Microsoft appears to have given in a little bit in response to concerns and complaints about their new Windows Vista operating system. The company’s original plan was to have the original equipment manufacturers (OEM’s) stop selling the Windows XP operating system with new computers as of January 31, 2008. Custom builders would get another year giving them until January 31, 2009. After that it would be all Vista and no more XP.

Since that original plan was made the sales of PC’s with the new Vista OS haven’t been …

With the ConnectR virtual visiting robot as your proxy, you can now hear, see and interact with someone far away using internet connectivity. The device is easy to set up, use and maintain and provides Privacy and internet Safety features to restrict access or shut down audio, video or both when necessary. Up to ten PINs can be used to access the robot to facilitate multi-user one-at-a-time visiting privilages. iRobot has had some pretty trippy ideas, but this one is the trippiest yet.

The high quality two-way audio/video camera makes visiting easy providing wide angle and 16.7x zoom with 220 degrees of tilt for total control over video image. The robot can be controlled remotely from a computer connected to the internet or by remote control or joystick to allow the visitor to virtually participate in the activities of the host party.

While we’re pretty sure we’ve seen bicycle speakers before, including ones for the iPod, cy-fi is a new product designed to dock your iPod and the first we’ve seen to provide wireless speakers mounted on your bike to “ride louder” according to the company.

The idea comes from bike riders who wear headphones to listen to music and are unable to adequately hear traffic around them. The cy-fi system lets them bring their music along in a compact package without the ambient sound restrictions by most headphones.

LucasArts has announced that its sending The Force to Nintendo in early next year by providing Star Wars - The Force Unleashed for the Nintendo Wii. We all know just how much Nintendo is already dominating the game consoles market and this will certainly help them along.

The Force Unleashed will of course take advantage of the Wii’s motion sensitive remotes letting users wave the Wii Remote as a lightsaber as we all have dreamed of doing at one point or another. (I can’t wait to hear it make that signature swooshing sound effect.) The Nunchuk controller will also take part giving you another hand powered with The Force.

Intel announced today at the Intel Developer Forum in San Fancisco that the companies next generation of processors, code named “Penryn”, are slated to start hitting the streets November 12. This announcement continues to fuel the race between Intel and rival chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, who within the last week unveiled new quad-core and triple-core processors.

The new Penryn chips from Intel promise a 20 percent performance boost along with improved energy efficiencies over the current chips available. The new Penryn’s are able to achieve faster processing with less energy due to the companies new 45 nanometer manufacturing process, which creates ridiculously small circuitry that’s only 45 billionth of a meter wide. Thirty million of these circuits could fit on the head of a single pin. Moving ahead to the 45 nanometer production gives Intel an additional edge over AMD in the processor manufacturing race since both companies currently product chips using 65 nanometer construction.

Hot on the heals of the Barcelona Quad Core processor introduction last week, AMD today confirmed rumors and unveiled a new triple core addition to the Phenom lineup of dual-core and quad-core processors. The new triple core Phenom (code named “Toliman”) will be added in the first quarter of 2008 and will likely take its place in a new pricing tier between the dual and quad cores.

AMD says the new CPU’s will be the first ever to offer 3 cores on a single silicon die, even though the makeup of the new triple core will be essential the same as that of the quad-core, with one of the cores removed. The 3-core CPU’s will allow AMD to provide more purchasing options for consumers while still introducing multi-core technology into more computer purchases without requiring consumers to buy into the full quad-core price.

A new law has been signed by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the state of California which will ban teenage drivers from using mobile phones and other mobile devices while driving. The ban goes into effect on July 1, 2008 and will apply a fine to teens using cell phones, pagers and laptop or handheld computers while behind the wheel.

July 1 is the same date a similar law goes into effect for all drivers in California requiring the use of hands-free devices for …

Apple has announced a press conference in London scheduled for Tuesday, having sent invitations with its usual shrouded itinerary titled only, “mum is no longer the word”. Most speculate that this press conference is set to announce the launch of the iPhone and its carriers in Europe.

Apple has planned a European launch in the 4th quarter of this year for the iPhone with its sleek look and sought after multi-touch interface. Many analysts are speculating on the carriers for …

Start up airline Virgin America is reaching out to the tech loving crowds by announcing its plans to potentially be the first U.S. airline to offer wireless Internet. It has teamed with AirCell, a provider of global airborne telecommunications and the winner of the FCC’s exclusive broadband frequency license in 2006, and promises to have the service up and running in 2008.

The new air-to-ground broadband internet service will be available to flyers through a Wi-Fi enabled personal device or the airline’s Red Inflight Entertainment system found at each seat. People will be able to browse the Web, check email and use the airline’s onboard chat system to access instant messaging services like Yahoo and Skype.

Microsoft has announced that it will release Service Pack 1 containing updates and fixes for the new Windows Vista operating system in the first part of 2008, putting a date to a milestone that many companies look for when upgrading Microsoft products.

The company, consistent with earlier announcements, is planning on releasing a beta version of the SP1 for Vista in a few weeks to a limited number of users in somewhat of a cautious manner.

“A small group of testers has been putting a preview of the SP1 Beta through

…

Today at the Leipzig Game Convention in Europe Sony announced that they will be launching PlayTV sometime in early 2008. PlayTV brings not one but two high definition (1080p) TV tuners to the Playstation 3 game console along with DVR capabilities allowing you to record one show and save another, both in high def.

This is pretty cool in itself (especially if you’re in Europe since this uses European Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial only), but there’s more. You can also transfer these …

Sony isn’t sitting on its haunches watching potential PlayStation 3 customers try to find a Nintendo Wii or open their wallets for a Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite. At a media event held in San Diego yesterday the company drummed up some excitement for its upcoming game lineup for the rest of 2007 and the start of ‘08 and showed that there’s plenty of excitement to come for PSP and PS3 owners.

The game that’s attracted some of the biggest buzz is “LittleBigPlanet”, a community based game that lets up to four players solve puzzles …

The developers at LucasArts aren’t just about making games with lightsabers and TIE Fighters in them. A case in point comes in the shape of “Fracture”, one of their new titles now in development and slated for a mid-2008 release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Under development by Day 1 Studios, you step into the boots of Mason Briggs, a soldier from the mid 22nd century that uses weapons that can deform and manipulate the terrain around you to turn a physical disadvantage into a strategic advantage.

Suppose that …

Moore’s Law seems in jeopardy with some recent memory design innovations by IBM. The new design triples the amount of memory on a microprocessor and marks the fastest access times ever recorded with eDRAM (pictured).

The new eDRAM requires about one-third the space of prior designs and vastly improves microprocessor performance in multi-core designs, graphics for gaming, and networking performance. The new memory also has significantly lower power requirements – needing only one-fifth the standby power of conventional SRAM.

SRAM or Static RAM is a fast volatile memory and …

AMD has recently unveiled three new processors for mobile devices that are focused on enhancing multimedia capabilities - the AMD Imageon 2298, 2294 and 2192 media processors.

The processors are intended to bring faster and more efficient processing of high quality video and images to the mobile devices. Along with improved processing performance, multi-threading of applications would also be enabled to allow users to listen to music simultaneously while taking photos without disrupting the processing and music playback.

“As mobile broadband networks continue to increase capacity and improve quality, the consumer appetite for sophisticated multimedia …