The german folks over at Hardware-Infos have managed to get a good scoop on NVIDIA's next dethroning weapon to the GTX 480; a mild leap forward to make it worthy of its GTX 485 SKU. NVIDIA's own chief developer Bill Dally was apparently the source for Hardware-Info's news about the card's existence, who says it will see light of day this fall.

Running quickly over the specs provided, the card looks to get mild increases in all the right areas; 512 CUDA processors (vs. 480 on the GTX 480), a 20MHz higher GPU clock speed and 40MHz higher Shader clock. Whilst the ROPs remain at 48 vs the GTX 480, there are four more texture units aboard the 485.

Perhaps one of the most praised enhancements to the 485 will be the supposed superior reference cooler going on this model, said to be more efficient and quieter of which anyone who's heard a stock 480 under load will definitely appreciate any efforts made to improve in this area.

It's time again for another ATi Catalyst Driver update. Version 10.6 is out and listing some minor bug fixes as well as OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0 as well as GPU acceleration of H.264 video in Flash 10.1. No gaming improvements were noted in the link, but give them a try and check it out for yourself! Download links at the Source link below.

List of improvements according to ATi:

New Windows Features

Blimey Charlie! Words that not all of you will understand. But let us just say when I just got word now of Lsdmeasap aka Ed, GIGABYTE volunteer tech support and all-round great guy from our forums, hitting a 2700MHz DDR3 memory speed, I got just a little excited. We all know this guy knows his motherboards inside out, but even I didn't know he was really into extreme overclocking.

Using a GIGABYTE X58A-UD7 motherboard and a Mushkin 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600MHz Blackline triple-channel kit, oh and of course some lovely cold dry ice, he managed to hit an incredible memory speed of 2700MHz DDR. This was with the memory set at a 2:16 ratio and the timings set at 9-12-11-31. And remember this is in triple-channel mode!

And you thought you had to buy G.SKILL, Corsair or OCZ RAM to get the big clocks. Welcome back Mushkin! Head on over to this forum thread for the full details and more impressive photos.

In the same fashion as the TRUE120, Thermalright is looking to bring out an all-black version of its latest air cooling monster, the Venomous X which hit the market earlier this year. Again, it's basically the same model of cooler, but is black nickel plated from head to toe and comes with mounting kits for both AMD and Intel platforms.

A quick run back over the Venomous X's attributes; this is a cooler measuring 127 x 63 x 160 mm with a weight of 755 grams. It uses an all-copper base that is mirror finished and makes use of six 6mm heatpipes. Both 120 and 140mm sized fans can be strapped onto this cooler with the use of the included sets of fan clips and Thermalright includes its Chill Factor III thermal paste.

Pricing hasn't been disclosed as yet, but if the TRUE120 Black is anything to go by, there will be a small premium for this all-black dressed Venomous X.

3D this, 3D that; as time goes by the push for 3DTV in the household looks to be cementing itself deeper and becoming a new standard. There are several early adopters already in the way of 3D-enabled displays and Blu-ray player updates. Even Sony is getting all serious about it with firmware updates for the PS3.

But how about Microsoft and its more beloved than ever Xbox 360 (thanks to a little known add-on called Kinect)? - Well, in Microsoft's opening press conference at E3 they made no mention of making 3D a standard feature on the 360 and were 100% focused on Kinect.

This is not to say they've turned a blind eye on 3D, but apparently their reasoning for not showing interest in it at this time is due to slow adoption rates. Microsoft don't feel 3D support would be demanded enough on a whole and would rather leave the decision up to game developers to implement it for their specific titles.

We just got done telling you about how Microsoft will begin selling its new and improved Xbox 360 later this week, but let's go over some of the Kinect for Xbox 360 details right now.

Kinect pronounced like 'konnect' will go on sale starting November 4th in the United States. It was interesting that Microsoft did not announce a price during its recently concluded E3 2010 press conference. That may suggest that a price has not yet been confirmed by the software giant.

What we can tell you about Kinect or as it was formerly known Project Natal is that it totally kicks ass. Using the Kinect sensor that includes not only three cameras (by the look of the below press image) and microphones, it is able to really change the way you think of gaming. You see all kinds of futuristic movies and see some cool (yet fake) technology and wonder how far we are away from reaching it. Well, I'd say around 5 months and we'll be there.

Toshiba has unveiled several new notebook computers today in the dynabook line. The machines all use Windows 7 and have LED backlit monitors. Most of the machines will launch this month. Among the new machines is the SpursEngine packing Qosmio V65. The machine has a special video engine for performance.

The V65 also has a Blu-ray player and can record to Blu-ray media. It uses a 15.6-inch screen and an Intel Core i5 CPU and has 500GB of storage. Toshiba has also unveiled the 16-inch Dynabook TX with a Core i5 CPU and Blu-ray.

Other notebook offerings include the Dynabook TV notebook with a 16-inch screen, Pentium P6000 processor, and a 500GB HDD. The Dynabook EX has a 15.6-inch screen and a Core i5 CPU. Other EX series machines use Core i3 and Celeron parts.

Dell has been talking up its Android powered Streak MID for a while now and admittedly, the device is pretty cool. Most users who buy a Streak will want to get their hands on some accessories as well. For these folks the official line of Streak accessories are now available.

Among the official accessories ranging from £24 to £54.99 are extra batteries for the device, a Car Dock kit, and an International Travel kit. The Car Dock Kit includes a windshield mount, DC lighter adapter, and a sync/charge cable.

The Travel Kit includes adapters to work in any outlet around the world. The Home AV dock kit is also offered with various cables for docking and charging the device. Dell is also offering a couple cases for the Stream and some of the bundle cables as separates.

Ever wonder what it would be like to roll up or fold your iPad and put it in your pocket? Scientists at Duke University are trying to make something like that possible in the future. The indium tin oxide that currently connects the pixels in flat panel TVs, solar cells, and screens could be replaced by copper nanowires that are less brittle, more efficient, and much cheaper to produce.

Copper is used to make a transparent and conductive film of nanowires grown in a water based solution and controlled by adding chemicals. Similar technology has been used to make lightweight and bendable batteries out of paper.

Benjamin Wiley, assistant professor of chemistry at Duke University, released a statement saying, "Imagine a foldable iPad. If we are going to have these ubiquitous electronics and solar cells, we need to use materials that are abundant in the earth's crust and don't take much energy to extract."

Foxconn has been in the news a lot lately after ten workers at one of its Chinese factories where Apple products are built have killed themselves this year. Some blame harsh working conditions at the plant for the suicides.

Foxconn has given the workers pay raises and opened its typically closed plants up to outside regulators and journalists to prove that working conditions are good. A new rumor is floating around that claims Foxconn is ready to close its Chinese operations and move the plants to other countries.

The rumor points to an unmanned facility in Taiwan and to plants in India. If the rumor proves to be true, as many as 800,000 workers in the Foxconn Chinese plant could be out of a job.