs. The image recognition system also dynamically adjusts brightness based on proximity to the screen. [full story]

June 26 - 8:20am EDT   AMD finished off its latest round of graphics updates on Thursday with the introduction of the All-in-Wonder HD. The card blends both a modern (though unspecified) Radeon HD video card with a Theater 650 Pro tuner that lets it both play modern 3D games and other titles while also picking up HDTV through either over-the-air antenna and cable signals. Both software from AMD itself and Microsoft's Windows Media Center automatically recognize the tuner and can use it to play live shows and record them, turning the PC into a makeshift DVR; the AMD software can also convert captured videos into formats usable by iPods and other handhelds. [full story]

June 25 - 7:45am EDT   AMD this morning publicly rounded out its video card updates with the full launch of the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series. The launch supports earlier low-key announcements but marks the formal appearance of the higher-end Radeon HD 4870; the double-slot card is said to be twice as fast as an equivalent Radeon HD 3870 card and performs at about 1.2 teraflops per second, or enough floating-point math calculations to generate help generate AMD's purportedly near-realistic Cinema 2.0 experience with high detail, many objects, and camera-like focusing effects. [full story]

June 20 - 11:00am EDT   Preempting a formal introduction by AMD alone, both AMD and Diamond have publicly introduced the Radeon HD 4850. Both the reference video card and Diamond's own model are some of the few upper mid-range cards to fit in a single card slot while still outperforming more expensive cards: in benchmarks, the 4850 is known to roughly match the performance of the more expensive GeForce 9800 GTX and the dual-chip Radeon HD 3870 X2. A boost in the number of stream (pixel and vertex) processors from 320 to 480, plus a 625MHz core clock speed and 993MHz memory, is credited for much of the improvement. [full story]

June 17 - 8:35am EDT   AMD's next-generation video chipset will be capable of graphics that are movie-realistic, the company claimed today. A preview of the RV770 chipset, which is used both in the FireStream 9250 and should form the heart of the Radeon HD 4870, has been labeled Cinema 2.0 for its ability to recreate near-photorealistic footage in real time. The two teraflops of performance from two RV770 chips is enough to not only accurately model many very detailed objects in one scene, drawing them at a better-than-film 25-30 frames per second, but also to add many of the effects that are produced by a real camera, such as depth-of-field or motion blur. [full story]

June 15 - 9:00pm EDT   Dell's next new PC line should bridge the gap between the Inspiron and the high-end XPS line, says new leaked documents obtained by Engadget. The Inspiron Studio will visually mimic the XPS M1530 but add the customization options of the Inspiron 1525 line, extending from the multi-colored lid options to a new set of palmrest art prints designed by artist Mike Ming. The look is intended to take the Inspiron upscale while leaving the existing Inspiron lineup to budget systems. [full story]

June 12 - 5:00pm EDT   AMD made a late announcement on Thursday expanding its Radeon for Mac lineup. The ATI-branded Radeon HD 3870 for Mac & PC is AMD's first 3000-series card for Macs and also one of the first to explicitly support more than one platform: users can install the card now in either a Mac Pro tower or a Windows PC and swap it to the other platform later, including for Boot Camp. As a new-generation part, the new chipset has twice as much performance per watt as the outgoing Radeon HD 2900 XT, the company claims. [full story]

June 10 - 3:15pm EDT   Packard Bell today became the next system builder to update its line with newer platforms from AMD and Intel. The 13.3-inch EasyNote RS65 runs on a Centrino 2 chipset with an unspecified Core 2 Duo processor and joins the increasing ranks of ultraportables at its screen size, with a very thin and extremely stylized design; Packard Bell's signature circular trackpad sports hidden buttons while the rest of the system is backed by chrome trim and brushed black metal. Few other details are available beyond its use of a slot-load optical drive and HDMI video out. [full story]