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Samsung has found itself at the receiving end of a patent infringement lawsuit recently filed with the ITC and the US District Court. Spansion, the company behind the lawsuit, is accusing Samsung of violating several patents they own, including at least 10 they specifically mention in their case. The patents all relate to flash memory technologies, which Samsung of course makes ample use of in a huge amount of their products along with many other vendors. Flash memory is a big part of Samsung's portfolio, and hundreds of other big companies around the world rely on Samsung parts.

Spansion is asking for an “exclusion” from the U.S. market on many products, including devices like mp3 players, phones, cameras and more – essentially anything containing flash memory manufactured by Samsung. That would be a huge list of products, and a short list of big-name vendors affected would include companies like Apple, RIM, Sony and more.

Spansion is definitely not going to get their demand in that respect, but that doesn't mean they won't be sparring with Samsung in the courts for many months to come.

AMD apparently has another name change in the works for their processors, primarily affecting the upcoming 45nm-based Phenom CPUS for the AM3 platform. The name change is intended to simplify the processor designations and has the CPUs named curiously similar to the fashion that Intel uses as well. The new Phenoms will be dubbed the Phenom II X4s or Phenom II X2s, and given a three-digit designation afterward to differentiate models.

For instance, the original name of Phenom X4 20350, a 45nm 3GHz quad-core part, will instead be named the Phenom II X4 920. Sounds quite a bit like “Core 2 Quad XXXX”, doesn't it? The name change will apparently affect all new versions of the Phenoms, including the Black Edition. No name changes for their Opteron-class CPUs are mentioned, nor if they plan to change the name of already deployed units.

The ubiquitous USB interface was officially updated to version 3.0, with developers delivering the final “SuperSpeed” USB specification and a comprehensive review of the technology at a conference today. The new standard will provide a maximum bandwidth of 5.0 Gbps, which is more than ten times what is offered by USB 2.0, while also being more power-efficient than its predecessor.

To put things into perspective, developers said the new spec can handle 25GB transfers in a mere 70 seconds, whereas the same transfer would take 13.9 minutes with the current USB 2.0 protocol and 9.3 hours on USB 1.0. USB 3.0 is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 hardware but won't work with USB 1.0 devices due to significant changes between the original format and its third generation.

The first USB 3.0 standalone controllers are expected to hit the market in the second half of 2009, according to the announcement, with consumer products arriving in 2010. Additional information on the new spec can be found here.

AMD's first DDR3-supporting Denebs are on the schedule and due for release within the next couple of months. While they have a quad-core Deneb prepped for released at the beginning of next year, the AM3 boards with DDR3 memory support are not due until sometime in February.

Despite the short delay for a DDR3 platform, AMD is throwing a bone to anyone who wants to pick up a Deneb CPU – Denebs will be compatible with both AM2+ and AM3 motherboards, with the CPU itself having a memory controller capable of dealing with both DDR2 and DDR3. That might make a nice upgrade path for people who have pricey boards or RAM right now and don't want to ditch it for the sake of a CPU.

AMD's launch of Deneb marks the end of a long downward spiral which Intel has taken great advantage of. Is it too late for AMD to pull itself out of the slump? Definitely not. They started out as an underdog manufacturer, and they certainly have a chance with Deneb to impress the public once again.

If you've followed the OLPC project through its various hurdles, you might remember that almost exactly one year ago the company announced a Buy one, Give one program intended to help fund laptops for those who couldn't afford them. The idea was simple: You buy one at a bit of a premium, and in exchange an additional machine is sent to children in a developing nation.

Recently, the company has announced that the same project will be launched again, with Amazon getting in on the action once again. While much has changed in the world since the initiative was first announced, their prices and delivery estimates have not, with a $400 price tag getting you one OLPC machine and one OLPC-sized chunk of good will. Amazon will be taking orders on their UK and US sites for the machines.

The project starts again this week, and they hope to exceed the 160,000 units sold last time. There's no mention of how long the program will last this time.

