QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced a series of next generation iSCSI network-attached storage (NAS) products based on Intel architecture to deliver the performance and enterprise-grade features that customers are looking for in 2009.

The new Turbo NAS family consists of 4-bay, 5-bay, 6-bay, and 8-bay (with redundant power supply) models which are well suited for small and midsize businesses (SMB) and enterprises. The powerful all-in-one feature is designed for businesses that require storage solutions of performance, features, capacity, and manageability.

It's time for some new information, provided by our colleagues over at OCWorkBench. As reported by them NVIDIA is preparing to launch its new GeForce GTX 285 card on January 15th, while the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295 is planned to debute on January 8th, during the first day of CES 2009. These two video cards will be NVIDIA's future top performing products. We're already familiar with the specs of GeForce GTX 285. It will be based on a 55nm production node with 183W TDP, and will have reference clock speeds of 648MHz for the core, 1476MHz for the shaders, and 1100MHz (x2) for the memory. On the other side, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 is a dual PCB, dual GPU card, that will beat the mighty ATI Radeon 4870 X2. Some of the facts that we already know include: 2x GPUs with a total of 480 shader processors, 1792MB memory (896MB per GPU), 576MHz core frequency, 1242MHz shader frequency, 999MHz DDR3 memory frequency, and Quad-SLI support. That's all folks, put aside some $ for next week.

Besides the USB 3.0 demonstration, visitors attending the 2009 CES at Las Vegas may also take a look at PQI's booth, where the company will have on display their full range of Solid State Drives, USB Flash Drives (UFD), Memory Modules and Flash Memory Cards. Among these will be four brand new and never seen before products - 1.8-inch microSATA SSD S518, Express Card SSD S520, 2.5-inch SATAⅡ SSD S525 and e-SATA Combo Card S530. The 32GB Express Card SSD S520 utilizes PCMCIA form factor that supports both USB2 and PCI Express connectivity. Users have the option of using it as a portable USB flash drive or to extend their PC / laptop storage capacity. The 64GB e-SATA Combo Card S530 has an e-SATA connection interface and reaches a maximum read speed of 90MB/Sec. Finally, both PQI's 1.8-inch microSATA SSD S518 and 2.5-inch SATAⅡ SSD S525 are available with a maximum capacity of 128GB. They are also suitable for installation into PCs, laptops or mobile workstations. Expect more information on each drive at CES 2009.

Symwave, a semiconductor supplier of high-performance analog/mixed-signal connectivity solutions for the PC, consumer and mobile devices, today announced collaboration with Seagate to demonstrate Symwave's USB 3.0 storage controller device designed to comply with the SuperSpeed (USB 3.0) specification revision 1.0. The technology demonstration is the world's first consumer product application of USB 3.0 and will take place at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada from January 8-11, 2009. The demonstration will showcase streaming data to and from a commercially available external storage device at speeds previously unattainable with legacy USB technology.

Late December last year, Creative started a teaser website for the company's "new direction", the Zii. Back then it was courteous enough to give us a clue about what it was about and how big a deal it was, with its rather bold tag-line "Everything you know is about to change". Today Creative dispatched emails to all those who registered for updates on the website, revealing a lot more about Zii, and we can tell from what's given, that Creative has embarked upon something big, which makes its digital audio product lineup look irrelevant to the matter.

The Zii, according to Creative, is inspired from nature's building block of life, the stem cell. A stem cell is a basic cellular unit found in multi-cellular organisms that holds the potential to divide and differentiate into the many different kinds of cells an life-forms have. Here's a revelation: Creative claims to have devised a stem cell-like silicon that can "grow and multiply into different solutions and eco-systems", it can be seen as something parallel to the process in which life functions, only that it's going to be silicon doing it. Creative goes on to add "With an investment that spans over 10 years, over a billion dollars and over 10,000 man-years, the world is poised to experience a breakthrough that will better lives beyond our imagination." Given the state the world economy is in, Creative states that the technology is recession-friendly and will in-turn unlock countless business opportunities based around the technology and its expansion. Creative will be throwing a lot more things out of the box at the upcoming CES event. The Matrix era of artificial life is beginning not to sound too much of an imagination.

