I am a big fan of my iPad. I use it for reading mostly, but it's nice to know that the thing can play some cool games and surf the web when I want it to as well. A normal eReader can't do that. The iPad is mostly aluminum on the outside today, but future versions may be made from high tech carbon fiber that is generally found in high-end sports cars and racing vehicles.

A patent application has surfaced that shows Apple is considering carbon fiber for the frame of the iPad. The app is called "Reinforced Device Housing" and outlines a method that Apple would use for creating the carbon fiber housing in the form we are already familiar with. The outer shell for the iPad would be made from "layered fiber-in-matrix type material, such as CFRP."

CFRP is also known as carbon fiber-reinforced polymer. I would love to see a carbon fiber iPad myself. I would hope if Apple did move to carbon fiber they would leave the weave exposed. On the other hand, they could opt to go with the ugly dry carbon fiber that looks like a matte black backside of fiberglass to me. The application also states that to prevent any tendency to crack the case would have an internal frame made from carbon fiber as well.

I would bet all the readers of TweakTown are familiar with 3DMark. This benchmark has been around for a very long time and is used in our reviews of video cards and computers here and all around the web. Anytime a new version of 3DMark comes out, we all get excited and sit up to find out more. We already know most of the details of the new benchmark, but we now have the final pieces of the puzzle.

Futuremark has now revealed that the final version of 3DMark 11 will ship on November 30, which is only a few weeks away. The real-time 3D graphics benchmark will sell for $19.95 for the Advanced Edition. Along with new screen shots showing off some of the really cool looking benchmarks, Future Mark has also posted a number of videos to YouTube that show off the new GPU tests.

The video and screens show off the before and after tessellations, volumetric lighting, and other effects in DirectX 11 games and capable video cards. A new trailer shows the Deep Sea and High Temple scenes in a bit more detail. Along with the $19.95, Advanced Edition of the software will be a free Basic Edition as well. The Advanced version will have a lot more features and benchmarks added in and will have no advertisements. You can Pre-Order right now.

I am sure lots of the gamers and PC enthusiasts out there remember when we moved from the AGP slot over to the first PCIe slot. The performance improvement coming from an AGP video card to the PCIe cars was very impressive. Later the PCIe 2.0 slot came out with about twice the bandwidth of the original and again brought video cards that had more performance. Now there is a new specification for PCIe that is ready to be downloaded by PCI-SIG members.

The new specification is PCIe 3.0 is backwards compatible with PCIe and PCIe 2.0 devices so your old cards will work with the new spec once it starts showing up on the market. The 3.0 specification has a new 128b/130b encoding scheme and has a data transfer rate of 8GT/s. The original PCIe spec has 2.5GT/s and the PCIe 2.0 spec has 5GT/s transfer rates.

According to the PCI-SIG the 3.0 spec has bandwidth of about 1GB/s in one direction on an x1 slot and can scale up to 32GB/s on an x16 slot commonly used for graphics cards. More bandwidth should mean that the video cards could offer gamers more performance for their favorite games. The new spec also has a number of other enhancements.

I'm not really meant to post gaming news, but games like Deus Ex and Portal 2 are too big to not post... so I hope you enjoy reading it here at TweakTown! Valve have delayed the hotly anticipated physics nut busting Portal 2 by 4 months, but... they've spun it into something funny.

The news was from a press release titled "VALVE ANNOUNCES MAKING GAMES IS HARD". Now, obviously they've hit a brick wall and can't get it out any quicker, and because Portal guns don't exist in real life (yet) they can't just shoot their way out of this one.

Supposedly, the delay is due after an exhaustive ethics-review-panel-supervised release date restructuring process, indicating the follow-up to the "ground-breaking title that earned over 30 Game of the Year awards despite missing its original ship date" would not be ready in time.

Thought your 3DMark score was good enough? Well, don't read on further dear reader.

ASUS are proud to announce a new world record in Futuremark's 3DMark Vantage. Featuring ASUS' innovative hardware designs and the skill of top overclocker NickShih, the combination of the ROG Rampage III Extreme motherboard, Intel's Flagship 980X processor and Voltage Tweaked GTX580 in SLI broke the 70K barrier with a score of 71,167**. This world record continues to show why ASUS is the 1 choice for overclockers and gamers those looking for the absolute best in performance.