Intel is starting the week by officially shipping out one of its most important products in several years, Core i7, the first member of a highly anticipated processor family based on the company’s code-named Nehalem architecture. As previously reported in our review, three versions of the chip are being offered, each featuring 4-cores operating in the 2.66 to 3.20GHz range and priced from $284 to $999.

Chief among the improvements in Core i7 is the return of Hyperthreading, an on-chip memory controller with DDR3 support and faster connections between the processor and components thanks to Intel’s new QuickPath interconnect.

More than 18 computer makers are expected to begin selling high-end systems based on the Core i7, including custom PC builder Smooth Creations, which has gone all out with its Prophet i7 gaming series of enthusiast desktops featuring a vast choice of top-notch components along with one of their custom paint jobs.

ARM-based processors have traditionally been used in small devices such as mobile phones, but the technology is soon be used in low-cost notebook PCs – otherwise known as netbooks – hoping to give Intel a run for its money. In line with this strategy, ARM has announced that it will be collaborating with Canonical to bring the full Ubuntu desktop OS to the ARMv7 processor architecture.

Canonical offered few details about the new ARM distribution except to say that the ARMv7 port of Ubuntu will target netbooks and system-on-chips (SoC) based on ARM’s Cortex-A processor cores. The companies believe that combining Ubuntu with ARM’s low power demands will make them a force to be reckoned with in the fast growing mobile computing market, and are aiming to provide “not only high performance but all-day battery life and advanced video functionality.”

The Ubuntu ARM netbooks are scheduled to begin shipping in April of 2009. Their biggest problem, it seems, is that Intel and Microsoft have already taken the lead and the signs suggest they’ll continue to dominate the netbook market.

The ATI Radeon HD 4000 series apparently has Nvidia concerned. Concerned enough to consider dropping prices, and the latest rumors are that Nvidia has a GPU price cut planned sometime in the near future. AMD's significant gain in GPU sales, upwards of 40% for the Q3, has no doubt prompted this action, and Nvidia seeks to prevent themselves from losing any more market share in the lucrative Q4.

Even though the 4000 series has performed admirably and definitely given Nvidia a scare, the green team is by no means swimming in the shallow end of the performance pool. Both Nvidia's and AMD's high end cards are neck and neck, so without a sudden technical advantage, a price cut is the most logical way to start picking up more ground.

Price cuts are expected for some of the 9000 series cards as well as some of the 200 series cards. If this is true, it would be better for Nvidia to implement them before the end of the month.

Measuring the seconds required to start a computer may seem like the most trivial of concerns, but it is nonetheless a concern shared by many users. Even Microsoft has pledged to do its part in the next version of its operating system, saying that “a very good system is one that boots in under 15 seconds” and surveying users to see if a limited-functionality but nearly instantly accessible interface would be of any use to them.

Motherboard maker ASRock has also been experimenting with ways to speed up startup times on a Windows machine, and apparently came up with a way to get a clean boot of Vista running in a mere three to four seconds. The new technology, known as Instant Boot, uses the S3 and S4 states of the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) which normally enable the Sleep and Hibernation modes in Windows. However, by calling them at different times in the boot-up and shutdown process, the new feature enables Windows to instantly pop on the next time you hit the power button even after a proper shut down.

There is one major caveat, though. Instant Boot will only work on computers that have only one user account and no password protection – a deal breaker in my opinion. The feature can be enabled on five of ASRock’s current boards and you can grab the appropriate BIOS updates from here. Also, check out the amusingly nerdy video demonstrating Instant boot, after the jump.

Hot on the heels of launching its first 45nm quad-core server chips codenamed Shanghai, AMD has laid out its roadmap up to 2011 for desktops and notebooks, and it appears that the company will finally enter the low-cost notebook and ultraportable laptop markets sometime in the first half of next year.

As you can see from the chart above, AMD is planning a new chip dubbed Conesus for the ultraportable market, which apparently exists only in a 45nm dual-core version that includes 1MB of cache and support for DDR2 RAM. The chip will be succeeded by the 45nm “Geneva” with DDR3 support and twice the cache at 2MB in 2010.

