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As the Professional Developers Conference approaches, Microsoft plans not only to discuss their currently code-named Windows 7 product but also to distribute a pre-beta version among attendees. Many have been wondering what the official name will be once the next release of Windows hits the streets.

In a quick announcement today on the company’s Windows Vista Team Blog, Mike Nash, the corporate vice president of Windows product management revealed what some already suspected: Windows 7 will be officially called… Windows 7. He went on to explain that the company opted to keep the '7' name for simplicity – as this is the seventh release of Windows – and because Microsoft doesn't want to come up with a new “aspirational” name that simply wouldn’t do justice to their goal of staying firmly rooted in the ideas of Vista while evolving and refining the operating system.

Personally, I like the fact that they are keeping it simple and I’m looking forward to learn more about Windows 7 in the coming weeks. So there you have it, what do you think of the ‘new’ name?

Asustek's success with the Eee has led them to expand the line in numerous fashions, from creating desktop PC versions to making higher-power ultra slim versions available.

Now, Asustek is planning to expand the Eee line even further, with the introduction of Asustek Eee motherboards. No system specifications are available yet, but it's easy to imagine that the boards would be similar in spec to existing Eee hardware. It'll be interesting to see where they intend to compete with this board. They will most likely go up against the Atom and Pico-ITX platform.

Future Eee projects include potential touch screen units and more. What was just a short while ago nothing more than a cheap laptop has turned into an entire portfolio of hardware.

Antec Launches Skeleton PC Case @ HardOCP
Blizzard Discusses Diablo 3 Console Port @ ShackNews
Tech, Telecom, and Web Earnings Look Bleak @ BusinessWeak
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Sharp launches 3D notebook

The dream of free nationwide wireless came a bit closer to reality today, after the FCC released a report which states that providing wireless over the 2155-2180MHz spectrum would not interfere with service from other wireless carriers. This clears the way for the FCC to move forward with a plan to auction off airwaves to a bidder who agrees to offer free (albeit ad-supported) national wireless Internet service.

The decision is a blow to the telecoms, specifically T-Mobile, which is keen to protect revenue from its own wireless networks and had raised concerns that the service would disrupt the company’s 3G wireless network. The next step is to create rules for the new network, and then auction off the spectrum sometime in the first half of next year.

It could be a while before proposed network actually materializes, however. The free nationwide wireless service would have to reach 50 percent of the U.S. population in four years and 95 percent within a decade. It remains to be seen if anyone will be tempted to bid for the spectrum and then pony up millions of dollars in infrastructure.

Despite Microsoft recent decision to cut Xbox 360 prices across the board and the subsequent bump in sales that came with it, Sony is sticking to its guns by refusing to reduce PlayStation 3 prices before Christmas. According to Sony Computer Entertainment president Kaz Hirai, their platform is a “very good value proposition” when you factor in the inclusion of an 80GB HDD and Blu-ray drive by default.

While he makes a valid point, Sony should be cautious of any possible consumer reaction to the current global financial downturn. Consumers may be hesitant to shell out $399 for a PlayStation 3 console, especially when Microsoft’s entry-level Xbox 360 sells for half that price and Nintendo’s popular Wii for $250. With game console sales going strong for the better part of the year now, the Holiday season will certainly be interesting to watch.

Intel has yet to release its next-generation micro architecture next month, but apparently folks in Taiwan have already managed to obtain and overclock an engineering sample for a Nehalem-based Core i7 965 Extreme processor – with some very promising results.

According to CPU-Z screenshots, the Core i7 chip made it from its 3.2GHz stock speed all the way up to 4.2GHz using a core voltage of 1.72V – which is above the danger-mark if we take Intel’s warnings into account. By the same token, overclockers at the Coolaler forums have done the same with an unreleased 45nm AMD Phenom, reaching the 4GHz mark but with a somewhat tamer bump in voltage to 1.6V.

