FOXCONN and Intel Corporation held a joint Forum event where they briefed IT media and key channel customers about the latest performance and energy-efficient solutions developed by the two companies.

FOXCONN's Chief Technical Officer, AJ Chuang, delivered a keynote presentation on the innovative concept systems. Essentially they will target two main channels, using two development streams. The "F1" concept will cater for high-end enthusiasts with what I would consider the power hungry channel, and the "G1" stream is geared towards green issues and the environment.

There has been plenty of exciting news come out of the CeBIT trade show in Germany on the VGA front but one subject which we didn't see getting as much attention as it has is competitors to the almighty ASUS Eee PC.

We have already seen products demoed by Acer, GeCube and anothers and now Taiwanese motherboard maker ECS gets into the game to spice things up even more.

Tech Report has been working together with AMD to compile a list of motherboards that support the AMD Phenom CPU. Tech Report suggests that AMD has neglected enthusiasts in the past, but now seems to be changing its tune. This current magnanimous gesture working with Tech Report is seen by many as a good sign for the AMD Company which has gone through a bit of a slump in recent months in terms of PR support for the enthusiast segment.

The tables they supply on their site indicate whether or not the motherboards can turn off the TLB erratum in the BIOS, and more importantly if the boards have Phenom compatibility or not.

Last year in May, SanDisk teamed up with Microsoft to develop something that replaces U3 Smart Technology integrated on SanDisk memory devices.

Today, the first few examples of that new technology are starting to make themselves known. Startkey is the name it's going under for now, and it will allow users to keep all their Windows and Windows live settings on a portable memory flash disk or USB drive.

Sure, this is already possible for any user intimately familiar with Windows and Windows live settings, providing you know exactly which files to copy which takes time and considerable effort. The beauty of Startkey is that it will at the very least automate the process for you.

Chipzilla had the Intel Financial Analyst meeting yesterday, and amongst the many topics, which included WiMAX and Processor Technology, the most interesting was purported to be the "visual computing" which is Intel's code for graphics. Eric Mentzer, GM of Intel Graphics Development Group covered both the integrated graphics and the upcoming high-end graphics processor aspect, code named "Larrabee".

According to an article from PC Magazine, the integrated graphics will be dispersed from the chipset to include the CPU. So some 3D and rendering processes will be offloaded to the CPU, while the chipset will still perform basic processes. This will be for low-end to mid-range PCs. With the speed and power of current CPUs, this should enhance quite dramatically all the usual suspects, including HD video playback, HDMI and basic games.

Being based in Taiwan has its advantages and disadvantages, in this case we're not at CeBIT, but we've still managed to get to take a look at what some companies are showing at the show and we've actually got better product shots than what you get from a show floor. If you're a regular reader of TweakTown, you'll know that we're very good friends with Gigabyte and we're often invited to their offices to take a look at new kit. We had a chance to get to look at some of the stuff that Gigabyte is showing at CeBIT, but due to limited samples of some of the products, we didn't get to see it all. Some things we've posted about some time ago that's on display at the show and we promise that anything that we missed will be posted about as soon as Gigabyte gets all the kit back from the show.

Let's get cracking with what's at hand though and we'll start with an Nvidia 780a based motherboard, namely the GA-M780SLI-DS5. This is likely to be the top of the line board from Gigabyte and it seems like Nvidia has lost some support when it comes to its high-end motherboards for AMD processors. The reason for this is twofold and it's not all Nvidia's fault.

Problem number one is that AMD isn't doing so well when it comes to high-end processors, at least not in comparison even though there's not really anything wrong with the Phenom range, it just can't compete with Intel's processors at the moment. The second problem is that Nvidia has been a little too strict and in our understanding a bit too arrogant against some of the motherboard manufacturers and with other viable alternatives at a lower cost, it seems like some of them have decided to stick with AMD's 790FX chipset for the high-end.

ASUS has just announced it will begin shipping its Eee PC with Windows XP pre-installed.

This news has been floating around for a while and many users were able to install XP themselves as the Eee PC is capable of running the Microsoft operating system. ASUS didn't mention any pricing details in its press release or if they will still ship the Eee PC with Linux but we assume they will as by pre-installing XP, it will add a price premium.

Microsoft have today released the Developer Preview beta 1 version of Internet Explorer 8 for all to try.

It has been released to give web developers and designers an early look at the upcoming browser to replace IE7 and learn its new features in advance such as IE8 Activities and IE8 WebSlices. "Activities" is an interesting new idea that provides quick access to external services from any webpage by selecting any text on a webpage. An interesting plug-in is the translator service from Windows Live which is a great addition.

A Reuters news clip has captured a unique dinosaur, apparently attracting a lot of attention at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany. The annual computer show is the perfect time for gadgets and gizmos to make an appearance, but this device seems to have a life of its own.

According to the report, the robotic dinosaurs are designed to emulate the behavior of a Camerasaurus. You can be forgiven for not knowing what that is, but once you see these cute cuddly "household designer pets" you might just want one of your own.

The report states that there are close to 2000 parts, more than 100 gears, 14 motors and a complex sensory network designed to respond to your touch, and other Camerasaurus' proximity. Furthermore via an infrared camera it collects direct feedback to the "Life" Operating System so it can actively recognize its surroundings and act as if alive and responding to your touch. This is supposedly the significant selling point, making "Pleo" the Camerasaurus stand out from the crowd.

Intel Corp. the proverbial Chipzilla has released news of the latest marketing name for its new family of ultra-small CPU's.

The brand name "Atom" for the ultra small chips which are designed to give end-users an entirely new design, built for low power and designed specifically for a new wave of Mobile Internet Devices and simple, low-cost PC's.