While in the throes of customizing your dream machine over at Dell, weighing CPU cost vs. memory cost, would you click on a $19 option called "Iron Man movie with bonus content?" We sure wouldn't, but now you can, part of what the Director of Dell's Global Consumer Group is calling the company's "slow immersion into content as a major piece of the puzzle in terms of what consumers want from a PC." Right. The (surely DRM-riddled) film is available on any Inspiron, Studio, or XPS laptop or desktop, playable on that machine itself or through your choice of Windows Media Extender. Iron Man is the only film on offer now, but meaty palms are likely being pressed as you read this to drive other partnerships and more choices. This could let the company hook customers before even shipping their hardware, a potential advantage for what looks to be a looming content battle with Apple.

[Thanks, SebS]

Let's not beat around the bush: AMD's oft-delayed Barcelona quad-core processor was a flop. It arrived late and buggy, an undesirable reception that helped to drive the company's $1.2 billion Q2 loss this year. AMD can't afford another flub like that and is hoping that processor's successor, Shanghai, finds more success in the server market. It's a 45nm quad-core chip with three times the cache (6MB) and HyperTransport 3, apparently equating to a 20 percent boost in speed and even thriftier power consumption. AMD is saying the chip is already under production and will be available for sale before the year is out, actually beating expectations for once. That should be shortly followed by the release of 45nm Deneb processors for desktops, then six-core Istanbul chips sometime late 2009. Meanwhile, Intel's six-core, 45nm server chips are now shipping.

Well, it looks like the good times that are the Ubuntu alpha testing process hit a bit of a snag recently, as one of the latest kernels apparently had the nasty side effect of irreparably damaging some users' hardware -- specifically, certain Intel network cards. So far, it seems that only laptops have been affected by the bug, which corrupts the NVRAM used to store data like MAC addresses, but folks don't seem to be ruling out the possibility that it could affect desktops as well. What's more, while a warning has been added to the ISO download, it hasn't been pulled altogether, with the only explanation given being that it would delay the 8.10 release schedule too much. Not entirely surprisingly, that has prompted at least a few folks to give up on testing alpha versions of the OS, at least until this whole thing gets sorted out.

[Thanks, JagsLive]

Get out your processor score sheets, folks (both of you), 'cause it looks like your world is about to get shook up again. According to some unnamed "industry sources," AMD is going to be welcoming its new 45nm Phenom processors by slightly revising its conventional naming scheme, although it's not going quite so far as to ditch the main Phenom X3 and Phenom X4 branding all together. Instead, it's supposedly going to be switching the model numbers from four to five digits, with the lower-end processors following a 1xx00 format and the higher-end CPUs using a 20xx0 scheme. That, of course, is being done in the name of "simplifying" things, although we'll let you be the judge if that's the first word that pops in your mind or not when you take a glance at the table available at the read link below.

Transmeta's wild ride is apparently coming to a end -- having given up the chip game entirely in favor of lucrative patent licensing deals, it sounds like the company's board is tired of being called out by investors and looking to sell off what's left, saying it's a way to "enhance value for all its stockholders." Considering that AMD owns a $7.5M chunk of stock and most of Transmeta's tech is already licensed out to NVIDIA and Intel, those seem like they'd be likely suitors, but you never know with these guys -- we'll see how this all plays out in the end.

If there's one thing we've learned over years (aside from the fact that Segway users will always be looked at strangely), it's that Best Buy's inventory systems are famous for turning us on to forthcoming wares. Just this year, strange part numbers in its stock system have correctly predicted the arrival of new MacBook Pros, the Nikon D90 and an unlocked US 3G Touch Diamond. Now, we're feasting our eyes upon the latest snippet from Future Shop's (Best Buy's Canadian sibling) inventory system, which shows a half dozen new Mac placeholders for French and English language machines. Unfortunately, "Apple Mac" is about as vague as it gets, but we wouldn't be shocked one iota to see new MBPs surface in the near future. C'mon stock system -- don't let us down.

After personally trying out Sprint's AIRAVE, we're confident that femtocells have a place in this world. Thankfully, Motorola's already trying to make them less of an eyesore by integrating a CDMA femtocell into something we wouldn't mind showing off in the den: an inconspicuous digital photo frame. The "3-in-1" concept also includes a VoIP soft phone that would theoretically enable calls to be made right from the frame. Of course, Moto's not handing out any sort of release time frame, but let us be the first to say that this thing needs to hit store shelves on the double -- just make sure it's not carrier specific, and toss in a GSM version while you're at it, okay Moto? Check out the demonstration vid after the break.

[Thanks, Dave]

[Via PC Perspective]

After spending a bit of time with Sony's new all-in-one desktop lineup at CEDIA 2008, it was easy to recognize that some serious thought went into the design. CNET was able to corral one of the lower-end JS units, the VAIO VGC-JS190J to be specific, and took the time to determine whether the innards were as delightful as the exterior. Overall, critics found that it was the "best deal" going on an all-in-one desktop with an inbuilt Blu-ray drive, and amazingly, they found it "relatively free of software clutter." Furthermore, they yearned for more screen space than just 20-inches when watching those BD flicks, but outside of that, they found that "no other all-in-one, including Apple's iMac, could do as much, as fast, for the same price." Sounds like a winner, no?

When you think coffee table PCs, you probably think Savant. You probably also think: "I can't afford that." At least with the MEdiaCOre Digital Lifestyle PC, you can possibly pretend it's within reach, as creator Pearing Core Systems has it starting well below five figures. After digging a bit, we found that this HTPC / AV rack conglomerate starts at around $6,100, and obviously, you can take that figure about as far north as you please depending on configuration. A fairly novel concept, sure, but one we figure only a select few will realistically consider.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

Okay, so we're pretty sure a fortnight after August 7th was August 21st, and while CherryPal was adamant it would finally release its $249 cloud PC then, it has since hit another snag. This go 'round, the company is blaming a "glitch with the graphics processor," which "absolutely needed to be addressed." Comically enough, it's suggesting that the unit will now ship -- gasp! -- two weeks from now, though we're more apt to believe you'd want to make out with Android if given the chance than to trust anything coming from the doors of CherryPal.

Here's a curious one -- merely months after HP essentially revitalized the Voodoo brand and cranked out the undeniably sexy Envy 133 laptop / Omen desktop, in flies word that the branch may be broken in the foreseeable future. In response to rumors that the Voodoo PC division would be canned entirely, Rahul Sood (yeah, the same guy that pimped an undisclosed new gizmo barely a week ago) stated that "HP is working on a plan to better leverage its existing resources to bring Voodoo products to market faster and make them more accessible to consumers." An HP spokeswoman was also quoted as saying that "[it] continually assesses and re-balances the size of its work force relative to the business environment and market conditions." In other words, no one is denying nor confirming the whispers, and while we have our own suspicions about what that means, we'll let you make of it what you wish.

[Via CNET]