Today, at the Electronics Engineering Live! Conference and Expo in San Jose, CA, Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (NasdaqGS: SIMO), manufacturer of NAND flash controllers for solid state storage devices, will announce new additions to its Ferri portfolio with single-package Ferri-eMMCâ„¢ and ultra-high performance SATA 6Gb/s FerriSSD embedded memory solutions.

The Ferri-eMMC is available in two flavors, the SM667 for applications that require up to 30K P/E cycles and the SM661 for applications that do not require such high reliability. The new controllers are designed for a wide range of embedded applications and provide for more flexible PCB design and low-cost manufacturing. They are available in configurations ranging from 2GB to 32GB.

The new SATA 6Gb/s Ferri-SSD embedded memory series also has two models, the SM659 and SM619. Embedded DRAM extends the SSD life and delivers best-in-class performance of up to 80K random IOPs. These solutions leverage Silicon Motion technologies including PowerShield, DataPhoenix, Intelligent Scan DataRefresh, SSDLifeGuard health-monitoring, and remote firmware updates. They are available in 8GB to 64GB configurations.

Wal-Mart started its video game trade-in program where people can trade in their old game consoles, games, softwares and its accessories. The retail chain giant also launched a tool where you can find the worth of your gaming console hardware and software.

Wal-Mart displayed its in-store credits in its website. It does offer a cash option, but its less than what in-store credit offers.

Wal-Mart's trade-in program allows consumers to trade-in their gaming console stuff via in-store or via online. The company will be sending a shipping label for your goods that you've selected to trade-in.

Until now, backing up a disc that's purchased for personal use is considered illegal in the UK. However, the UK government recently revealed that the upcoming revision of the copyright law will address the issue.

The decision was made after making series of public consultations and inspection of the copyright legislation. For few years, the initial proposal were in its planning stages for few years. Now, the revised should be implemented by summer. By July, people can now make a backup of their disks for personal use.

The government did emphasize that giving access of those backups to others will remain illegal. You can store personal copies in any storage devices, or even use online storage. But its illegal to allow even your friends to access it.

Its been more than half a year since we first got a glimpse at the next-generation Kinect motion sensor from Microsoft. During its unveiling, no mention was made of a PC version. This left makers, and kinect enthusiast wondering if there would even be a PC version of the new Kinect.

Today Microsoft answered those questions by finally unveiling the PC version of the Kinect, and for the most part it is identical to its Xbox One counterpart. The differences lie in the way the Kinect connects to the PC, which is handled through a new connection hum. The hub is designed to connect the sensor to the PC via USB 3.0, as well as providing a place to plug in a power brick. Furthermore, the Xbox logo is gone, and the power button has the universal power logo on it. While the sensor is not yet available for purchase, Microsoft says that it is close to launch and will arrive soon.

Oh, you thought Oculus VR news was done for the week? Well, it just keeps on going, as the VR start up that will soon be operating under Facebook has just announced that it has Valve's Michael Abrash as its new Chief Scientist.

Abrash is one of the key components in the world of VR, as he worked his magic in the early days of gaming with id Software, on the Xbox, and much more. Recently, he has been working with Valve on its VR and AR research and technologies. The Oculus VR blog has a lengthy post talking about it, something you need to definitely read.

Virtual Reality gaming is one of the hottest topics in the tech world right now, and with both Sony and Oculus VR making massive announcements recently, it seems that the buzz is only getting louder. Today I ran across what could be the next VR company to to hit the big times and could give Oculus VR and Sony a run for their money.

True Player Gear is a six-year old company that is based out of Montreal, Canada, and has made some very stout claims about its VR Headset. The five-employee company has posted an image of its device on Reddit, and I have to admit that it looks very similar to an Oculus Rift DK1, but its hardware and features are said to be much greater. The True Player Gear Totem is said to feature a full 1080p OLED screen, two high-resolution cameras for position tracking and Augmented Reality, and a 3 axis 1kHz gyro, 3 axis 4kHz accel, 3 axis magnetometer to also aid in position tracking.

There is not much information on the company's website, but the device is said to be compatible with PlayStation, Xbox and PC, and can handle all 3D video formats. The list of supported engines is also quite nice, but Oculus also supports most of them. The company did mention on Reddit, that it will feature expansion ports for Makers to hack into, surround sound, and individual eye focusing. The company also said that it would be launching a Kickstarter later this year, so hopefully we will get clued in a little more on the project and product before then.

Facebook has devised ways to deliver internet to many parts of the world- using drones, satellites and even lasers. After announcing internet.org last year, Mark Zuckerberg hired a team of scientists for the purpose to improve internet access across the world.

The social networking company hired scientists who worked in organizations such as NASA, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory and Ascenta which developed solar powered drones.

Facebook isn't the only one to provide internet access in remote areas. Google started 'Project Link' in November 2013 which aims to provide fiber network for developing nations. It also announced its project codenamed 'Project Loon' which will use hot air balloons to provide internet access.

The last time we talked about Lenovo and a battery recall was back in 2009 when the notebook industry was in the midst of one of the biggest battery recalls ever. Lenovo has recently announced another battery recall that covers battery packs used in its notebook computers.

Lenovo says that the battery packs can overheat and pose a fire risk. Lenovo reports that it has received two notifications of battery packs overheating and resulting in damage to the battery pack, notebook, and nearby property. No injuries have been reported so far.

The recall covers 34,500 batteries in the US and an additional 2,900 batteries in Canada. Battery packs covered in the recall were sold separately and with the following notebooks: Edge 11, 13 and 14 series, the T410, T420, T510 and W510 series, and the X100e, X120e, X200, X201 and X201s.

If you are a PC gamer looking for something to play over the weekend, EA has a deal for you. EA is offering an older horror shooter game as a free download for a limited time. The game is called Dead Space.

There are three game in that franchise, and they have all been reasonably popular. I have played that original title in the franchise and it is defiantly creepy. You might want to play with the lights on, those skeleton spider things jump out at you and it's unmanly to scream like a little girl.

EA has the game as the On the House promotion on Origin right now. The game is free forever. That means you can download it now and keep it unlocked as long as you want. The game launched in 2008 and while it didn't set any sales records, it was popular enough.

Plextor, a developer of digital storage technology, announced the launch of the M6M mSATA SSD, a compact SSD for notebooks. For users looking to increase the performance of their laptops, Plextor claims the new M6M is capable of maximum random read/write speeds of 94K IOPS/80K IOPS and sequential read and write speeds of up to 520 MB/s and 440 MB/s.

According to Yaping Zheng, product manager at Plextor, "The M6M is all about real-world performance. We've optimized this compact SSD to deliver the best possible computing experience. We used the latest generation of components, then included a new version of True Speed for even smoother long-term operation, and focused on increasing the random speeds to give the fastest everyday operating performance".

Beyond performance improvements, the M6M includes several key features including better energy efficiency. When the notebook goes in sleep mode, the SSD reduces its power consumption to 2 mW to extend battery life, and can resume in 100 ms. Also, the M6M includes Plextor's exclusive True Protect technology which supports advanced data integrity checks and 256-bit AES full disk encryption.