A major update and commercial introduction to the USB technology has been long overdue. While most devices such as printers, MFDs and other office automation equipment seem fairly comfortable with the bandwidth USB 2.0 offers, with storage solutions where large amounts of data transfer is involved, USB needs a facelift, so much so that companies are slowly gaining interest in technologies such as eSATA.

At the upcoming CES event, Symwave is planning a demo of an external storage solution based on the new USB 3.0 "SuperSpeed" technology. The device it plans to demo could be an external hard-drive or an enclosure with USB 3.0 compliancy. With 10 times the available bandwidth (4.8 Gbps or 600 MB/s), the new technology looks to provide devices with both performance and backwards compatibility with older USB standards. The Symwave storage solution will be one of first devices the technology kicks-off with.

Known for decades as a company that specialises in digital entertainment products, Creative is up to something new. The company is working on what it calls "Stemcell Computing". It is reportedly making a processing chip or architecture called Zii. A teaser micro-site of the same has been launched. The Zii processing chip is expected to give Creative the new direction the company has been striving for, with announcements of products incorporating the Stemcell Computing technology being expected at the upcoming CES event. Not much is known about Creative's plans at this point in time. The teaser goes with the tag-line "Everything you know is about to change", so we are expecting something big, or significant at least.

Walton Chaintech, the well-known innovative memory product provider, today announced the newest product APOGEE Magic Capsule and APOGEE Sharemate in 2009 International CES, with innovative product design of patented Flash memory technology. Besides, a complete memory products and solutions will also be showcased in International CES from Overclocking memory modules, FB-DIMM memory modules, Flash SSD, Flash USB and industrial standard storage products.

Exclusively designed by the adoption of the patented High Density Flash memory technology, APOGEE Magic Capsule works exactly like magic and is much more than a Flash USB drive. The innovative design and embedded software functions making it a perfect Flash memory companion to consumer's daily life. With its stylish appearance in classic black diamond shape and a chic, black necklace, each Magic Capsule is consists of 3 pieces of USB drives, the capacity of each USB can be chosen from 2GB to 8GB, users can easily use Magic Capsule to sort out business and personal images files and documents. Each USB can be connected to save space, so that users no longer need to carry different types of Flash USB along just for not enough of storage space or for file organization.

iZ3D LLC, designer, marketer and enabler of advanced 3D visualization systems, will be featuring a hands on demonstration of three of its upcoming product prototypes for 2009. iZ3D is located in meeting room #25118M in the Gaming Showcase downstairs in South Hall 2 of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

"We are continually pioneering new areas of 3D display for consumers with new display products, stereoscopic 3D software drivers, 3D player groups, events, and networking, 3D content certification and enablement, and system solution partnerships," stated Thomas Striegler, CEO of iZ3D LLC. "Introducing three cutting-edge 3D prototypes at CES is once again proving iZ3D is the defacto industry leader in 3D solutions," he added.

Microsoft Corp. will release fiscal year 2009 second-quarter financial results after the close of the market on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009. A live webcast of the earnings conference call will be made available at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Time on the Microsoft Investor Relations Website.

The company will also host the following event for the financial community:

Financial Analyst Briefing at the 2009 International CES Conference

Thursday, January 8, 2009, 3:00 p.m. PST, Robbie Bach, president, Entertainment and Devices Division

Interested parties can listen to a webcast of this event on Microsoft's Investor Relations Website.

Samsung was a bit late to the netbook party with its first NC10 netbook, but now the company is going to catch up on others with NC20. Samsung NC20 will supposedly be the NC10 successor, and while the attention this week is on NVIDIA and Intel, the NC20 will be powered by a VIA platform. The reported specifications claim a 12.1-inch display, a 1.3GHz VIA Nano U2250 processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM and a 160GB hard drive, all packed in a system that weighs 1.5 kilograms and costs US $642 (Euro 450). The netbook will feature built-in Bluetooth 2.0, Wireless 802.11b/g, single Ethernet, a 3-in-1 memory card reader and a 1.3MP camera. Other details remain sketchy for now, it's also unclear what platform this VIA CPU will plug into. Samsung will presumably debut the NC20 at CES next year.

