GIGABYTE has extended its enthusiast class G1-Killer series of motherboards today with the launch of the Z68 chipset based G1.Sniper 2.

Like the original G1.Sniper based on the aging X58 chipset, the new model looks similar at first glance with the same black and green color scheme going on. But apart from the improved 'locked and loaded' heatpipe cooling system onboard, the simalarities don't extend much beyond that point.

Designed for "extreme gaming", this motherboard has had pretty much everything thrown into it, including future Ivy Bridge support with its PCI Express Gen 3 setup (the first implementation from GIGABYTE), ready and waiting for upcoming PCI-E 3.0 cards requesting additional bandwidth.

Blizzard has changed their StarCraft 2 demo and morphed it into the StarCraft II: Starter Edition. The new demo has been revamped and removes the time restrictions that plagued the original demo which means you can play the same missions over and over again if you wish. Multiplayer is there in some form, with the new Starter Edition capable of using the StarCraft II AI and allows you to take on the Skynet-like AI in a quarter of the full games maps.

A detailed run down of what is included in the new Starter Edition:

The first four missions of the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty single-player campaign, including Mar Sara 1-3 and the choice to embark on Tychus's first mission or Dr. Hansen's first mission.

It looks as though Apple might be merging its iOS and Mac OS X operating systems into a single unified platform for applications and cloud-based services as soon as 2012, starting with the MacBook Air. Peter Misek with Jefferies & Co said in a note to investors on Wednesday that he sees this transition possible with the next-gen MacBook Air's custom next-generation "A6" processor. This would mean the new iPad, iPhone and MacBook Air would be A6-powered by 2012.

Misek has been quoted:

The first look at the new Superman suit is now available and I must say as a loving, adoring Superman fan that I'm quite excited. This is my Star Wars, my Star Trek. Superman is being rebooted under the helm and help of Christopher Nolan (of the Batman reboot and Inception fame) and directed by Zack Snyder of 300 and Watchmen fame. Henry Cavill plays Superman and photos have been making their way to the Internet for weeks now, but WB decided to get out ahead of time to show off the suit instead of a leaked smartphone shot or similar.

As you can see, it has a very Batman/Spiderman reboot feel, very "techie" and out-of-this-world, so they've nailed the Kryptonian feel of it. How do I think Henry looks? Right now, he definitely looks like the Man of Steel, rather than the Boy of Steel that Brandon Routh gave in Superman Returns. I really can't wait to see the direction this movie takes, I just hope Snyder uses practical flying rigs and not 90% CGI flying scenes like we saw in Returns.

Also, this is where our new Image system comes in handy, slide your cursor over the image for a high-resolution shot. It's 1.2MB and should give your eyeballs a bit of a work out. Enjoy!

Following the launch of its DisplayPort to dual HDMI adapters yesterday, ZOTAC makes headlines again today with a couple more products.

In collaboration with water cooling specialists CoolIT, ZOTAC has introduced the liquid-cooled GeForce GTX 580 Infinity Edition which has CoolIT's OMNI self-contained water cooling system mounted.

ZOTAC ships the card with increased clock rates of 815/1630MHz on the core and shader, and 4100MHz on the 1536MB of GDDR5 memory. The card itself is otherwise much a standard fare with its 512 CUDA cores, 384-bit memory interface and dual-DVI and single mini HDMI outputs.

Gearbox Software has officially announced the development of the sequel to Borderlands. The sequel will be based on the rustic planet of Pandora (Avatar, anyone?) and will have players traversing uncharted lands to discover new "mysteries." As usual at the time of a new game announcement, details are very low but Gearbox are promising to deliver an "ambitiously crafted story" that unfolds alongside new characters, skills, environments, enemies, weapons and equipment.

Wow, I'm pretty sure that's also known as "stating the obvious." If Borderlands 2 follows its previous title, we can expect the same four-player, role-playing, FPS lootfest that the original game made oh-so much fun. Hopefully this time round, the PC version is at least worked on. The original Borderlands stank of console port, which was very disappointing to say the least.