The official release of OpenOffice.org 3.0, which happened just earlier today, has proved to be immensely popular. So popular, in fact, that the OpenOffice.org site has been brought to its knees. In response to the “unprecedented” demand, the site has been moved to a slimmed-down, text-only version of the page that does little more than offer links to mirrors.

Whether that demand is demand for the suite itself or just an overloading of their main page proper isn't mentioned, though I'd hope the former – the more OpenOffice.org users the better. Even with the immense amount of traffic they are receiving, you can still download the suite from one of their numerous mirrors.

This incident is very similar to one we saw back in June when Mozilla's servers ground to a halt and crashed after Firefox 3 went live. Though these situations certainly are “problems,” they are encouraging in that they demonstrate the amount of interest people have in open-source projects.

The Atom impressed many when it was released earlier this year, quickly becoming a prime choice for anyone building low-power PCs. It was directly competing with Via's Nano because of this. Some initial performance benchmarks showed the Atom as quite more potent than the Nano, though Via claimed there were other reasons involved such as defective hardware used in some benchmarks.

Via wants a second chance, and new benchmarks pitting the Atom against the Nano show some very interesting results. Specifically, when competing against the single-core Atom, the Nano actually comes ahead in just about everything – it isn't until the dual-core Atom enters that the Nano has something to worry about. Coupled with the fact that Via's boards are more expandable than Intel's, the Nano certainly has plenty of room to roam.

The Nano also managed to best the Atom in idle power consumption, an important figure for people who want to use them for always-on systems like media center PCs. Performance aside, it is good to see that Via has not been ousted from the market by the Atom.

Online privacy is a pretty big concern. Though most efforts to provide it concentrate on what happens to data after it leaves your computer, there's still the more human element of people sitting right next to you. If you've ever been annoyed by someone peering over at your screen from a seat over, LG has an answer for you with the introduction of notebooks that have adjustable viewing angles. The privacy-minded displays have a default 175-degree viewing angle, which can be toned down to a minimum of 60 degrees. The latter angle is much narrower, making it difficult to see what's on your screen if you aren't sitting directly in front of it. That would be ideal for people on planes or trains who don't want others snooping.

Even if you don't travel often, the benefit of such a device extends far beyond that. In just about any public setting it would be a neat feature to have, from libraries to coffee shops to the increasing number of other places with public Internet access.

Screens with adjustable viewing angles aren't new, and some companies even offer filters that are placed over the screen to adjust it. This is the first deployed attempt to offer such a feat with a simple button press, however.

Acer is hoping to make its way into consumers’ holiday buying plans with its new Aspire X3200, a multimedia oriented system that packs a 2.1GHz AMD Phenom triple core processor, 4 GB of RAM, and a Blu-ray drive into a compact desktop priced relatively low at $679.99. Just don't expect to run any demanding games, since graphics come courtesy of an integrated Nvidia GeForce 8200 graphics chip.

Still, the Aspire X3200 offers plenty of bang for the buck. Besides an integrated Blu-ray player, you also get a huge 640GB hard drive, Dolby Home Theater surround sound, HDMI output, and Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit. Other connections include nine USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire connection, eSATA link and multi-card reader.

Along with the X3200, Acer also introduced a 24-inch LCD widescreen monitor that is capable of displaying 16:9 ratio images. The Acer P244W display offers full 1080p HD support, two HDMI inputs and a VGA input, a 1920x1080 native resolution and a list price of $339.

Earlier this year Nvidia publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. While the company initially claimed the problem was limited to a few late-run HP products, it soon became apparent that many Dell notebooks were also affected.

Well, the brouhaha over defective Nvidia mobile graphics chips keeps rolling along, after a recent Apple-led investigation concluded that some MacBook Pro computers with the Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. According to the company, potentially affected MacBook Pros include those manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008 – or the entire current line of MacBook Pros and the generation immediately preceding it.

As with other laptops, the problem shows itself in the form of distorted or scrambled video, or a complete absence of video on the screen or external display. The company is asking those affected to bring their notebooks to an Apple Store for a free repair – those who have already paid for such repairs can contact Apple for a refund.