Lenovo this weekend officially announced its ThinkPad W700ds (ds stands for dual-screen), a mobile workstation with two fully functional LCD displays. Inside and round the back of the main 17-inch display is housed a second one, 10.6-inch in diagonal that can also be tilted up to 30 degrees like a car's rearview mirror. The secondary WXGA display (768x1280), allows users to own a workstation notebook with dual-monitor support for the first time. Wes Williams, product marketing manager for ThinkPads, said: "People that use high-end computers, whether they are professional photographers or work in other fields, all use two displays at their desktops ... What we were trying to do in building a mobile workstation is give them the same experience. Not only do you need a great display, great graphics, great processor and RAID hard drive with a workstation, but it is hard going back to a single display mode." The Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds is said to make its first appearance at CES, starting January 5, 2008. Among the other cool features that will be integrated inside the W700ds are the latest Intel Core 2 Quad 45nm processors, NVIDIA Quadro mobile graphics, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, and a pair of hard drive/solid-state drive bays for up to 960GB of storage. The W700ds' starting price is expected to be $3,600 upon availability.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced that their ultra-small Pico family of USB drives will now be offered in 16GB capacities, making it the world's tiniest line of 16GB USB drives.

16GB Pico drives will be offered in four different styles that use patented closing mechanisms: retractable Pico-B; lidless Pico-C; swivel Pico-D; and sliding lid Pico-E. The Pico family represents a momentous advance in storage miniaturization, accommodating up to 4,000 MP3 songs on a drive that weighs less than a quarter.

BFG Tech has told Tweaktown that it will be putting its first complete gaming PC on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) early next year. It will feature a touch screen LCD, which judging by the image we have, allows you to control various aspects of your PC which one would imagine includes overclocking and other BIOS related settings. What it most interesting, is that they seem to be using the same LCD to replace the standard power and restart buttons usually found on a chassis. It has also been said that there will be, "maintainance-free liquid cooling and unprecedented in-home setup and maintainance servicing." Details are still vague and as yet there is no information on the configurations, availability or pricing. If you want to see the system for yourself, it will be at the MGM Grand from Thursday 8th to Saturday 10th January.

The tentative release time-frames for upcoming GPUs by NVIDIA and AMD have been seesawing between early 2009 and Q4 2009 for some time now. Industrial sources tell DigiTimes, that NVIDIA will be launching the GT300 graphics processor as early as in Q1 2009. What's even more surprising according to the report, is that the new GPU will be built on the 55nm manufacturing node of its foundry partners.

In related news, NVIDIA will be showcasing its range of products based on the 55nm G200b core at CES 2009, which starts on January 8. The notable products include a dual-GPU card, the GeForce GTX 295, and the single GPU flagship product, the GeForce GTX 285. NVIDIA refused to comment on the report.

Slated for CES '09, the GeForce GTX 295 would spearhead NVIDIA's quest for performance supremacy. The dual-GPU card consists of two G200b graphics processors working in an internal multi-GPU mode. VR-Zone collected a few more details about this card.

To begin with, the two GPUs will offer all their 240 stream processors unlike what earlier reports suggested. On the other hand, the memory subsystem of this card is peculiar. The card features a total of 1792 MB of memory (896 MB x 2), indicating that the memory configurations of the cores resemble those of the GeForce GTX 260, while the shader domains resemble those of the GTX 280 (240 SPs). The entire card is powered by an 8-pin and a 6-pin power connector. The construction resembles that of the GeForce 9800 GX2 in many aspects, where a monolithic cooler is sandwiched between two PCBs holding a GPU system each. The total power draw of the card is rated at 289W. The card has a single SLI bridge finger, indicating that it supports Quad-SLI in the same way the GeForce 9800 GX2 did (a maximum of two cards can be used in tandem).

Intel plans its own public demonstration of the overclocking capabilities of the Core i7 processors. This, in response to rival AMD achieving an overclock of well beyond 5.00 GHz, and booting at speeds above 6.00 GHz. The engineers at Intel reportedly carried out a large-scale binning of Core i7 processors, to cherry-pick the best performing part. The scale of binning could well be best of 100,000 units.