More information will be available about Borderlands 2 shortly in the form of next month's issue of Game Informer magazine as well as the game being shown off at Gamescon in Cologne, Germany on August 17-18 and finally at PAX Prime on August 26-28. The official release window for Borderlands 2 is slated for Take-Two's 2013 fiscal year which runs from April 1, 2012 through to March 31, 2013.

There have been rumors flying about NVIDIA's upcoming next-gen Kepler-codenamed GPU for a while now, that it would be delayed until 2012 because of issues with the adaption of the 28nm-based process. But, Chris Malachowsky spoke at their GTC Workshop Japan event, saying that Kepler is still on track for launch this year. Chris was careful with wording, saying only that the parts would begin "shipping" by the end of the year which could mean a paper launch and not an actual card-in-your-hands-giving-you-sexy-times launch.

Kepler is meant to deliver a threefold increase in double precision performance per watt over the previous Fermi, as well as being easier for developers to utilize GPGPU applications. Whatever, NVIDIA, just give me the damn cards now please.

Smartphones and tablets are edging ever-so-close to the now ageing consoles in terms of capabilities, with the future not looking bright for the old consoles. SoC (System on Chip) creators such as NVIDIA and Qualcomm have some very powerful technology coming out and Qualcomm has gone as far as saying that future SoCs will be capable of beating current-generation consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in terms of graphics and that we'll see a move from console and PC gaming to mobile-based gaming.

Their vision is to have a device such as a smartphone or tablet based on a high-end SoC, plug it into the wall or tether to a display (either wirelessly or through HDMI) and you've got a portable gaming console. Qualcomm is committed to delivering both the hardware and software support needed to bring developers to these platforms.

Most players in the SoC market are looking at doing this as the smartphone and tablet market expands at what seems to be a never-ending rate. With console sales slowing down, there is no better time for next-generation console announcements from the juggernauts of Microsoft and Sony. The transition from console and PC-based gaming to mobile-based gaming won't happen overnight, as there are too many AAA franchises on the big boy platforms.

MSI has just unveiled another gaming laptop with it already showing up in a few stores and being available for pre-order elsewhere.

The new GT683DX laptop is a 15.6-inch sized unit using one of NVIDIA's most recent high-end mobile GPUs, the GTX 570M with 1.5GB GDDR5 memory. The rest of the default specs include a 1920x1080 Full HD display, 2nd-gen Intel Core i7-2630QM CPU, 4GB of DDR3-1333MHz memory, 1TB (500GBx2 / RAID 0) storage, 8X DVDRW, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, 2xUSB 3.0, 720p webcam, 2.1 Dynaudio sound system and a 9-cell battery.

Depending on how much extra you may like to spend over the $1,600 odd base price, you can switch things up for a 120GB SSD+750GB HDD, 12GB RAM, Blu-ray drive and matt-finish display.

Google's Android OS has taken an amazing 48% of the smartphone market in Q2 of 2011, which is an all-time high according to a report by market research firm Canalys. Android overtook Symbian in Q4 of 2010 to become to top smartphone platform representing 32.9% market share at the time. Smartphone shipments have increased exponentially also, seeing a total of 107.7 million units shipped in Q2 of 2011 which is a 73% year-on-year growth.

Android was also the biggest driver of smartphone shipments in Q2, with Android-based smartphone shipments being 379% year-over-year higher, coming in at 51.9 million total units shipped. This is thanks to Android being on so many different branded phones such as Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, ZTE and Huawei.

Apple also did well, iOS taking Nokia's Symbian platform on and winning, rising from third to second place. 20.3 million iPhones were shipped and Apple took a 19% market share in the smartphone world. Apple also became the world's leading individual smartphone vendor, taking the throne that was previously owned by Nokia. Samsung also passed Nokia, with Nokia facing a rapid decline in demand across multiple markets.