HP today expanded its consumer desktop portfolio, adding five models powered by Intel's 3rd generation Intel Quad-Core processors that deliver intelligent performance and enhanced built-in security.

Intel's new 3rd generation Core processors offer up to twice the HD media and 3-D graphics performance as well as significant processor performance as previous generation. Consumers will appreciate the added protection against viruses, malware and rootkits provided by Intel Secure Key and Intel OS Guard.

BIOS developer Phoenix Technologies announced its latest SecureCore Tiano (SCT) version 2.2 UEFI firmware that will be designed for PCs running Windows 8 operating system. The desktop client motherboard BIOS industry is currently dominated by AMI with its AMIBIOS and AMI-UEFI solutions, although Phoenix' AwardBIOS is still found on certain channel PC motherboards. It's with mobile computing devices that Phoenix' firmware solutions get a lot more prevelent. SCT 2.2 is looking to mark the company's bid to return to competitiveness in the PC motherboard BIOS market.

SecureCore Tiano 2.2 is a UEFI BIOS/firmware that conforms to UEFI 2.3.1 specifications, TCG 2.0, 1.2 (Trusted Computing Group) specifications, ACPI 4.0 and 5.0, SMBIOS 2.7, NIST-SP800-147, and USB 3.0 native, making it a feature-packed solution. In addition to Windows on x86 PC platforms (Win32, Win64, WoW64), Phoenix will develop firmware support for the upcoming Windows on ARM (WoA) platform. It is collaborating with ARM majors Qualcomm and Texas Instruments in this regard.

With the Sandy Bridge LGA1155 platform, announced at the start of this year, the PC motherboard industry saw a wide transition to UEFI, a new board firmware that overcomes many of the limitations of the decades old BIOS, including the archaic user interface. The second biggest motherboard vendor by volumes, Gigabyte, wasn't part of that wave. It continued to use dated Phoenix AwardBIOS with a few riders that made it look like the company was dragging its feet over UEFI adoption.

First, it tried to address the 2.2 TB boot volume size limitation by coming up with an address-space tweak it ended up calling HybridEFI (which has nothing to do with EFI). Next, it addressed the need for a more intuitive (preferably GUI) setup program with a Windows-based CMOS setup program called TouchBIOS, it came with the Fisher Price looking interface that every other manufacturer's UEFI setup program had, topped off with touchscreen support. However, faced with the inevitability of facing lack of support for Ivy Bridge (more here) and Sandy Bridge-E, the company decided to take the plunge. It wants to come up with something that's a lot more functional than most others' UEFI setup programs that feel like the same old interfaces skinned. Enter Gigabyte 3D BIOS.

In a court ruling on Wednesday 28th September 2011, Apple's assertion that any kind of 'Hackintosh' was, is and always will be, illegal, was conclusively affirmed. This will bring great dismay to Psystar customers, potential purchasers of other "alternative Macs" and the many PC enthusiasts who want to run the latest Apple OS on the high-spec rigs they've built themselves from hand-picked components. This ruling has unfortunately sounded the death knell for enterprising and surprisingly plucky upstart outfit, Psystar, who showed what could be possible with an open mind and technical skill. UPDATE after the jump.

G.Skill International Co. Ltd., manufacturer of extreme performance memory and high performance solid-state storage, has released its latest SATA 3 6gbps SSD, Phoenix II Pro, based on the latest SandForce SF-2200 controller with the whopping random write speed up to 60K IOPS, and numerous ultra high performance memory series designed for the latest released platforms at Computex 2011.

G.Skill showed off its fastest SATA solid state drive (SSD) at CeBIT, the Phoenix II series. Based on the SandForce SF-2000 series controller, Phoenix II pushes the limits of SF-2000 series in terms of throughput, and advertises some of the highest transfer rates for the chipset: 550 MB/s read, and 500 MB/s write. The company even validated these speeds using a session of ATTO disk benchmark. The 120 GB Phoenix II SSD was connected to an AMD SB850 SATA 6 Gb/s controller, on a system headed by Phenom II X6 processor. G.Skill said that the 120 GB model would be priced at €299.

