Microsoft: 46% Windows 7 installations are 64-bit

For the first time in history, 64-bit operating systems are gaining serious traction with the arrival of Windows 7. In a blog post today, Microsoft revealed that 46% of Windows 7 users are running a 64-bit version, which compares to only 11% of those on Vista and less than 1% on XP. Steam recently released stats showing an even higher adoption rate among its customers, with around two times more people running Windows 7 x64 than x86.

OEMs have finally embraced the architecture, with some converting their entire consumer lineups to 64-bit-only machines. NPD says that 77% of retail PCs sold in the US during April 2010 ran the updated architecture – but it's not just end users buying into 64-bit computing.

Gartner estimates that 75% of all businesses will ditch 32-bit systems by 2014, and Intel recently migrated to a 64-bit environment to take advantage of features such as support for more than 4GB of RAM and additional security benefits.

Netgear preps four-bay, six-bay ReadyNAS Ultra products

Netgear has announced a new range of NAS devices that supposedly mark the "beginning of the end of local storage" – a bold claim from the company's CEO, to be sure. Along with the features you might expect to find on networked storage, the ReadyNAS Ultra line can stream media to any TiVo device, DLNA-certified machine, and mobile devices including iPads, Blackberries, and Android devices via Orb technologies.

The series is comprised of two models, one with four bays and another with six. The Ultra 4 ships with dual 2TB hard drives and is priced at $899, while the Ultra 6 packs 6TB of storage for $1,349. Both carry a 1.66GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, and support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 6. Preorders should be open relatively soon with units set to ship mid-July. A two-bay system, presumably the Ultra 2, is due in October.

Dragon Age II available for preorder, coming March 2011

If you're dying to slay more Darkspawn and catch up with your party around a virtual campfire, then we're pleased to inform you that a new installment of Dragon Age is only eight months away. Along with opening preorders for Dragon Age II today, EA promised a trailer for August 17 and revealed plans to ship the new chapter on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 next March. Additionally, the next issue of Game Informer magazine (208) will feature an exclusive 10-page cover story of the title.

According to the official game page, players will embark upon an all-new adventure that spans an entire decade, where they'll be "forced to fight for survival in an ever-changing world" and "gather the deadliest of allies" – just like the first title. You can also expect an emphasis on character interaction, with decisions greatly affecting the world. There's also talk of updated combat mechanics, revamped graphics and a "new visual style."

AMD readies new six-core processor for late Q3

AMD is reportedly getting ready to launch its fourth hexacore desktop processor to the market. Although the existing Phenom II X6 1090T should remain its fastest Phenom II X6 offering until "at least" early 2011, word is that a new low-end model is set to arrive late this quarter. The 1045T will come clocked at 2.7GHz, 100MHz faster than the 1035T, featuring the same Thuban-based 45nm design and an optimized TDP rating of 95W (the six-core family originally debuted with 125W TDPs).

The new six-core part will be able to go as high as 3.2GHz when its Turbo Core dynamic overclocking technology kicks in. Otherwise, specs should look familiar to those of its predecessors with support for DDR3-1333 memory and a total 9MB of cache. As The Tech Report points out, the 2.6GHz Phenom II X6 1035T is currently confined to pre-built PCs from the likes of HP and Gateway. It's unclear if the 1045T will suffer the same fate or if it will be sold separately at retail.

As you might expect there was no mention of pricing. Currently, the top of the line 3.2GHz AMD Phenom II X6 1090T is available for just under $300 at Newegg while the 2.8GHz 1055T can be had for $200.

Pirate Bay hacked, millions of IP address, emails exposed

A team of Argentinian "security researchers" have gained access to The Pirate Bay's administration panel by using multiple SQL injections, leading to the exposure of over four million registered members' IP and email addresses, MD5-hashed passwords, as well as the number and name of torrents uploaded by users.

A hacker named Ch Russó and two of his associates pulled the stunt, temporarily gaining the ability to create, delete, or modify all user information. Fortunately for TPB, Russó and his friends claim they weren't out to cause damage and didn't make any changes to the site's data. They also haven't revealed any information to a third party.

The group considered hawking user information to anti-piracy organizations, but decided against it in favor of broadcasting a public service warning. "Probably these groups would be very interested in this information, but we are not [trying] to sell it. Instead we wanted to tell people that their information may not be so well protected," Russó said.