A chief engineer at Intel, Francoise Piednoel expressed his reservations regarding the 6.00 GHz overclocking feat AMD carried out with its upcoming Phenom II X4 processor last week, saying that the overclocking capabilities of the Phenom II X4 demonstrated do not reflect those of release-grade products, and cannot be replicated in a real-world setting. AMD may have disabled several sensors on the cherry-picked chip used in its demonstration, which facilitated that overclock. In response to this, Intel would be disabling the same sensors, in its special demonstration chip. The demo could be held at CES 2009. The professional overclocker chosen to achieve this feat would be none other than FUGGER from XtremeSystems. FUGGER could be set the task of taking the most desirable, binned Core i7 965 Extreme Edition chip all the way up to a stellar 7.00 GHz, if all goes well.

In an email announcing its CES meeting plans, Samsung Semiconductor has unveiled plans to showcase the world's first 1.3-inch hard drive at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. The drive is being targeted at "mobile consumer devices". Samsung will also show:

• 1TB RAID Edition hard drives
• New 320GB mobile hard drives for notebooks
• TruDirect optical disk-drive tech that eliminates the need for a hard drive when burning disks
• Touchscreen LCDs
• HDTV innovations, such as Motion Picture Frame Interpolation and Local Dimming LED technology (which Samsung says will offer contrast ratios 20k to 50k that of high-end CCFL panels lit by bulbs)

While AMD/ATI presented a lot of interesting things at CES 2007 (such as an R600 prototype), NVIDIA had nothing there except for three closed-to-public booths. There is much speculation as to why NVIDIA did not show off any new technology (excluding working G80 drivers for Vista), but chances are they want to show a lot more stuff at a later trade show.

Seamless Internet shows off S-XGen handheld communicator at CES 2007

Seamless Internet demoed a very amazing little device at CES 2007. The 398 gram "clamshell" is about as big as the average hand, and looks just like an average palm pilot. However, unfolding the device reveals a full size QWERTY keyboard, media player functions, standard PDA features, an ethernet port, USB ports, a webcam, and a 20GB hard drive. It connects to the internet using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE plus 3G protocols. The device is powered by a 520MHz XScale processor and 256MB of memory. There was no mention as to when we can expect to see the device, classified by Seamless as an ultra-mobile PC (laptop replacement), or how much it will cost.

A couple of days ago, we announced that Sony had won an Emmy at CES2007. After the gaming community collectively gawked at Sony winning an Emmy, Sony decided to print a press release announcing how the PS3 was the pride of CES. Unfortunately, there was some misunderstanding as to what Sony really won an Emmy for. Sony had indeed won an Emmy for their controller, like Nintendo did, but it was not for Sixaxis. Instead, Sony won an Emmy for the Dual Shock controller. Dual Shock is a feature not available on the PS3...at all.

Today, the Windows Vista operating system has been selected by the editors at CNET as a winner of the "Best of CES 2007" award in the computers and hardware category at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Windows Vista, scheduled to be broadly available on Jan. 30, 2007, was honored for enhancements and innovations that provide users with an experience that is easier, safer, more entertaining and better connected, at home or on the go.

Sony and Nintendo both win the best console controller war at CES 2007. Nintendo was also announced as having won the Peripheral Development and Technoogical Impact of Video Game Controllers. You can read a full list of who won what Emmy's at CES 2007 here.

NVIDIA is demonstrating spectacular next-generation DirectX 10 gaming content running on NVIDIA GeForce 8800 graphics processors at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. NVIDIA GeForce 8800 graphics processing units (GPUs) and NVIDIA nForce 680-series media and communications processors (MCPs) will demonstrate dozens of cutting edge PC games at the show including Microsoft's Games for Windows space in the Central Hall, Booth #7144, at CES.

LG Electronics (LG), a leader in consumer electronics and mobile communications, today introduced Super Multi optical storage drives featuring enhanced flexibility for the next-generation DVD formats and security features at the 2007 International CES (Booth #8214, Central Hall, Las Vegas Convention Center).