G.Skill International Co. Ltd., manufacturer of extreme performance memory and solid-state storage with solid quality, has today added three new capacities to its ultra-high performance Phoenix Pro series SSD, including 40GB, 80GB and 160GB models.

Based on the popular SandForce SF-1200 SSD controller that has been tuned to deliver an unparalleled performance in 4k random write speed up to 50,000 IOPS, G.Skill's Phoenix pro SSD family has been the international award winning drive of choice since its recent debut at Computex 2010.

We dropped by the G.Skill booth and they are showing off a few systems with their memory in it. While they have seven different configurations to display, only three of them are out each day, so they are rotated around throughout the show. All of them are interesting, but some more than others. First off there is a dual channel kit running at 2500 MHz in combination with an Asus P55 board and Intel i7-860 CPU. This memory is just for show and will not be sold in retail. Then there is a high capacity kit with six modules running at 2000 MHz with CL6 on an Asus X58 board, while the last system is very interesting as well, with 1600 MHz memory and a set CAS latency of 5-8-5. We did not get pictures of their 24 GB kits up and running, as they were not on that day. G.Skill is also displaying their Phoenix Sandforce SF-1200 based SSD.

Intel Corporation today unveiled its 2010 Intel Core vPro processor family to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes for PCs with greater, more flexible performance, theft prevention and cost savings in a rapidly changing business computing environment. These and several other capabilities are at the heart of many new Intel-based business laptop and desktop computers beginning to roll out from computer manufacturers worldwide.

The Intel Core vPro processors arrive as business computing evolves with the emergence of video, Internet telephony, social networking and other heavyweight applications - in many cases running at the same time - making a computer's performance an even bigger priority.

System BIOS vendor Phoenix Technology, the company behind the popular Award BIOS software found on several PC motherboards, has come up with a new highly-optimized implementation of UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface), that can boot the OS in under one second. This cuts time of the arbitrary 5~15 second (typical) POST process. With this time saved, system startup times are significantly reduced. Startup times are further reduced by the optimized startup procedure on Windows 7.

To put this to test, a Dell Adamo notebook with the technology, was able to reach the Windows Desktop in 20 seconds from the push of the power button, while Lenovo T400 notebooks with faster SSDs reached the Desktop in under 10 seconds. The technology should be out pretty soon.

Phoenix Technologies Ltd., the leader in PC 3.0 products, services and embedded technologies, today announced a partnership with ASUS to accelerate the adoption of its award-winning HyperSpace product by consumers worldwide. HyperSpace is a revolutionary new instant-on and always-connected application environment that makes operating a mobile PC as easy and efficient as operating a cell phone.

Based on the partnership agreement, ASUS will incorporate HyperSpace into its next generation notebooks. With HyperSpace-installed notebooks, users can instantly launch important web-based applications (before Windows ever boots), automatically connect to the best available network, dramatically extend battery life and achieve new levels of uptime and security protection. HyperSpace is available for download at hyperspace.com

Phoenix Technologies, a company well-known for providing the BIOSes used by numerous motherboard manufacturers, is planning a new technology which could allow users to bypass Windows when launching regularly used applications. Known as HyperSpace, Phoenix wants to give users the ability to load software such as email clients, web browsers and media players without the need to first load Windows - this means the programs load almost instantly, saving the user quite a bit of time if they're in a hurry. The company eventually sees the potential for companies like Dell and Lenovo to ship PCs with a range of software from word processors to instant messaging pre-loaded so that they can be launched via HyperSpace with Windows only being required for the more complex applications and multitasking. This technology could also see a dramatic increase in battery life - when running using HyperSpace, some programs will use just half the power compared to when they are launched in Windows. Woody Hobbs, CEO of Phoenix Technologies, said the following:

As Windows gets more and more complex, we've seen startup times get longer and longer. If I go to the airport and try to connect to a Wi-Fi network, I'm waiting for five minutes just to connect. That's ridiculous - people usually just give up and use their cell phones or PDAs.