First we had the new iPods. The shuffle got some more buttons and the nano was fundamentally overhauled with the removal of the click-wheel. The result is a device that's almost half the size and weight of its predecessor and is now controlled via the multi-touch screen.

The new iPod touch features a lot of Apple's best new components, including the retina display and the A4 SoC. The other big change is a front-facing camera allowing FaceTime video calls over Wi-Fi with other iOS 4.1 devices, but not the iPad until it gets a camera, which will surely be soon.

Version 10 of iTunes was announced, with the big new feature being Ping - yet another social network to allow you to share all your favourite songs, etc with your mates. Assuming, that is, they don't already know absolutely everything about your every waking thought and action already. Apple also introduced the ability to rent TV shows for 99 cents a time and movies for $4.99, note this is a rental-only thing, which leads us onto the final announcement.

Apple TV was the thing we were most curious about from this event, especially with there being so much activity in this field right now. What was announced was a physical shrink of the box to a fifth of the size of its predecessor and the availability of a bunch of movies and TV from ABC, Fox, Disney Channel and BBC America.

Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday displayed a die-shot of the forthcoming central processing unit (CPU) code-named Orochi, which is based on the Bulldozer micro-architecture and will be made using 32nm silicon-on-insulator process technology.

AMD Orochi is projected to be the company's next-generation high-end desktop microprocessors. The chip will feature eight processing engines, but since it is based on Bulldozer micro-architecture, those cores will be packed into four modules. Every module which will have two independent integer cores (that will share fetch, decode and L2 functionality) with dedicated schedulers, one floating point unit with two 128-bit FMAC pipes with one FP scheduler. The chip will have shared L3 cache, dual-channel DDR3 memory controller and will use HyperTransport 3.1 bus. The Orochi chips will use new AM3+ form-factor and will require brand new platforms.

Cary, NC, September 01, 2010 —  CARY, N.C. – September 1, 2010 – Epic Games, Inc. today announced its “Epic Citadel” App is now available from the App Store. The app showcases the technical capabilities of Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine 3 on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. In “Epic Citadel,” players navigate a fictional castle realm using simple controls and the innovative Multi-Touch user interface. “Epic Citadel” also features stunning visuals and special effects, with an environment inspired by “Project Sword,” Epic’s newest game.

“Project Sword” is the codename of the all-new action role-playing adventure game exclusively for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch developed by Epic’s critically acclaimed studio, Chair Entertainment, creators of the Xbox LIVE Arcade games of the year “Undertow” and “Shadow Complex.” Scheduled for release later this year, “Project Sword” will bring unrivaled visual fidelity and a highly accessible gameplay experience to the iOS platform.

Intel recently dropped the price of its quad-core Core i7-950 processors to US$294 from US$562 to defend from AMD's recent price cuts for its quad-core Athlon II X4 640 CPU from US$122 to US$99, according to sources from motherboard makers.

In addition to the price cut, Intel also recently released Core i3-560, Pentium E6800 and Celeron E3500 processors with prices at US$138, US$86 and US$53, respectively, the sources noted. All the prices are in thousand-unit tray quantities.

US
Current 1M Gold:  $7.99 3M Gold:  $19.99 12M Gold:  $49.99	Starting Nov 1, 2010 1M Gold:  $9.99 3M Gold:  $24.99 12M Gold:  $59.99
UK
Current 1M Gold:  4.99 GBP	Starting Nov 1, 2010 1M Gold:  5.99 GBP
Canada
Current 1M Gold:  $8.99 CAD	Starting Nov 1, 2010 1M Gold:  $9.99 CAD
Mexico
Current 12M Gold:  499 Pesos	Starting Nov 1, 2010 12M Gold:  599 Pesos

KFAR NETTER, Israel and SANTA CLARA, California – Aug. 30, 2010 – Today LucidLogix Technologies (Lucid) announced its arming video card manufacturers with the new Unity™ graphics board architecture for the HYDRALOGIX (previously known as HYDRA) engine.

Now graphics board vendors for the first time can combine a single HYDRALOGIX 200 real time distributed processor with any single NVIDIA or ATI GPU, creating an affordable, flexible multi-GPU ready graphics card that can make any motherboard a high performance gaming system.

I hate to say it, I really do, but the rumors are true. ATI is no more, AMD is retiring the brand name and will be marketing all the new cards they put out under the AMD Radeon logo as of today August 30th, 2010.

Simple enough idea, but it took me a few days before I could fully process the information. It just seemed too surreal, a world without ATI? No more red team? What will the cards be marketed as, AMD? So it'll be green team vs the green team? What about all my buddies at ATI? Fired? Relocated? Shuffled around and reorganized?

Most importantly, what about Ruby?

You play the role of an enslaved beast. One day, you decide to break free from your chains and seek escape. Thus the scene is set for a fairly average run 'n' jump scrolling game, albeit one with an extraordinary atmosphere. You begin in a forest, populated by numerous types of horrible creatures. You can punch, kick or jump over them. The game is initially a 2-way horizontally scrolling game, spread over a large plain. However, at both ends of the plain lies doors that lead to an underground cavern and a creepy castle. Both of these areas take the form of multi-directional scrolling labyrinths.

Sandy Bridge is a 32nm CPU with an on-die GPU. While Clarkdale/Arrandale have a 45nm GPU on package, Sandy Bridge moves the GPU transistors on die. Not only is the GPU on die but it shares the L3 cache of the CPU.

There are two different GPU configurations, referred to internally as 1 core or 2 cores. A single GPU core in this case refers to 6 EUs, Intel’s graphics processor equivalent (NVIDIA would call them CUDA cores). Sandy Bridge will be offered in configurations with 6 or 12 EUs.

While the numbers may not sound like much, the Sandy Bridge GPU is significantly redesigned compared to what’s out currently. Intel already announced a ~2x performance improvement compared to Clarkdale/Arrandale, and I can say that after testing Sandy Bridge Intel has been able to achieve at least that.