Using things found around the house (may or may not be true) he overclocked the ASUS GTX580's from their stock 782MHz clock speeds to a pretty insane 1099MHz using LN2 (the stuff that ripped the T1000 into little pieces in Terminator 2).

A new and expanded WePC community launched today and is open to anyone with a passion for technology, especially ASUS products with Intel Inside®. Building on its mission to bridge innovation and technology with consumers' needs, the new WePC.com has more ways for fans to present their ideas, interact with community members and drive product development for two of the world's leading technology brands.

As one of the first crowdsourcing communities, WePC.com empowered members to play an integral role in the PC design process of a number of cutting-edge technologies, such as intuitive touchscreen interfaces and kid-friendly netbooks. Last year at CeBIT, ASUS initiated the industry's first dual-panel concept notebooks, making intuitive control possible. The community also supported the direction for the development of future pad devices.

"We've experienced firsthand the power of our customers' creativity in helping us build ground-breaking products that address their unique needs," said Christine Yang, WePC community manager. "Our expanded community platform creates a 'technology playground' that gives consumers the chance to spark conversations and ideas for a wider range of technology offerings. Here, they can connect with us and each other in an engaging way."

I have a few friends that always want to go somewhere and sing karaoke. One of my hard and fast rules of life is that I don't dance and I don't sing in public. I will humiliate myself with some Rock Band at my house, but singing in front of drunken people at the local Mexican food restaurant isn't my idea of fun. If you like to sing karaoke and want a portable system that will let you belt out your favorite songs and can be used for meetings and more Samson has a new product for you.

The new product is called the Expedition 40iw Portable Pa system. It has an integrated iPod dock and a wireless microphone. This is the first system to feature a wireless mic with an integrated rechargeable battery from Samson. The system can be used for karaoke, meetings, pool parties or any other task where you need to be heard by a group.

The dock has 40W of power that comes from a class D amp and it has a 6-inch woofer inside. The woofer has a titanium dome compression driver and it has plugs for additional mics and instruments to be connected. The XP40iw is in Best Buy locations right now for $299.99.

I have tried out a bunch of different earphones over the years. I have grown to love the lightweight and compact ones the most. Heavy earphones tend to fall out of my ears when I am moving around a lot at the gym and it drives me crazy. The lightweight earphones are much more comfortable and stay in place with exertion much easier. A company called Lift Audio has pulled the covers off a new set of earphones that it clams is one of the smallest in the world.

Looking at the earphones, it's easy to see that Lift Audio is telling the truth. The tiny 6mm earphones have a case that is smaller in diameter than the ear tips on the Icon by default. The tiny 6mm drivers are encased in an aluminum alloy case that weighs only 1.6 ounces. The ear tips are made from silicone and are snug fitting. The Icon earphones ship with small, medium, and large ear tips.

The earphones are designed with a magnesium-enriched driver and use a strontium rare earth magnet to provide deep bass that is balanced. The earphones also promise a wide soundstage with smooth mids and crisp highs. You can pick up the Icon earphones on Amazon right now for $29.99, which is considerably less than the $80 MSRP for the earphones.

I will admit that I was excited at the prospect of OnLive when I first heard about it. Once I learned more about the system and realized that you had to pay monthly to access the OnLive network and still buy the video games, I wasn't nearly as interested in the service. I have tried OnLive and in my instance, it had some lag and the graphics weren't as good as some stand-alone games I have on my gaming PC, but it was certainly playable.

If you are a fan of OnLive, you can now pre-order the OnLive Game system that lets you hook OnLive to your TV in the living room and play some of the coolest games you can get on PCs and consoles from the comfort of your couch. The downside for gamers used to a PC is that you have to play using a gamepad that looks like the standard PS3 arrangement.

The OnLive Game System hardware is selling for $99 and includes a free game. The device will start shipping December 2. Another potential issue those thinking about guying need to consider is that the MicroConcole adapter has to be connected to a wired broadband connection. It doesn't support WiFi and for me a wired connection is nowhere near my TV where I would want the console. How speedy your web connection is will greatly affect your experience playing.

The most popular tablet on the market right now is the iPad. The popularity of the tablet had something to do with the fact that the machine was the only tablet around for a while. There are more and more tablets coming to the market each day and many of them will be running Android as an operating system just like the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The Galaxy Tab launched not too long ago and is one of the first major Android tablet offerings to land.

