Clarkdale platform detailed, Core i3 chip benchmarked

It appears that yet another unannounced Intel processor has trickled down to the hands of testers a bit early. Not long after posting their preview of a hexacore Gulftown CPU, Chinese site HKEPC brings us a slew of information about the upcoming mainstream desktop variants known as Clarkdale, and included some Core i3 benchmark numbers for good measure.

These will be the first processors from Intel to come with a graphics core built into the same package and are part of the Westmere family of chips – basically a 32nm die-shrink of the current 45nm Nehalem architecture. The article lists specs and pricing details for all Clarkdale parts scheduled to debut in the first quarter of 2010 – under the Core i3, Core i5 and Intel Pentium brands.

Featuring 2 cores and 4 threads with Hyper-threading enabled, no less than four Core i5 chips are planned for early next year, with clock speeds ranging from 3.2 to 3.46GHz and prices between $176 and $284. All of them feature 4MB of L3 cache and Turbo Boost support for some additional performance during peak processing. Moving on there will be two similarly outfitted Core i3 derivatives, clocked at 2.93 and 3.06GHz with prices of $123 and $143 respectively, but lacking Turbo Boost support. Lastly, an $87 Pentium G6950 should round things up with 2.8GHz clock speeds, a smaller 3MB of L3 cache and no Turbo Boost or Hyper-threading.

This seems to be consistent with roadmap information we posted last month. Mind you, Intel will also be offering Core i5 chips with the 45nm quad-core Lynnfield design – set to arrive in little over two weeks – so there is bound to be some confusion over which is what. You may take comfort in the fact that they both will be socket LGA 1156 compatible, but to make use of Clarkdale’s IGP you will need an H55 or H57-based motherboard with Intel FDI (Flexible Display Interface) support – as opposed to a P55-based board.

Corsair intros six DDR3 kits aimed at Lynnfield processors

With retailers prematurely shipping Intel's next generation processors, Corsair has introduced a few complementary memory kits - six to be precise. Designed for Intel's Core i5 750, i7 860, and i7 870 Lynnfield CPUs, the lineup consists of four 4GB kits which consist of two 2GB modules, and two 8GB kits comprised of four 2GB DIMMs.

Among the six pairs offered, four are in Corsair's XMS line, one is of the Dominator line, and the final is a Dominator GT kit. The modules come in an assorted spectrum of frequencies, four at 1600MHz and the other two are 1333MHz and 2000MHz respectively. Three of the kits, including the fastest, have a CAS latency of 8, with the remaining three at 9.

All of the modules operate at 1.65V or less, and the Dominator and Dominator GT offerings have DHX+ heatsinks, which are compatible with Corsair's liquid cooling system. The new lineup is available immediately, and is backed with Corsair's lifetime warranty.

Microsoft releases new Movie Maker

Microsoft has released their latest version of Windows Live Movie Maker. The new release has a simplified, more focused feature-set and excludes infrequently used tools. Users can upload videos directly to YouTube and Facebook, burn files straight to DVD, play videos on HDTVs, and save in a wide spectrum of resolutions, including 480i, 720i, 720p and 1080p.

Microsoft has polished the new Movie Maker's storyboard, allowing faster and easier edits than previous versions, and it now supports audio editing. Despite its improved offering, CNET has given the new Windows Live Movie Maker a "so-so" rating. They concluded that although it's decent for its price (free), it doesn't top Apple's iMovie, if you have the cash.

New versions of PS3 still lack PS2 compatibility

While it's too soon to proclaim the PS3 Slim a successful console, it has generated a lot of hype and positive feedback for Sony. Unfortunately, for fans of previous-generation games, it - like most prior PS3 models - will not feature PS2 backward compatibility. Of the seven PS3 flavors in circulation, the now-discontinued 20GB and 60GB models are the only two compatible with PS2 games. For those looking to buy new hardware, PS2 compatibility will remain a non-option in the foreseeable future.

Sony said that this feature will not be coming back, commenting to Ars Technica that it simply wasn't a strong selling point - contrary to the opinion of many. They may be right, considering the recent surge of PS3 pre-sales following the introduction of the Slim and a price drop. However, you might also keep in mind that the PS2 is still very popular, easy to obtain and relatively cheap.

Backward compatibility may not be a big concern for many PS3 owners because most likely have a PS2 anyway.

Use Windows 7 free for up to four months

It is a commonly-known fact that Microsoft allows would-be users of Windows to install and run the operating system on their machines for up 30 days without entering a product activation key. Things will be no different with its latest and greatest, Windows 7, but reports on Windows Secrets today reveal that it is possible to reset this trial period up to three times using a less-familiar command.

