Sony's business-suited notebooks, VAIO S and VAIO Z, have received Intel's latest and greatest Ivy Bridge CPUs. Sony have also outed two new VAIO E models, VAIO E Series 15 and 17 join the 14P as part of Sony's entertainment line, but unlike the smaller 14P, they won't be receiving Intel's Ivy Bridge processors.

The VAIO S will arrive in 13.5- and 15.5-inch display options, sporting backlight keyboards and either an aluminum, magnesium or carbon fiber frame, depending on the model. The 15.5-inch model will be on of the 1080p IPS-based displays, but what the smaller display is made from is still shrouded in mystery.

VAIO S 13 buyers will have a few choices to make, between Core i5 and i7 processors, while the larger display system will come with an Intel Core i7-3612QM, 8GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GT640 LE GPU as well as integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000. The 15 will sport a 1TB HDD, whilst both systems will have the option of a solid-state drive. Both systems are expected to weigh in at less than 4.4 pounds.

Well, this came out of nowhere, but The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is about to cause quite a stir with carriers across the United States with their new plans. The report says that the latest move from Google, where they've offered their Galaxy Nexus for $399 unlocked is only the beginning of a new initiative.

The new plans will most likely be unfolded at Google I/O, where they're planning to partner up with a bunch of OEMs in roder to have up to five Pure Google devices available, all at once. All five of the devies will sport Google's next-generation Android 5.0 "Jelly Bean" operating system and will be sold directly from Google in unlocked form to end users in America, Europe and Asia. Wow.

This is huge, as it means you'll be able to buy a top-of-the-line Nexus handset directly from Google, and throw it onto a plan, only use it on Wi-Fi, or go pre-paid. Google is said to hoping to have the new Jelly Bean-powered devices on sale before Thanksgiving, right before the Black Friday and holiday sales. This would be perfect, and would combat Apple's next-gen iPhone quite well. The mobile space sure is getting interesting!

US Customs have stepped in and stopped some of the shipments of HTC's One X and EVO 4G LTE smartphones as a result of an earlier ITC order won by Apple. The ordeal is over a patent lawsuit for "data tapping" (context-sensitive text-based actions) in the browser and messaging apps on some HTC phones.

HTC have said that these features have been removed from the One X and EVO 4G LTE, where HTC are "confident" that it is in compliance with the ruling:

The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order. We believe we are in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with Customs to secure approval. The HTC One X and HTC Evo 4G LTE have been received enthusiastically by customers and we appreciate their patience as we work to get these products into their hands as soon as possible.

Have you ever had sensitive data that you didn't want to get into the wrong hands? Always marveled over those evil villain's bases which self-destruct? Well, RunCore has brought to market an SSD that self-destructs on command to permanently erase your data. You get the speed of an SSD with the cool features of an evil villain's lair.

In the video above, you can see an explanation of how the self-destruct function works along with the actual self-destruction happening. After the button is pressed, a puff of smoke comes out of the SSD due to how the self-destruction works. The NAND chips are over-volted so that they are physically destroyed.

A less subtle method is the physical destruction of your SSD by applying an over-current to the NAND flash memory and thereby physically destroying these. The RunCore InVincible product series is catering to embedded computer systems requiring high-speed serial switched fabric interconnects for rugged design implementation and more flexible power ranges. Delivering optimized storage options particularly in mission-critical fields such aerospace, defense and general industrial applications.

Another research firm has confirmed that Samsung is the top cell phone maker in the world. With 86.6 million handsets sold in the first quarter of 2012, Samsung has reclaimed the title from Apple. That 86.6 million sold is 25.9 percent higher than last year's first quarter and helped give Samsung a 20.7% share of the market.

Of the 86.6 million handsets sold last quarter, 38 million of them were smartphones. Samsung's 38 million smartphones account for more than 40% of Android phones in the world. That number is huge considering not a single other handset maker has captured more than 10% of the Android smartphone market.

Nokia was thrown out of the way as Samsung flew past. Nokia, now in second place, sold 83.2 million handsets, a decrease of 22.7% from last year's quarter. "Smartphone sales are becoming of paramount importance at a worldwide level," Gartner principal research analyst Anshul Gupta said in a statement. "For example, smartphone volumes contributed to approximately 43.9 per cent of overall sales for Samsung as opposed to 16 per cent for Nokia."