The company has also delayed by more than a year its much-hyped Fusion laptop chip, which combines a graphics processing unit and CPU on a single chip. Originally due in 2009, the company now hopes to release such a chip similar in 2011.

The new Dell Inspiron Mini 12 netbook that has been teasing us over the last month has finally received a price and a shipping date. There are three models available, with the lowest-end starting at $549 with a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 CPU, a 40GB hard drive, and a three cell battery.

The next pre-configured system is priced at $599, features the more powerful 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor, bumps storage to 60GB and has a larger 6-cell battery for about 5.5 hours of use. Finally, the last pre-configured system sells for $649 and sees the hard drive size bumped up to 80GB and the Limited Warranty bumped up to 2 years – from one year on the lesser models.

All three versions, unfortunately, get a paltry 1GB of RAM that cannot be upgraded and the only OS option for now is Windows Vista Home Basic – not the best combination performance-wise. Also, at this price range, you could buy a low-end notebook with more under the hood or perhaps a netbook with the same (if not better) specs for well under $500. The benefit however is the larger, 12-inch screen, thinner profile at about 1-inch thick and near-regular-sized keyboard. Dell is now taking orders for the Mini 12 with an estimated ship date of December 8.

Due to the initial failures and poor reception of Phenom, it's been speculated that AMD was getting ready to drop the brand altogether and move on to something else in an attempt to start fresh. It wouldn't be surprising, and in many ways would make a lot of sense. That's not the case, though, as it seems AMD will be retaining the Phenom label and instead will seek to rebuild damaged credibility for the line with their newer CPUs.

A recent statement from AMD has more or less confirmed that Phenom is here to stay, and that their focus will be in keeping their product line simple. They believe that the brand itself isn't really damaged and a simple suffix change will make things right.

We'll see. CPU naming schemes come and go, and we've seen both Intel and AMD switch repeatedly between using clock frequencies as opposed to PR ratings and arbitrary numbers multiple times. Maybe they are putting more weight into a name than they should.

AMD has released a new batch of Radeon graphics drivers, bringing the package up to version 8.11. This latest version brings an additional performance boost in CrossFireX mode for Far Cry 2 and Stalker: Clear Sky as well as a new feature in the ATI Catalyst Control Center that enables users of multi-GPU setups to verify if their games or applications are using more than one graphics card.

In addition, the new drivers include HydraVision support for Windows XP and other display enhancements to more efficiently divide the Windows desktop into multiple areas for different applications, configure up to 9 virtual desktops, and set special hotkeys. As usual, the new drivers are available for both Windows XP (32-bit and 64-bit) and Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit).

AMD made a big launch today, introducing after much delay and much trouble in the market their first 45nm Shanghai processors. The CPUs, currently only offered as Opterons, are intended to be used in workstations and servers, an arena where AMD still has at least some sway.

The desktop variant of the CPU, Deneb, is not yet here – and there's no set date as to when it will be. AMD's recent failures with Barcelona and Phenom have cost them significant marketshare and have lead people to not expect much. Their new 45nm CPUs have a higher clock frequency cap, with Shanghai reaching at least 2.7GHz. Whether that coupled with the additional L3 cache added to the CPUs will be enough to sway hearts away from the Xeon remains to be seen.

Price fixing has been going on for years in a number of markets and it looks like three big electronics companies in Asia have been recently caught with dirt on their hands. LG, Sharp and Chunghwa Picture Tubes have all just pled guilty to fixing the prices on LCD screens used not only in their products but also in Apple iPods and Motorola Razr phones – among other products.

LG’s taking the biggest hit at $400 million for conspiring to fix prices from September 2001 to June 2006, while Sharp will pay a fine of $120 million and Chunghwa $65 million. Apparently this plea deal was the "best possible course of action" for all three companies in order to cut further losses from a legal process and other fines.

Sharp said its chairman, chief executive and some company directors will voluntarily return 10 percent to 30 percent of their compensation for three months, starting in December, to reassure its shareholders and perhaps show some corporate responsibility – sadly that does nothing for the millions of customers who bought overpriced computers, cell phones and numerous other electronic devices.