Before you're overwhelmed by a sense of goodwill, it's worth noting that Russó also released a video detailing the hack for anyone to replicate (originally here, but the URL now throws a 403). TPB was down for maintenance this morning and they've reportedly fixed the vulnerability used by Russó and his compadres. The site is currently back online.

Microsoft Xbox Live revenue estimated to top $1 billion

Microsoft's Xbox Live reportedly closed a record sales year for fiscal 2010, which ended June 30. According to estimates published by Bloomberg recently, the premium gaming service over this last year managed to break the $1 billion dollar mark collectively through subscriptions, movie and TV show sales, and other downloadable content.

Microsoft itself has been mum about specific sales figures, but the math seems about right: the financial news outfit simply multiplied the number of users Microsoft admits paid the annual Xbox Live fee -- about 12.5 million -- by the average price of $50 and came up with $625 million. They then took Xbox chief operating officer Dennis Durkin's remark at E3 that sales of downloadable content topped subscription revenue for the first time and you have a total upwards of $1.25 billion. By comparison, the company is estimated to have raked in $800 million a year earlier from Xbox Live.

With Microsoft making such a hefty sum from their hybrid subscriptions + virtual goods model it's no surprise rival Sony has taken notice and followed suit. Its PlayStation Network service has offered free multiplayer gaming to all console owners since the beginning, but at its E3 press conference last month, the company announced a new subscription plan dubbed PlayStation Plus offering premium content and services for a yearly $50 fee. Online revenue is crucial for both companies because sales of consoles themselves barely make up for the cost of building the hardware.

Bamboo-bodied Asus notebooks available for preorder

If you have a thing for wood-garnished electronics, you'll be pleased to know that Asus finally plans to open shipments on its long-anticipated bamboo-encased notebooks. Two of the company's bamboo notebooks – the U43F and U43JC – are now readily available for preorder via Best Buy, with an ETA of late July, early August. The first is priced at $950, while the second is $1,000.

The least expensive model features a 14-inch LED-backlit display, a 2.26GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 640GB of storage, and a DVD burner. Rather than rough it with Intel's integrated graphics, the pricier U43JC has a 1GB Nvidia GeForce 310M with Optimus technology. Although some people can get by without discrete graphics, for an extra $50 it seems silly not to opt for the U43JC.

Both units weigh about five pounds and have gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n, three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI-out, up to five hours of life, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

Gateway preps 11.6" LT32 netbook with AMD CPU, graphics

HP's not the only one showing the Althon Neo some love, with Gateway adding a new AMD-powered ultraportable to its growing roster of notebooks. The Acer subsidiary has announced its 11.6-inch LT32 netbook, which bears a striking resemblance to the Pavilion dm1z HP slipped out today.

It too packs a 1366x768 screen, a single-core Athlon Neo II K125, an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 IGP, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and the typical array of connectivity, including mobile broadband and HDMI for 1080p output – just as you'd expect from a so-called "ultra-mobile entertainment powerhouse."

The LT32 isn't all about consuming high-def media, though. It's at least partly aimed at Web socialites, with a function key providing quick access to social networking services like Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. It also has an "HD webcam" versus the dm1z's VGA camera, which could be useful for video-conferencing.

Gateway has priced the LT32 at $450, but the company has yet to disclose a ship date.

HP quietly intros AMD-based variant of Pavilion dm1

HP quietly welcomed a new AMD-based offshoot of the Paviliom dm1 to its online store today, which starts at $450 and scales beyond a grand depending on the configuration. The base Pavilion dm1z includes an 11.6-inch 1366x768 LED-backlit display, an Athlon II Neo K125 1.7GHz with Mobility Radeon HD 4225 integrated graphics (capable of 1080p playback), 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 320GB 7200RPM HDD, and Windows 7 Home Premium x64.

Optionally, you can outfit the system with a dual-core Athlon II Neo K325 or Turion II Neo K625, 3GB or 5GB of memory, up to a 500GB HDD or 128GB SSD, an external Blu-ray reader, Bluetooth, WWAN via Verizon, AT&T or Sprint, and Windows 7 Professional. Universal specs include a webcam, a mic, three USB 2.0 ports, VGA and HDMI output, a 5-in-1 card reader, Ethernet, 802.11n wireless, and a 6-cell battery offering 5 to 7 hours of battery life.