Is your current home wireless fast enough? No? Well, maybe you should pick up a new router based off of the technology that some researchers in Japan are working on. They have smashed the current record for transfer speed by double. Last November, chipmaker ROHM transferred data at 1.5Gb/s using a frequency of 300GHz.

The researchers have smashed that, however, by managing an incredible 3Gb/s. Unfortunately, due to the super high frequency, the farthest the data can travel before being affected by interference is about 10m, or 30ft for us Americans. The researchers managed this feat by using 542GHz radio waves which oscillate faster, hence can carry more data.

The technology required to operate in the terahertz region (300GHz-3THz) has always been too bulky and expensive to be of any value. It would have been near impossible to tuck inside a smartphone due to its size and power draw. This new work uses a 1mm^2 resonant tunnelling diode, or RTD, which significantly reduces the size and power requirements.

Chinese search company Baidu has whispered into the ears of TechCrunch that they have some big plans for the Baidu Cloud Smart Terminal system that runs their newly-announced phone. Baidu wants to push Baidu Cloud into all major mobile operating systems, including Windows Phone, iOS and Android.

According to a Baidu spokesperson, the company wants to eventually produce a Windows Phone with Baidu Cloud, as well as an iOS-based device. A Windows Phone I could see happening, but an iOS device? It would really require Apple's complete permission, and I just can't see this happening.

Baidu Cloud is a suite of apps tied into Baidu's storage, music and search offerings. The phone announced today, is a low-cost phone, dubbed Changhong H5018 and sports a 3.5-inch 480x320 touchscreen, 3G connectivity, and a 3-megapixel camera. It will be available for $158, which earns it the right to be dubbed a low-cost smartphone. Baidu Cloud runs on top of Android 2.3, and because Google gives Android partners much more freedom in adapting their OS, it gives Baidu the chance to start off on Android.

AllThingsD is reporting that with sources close to the situation, investors are being told that the IPO price range for Facebook is between $34 and $38 per share. This results in the highest valuation being over $100 billion, fully diluted.

Last month, the predictions per share were at around $31, in filings related to its pending acquisition of photo-sharing start-up, Instagram. Recent ranges have put the social networking site at between $28 and $34.

Other reports have put the price between $35 and $40, so $34-$38 per share doesn't seem out of the question. The higher price is an indication that some of the reports from last week saying there was weak investor interest... but they were obviously wrong. The official pricing for the IPO for Facebook will arrive on Thursday, with a public offering on Friday under the "FB" ticker symbol on the Nasdaq market.

Samsung's GALAXY S III is nearly here, and whilst the phone sports a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen, and an impressive 2,100 mAh battery, the battery life itself was questioned. But, GSM Arena have stepped in and thrown the quad-core smartphone through some tests, which are very surprising.

They started with 3G talk time, where the GALAXY S III beats out the iPhone 4S by a large margin, and also beats the HTC One V and S by just minutes. The iPhone 4S sports 7 hours and 41 minutes of 3G talk time, where the GALAXY S III smashes it with 10 hours and 20 minutes, impressive, Samsung. Next up we have web browsing.

During this test, the GALAXY S III only provides 5 hours and 17 minutes of web browsing, compared to the iPhone 4S' very impressive 6 hours and 56 minutes. I'm guessing this is down to the GALAXY S III's much larger screen. Video playback is something very important on smartphones these days, especially something with a 4.8-inch screen. How did the GALAXY S III go against the iPhone 4S?

The cloud, isn't it wonderful? NVIDIA have unveiled some of Kepler's cloud-based benefits during the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California today. NVIDIA has said that Fermi-based game servers, such as those run by Gaikai, only have one GPU per server, or 28 GPUs per rack. One GPU is dedicated to a game stream and consumes 150W of power.

NVIDIA's cloud solution, GeForce Grid, powered by Kepler GPUs allows four GPUs per server, or 84 per rack at 75W each. This results in huge power savings for server operators, and this should also be passed down to consumers, and gamers. NVIDIA has mentioned that it's possible for a streaming service to offer bundles of games for around $10 per month. To compare, OnLive offers roughly 200-plus titles, but not new releases, for $9.99 per month.

GeForce Grid isn't just more economical, it also reduces server-side latency by up to 30ms. With lag being a huge concern with existing server-based gaming services, GeForce Grid could really step up and be something quite amazing. NVIDIA puts this improvement of latency to its fast and concurrent game capture APIs, strategic geographic server placement, and better input lag on Smart TV Ethernet ports.