Nintendo ruled the roost for the first couple years of the Wii's availability in the gaming console market. Recently the demand for the console has slipped greatly leading to some rough quarters for Nintendo.

Rumors are circulating that Nintendo and Intel are in talks for a Larrabee CPU with graphics built-in to power a new Nintendo console. Exactly what console it could be is unknown. We do know that Nintendo trademarked the Zii moniker and many expect a Wii HD to hit this year.

It seems that Intel could possibly be powering the graphics and CPU for the new console. Some expect that the next Nintendo console may not hit until 2011. With profits falling I expect to see new Nintendo hardware sooner rather than later.

In what seems to be a flashback to the Lynnfield/P55 launch we now hear that H57 boards from at least one manufacturer are showing up for sale in the Taipei computer market. The culprit this time is the Asus P7H57D-V EVO, the problem? Well the launch for this and the CPUs that support it are not until sometime in January.

What does this mean for Clarkdale and the new H5x chipsets? Well it can go one of two ways really. The first is the worse of the two scenarios as we start seeing Clarkdale Core i5 CPUs hitting the shelves in the same stores in Taipei. At the time of this writing that is not the case. The other is one where the boards hang out and are picked up by those wanting to get an early start on Clarkdale Core i5 and i3 CPUs.

But no matter which way it goes the Asus H57 board is a little higher priced that it should be. It runs for about $240. This is more than many P55 boards will run, but I suppose they are banking on the IGP on the CPU to make the cost seem more logical. The issue still remains that we do not yet know if the IGP on Clarkdale is worth the extra money or not.

This past week rumors have been circulating around the good ole Internet that DFI is quitting the enthuaist and retail motherboard business.

We have heard plenty of rumors on the story that both claim that DFI is quitting and ones saying that DFI isn't quitting the business. I'll put it out in the open that we had it from a reliable source last night over an IM chat that DFI is indeed quitting from January 2010, but is trying to kills the rumors as it still wants to sell the rest of its stock and use the parts its ordered from the likes of Intel and Foxconn.

To be honest, I don't know what to believe. However, we just received an email from Alex Cheng at DFI reiterating that no such decision has been made for DFI to quit the business. Here is what we got from Alex:

Cooler Master is at it again, as they are gearing up to launch another wide bodied case. This time they are going to throw in a PSU for your enjoyment. The case will be named USP 100, this stands for Universal System P100. While not the most inspired name, it does not reduce what looks like an excellent case.

The USP 100 is a little over 8.4-inches; this give plenty of room for larger air cooling gear. It also allows for extra space to make cable management easier. In fact CM has left about a half inch between the motherboard tray and the case cover. The USP (as we mentioned above) comes with a PSU, this is going to be Extreme Power Plus 550. The rest of the specs are nice and include four-5.25 inch drive bays, and seven-3.25 inch bays. All of these are the typical tool less design. The USP comes with a single 120mm fan that is lit with a RED LED, but has room for three additional 80mm fans.

The USP 100 should retail at around $100, which is a great price for a case and a PSU. We will see the USP 100 hit the stores sometime in Q1 2010.

The folks over at Netbooknews.de have managed to get hold of a bunch of snaps of ASUS' highly anticipated upcoming 1005P series Eee PCs which recently appeared on etailers websites in the UK and Europe.

Whilst we see black and white versions here, there's also supposedly a blue variant coming to market under this new family as well.

The most exciting aspect of the 1005P Eee PCs is that they run Intel's next-gen Atom N450 (Pineview) processor. There will be two slightly differing models in the new family, as per the following (translated) specs :-

In its final set for 2009, AMD has just released the Catalyst 9.12 drivers for XP, Vista and W7 in both 32 and 64-bit flavours.

Catalyst 9.12 brings support for DirectCompute 10.1 using Radeon 4700/4800 series cards in both single and Crossfire configurations as well as OpenGL 3.2 extension support across the full range of cards going back to the HD 2000 series.

Only a couple applications are mentioned as far as performance improvements go. These include :-

Looks like the ION2 chipset for Intel's Atom may be delayed. Originally it was supposed to hit the streets before the end of 2009, but now we hear rumors that it will not hit until sometime late in Q1 2010. Why the delay? Well, due to the delayed acceptance of the original ION, OEMs are reluctant to see ION 2 come out as it would cut into sales of the devices they are currently selling. This if true is sort of underhanded but not unexpected. Still I hope this is not the real reason as it would not look good for NV. After all holding back improved products to make a few more dollars on existing ones is sort of anti-consumer now isn't it?

So this means that we wont see ION 2 until after CES just so a OEMs can sell a few more original ION systems. As far as seeing ION 2 at CES, I doubt it unless it is a mock up that says it will have ION 2 inside on the label. On the good side the new ION 2 will be significantly more powerful than te current one as it will pack upwards of twice the shaders in the first ION. Battery life is also being extended as well.

The winter Olympics are coming up soon and we will be able to see all the crazy downhill skiing and snowboards that we want. A big undertaking like the Olympics requires lots of computing hardware and Acer has issued some special edition notebooks to celebrate its involvement.

Acer is offering special Aspire 1810T, 4810T, and 1410 notebooks and a special G245H LCD. The special edition products have the Acer Olympic logo on them. The notebooks have the logo on the lid and the wrist rest area and the LCD has the logo on the rear.

Acer has also announced that it will be proving 6,500 different pieces of equipment to the Olympic games. Acer will also send 100 engineers and technicians to manage the hardware it is providing for the games.

eBook readers are huge right now with an unprecedented demand for them this holiday season meaning that many of the new devices are unavailable. As eBook adoption grows, the demand for more content is growing as well.

Borders has announced that it is investing in Kobo, an eBook store, and will be investing in a new eReader. The eBook service will be built into the Borders.com website starting in 2010.

So far, Kobo plans to offer about 1.8 million books from the Internet that are available free. It will also have 200,000 other books starting at $9.99 each. What the eReader itself will look like is unknown, but Borders said that it hopes to reach the reader who only buys a few books each year. The device would have to be cheap to do that.

As you might have expected; Intel has just released their comments on the suit filed against them by the FTC. Intel claims that this suit will cost the tax-payers money and that the FTC failed to work with Intel towards a settlement.

"Intel has competed fairly and lawfully. Its actions have benefitted consumers. The highly competitive microprocessor industry, of which Intel is a key part, has kept innovation robust and prices declining at a faster rate than any other industry. The FTC's case is misguided. It is based largely on claims that the FTC added at the last minute and has not investigated. In addition, it is explicitly not based on existing law but is instead intended to make new rules for regulating business conduct. These new rules would harm consumers by reducing innovation and raising prices."

Intel senior vice president and general counsel Doug Melamed added, "This case could have, and should have, been settled. Settlement talks had progressed very far but stalled when the FTC insisted on unprecedented remedies - including the restrictions on lawful price competition and enforcement of intellectual property rights set forth in the complaint -- that would make it impossible for Intel to conduct business."