Hitachi unveils LifeStudio external storage solutions

Hitachi has unveiled a new range of external hard drives that do a little more than providing users with large storage capacities. Available in both desktop and mobile versions, the new LifeStudio drives come loaded with software from Cooliris to help users manage their "digital mess" by pulling together all of the videos, photos, music and documents it can find in local storage, as well as integrating photos from your Facebook, Flickr and Picasa accounts.

All of the media is then displayed on a "3D visual wall" that should make it easier to find and organize files. The software also allows users to access online TV from certain content providers, and can be set up to enable automatic backups. On top of all this, Hitachi is throwing in 3GB of online storage with every drive. This can be bumped to 250GB for $49 per year and all the content will be accessible from anywhere through a browser or iOS app -- on both free and paid versions.

Besides software there are also some unique aspects to the series design. The Mobile range comes in 250GB, 320GB and 500GB capacity points with a detachable 2.5-inch drive that fits comfortably into the cradle, while on the desktop side there are 500GB, 1TB and 2TB variants. There are 'Plus' models for the larger two capacities in each class, featuring a USB stick magnetically mounted on a docking station that can sync with the main drive to take your data on the road.

The USB stick is essentially a microSD reader and comes with a 4GB microSD card as its storage, but you can change this card to upgrade the storage to up to 32GB. Other than these features, the LifeStudio family comes pre-formatted using the FAT32 file system out of the box to fully support both PCs and Macs and connects to your system via a USB 2.0 interface -- there's no support for USB 3.0, eSATA or FireWire, unfortunately. Both the desktop and mobile solutions are available now ranging in price from $80 to $220, depending on features and storage capacity.

White PS3 Slim hits Japan in July, Move bundles announced

With the Xbox 360 recently going 'slim' and swapping its original white color to black, Sony has decided to do just the opposite and announced a white version of its console. The new PlayStation 3 hardware will be launched in Japan on July 29 and will bring with it an expansion in the hard drive sizes offered -- rather than 120GB and 250GB models, the PlayStation 3 Slim will be available with 160GB or 320GB capacities.

The 160GB hard drive model will cost approximately $340 while the larger, 320GB version which can also be ordered in black will cost $400. Sony has not yet announced any plans to update its product line with the larger hard drive sizes or new color option outside of Japan, but a worldwide launch is possible depending on public demand. The company also provided an updated list with Move's upcoming software lineup and hardware bundles for the motion-controller.

The official launch lineup is comprised of almost entirely Sony-published titles -- EyePet, Sports Champion, Beat Sketch, among others -- and will be followed by several third party games later in November, December and into 2011. Current owners of Resident Evil Gold Edition will also be able to upgrade to motion control support via a free update that's scheduled for release in mid September -- a pack with the game, camera and controller will also be available.

U.S. pricing for the PlayStation 3 Move has already been revealed to be $50 for the main controller and $30 for the accessory. The motion control peripheral will debut on September 19 stateside -- a month earlier than in Japan.

LG to launch Android-based tablet this year

Korean electronics company LG officially became part of the ever-growing Android clan earlier this year when they launched the TouchMax GW620 smartphone (available in the U.K.). Today, they've furthered their commitment with Google's mobile platform by announcing plans to release a digital media tablet built around it. According to Engadget, the company expects to have a product ready to ship in the fourth quarter of this year, unwilling to fall behind its fierce rival Samsung.

Unfortunately, there aren't yet any real details about the device just yet besides the fact that it will run Android. LG is also known to be working on a Windows 7 powered tablet. Dubbed UX10, the 10.1-inch device was shown off at Computex running on an Atom Z530 processor with 1GB of RAM. Other features included a 120GB hard drive, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, SD memory card slot, and HDMI output.

At that time Microsoft said the device would be maturing from prototype to general availability sometime soon, but now we're unsure if it suffered the same fate as the cancelled HP Slate. After all, Android is free, easy to integrate into a variety of hardware, and third-party app development for Google's mobile platform is thriving.