With more and more Android tablets coming to the market, analysts are expecting truly big things from Android in the tablet market. Research firm IMS Research as predicted that by 2011 Android tablets will have 15% of the overall tablet market globally. That percentage of the global tablet market will boom and by 2015, the research firm predicts Android tablets will hold 28% of the tablet market.

The iPad will continue to do very well though and the firm predicts at this time next year the iPad will have as much as 75% of the tablet market. Samsung has big hopes for the Galaxy Tab and expects to move several million units the first few months it is available. IMS predicts that Samsung will move about 4.19 million Galaxy Tabs in Q4 2010.

Over the last year or so Netflix has gone from something I would have never considered joining after experienced years ago with never getting the DVDs I wanted to see to something that I am very interested in trying. The change for me is completely due to the streaming offerings that Netflix has today. Netflix has done so well with its streaming offerings that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has stated previously that the company is a streaming firm that also ships DVDs.

Hastings was on hand at the Web 2.0 Summit and offered some insights into the values of mobile apps for Netflix and what affect those mobile apps have had on the bottom line at the company. Hastings said in a nutshell, that mobile apps for the iPhone and iPad have had a minimal effect on the bottom line for Netflix. Hastings went so far as to say people aren't interested in streaming long-form video to mobile devices.

He did point out that when Netflix launched on the PS3 and Xbox 360 it made a huge improvement in the number of users that Netflix boasted. I would think that some of the hesitation in steaming content on the iPhone and iPad comes from the fact that data plans have horrible limits and streaming one flick on a tiered plan could mean you are out of data from the month. Mobile companies and their data limits have killed the streaming market for mobile devices in my opinion.

ASRock has pulled the wraps off its new line of LGA1155 mainboards. The new line of boards runs the gamut from value up to enthusiast class boards. Enthusiast boards are based on the P67 chipset from Intel with value and mainstream boards using the H67 chipset. At the top of the new range is the P67 Extreme6 mainboard with six SATA 6Gb/s ports, and four external USB 3.0 ports with two more USB 3.0 ports inside. The board also has three PCIe x 16 slots and an 18-phase CPU VRM.

Under that board is the P67 Extreme4 with four SATA 6GB/s ports, four USB 3.0 ports, and the same triple PCIe graphics slots. Under those offerings are the P67 Pro and the P67 Pro 3 sporting two 6Gb/s ports, dual rear USB 3.0 ports and a single PCIe x16 slot and packing a 10-phase CPU VRM. That last feature is very good for the class of board.

Other new boards include the Intel H67 packing H67M GE-HT mainboard for high-end HTPC builds packing a 6-phase VRM, four DDR3 slots, and a FDI interface. The board also has four USB 3.0 ports and a lot more. A more stripped down H67M GE mainboard is also offered for the same crowd, but lacks the VRM heat sinks, internal USB 3.0 ports and a few other goodies. All of these boards should land alongside the new Intel Core processor line using the socket next year.

Microsoft brings controller-free entertainment to Australia today, with Kinect for Xbox 360 launching at retailers in time for Christmas.

Predicted to be one of the most significant consumer electronic product launches in history, Kinect's world first technology features a revolutionary sensor which allows full body play for the first time.

Instead of using a traditional controller and pressing buttons, the player's full body is captured by the Kinect sensor, enabling their movements and gestures to control the action.

Ready for a mobile revolution?? Lately we've been posting about the upcoming Cortex-A9 based Tegra 2 chips, but Qualcomm has been patiently waiting in the shadows to launch out and attack with a revolutionary new chip.

The MSM8260 and 8660 SoC's chips, they're based on current Qualcomm tech - integrating two Scorpion cores and an Adreno 205 GPU on a single 45nm die. The 8260 has HSPA+ support while the 8660 features HSPA+, CDMA2000 and 1xEV-DO Rev. B - both chips will run at 1.2GHz.

That's not all, the gem in this news is about the upcoming tech from Qualcomm - next-gen Snapdragon SoC's built on a 28nm process. The first one will be the Qualcomm MSM8960 SoC.

