Plextor is gearing up to unveil its new high-performance M6 series of SSDs at the upcoming CEBIT 2014 conference being held next week in Hannover, Germany. Plextor's M6 line-up consist of several form factors of solid state drives including mSATA, M.2, PCIe, and 2.5-inch SATA drives, and the company says that attendees can check out the full lineup on March 10 - 14 in its showcases in the Business Center (Hall 15, Stand A18, Room 18) and at Planet Re-seller (Hall 15, Stand D21, Number 66).

Plextor will show off the new M6S 2.5-inch SSD which features new sustained sequential read / write speeds up to 520 MB/s and 440MB/s and random read / write speeds up to 94,000 and 80,000 IOPS. The M6S will also feature the latest generation of advanced 19nm Toggle NAND flash from Toshiba. The new M6M mSATA SSD will also be on display and features read/write speeds of 520 MB/s and 440MB/s, and random read/write speeds of 94,000 and 80,000 IOPS.

For those looking for extreme performance, the new M6E PCIe SSD will be on display as well. Plextor says that the M6E is the company's first native PCI express SSD solution to eliminate the performance bottleneck of SATA III. The M6e is capable of delivering sequential read / write speeds up to 770/625 MB/s and random read / write speeds of 105,000 / 100,000 IOPS. The M6e is automatically recognized as an AHCI device requiring no additional drivers. When used as a boot disk on a system with UEFI start-up times are cut in half.

If you have ever walked through the oil section in your local store, you have probably seen the yellow Pennzoil bottles sitting on shelves. Pennzoil is sponsoring what may be the coolest thing going on at SXSW 2014 in Austin. The oil company will be letting visitors race in real-world Mario Karts.

The event is called Mario Karting Reimagined and it is inspired by Mario Kart 8 and sponsored in part by Nintendo. Visitors to the show will be able to slip behind the wheel of a real Mario Kart and race around the track in competition with other users.

The karts will be able to run over Pennzoil logos on the track that will give their Kart special powers. You won't get to toss turtle shells at your opponents, but the power-ups will make the cart slower or faster. The racing action will be broadcast at SXSW on a big Jumbotron for everyone to see.

Fitness tracking devices are very popular today with a number of companies offering wearable devices to track your vitals. Many of these devices are wearables in the form a of a watch with embedded sensors. If you are the sort of person that doesn't like to wear watches, but you want to monitor your health Azoi has a case for your iPhone that might be perfect.

The case is called the Wello and it works with sensors to monitor your health functions and present them via an iPhone app. The case can measure your blood pressure, ECG, heart rate, blood oxygen, temperature, ling function, and more.

It appears that the smartphone case doesn't offer you statistics in real-time; you have to stop and hold the case for it to work. There are sensors embedded on the case that gather your data. The case also supports remote access allowing family members or others to keep an eye on your statistics.

Trying to keep PCs and devices safe from increasing numbers of cyberattacks hasn't been easy, with sophisticated malicious code targeting PCs.

Even with elevated malicious attacks in the wild, there are a few basic steps that can be done to boost defenses before something critical occurs.

The first step: "Make sure you have up-to-date Anti-Virus software - preferably not the freeware versions," said Bruce Campbell, IT outsourcing company Clare Computer Solutions, in a statement to TweakTown. "For home users, make sure you activate the Norton or McAfee that comes with the computer, and renew it every year."

One of the most prolific types of theft around the world today is the theft of smartphones. The reason is that smartphones are very common, worth a lot of money, and relatively easy to steal and resell. Authorities around the world are working with carriers in an effort to help curb theft.

The carriers are introducing methods that will make stolen or lost devices unusable for whoever has them. The hope is that by making it known that the smartphone a thief steals won't work the thefts will stop. Sprint has announced that it will begin adding all lost and stolen smartphones its customers report to an international stolen property database.

The database is called CheckMend and it will be open to carriers and police to use. The idea is that by listing all of the devices users buying a used phone can check to see if it has been reported stolen or lost. If the device shows up on the list Sprint won't activate the phone.

HTC has rolled out a new budget smartphone that aims at offering maximum value to the user. The smartphone is called the HTC Desire 310 and it will land in Taiwan next month. The smartphone promises seamless multitasking, video creation, and smooth web surfing for the entry-level users.

The phone has a 1.3GHz quad-core processor that promises enough power for smooth mobile gaming and other needs. The phone runs Android for the OS and has HTC BlinkFeed for the home screen. The phone supports an offline reading mode that lets the user save up to 120 articles when they are on Wi-Fi networks to read when networks aren't available.

The Desire 310 has a 4.5-inch screen with an unspecified resolution. Don't expect high resolution since this is a budget smartphone. The 301 also has a 5MP rear camera for shooting images and video. HTC is staying mum on pricing right now and there is no word on availability outside Taiwan.

Back in January, we mentioned that IBM had sold its low-end x86 server business to Lenovo. As part of the deal, Lenovo would get a facility in China where the servers were made and the staff working at that facility. It seems that the workers at the IBM International System Technology Company factory in Shenzhen aren't happy about the deal.

About 1000 workers at that factory have been on strike and the factory has stopped manufacturing for at least four days. One of the striking workers says that the strike will continue. The worker noted that so far the company had ignored the demands of the workers.

As you can guess, the strike has to do with money. The workers want better pay to move to Lenovo or they want better severance packages if they choose to leave the company. An IBM spokesperson says that the deals offered to these workers are on par with what they have now.

A Mexican website that was a source for information containing, news, discussion and point of view from many protestors about the new President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto at a wake of a controversy in December 1st 2012. The website 1dmx.org grew over the time.

When the protests' first anniversary was near, the website included information about organized campaign against a bill that was going to criminalize protest in Mexico and even made preparations to document the entire protests. However, but December 2nd 2013, the website was taken offline by its host 'GoDaddy' without any notice.

The U.S. based GoDaddy hosting company told the site owners that the site was suspended as it was a part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation. It was also revealed that the office who is in charge of the investigation was lead by Special Agent Homeland Security investigations, US embassy in Mexico City. It was also found that the contact email to this agency was from 'ice.dhs.gov' domain, which is used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement department.

Russia Today America anchor, Liz Wahl, resigned on air during her broadcast on Wednesday, stating that she could no longer work at the Kremlin-funded network after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Wahl said that she feels "many ethical and moral challenges," especially since her grandparents fled to the US during the Soviet era, "ironically to escape the Soviet Union". She continued: "Personally I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government which whitewashes the actions of Putin. I'm proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth, and that is why after this newscast I'm resigning".

RT America flew to defensive maneuvers, calling Wahl's on-air resignation a "self-promotional stunt". In a statement to BuzzFeed, RT America said:

Before confirming the order, a buyer found out that Dell was charging an amount to install a free and open source web browser 'Firefox'. It was found that the PC builder has an option to install Mozilla Firefox on behalf of the buyer for a new PC if the buyer agrees to pay £16.25. Dell even put this as an option to select in its 'additional software' pre-purchase custom options selection list.

The Mozilla Foundation has started investigating once they've received this report. The company behind Firefox said that they are consulting with legal teams, though the process is in a very early stage.

As of now, Dell did not make any comment.