Apple's next-gen iPad 3 is set to have a "massively upgraded" battery, but will cost Apple anywhere between 20 and 30% more per unit according to Cens.com. The new battery is reported to go into production early next year and has been designed to be both thinner and lighter with a longer service life than the current iPad 2. With the iPad 3 rumored to have a higher resolution screen, this would impact battery life. Apple would be smart to combat this with an upgraded battery.

The news site says:

Therefore, iPad 3 battery module will call for advanced technologies, selling for a higher price to benefit Simplo and Dynapack for sure, especially when the two companies have had their battery packs pass the IEEE 1625 test as the only two battery makers in Taiwan for the moment.

We knew they were coming soon, just not sure exactly when. Today marks the day the world's first 4TB capacity HDD hits the scene with Seagate beating its competitors out to the milestone. However, the it isn't in naked form at this time and comes as part of their GoFlex Desk external HDD family.

The official announcement from Seagate on the new unit doesn't go into specifics about the 4TB 3.5-inch drive itself, but we are presuming it uses a 4x1TB platter arrangement. As for specific features on the 4TB GoFlex Desk, it uses USB 3.0 for its connectivity and comes pre-loaded with software to assist in automatic, continuous data backup (with encryption) and the included adapter has an illuminited gauge that makes it quick and easy to look at the available space remaining on the drive.

Seagate is now shipping the USB 3.0 4TB GoFlex Desk with a price tag of $249 US. There's word of a Mac version on the way too, shipping later this month with FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 connectivity.

A little birdy has leaked out some specs on AMD's next generation Radeon HD 7000 series of graphics cards, though the information is most certainly still questionable at this stage with the lack of confirmation on any of it.

Codenamed Southern Islands, these next-gen chips will be 28nm (TSMC) based and as the chart above denotes, sitting at the top of the hill is the dual GPU wielding HD 7990. As per tid bits of info on the two Tahiti XT/Pro Cores the card will use, the max stream processor count is estimated to be around 4000 ALU, with the card featuring a TDP of >300W.

Head on over to the source link for a better idea of how the complete lineup is likely to shape up, with details on 8 known SKUs in the 7000 series shared. But remember, it's all potentially very loose information just at this point, so do remember to take it with a pinch of salt.

Originating from its own media database to confirm the source, MSI is taking a pretty vicious swipe at GIGABYTE for apparently giving somewhat misleading information to its buyers in the way of native PCI-E Gen 3 support on its motherboards.

Using a batch of freshly produced, detailed slides that are now being distributed about the web, MSI makes an effort to educate people on what a true PCI-E 3.0 board is all about and how to tell if a motherboard carries proper PCI-E 3.0, with its primary intent at this stage of the game to point out that GIGABYTE's boards are lacking in this respect and will not deliver quality PCI-E 3.0 connectivty.

MSI goes on to say in its slides that apart from GIGABYTE's G1.Sniper2, GIGABYTE's 40 odd motherboards with "Ready for Native PCIe Gen. 3" association are anything but and that GB is misleading its buyers to think otherwise.

This news certainly won't gel well for many of you at a time when we thought launch was imminent - AMD is once again choosing to delay the launch of its FX-Series desktop processors, now planned for release in October.

AMD's rescheduling for October is supposedly due to AMD wanting to make sure they hit all the right performance price-points with the first wave of models; thus they are said to be introducing seven models straight out the gate comprising four 8-core FX-8000 series chips, one 6-core FX-6000 series chip and two 4-core FX-4000 series chips.

Looking at a chart compiled by the folks at Xbit labs after gathering data from unknown sources, the initial line-up of models will include the FX-8150 (a 3.6GHz part), FX-8120 (3.1GHz - avail. in both 95 and 125W variants) and FX-8100 (2.8GHz) as far as octo-core models go. The six-core model to accompany them is the FX-6100 running at 3.3GHz, while the two quad-core models are the FX-4170 and FX-4100, running at 4.2GHz and 3.6GHz respectively.