Twitter has become pretty big business 140 characters at a time, and they are now looking to be close to releasing an Analytics product that would allow users to see a ton of information about their account that has previously been kept officially behind the scenes except by use of some third party apps. The photo below gives a little bit of what could be expected from the new release:

There are already a few third-party companies like Twittalyzer and Tweetstats that offer up trend info like how many retweets you get, success of tweets, and tweets that cause people to "unfollow" you, but Twitter releasing a solution in house would most likely take a pretty good chunk out of their userbase. According to Mashable, Twitter execs have started to invite a small group of users to test drive their new Analytics product and it could hit the mainstream by the end of the year.

Been waiting for the 10.11 Catalyst release? Wait no longer!

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 10.11 Windows release include:

Performance Highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 10.11 release include:

I really like to play Rock Band with my kids and friends every now and again. The thing I hate about Rock Band though is that the controllers that go with the game to take up lots of space. I have two-guitar controller, the drums, mic, drumsticks and other stuff that I have to find a place to stash after we are done playing. That can be a challenge and typically I end up with the drums upstairs, the drum sticks under the bed, and guitar controllers other places.

If you have the same issue storing and finding all your Rock Band gear, LevelUp has a great new storage device specifically made for Rock Band hardware. The storage ottoman is called the Rock Band Storage ottoman and has enough space inside for you to store your unassembled drum kit, games, standard controllers, and a lot more. The lid has Velcro loops for holding two guitar controllers.

The drums store in the bottom of the ottoman and removable trays hold video games and game pads for the console there are even a couple pockets to hold the drumsticks. Those drumsticks are the things I can never seem to find. There are also other pockets for the mic and other items. The ottoman is made from hardwood and has faux leather cover. You can get the basic black version called Back in Black for $89.99 and the Skulls and Snakes version is $179.

When it comes to the flat panel TV market in the US one of the leading companies is Vizio. The company has been selling HDTVs for a much shorter time than other makers have, but it is one of the most popular brands in the country. This is due to the low prices and nice features the TVs offer consumers. One of the most popular lines of TV that Vizio offers is the XVT brand. Vizio has announced that it has added three new 3D TV models to the XVT series.

The three new models will offer 42", 47", and 55" screen sizes. The will also support Vizio Internet Apps and 1080p resolution. The sets all have multiple HDMI inputs, SRS TruSurround HD audio, and a 480Hz SPS refresh rate. The sets all also feature 802.11n WiFi for web connectivity and have LED backlighting.

The two larger screen models use TruLED tech with SmartDimming and the smaller screen has Razor LED technology. All of the 3D sets use Vizio active shutter glasses, which are sold separately. That is the big issue I have with 3D TVs today. Most come with no glasses and the glasses are $200 per pair typically making a family of four need to invest another $800 in glasses alone.

When the new iPod nano launched with its touchscreen and the face that could be a clock, there were geeks everywhere that had the same though. The new nano would make a really cool and geeky watch with the right case. So far, we have seen a number of watchbands for the nano surface and some were cooler than others were. Griffin has jumped into the game with a new nano watchband called the Slap.

My kids will recognize right away that this is one of those slap bracelets that they play with. The Slap from Griffin Technology is a silicon case with a flexible metal inside. Once you put your nano into the area that holds it all you have to do is slap the thing onto your wrist. The band will wrap around your wrist automatically making for a snug fit.

The case has a thin silicone band around the face. That band prevents you from rubbing the nano's screen on a surface as you move around. The thing offers no protection for the class from impacts that miss the case edges. The thing will launch soon for $24.99 each and will be offered in multiple colors for the user to choose from. The external controls are covered when the nano is in the band, but the touchscreen will function.

I am sure that we are all familiar with wireless headphones. Typically, we are talking about headphones that use Bluetooth or headphones that use special 2.4GHz dongles to connect to computers and other things from across the room. Elecom has unveiled a new set of Wireless headphones for the iPod shuffle that are far from what you would expect in wireless headphones.

The headset doesn't need wires, but it is not what you would expect to find. Rather than having Bluetooth gear or 2.4GHz wireless connectivity inside, the thing has a 3.5mm headphone jack on one of the earpieces of the headphones. Rather than having to run a wire from the headphones to the shuffle, the Elecom headphones - called the Actrail - have a headphone plug and the shuffle sticks to the side of the earpiece.

That in fact means no wires, but having a shuffle hanging off your headphones looks strange to me. The headphones appear to only function with the latest generation shuffle player. They use a behind the neck design which some will hate and others will love. The behind the neck style keeps your hair nice and neat. The headphones are offered in Japan only right now for about $50 per pair.