A new technology being developed by IBM can potentially expand your favorite media storage device to over 500,000 songs or around 3,500 movies. Using a special "racetrack" memory technology, the new storage device will have the capability to store more data in the same amount of space possible with lightning fast boot times and lower production costs. For more details regarding this new technology, read more about it in our full article.

Gamers who are looking for a unique perspective into their video gaming habits will definitely get a kick out of Emotiv Systems' Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset. This unique gaming accessory allows you to control in-game characters using the neuron signals transmitted by your brain. Other details about this neat gadget can be found in the full article after the jump.

We all knew that Big Blue would come through some day. As Intel preps it's new Penryn 45nm processors for the personal computer market, IBM also takes a stroll down the same reduced die package lane. And at the recent ISSCC, short of International Solid-State Circuits Conference, IBM made their plans known to roll out a 45nm version of the CELL Broadband Engine whose 90nm, 65nm cousins currently power the various Sony PlayStation 3 SKUs.

Intel might have missed out on the current gen consoles, thus allowing IBM to lend its hand to the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii. No doubt, IBM has proven itself to be more than capable of moving mountains - or at least map interstellar space with the help of eight PS3 units. But will this faze Intel? Not by a long shot. They approached video games console makers and presented their microchips that could be incorporated into future consoles. Read more for details from Intel's chief tech officer. Hint: it's about motion-sensing and markets.

The power of Sony's PlayStation 3 can be attributed to the Cell Broadband Engine. While its chief architect is Peter Hofstee, this particular microprocessor is the result of the joint venture among Sony, IBM, and Toshiba Corporation. The partnership began in 2001 and is expected to end by 2010.

In an interesting turn of events, Sony has announced today that it is withdrawing from the project to focus on developing the technology for producing microchips with 32nm circuitry or less. Click the "read more" link below to know the full story.

A team of Scottish, German, and Italian researchers have collaborated to subvert the limits of the silicon chip and have come up with a way to create nano-sized wires and intricate nano-chips that can turn handheld phones into an equal of high-end computer laptops. This new discovery will be published in the next issue of the scientific journal Science.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany), and the University of Rome (Italy) have speculated that their new findings will pave the way to more powerful computers just about the size of your palm. "This will help to make small devices much more powerful in the future," said Dr. Michael Zaiser of the University of Edinburgh.

While many an enthusiast rambles on how great AMD processors are better than Intel or vice versa, soon there would be little to fuel the bickering when handheld supercomputers have come to be realized. "Holding a supercomputer in the palm of your hand will one day be possible - and we are going to make sure all the wires are in the right place," Zaiser said. That is, of course, once engineers and scientists have overcome the issues that come hand in hand with nano-miniaturization.

"What we found is when we made these wires smaller and smaller they started to behave in a very funny way," said Zaiser. The different behavior cued the researchers to use computers to predict these unconventional behaviors, which could help engineers understand the new phenomena and how to work around them.

In the experimental front, STI (Sony, Toshiba, IBM) have previously voiced out plans for a 45-nm iteration of the 1x8 core CELL Broadband Engine, while Intel is still secretive about developments on its 80-core prototype (codenamed POLARIS) which still has a couple of years before entering commercial production. AMD in the meantime has previously released news of its new Phenom processor, a multi-core on single-die architectural marvel.

Just the other day, it was reported that Sony was supposedly undergoing some negotiations with Toshiba about selling their (Sony's) microchip production facilities. Though the Cell microprocessor itself is developed by Sony, IBM, and Toshiba, it seems as if Sony wanted quits so they could, from our previous article, "focus on the production of other products such as image sensor chips in digital cameras and camcorders."

It turns out that the news from Nikkei was nothing more than hearsay. Sony's just denied the fact that a deal has been made between them and Toshiba. Sony spokesperson Tomio Takizawa said that "nothing has been concretely decided."

It's a vague statement, but if taken as is, we can simply glean that a deal hasn't been struck... which doesn't mean to say that there aren't any deals going on either. Because Takaziwa refused to comment on whether or not Sony and Toshiba really were talking about it. He did, however, reassure everyone of the fact that Sony is exploring some new ways to make its chip-making business more streamlined.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum, Toshiba spokesperson Keisuke Omori commented that they "are considering various plans, but [they] cannot comment on individual cases." Like Sony's rep, the Toshiba spokesperson refused to talk about anything regarding the supposed deal we've heard of a few days ago.

Now who would have thought that genetically cloned Saiyans could cause so much fuss. But then again...

Sci-fi fans, check this out: the guys at the Steampunk Workshop had their monitor and keyboard modified in such a way that they can now be used as props for a classic steampunk movie.

For the steampunk keyboard, Datamancer took apart a trusty IBM Model M "Clicky" keyboard (which in itself has its own antiquity merits; they were manufactured since the 1980s), and replaced the keys with brass buttons furnished with labels indicating which keys they are, and laid on a brass cradle.

In the steampunk flat panel monitor's case, the guys at the Steampunk Workshop didn't actually take apart the US$ 300 Dell 1907FP monitor (as they did with the IBM keyboard), but they still got the job done by painting it in nice brown and gold paint and added some brass bracket pieces to give the edges an antique picture frame look. It's safe to say that they did a good job in redesigning the monitors, in that even the chime levers used in the controls were nice touches.

For those uninitiated to the genre, steampunk is the derivative of the science fiction category, but instead of completely futuristic backdrops you will find what you can call the Victorian Era on acid: steam-powered technology, clockwork machines, all rendered in glorious sepia.

In this age of minimalism where everything needs to be slimmed down and simplified, it's nice to know that there are some people who advocate the good things that can be found in the past.

This could be the most credible proof that the PlayStation 3 possesses formidable hardware: IBM's fastest supercomputer to date, Blue Gene/P, is juiced up by the same kind of processing chip that was originally designed for the Sony PS3.

Blue Gene/P is approximately 100,000 more powerful than a PC, just enough to make PlayStation 3 owners feel proud about their powerful machine. IBM's latest supercomputer can run about 1,000 trillion calculations per second, also termed as "petaflops".

Blue Gene/P's predecessor, the Blue Gene/L, is  used to protect nuclear weapons stockpile, and has already reached a calculating speed of 280.6 teraflops or trillions of calculations. "Blue Gene/P marks the evolution of the most powerful supercomputing platform the world has ever known," said Dave Turek, vice president of IBM's deep computing, about Blue Gene/P.

IBM possesses a remarkable supercomputer manufacturing portfolio: they have produced about 50% of existing 500 supercomputers, as well as providing CELL processors for PlayStation 3 and for the Blue Gene/P. IBM also has notable competition in the supercomputing industry with the likes of Sun, maker of the Constellation machines.

The first batch of Blue Gene/P are slated for use at the following institutions: the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, and two unnamed US laboratories.

Come the year 2010, we might see a new generation of chips that can be used in products from mobile devices to super computers. This said chip still has no specifications but at least five different companies have recently inked a partnership that will ultimately make this silicon dream a reality.

The alliance includes International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor, Samsung Electronics, Germany's Infineon Technologies AG, and privately owned U.S. Freescale Semiconductor Inc. That's a powerhouse cast and we're pretty sure that consumers' expectations will be running quite high.

In recent times, it has been the practice of chip makers to jointly develop technologies and synchronize manufacturing processes. These are rather helpful to them because collaborations such as these often result to lower cost production and higher client volume.

Even this early, Samsung's System LSI President Kwon Oh-Hyun is seeing some hurdles along the way as he said, "Major new challenges are expected at the 32-nanometre node, both in materials as well as device structures."