MSI Computer today announced the latest addition to its gaming notebook series, the GX630-028US. Specs are pretty decent albeit nothing to write home about, but the truly impressive attribute of this newest notebook is that it costs only $799.99. It’s powered by an AMD Athlon X2 processor and features an NVIDIA GeForce 9600M graphics chipset, 250GB hard drive, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, a 2-megapixel webcam and a 15.4-inch WXGA glare LCD.

It also uses the same Turbo Drive engine technology as other MSI gaming notebooks, letting users overclock their processors by up to 15 percent, and the MSI ECO Engine which allows users to alternate between 5 different operating modes to conserve battery life. All in all the GX630-028US seems like a good choice for the budget minded this holiday season, offering great functionality and looks at a competitive price – MSI might have a winner here.

The SATA standard was originally crafted with mechanical disks in mind, but since the advent of SSDs, a new protocol is being considered necessary specifically for those types of drives. Dubbed Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller, the new protocol is expected to be far more efficient because it is optimized for how SSDs read and write data.

It was initially hoped that NVMHCI would crop up sooner rather than later, but at this point it appears it will be later, with laptop manufacturers and other companies still planning to use the SATA interface in the near-term. Part of the reason may be that NVMHCI support was speculated to appear in Windows 7, but Microsoft has sort of dashed those rumors now.

It's expected to take from 5 to 10 years for the new standard to be fully adopted for use with SSDs, which isn’t really surprising. SATA moved somewhat faster as a successor to PATA but it had the advantage of sharing much in common with PATA, making adoption easier for manufacturers.

As promised by CEO Dirk Meyer back in July, AMD is expected to reveal its netbook strategy tomorrow at the company’s analyst conference, and many are hoping it’ll focus around Bobcat. The supposed chip will focus on two of the areas where netbooks have commonly struggled a bit, video playback performance and battery life, while sticking to the goal of achieving smaller form factors and lower notebook price points.

Reports suggest AMD is aiming for an eight to nine hour battery life while still offering better performance that its rival, Intel’s Atom CPU. Details are yet to be announced, but previous leaks suggest Bobcat will contain a single 1GHz 64-bit core, 128KB of L1 cache, 256KB of L2, an 800MHz HyperTransport link, a DDR 2 memory controller, and an 8W power envelope. AMD is also expected to leverage its ownership of ATI to beef up the video performance in its forthcoming netbook platform, so we’ll likely the CPU and video chipset blend into a tiny package.

If you ever wanted a video card that rivaled your desktop for the amount of memory it has, Nvidia has just the ticket for you. The company has recently released their Quadro 5800 card, which comes stock with an impressive 4GB of memory and is supposed to have upwards of 102GB/s of memory bandwidth available to it.

The massive card is intended for ultra-powerful workstations that could actually justify such large amounts of RAM, like in the CAD and Engineering fields, and comes with an ultra-powerful price at around $1500. That gets you essentially a GT200-based card with massive amounts of RAM that consumes up to 189W of power when in use.

These pricey cards compete with AMD's FireGL line, and the introduction of a 4GB unit gives them a selling point AMD currently does not have.

Intel is not expected to officially launch the Core i7 processor until November 17, but that hasn't stopped some online retailers from putting up early listings for the CPUs about a week ahead. PC Connection, for instance, is listing the 2.66GHz Core i7 920 processor with 8MB of cache memory for $334 and the 2.93GHz Core i7 940 for $662 – an approximate markup of 18 percent over their suggested retail price.

Meanwhile, PC Mall is hiking prices even more with the Core i7 920 listed for a pre-order price of $384, the Core i7 940 for $722, and the 3.2GHz 965 “Extreme” version of the i7 for $1,250. The higher street prices are not surprising as this reflects pent-up demand for the product. PC Connection is also listing no fewer than seven motherboards based on the Intel X58 Express chipset, priced between $261.38 and $463.98, with the MSI X58 Platinum being the cheapest of the bunch.