ASUS has just released a new Micro-ATX sized Fusion motherboard to market of which they look to have put a solid amount of effort into. Based on the Fusion "Zacate" processor platform, the new E45M1-M PRO is in most ways similar to another in their existing Fusion line-up, the E35M1-M PRO, but this one's brains are that of the newer, faster E-450 dual-core APU.

The E-450 runs at a clock speed of 1.65GHz using two Bobcat architecture x86-64 cores with Radeon HD 6320 DX11 graphics (80 stream processors), and DDR3-1333MHz memory controller. The board itself runs measurements of 244 x 183 mm and gives a single PCI-E x16 slot, a PCI-E x1 slot and two legacy PCI slots for expansion possibilities.

ASUS has decked it with a 3-phase VRM and an EPU chip to help improve on energy efficiency. A couple DDR3 DIMM slots reside on the board and give a single channel config. The most eye catching feature is the large passive heatsink setup that manages to cover both the APU and Hudson M1 chipset. If you feel it's necessary, there is also the option of attaching a fan to it to help lower temps further.

Here's an innovative, yet simply executed piece of tech MSI has come up with for future graphics cards. Word has come out that MSI has been testing a new feature it's looking to help make its already kickass lineup of non-reference graphics cards stand out even more.

MSI calls it "Dust Removal Technology", which is obviously to help rid your card of a negative scenario that affects every card sooner or later - dust buildup, translating to heat buildup. MSI say that enough dust buildup can eventuate to a rise in temperatures by as much as 15c, and from personal experience I can say that's not an exaggeration. Their new founded technology is quite simple in principle really.

The way it works is by simply running the fans in an opposite rotation at 100% speed for the first 30 seconds of system startup. This would result in air being drawn from the heatsink itself and pushed back out through the intakes of the cooler. While it certainly wouldn't remove every single bit of dust from the heatsink, MSI say it does work to significantly reduce dust accumulation in those tough to clean areas.

With the ultrabook market really heating up of late, word of what ASUS has planned for this market segment by the second quarter of 2012 should ensure it's more lively again. We've seen a few pre-release Ultrabooks shown off lately from the likes of Acer, ASUS and Toshiba and they are already gathering quite a bit of attraction, but apparently ASUS will have some particularly aggressively priced Ultrabook models hit the scene in April 2012.

Digitimes reports that following the launch of 5 or 6 ultrabook models (11.6-inch and 13.3-inch variants) this coming October at tentative pricing starting at US$899 and going up, ASUS will then shift its focus onto Ivy Bridge and dish up ultrabooks based on this platform ranging from US$600-$900 for the entry-level segment; that is if ASUS' CEO Jerry Shen has his facts straight.

An Ivy Bridge powered ultra book for US$600? That oughta shake up the entire notebook market somewhat; certainly in the more entry/mid-range sectors where a similar amount of money to chunkier, heavier notebooks gets you a lighter, sleeker design without a performance or battery life trade-off.

While the wraps are still tightly sealed on the iPhone 5's complete official specs, many reports floating about combine to give a fair idea of what's on the cards with Apple's 5th gen smartphone.

There's still quite a bit of umm'ing and ahh'ing going on, but the folks over at Tech-Reviews help and draw a conclusion as to the most probable specs of the phone, basing their thoughts on the many reports and tid bits of info that have leaked in recent months.

As suspected for quite a while now, they believe the phone will use the new A5 dual-core CPU found in the iPad 2, a 3.7-inch display (but are hoping for a 4-inch using the latest Quantum Dot LED Technology), an 8MP camera, possibility (but not a probability) of 4G LTE support and NFC (Near field communication) Payment, a vaguely heard of, super convenient payment technology that simply requires the phone be waved in front of the counter in stores. They also acknolwedge reports that indicate Apple might be partnering with Paypal for NFC.

I'm sure all you Deus Ex: Human Revolution players (including me) hate the splash screens before the game loads up... Scaleform, Dolby Digital, AMD, but there's no way of disabling these screens from within the game. A modder who has done mods similar to the DX:HR one is responsible and it lets you mess with a bunch of settings. Here's what it can do:

Instantly spawn any items, like weapons, ammo, weapon mods, and consumables,

Instantly unlock any augmentations,