The procedure is really simple, too – just open a command prompt window, enter “slmgr -rearm” (minus the quotes) and reboot. The ‘trick’ will work with any version of Windows 7, from Basic to Ultimate, and has been confirmed to be completely legal by Microsoft. According to the company, the feature was also available in Vista and is aimed at corporate administrators who need to delay activation for whatever reason.

Retail customers should see no reason not to activate their copy of Windows 7. That said, if you happen to come across the release-to-manufacturing version, you should be able to use it legally and free for up to four months without entering an activation key.

Fujitsu unveils Celsius Ultra gaming rig

Last month Fujitsu made clear its intentions to compete in the high-end gaming segment, promising to craft the “fastest rig on the planet” and blurting out a bunch of vague marketing claims. Today, we have an actual name and official specs. Now calling it the fastest air-cooled gaming system around, Fujitsu has packed a 3.33GHz Intel Core i7-975 and a pair of souped-up GeForce GTX 295s running in SLI under the hood.

In addition, the new Celsius Ultra has been equipped with no less than 6 x 2GB DDR3-1333 memory modules, one 150GB Western Digital VelociRaptor HDD working at 10,000RPM and dual 1TB hard drives from Seagate, Creative Titanium X-Fi audio card, Blu-ray and DVD writer combo, and 64-bit Windows Vista Business. Lastly, the “German ultra clocking” thing apparently refers to a custom-made Fujitsu motherboard and tweaker-ready BIOS found exclusively on the Celsius Ultra.

The system is being shown off at Gamescon this week in Germany and is expected to become available for the equivalent of $5,685 when it launches in Europe sometime after the currently ongoing show.

Razer intros Naga, a 17-button MMO mouse

Razer introduced a 17-button mouse for massively multiplayer online games at the Gamescom expo today. Named Naga, the mouse has a twelve-digit keypad built into the left side of its shell - the perfect spot to keep your thumb busy. It connects via USB and features a 5600dpi 3.5G laser sensor, 1,000Hz ultrapolling / 1ms response time, a maximum tracking speed of 200 inches per second and Teflon feet.

To further expand the Naga's functionality, there are MMO-specific software add-ons, you can have unlimited character profiles, and you can stack commands on any given mouse button by defining a modifier key. For instance, by holding down a keyboard key, you can configure and execute several layers of commands with a single mouse button.

For the curious, the Razer Naga's dimensions in millimeters are 116L x 69W x 41.6H. The company says it will be available online "soon," and will be shipping worldwide for $80.

MySpace acquires iLike for estimated $20 million

MySpace announced today that it is buying social music service iLike for a rumored $20 million. The move is a part of News Corp's strategy to distinguish itself from competitors like Facebook by surrounding its social network with a music-oriented aura. Ironically, a significant portion of iLike's business is with Facebook and other social sites.

MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta said in a conference call that the company would apply iLike's discovery and sharing technology to all online media, including other entertainment and games. Van Natta believes other social networks will be thrilled that MySpace is "making iLike an even richer environment." He added that the acquisition will not affect iLike's 55 million users, and iLike's staff will continue to operate autonomously.

The team behind the music service is equally as enthusiastic about the deal, calling it a "humbling moment."

YouTube's lineup expands after deal with Time Warner

As Google searches for more ways to turn YouTube into a revenue-generating venture, the site itself has continued to evolve. This week, the company announced that they’ll be expanding their content following a deal with Time Warner to include shows from a variety of their networks. On a clip basis, YouTube will be hosting “sanctioned” bits from CNN, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, which contain much of Time Warner's most popular lineup.

The deal will further help sate advertisers who are mostly stuck with user-submitted content, suffering from numerous issues ranging from unprofessional production to potential copyright violations. Although this may be seen as an overall successful move for keeping the site alive, there's something they might be missing here. YouTube was built and still primarily thrives on videos uploaded (legally or otherwise) by individual and unpaid users.

There's no reason why this deal would curb that – users certainly aren't going to stop uploading – but it might begin to dilute the site's content. Could it be an indication of a shift towards professional videos as opposed to user-created ones? If Google's motivation is purely profit-driven, professional content certainly has more potential to bring in cash.

The first Pirate Bay clone is now online

News broke on Monday that a member of The Pirate Bay community made a copy of the site and its 873,671-strong torrent file database. The renegade reportedly created the backup in case The Pirate Bay's new owners disappointed the community.

He posted the 21.3GB torrent for the masses to consume, and they responded quickly. An untold number of people now have their hands on a copy of The Pirate Bay, and at the time of writing, the file had 833 seeders and 1,412 leechers.