Samsung's new Q-series notebooks headed to the US

Previously announced for the UK, Samsung has confirmed that its three new Q-series notebooks, the 13.3-inch Q330, 14-inch Q430 and 15.6-inch Q530, will also reach international markets. All of the systems are geared toward multimedia playback and feature LED-backlit 1366x768 displays, Intel Core i3 and i5 processors (2.13GHz to 2.4GHz), up to 4GB of RAM, 320 to 500GB of storage, and Bluetooth 3.0.

Both the flagship 15.6-incher and mid-sized model are outfitted with an Nvidia GeForce GT 330M graphics chip and are mostly identical apart from size. The Q330 has 3GB of RAM, a GeForce 310M and appears to be the only one with Nvidia's Optimus graphics switching solution. Systems weigh between 1.97 and 2.39kg and they all have around 6 to 7 hours of plug-free usage.

Pricing is expected to start at £599 (the equivalent of about $900), and units should be in stock at some point this month. It seems Best Buy already has a version of the Q430 available for $800, although it features a GeForce 310M instead of the GT 330M that's mentioned in Samsung's press release.

Intel to revamp its CPU lineup, new 6-core part due mid-July

Intel is preparing to revamp its range of Core i processors with the launch of four new models over the next few weeks. According to DigiTimes, the chip giant will kick off its new introductions in mid-July with the hexa-core Core i7 970, priced at $885 in thousand-unit quantities, or about $115 less than the range-topping Core i7 980X. The new six core part will reportedly run at 3.2GHz and sport a total 12MB of L2 cache.

A Core i5 760 with two cores clocked at 2.9GHz will also be released, priced at $205, alongside a lower powered Core i5 870s with a selling price of $351. Finally, rounding off the revamp, Intel will deliver the Core i3 560 in August priced at $138 in thousand-unit quantities. Further models to be introduced in August include two Pentium and a Celeron processor, while the company will also be dropping its prices across several models.

Among the highlights for the cuts are the Core i3 540 and Core i3 530, which will drop to $117 in mid-July and mid-October, respectively, and the Core i7 950 which is rumored to be falling dramatically from $562 to $294 in August. That model runs at 3.06GHz and is part of Intel's high end LGA 1366 platform.

AMD to increase top Athlon II X2, X4 speeds by 100MHz

Fudzilla reports that AMD is preparing to offload two speedier dual and quad-core processors, one being Regor-based while the other is Propus-based.

The Athlon II X2 265 will boost the range's maximum frequency to 3.3GHz, with other specs remaining identical to the existing 3.2GHz X2 260, such as a 65W TDP. The 265 is expected to arrive in time for the back-to-school period, probably in August.

The second processor is an Athlon II X4 645, which comes in an AM3 package, supports DDR3 1333MHz, and has a clock frequency of 3.1GHz – a 100MHz boost over the current X4 640. It should stick with the same 95W envelope and is also due in the third quarter, although no specific month has been cited.

Although these are only minor improvements on existing products, AMD is preparing a larger rollout toward the end of this year and into 2011 which will include the long awaited CPU/GPU Fusion chips.

Apple iTunes accounts hacked, used to cheat ranking system

A rogue Vietnamese developer reportedly hacked into iTunes accounts and used them to purchase his book apps, thus artificially boosting their ratings and sales in Apple's App Store. Both The Next Web and Engadget covered the story over the weekend and noted that, at one point, the high volume of sales propelled Nguyen's apps to take over 40 of the top 50 book app slots in the store. According to The Next Web, up to $1400 has been spent on some users' accounts.

Apple has not officially responded to the problems, but Nguyen's apps have now disappeared from the App Store. We're not sure whether Apple decided to shut down the operation or the seller pulled the apps himself after the story blew up. Even more worrisome is the fact that this doesn't seem to be an isolated incident -- reports are now emerging about alleged "App Farms" in iTunes being used to scam users out of their money, including one developer who hands out around 45 games for free (many of them clones that only differ by the number of "points" they offer), and then uses in-game points purchases costing upwards of $150 to make their money.

With over 100 million active iTunes accounts to date this is a serious matter. It's unclear at this point how the hackers got their hands on the iTunes account passwords, whether by employing phishing scams or through a vulnerability in Apple's system. Either way, it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep an eye on your account for any suspicious activity and make sure you are using a strong password.