Thermaltake launches the Smart Series power supplies

Thermaltake has today announced no less than seven power supplies, three modular (450W, 550W, 650W) and four non-modular (430W, 530W, 730W, 730W) units which are part of the new, mainstream-focused Smart Series.

The modular models have an 80Plus Bronze certification (up to 88% efficiency) while the non-modular units are 80Plus rated (up to 86% efficiency) but all feature ATX 12V V2.3 compliance, active PFC, a single 12V rail, a quiet, 140mm fan, a MTBF of over 100,000 hours, and circuitry providing over current, over voltage, under voltage, over power, and short-circuit protection.

The Smart Series PSUs are backed by a three-year warranty and have already started to hit stores. For now, only the modular units are available, priced at about €50 (450W), €52 (550W) and €62 (650W).

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VIA develops Nano X2-equipped VE-900 mini-ITX board for media PCs

VIA Technologies has put its Nano X2 dual-core processor to good use by building around it a mini-ITX motherboard for compact media PCs. This board is called VE-900, it packs a 1.4 GHz CPU and makes use of the VX900 chipset.

VIA's new motherboard also features DirectX 9-supporting Chrome9 HD graphics, the ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine enabling 1080p video playback, 5.1 channel audio powered by the VT1708S HD audio codec, two DDR3 memory slots (up to 8GB of RAM can be added), two SATA ports, one PCI slot, Gigabit Ethernet, and both D-Sub and HDMI outputs.

According to VIA, the VE-900 board is already available.

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Verzo introduces the Kinzo 'community-driven' Android smartphone

The Czech-American team of Verzo Technology has now officially launched its very smartphone, a device called Kinzo which runs only Android 2.2 (Froyo) but is pre-loaded with a custom GUI (Verzo GUI) that's going to be improved based on customer feedback.

Seen below, Verzo's smartphone measures 131.6 x 72.3 x 12.3 mm, it weights 155 grams and has a 4.3-inch (800 x 480) TFT capacitive touchscreen, a 1 GHz OMAP 3630 processor, 512MB of RAM, a microSD slot (8GB card is included), a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a VGA front camera, 802.11 b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, an accelerometer, light and proximity sensors, a micro USB port, and a 1,530 mAh battery.The Kinzo costs $459 / €420 and is supposed to go on sale (via Verzo's website) today.

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Google grabs more of the US search market, Yahoo slips

The scores from comScore are in and they show that in October people in the US have conducted 20.3 billion search queries, up 5% compared to September. Out of those 20 billion searches, 13.4 billion were made via Google sites, enabling the Mountain View company to grab 66.2% of the market.

While Google grew sequentially (from 65.4% in September to 66.2%), Yahoo lost more ground, and secured a 16.3% piece, down from 17.2% in the previous month.

The third place in the search top was once again grabbed by Microsoft who had a 13.6% share (13.4% in September), while the fourth and fifth spots were secured by Ask (2.6%) and AOL (1.4%). Both Ask and AOL maintained their share from September.

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LG Nitro HD coming to AT&T, packs 720p screen, LTE

Just announced for the Canadian market, LG's P930 flagship Android smartphone has been revealed to be inbound for the US too, the plan being for AT&T to ship it, likely sometime this year, under the name Nitro HD.

LG's device runs Android 2.3 and can brag with 4G LTE and HSDPA support, a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, a 4.5-inch (1280 x 720) True HD IPS touchscreen, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, a front camera for video calls, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi Direct and DLNA support, and an 1,830 mAh battery.

No word yet on pricing.

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Nvidia Reports Higher Revenue, Profits For Q3 FY 2012

The third quarter of fiscal year 2012 has seen Santa Clara-based Nvidia Corp. make a revenue of $1.07 billion, up 4.9% sequentially and up 26.3% on-year, and a net income of $178.3 million, or $0.29 per diluted share, also up both on-quarter and on-year.

"Nvidia's strategy is coming into its own, as the world becomes increasingly visual and mobile," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive of NVIDIA. "Our GPU business accelerated in the third quarter, driven by strong demand from gamers and the professional market. And our mobile business benefited from new devices coming onto the market. With Tegra 3 phone wins well ahead of Tegra 2's pace, we're expecting strong growth in the year ahead."

Despite containing the winter holidays, the current quarter is not expected to break records, with Nvidia expecting revenue for the period to be plus or minus 2% compared to to Q3.

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Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet leaks, ships on November 16th

Wondering what Barnes & Noble has cooked up for its November 7th event? Well wonder no more cause the highlight of the announcement has been exposed, its a device called Nook Tablet which costs $249 and is supposed to offer 'the best in HD entertainment'. Resembling the Nook Color, B&N's upcoming tablet measures 8.1- x 5 x 0.48-inches, it weights 400 grams, and features a a 7-inch (1024 x 600) VividView IPS touchscreen, a 1.2 GHz OMAP4 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, a battery life of up to 8 hours, and support for a heap of file formats, including PDF, ePUB, DOC, TXT and PPT.The Nook Tablet will go on pre-order on November 7th and will start shipping on the 16th.
In addition to unveiling the Nook Tablet, next week Barnes & Noble will slash the price tag of the Nook Color (to $199) and will introduce the Nook Color Simple @ $99.

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Lenovo quietly rolls out the C225 all-in-one PC

Beside releasing the previously-announced 20-inch C325 Lenovo has this week launched another entry-level all-in-one PC in the US, one C225 which features an 18.5-inch (1366 x 768) LED-backlit display and is powered by AMD's E-450 (dual 1.6 GHz cores, Radeon 6310 graphics) APU. The C225 runs Windows 7 Home Premium (64bit) and also has 4/6GB of RAM, up to a 1TB hard drive, a DVD writer, a built-in 0.3-megapixel webcam, two 3W speakers, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, a 6-in-1 card reader, and both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 connectivity.Currently Lenovo is offering two C225 models, one priced at $499 that has 4GB of RAM and a 500GB HDD, and one which costs $699 and packs 6GB of RAM and a 1TB (7200 RPM) hard drive. Both are backed by a one-year warranty.

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Google+ added YouTube search/player, gets Chrome extensions

The Google+ push continued this week and saw Google's social project getting a solid dose of YouTube. Basically, Google+ now includes YouTube playlists in search results and allows users to search (via a built-in slider) and play content found on the uber-popular clip-sharing site.To get the YouTube ball rolling on Google+ people just have to click on an icon found in the top-right corner and enter a music genre or an artist. YouTube will then compile a playlist which can be enjoyed while checking out the latest things shared by friends. And speaking of sharing, you'll be able to open new playlists right from within posts made by your contacts.As for the Chrome extensions, one provides a +1 button that can be used on any webpage, while the other allows you to get Google+ notification within the browser, so you'll always be up-to-date with the latest posts. Still not convinced to joing Google+? Okey.

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MSI X79MA-GD45 micro ATX LGA2011 motherboard exposed

Just like its rivals Taiwanese manufacturer MSI has prepared multiple motherboards for the LGA2011 (Sandy Bridge E) platform, including a micro ATX model called X79MA-GD45 which should make for a solid base for a compact but powerful gaming PC.MSI's micro ATX model makes use of Military Class III components, and has four DDR3 slots, two SATA 6.0 Gbps and four SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, two PCI-Express x16 slots enabling SLI or CrossFireX multi-GPU setups, and voltage read points. Moreover, it packs four USB 3.0 ports (two on the back plate, two via header), 7.1 channel audio, Gigabit Ethernet, and a Clear CMOS button.The X79MA-GD45's price tag is still unknown but it will probably be under €200.

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