Word has come that the first working clone of the site is now online at BTArena.net. TorrentFreak spoke with Alex, a man involved with the clone who informed them that everything except the search function was operational. The search kinks have since been ironed out, but the function has been disabled due to high server load. It was only a matter of time before the first backup went live, but how many more will follow and how long before they surface?

Nvidia to deliver LGA 1156 chipset

In addition to showing three new mobile chipsets, Nvidia may be baking some chips for Intel's coming Lynnfield platform. The GPU-maker fell off the chipset grid amidst 1366 licensing friction with Intel, and has yet to enter this high-end enthusiast segment.

In February, the two began a spat over whether or not Nvidia's chipset license covered processors with integrated memory controllers – like the Nehalem-based Core i series. As far as we know, there have been no significant advances on that front. Intel has remained the sole provider of chipsets for LGA 1366, but peculiarly, Nvidia has plans to introduce an LGA 1156 chipset in the first quarter of next year.

It's unclear how this is possible, considering Intel's new Lynnfield chips will also have an integrated memory controller - again, the source of their 1366 dispute. Some are also surprised by the alleged move seeing as Nvidia recently licensed its SLI technology for use on select Intel P55-based motherboards.

Codenamed MCP99, Nvidia's chip will most likely target budget and mid-range users, and pack an integrated graphics circuit with a dedicated 64-bit memory bus, in addition to the 128-bit memory controller bus. A batch of Intel's 1156 chipsets will ship with a graphics solution as well, but it is unknown whether it will match Nvidia's offer. Nvidia is also working on two LGA 775 chipsets, MCP85 and MCP89, which are outfitted similarly to MCP99.

Intel's Lynnfield chips debut early in Taipei

Intel's long-awaited mainstream variants to the Nehalem micro architecture are meant to officially arrive this September under the Core i5 and Core i7 brands. However, in a rare case of Intel losing control over its distribution channel, it appears some of these processors along with P55-based motherboards are already available in Taipei’s well-known Guang Hua computer market.

Intel initially declined to comment on early sales of the chips, but has recently revealed to PC World that it is looking into the matter. The chips in question include the 2.66GHz Core i5 750, 2.83GHz Core i7 860 and the 2.93GHz Core i7 870. All three are socket 1156-compatible, feature 8MB of L3 Cache, a TDP of 95 watts, support Turbo Boost, dual-channel DDR3 memory, and (except for the lowest-end model) Hyper-threading.

Prices are pretty much in line with previous rumors at about $207, $303 and $576 respectively. On the motherboard front, P55-based products from Gigabyte range anywhere from $165 to $280, with MSI selling P55 boards priced from $150 to $245 and Asus from $166 to $282 depending on features.

Facebook sued over terms of service changes

If you think it's hard to keep just a small handful of people happy, imagine the monumental work behind keeping 250 million people happy. That's one of the tasks that huge social networking sites face on a daily basis, balancing the needs of tens or hundreds of millions of opinions all at once. Facebook has apparently failed in this, to the point that some users have decided to sue. It doesn't take much thought to stumble upon the reason why: Privacy.

With millions of people dumping very personal information onto the site, it seems many of them have an expectation as to who truly owns this. Due to recent changes to their privacy policy, Facebook seems to be taking the position that anything submitted to their site becomes their own property – a stance that has users in an uproar and has resulted in at least five people filing suit against the service.

Facebook denies the claims and plans to defend themselves against the accusations. The fight itself may not boil down to the wording in Facebook's terms, but rather the process involved in changing it. Part of the suit relies on a claim that Facebook doesn't notify (or notify properly) of changes to the ToS. Though just another suit among many, this is another example of the continuing struggle between users and service providers, battling over who truly owns what.

Gmail to surpass Hotmail in seven months

Gmail launched as an invitation-only beta in 2004 and has grown a steady following since its release to the general public in 2007. Now, Google's web-based mail service has taken AOL's spot at number three for the most popular online email service and is showing no signs of slowing down. It is poised to overtake Hotmail - which has been around for over a decade.

According to ComScore, Gmail's monthly US visitors swelled from 25.3 million in July 2008 to 36.9 million in July 2009. Other Google services have also experienced a spurt, growing at a 46% rate this year compared to 39% in 2008 - its competitors haven't been as fortunate, though. AOL's monthly visitors have declined from 45.1 million to 36.4 million in the same period.

If Gmail's growth trend continues, the service will trump Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail in about seven months. Hotmail currently caters to about 47.1 million visitors - a number that has remained flat in recent years. The service lost 4% of its total visitors between September 2007 and September 2008, and grew by 3% between July 2008 and 2009.