Nvidia, for its part, says that failures in Macbook Pro computers are a remote possibility, but it was ultimately up to Apple to decide how to handle their warranty and repair programs, based upon their own quality standards.

OpenOffice.org has to be one of the most prominent and elaborate open-source projects out there just outshone by a handful of others like the Linux operating system and perhaps the Firefox browser given its undeniable success and rate of adoption. Now with version 3.0 of the suite, OpenOffice is set to challenge Microsoft Office more than ever before.

Among its core new features and improvements, OpenOffice 3.0 comes with support for the upcoming version of the ISO standard OpenDocument Format 1.2 (ODF), it can read and write files using Microsoft Office's binary file formats (.doc, .xls, etc.), and now adds support for Office 2007/2008 files. Mac OS X Support is now native. The spreadsheet application in OOo comes with a Solver add-in and has received a notable increase from 256 columns to 1024. Improved graphical functionality and user interface is also part of the upgrade.

The official release of OpenOffice.org 3.0 is just today, however the suite was available earlier during the weekend from a number of (also official) mirrors. We reported on this during our weekend tech reading post. You can download the suite for Windows, Mac OS X, and other operating systems and languages now.

Don't forget to voice in our weekend open forum feature.
This week's topic: Download accelerators and managers, are they still relevant?

OpenOffice 3 Final released OpenOffice.org is an open-source, multiplatform and multilingual office suite comparable with MS Office. It is compatible with all other major office suites and is free to download, use, and distribute. TechSpot Downloads.

Microsoft Sues DHL After Train Dumps 21,600 Xboxes Microsoft is suing U.S.-based cargo-delivery service DHL Express for allegedly losing 21,600 Xbox game consoles because of a train derailment in Texas, according to court documents. PC World.

Embed a Part of a YouTube Video If you want to embed a YouTube video that starts to become interesting somewhere in the middle, there's a simple way to skip the boring part. Google OS Blog.

Apple dumping Intel chipsets for NVIDIA's in new MacBooks Apple will announce as part of its special media event Tuesday a new family of MacBooks that will abandoned Intel's integrated graphics chipsets for those part of NVIDIA's new mobile platform. AppleInsider.

As most of you are likely aware of, we keep an up to date downloads section here at TechSpot. While we mostly focus on the more prominent software tools and utilities we foresee our readers will appreciate having listed here, that inevitably puts us in the position of constantly monitoring for new software and trends in this industry.

After exchanging some emails with the developers of Download Accelerator Plus earlier this week, I began to wonder, how relevant are download managers today anyway? Personally, I stopped using one a few years ago when most of my web downloads could be handled just as well from Firefox and a fast enough broadband connection that wouldn't break up even larger files. Then, for most of my gigabyte-plus downloads I always rely on a BitTorrent client (uTorrent is my favorite), which you may still call a specialized download manager.

Still this behavior is quite different from that of the late nineties when using a download manager like DAP, Getright, or any other of the myriad available at the time was a must. Today you can even get tiny download manager plug-ins for Firefox, and freeware full applications are also aplenty.

So my question is, do you believe download managers are still relevant? Do you use them? And if so, which one is your favorite?

Discuss.

Microsoft has recently unveiled how they view virtualization, and how they plan to make virtualization grow in the near future. More specifically, they've talked about what their primary goal is – to oust VMWare from its comfortable 80% or higher lead in virtualization deployments.

It seems Microsoft's primary intention is not to directly compete with what VMWare is offering, and instead take the next “technological step”, moving to a management infrastructure that is both physical and virtual. They put a lot of emphasis on managing virtualization deployments, and see that as more important than the actual implementation. This is definitely true, at least from a business standpoint, as one of the goals of any virtualization suite is to become seamless.

If anyone knows how to operate a monopoly and control large market share, that would be Microsoft. VMWare could be in danger here. Even with a technically superior product, they might find themselves in a serious hurt if they do not react to Microsoft's plans, on top of several other vendors like Sun and Cisco competing for VMWare's current domain as well.