Yahoo Mail is the leading free web-based mail service, and has seen positive figures of late. Y! Mail grew by 11% in 2008, and 22% between 2008 and 2009. InformationWeek noted that the release of Windows 7 may renew interest in Microsoft services, and that Google has been encouraging businesses to start using Google Apps.

Nvidia details Tegra chip inside Zune HD

Microsoft has already more or less disclosed every aspect of its next-generation portable media player; from price to feature set and the hardware inside. However, Nvidia has recently shed some additional light on the Tegra processor that will form the brains of Microsoft’s Zune HD, detailing exactly what we should expect next month when the device launches.

The graphics firm’s Tegra product family consists of two main lines: the high-end Tegra 600 series, which Nvidia is aiming at smartbooks and mobile Internet devices (MIDs), and the APX series geared towards phones and portable multimedia players. The Zune HD will be using the top-end offering in the APX range, the APX2600, which is comprised of eight independent processors. These are the HD video decoder, HD video encoder, 2D engine, imaging, GPU, audio, and two ARM cores.

Each of them can be powered on or off as needed; for instance, if you're listening to an MP3, the audio block will be powered on while the rest of the blocks are asleep to save power. On paper, this will supposedly translate to up to 33 hours of music and 8.5 hours of video use, with Wi-Fi turned off. Battery life specs are rarely a match for reality, though, so we’ll have to wait for real world benchmarks on this.

Real 2D and 3D performance also remains to be measured. Many are excited about games, so whatever Microsoft and Nvidia are able to deliver on this front might be crucial for the device and chip’s success. You can check out some additional specs, including video and audio formats supported here.

Get Windows 7 copy for FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Be quick here you have an opportunity to snag a copy of Microsoft's upcoming operating system free of charge.

The company is hosting The New Efficiency launch events across 25 US cities between September 28 and November 9 of this year for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Exchange 2010. Attendees will receive a free copy of Windows 7 Professional. Granted, that doesn't consider travel costs but registration and entry to the event is absolutely free.

Have a look at the event dates, times and locations at Ars Technica.

AMD shows off DirectX 11 GPU at QuakeCon

Moving one step closer to release, AMD’s graphics unit showed off some DirectX 11 hardware at QuakeCon 2009 last week. The sneak preview involved a look at the demo for the upcoming Wolfenstein title, which uses just DirectX 9 so there was really not much new to highlight in terms of performance or functionality, but also included some tech demos showcasing new DirectX 11 features.

He also posted several pics from the demos, describing three different rendering modes and noting how turning on some advanced texture-based shadowing effects like High Definition Ambient Occlusion (HDAO) takes a significant toll on gaming performance – but can be offset by enabling DX11’s compute shader.

Verbatim new InSight USB drives.

Verbatim, a name we mostly come across when looking for blank DVDs, has announced its new line of InSight portable USB hard drives. The storage devices are diminutive , are being billed as "sleek" and "durable" with their fetching "piano black" finish , and are available in capacities of 320GB or 500GB. But the attention grabber here is the Always On display, which is -- you guessed it -- always on, displaying the drive name and available free space, even when disconnected from the computer. Available now for $119.99 for the 320GB or $149.99 for the 500GB.

Logitech's launches $300 G27 racing wheel.

Eager to get back on the track, but not so eager to ease up on the sauce? Fret not, our continually inebriated friends, as Logitech has just the answer for your awfully depressing road woes. The long-awaited successor to the original G25 racing wheel is finally on the scenes, as the G27 brings along real metal, real leather and a real taste of driving that can likely only be mimicked whilst seated in some sort of $30k+ sportster. The wheel is designed to function with Sony's PS2 and PS3 as well as Windows-based PCs, and aside from the built-in force feedback mechanism, you'll also find a pair of stainless steel shifter paddles, RPM / shift indicator lights and a clutch that fully supports heel-and-toe downshifting. It wil retail at $299.99 come September.

Valve's games to be dirt cheap this weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!

Valve are saying "to hell with third party Steam sales" this weekend, as their digital download store plays host to an in-house firesale, with Half-Life, Counter-Strike and Team Fortress products all going for a song.

All standalone Half-Life titles (including Team Fortress Classic) are a whopping 66% off, meaning you can buy all seven of them for just $17. Or, if you want to be selective, Half-Life will cost you $3.40, Half-Life 2, $6.80.

Also on sale is the "Valve Complete Pack", which bundles *deep breath* Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, Deathmatch Classic, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Ricochet, Half-Life, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Portal, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead.

You can get that pack for $90.