With the launch of Windows 7 this week, PC makers are trying some new things, including laptops with touch screens. Acer Inc. is going further — introducing a laptop with a 3-D screen.

The abstrusely named Acer Aspire 5738DG-6165 has a 15.6-inch screen that, with the help of special glasses, appears to take on depth if used with the right games or movies.

We have some good news for you. DirectX 11 games should start appearing sooner and in much bigger numbers than DirectX 10 games back when DX10 was introduced.

Let us remind you, when Microsoft went to DirectX 10 it insisted on an upgrade to Vista and since this operating system was not really popular, not many people rushed to make this upgrade. The second weak point of Vista was that it didn't run on legacy and still kicking Windows XP and last but certainly not least was the fact that DirectX 10 games didn't look much different than DirectX 9 games. This was also boosted by the fact that Crisys ended up being quite slow on DirectX 10 and Vista.

AMD has showed a presentation in which it compares its HD 5800 generation with Nvidia's upcoming Fermi, or as AMD likes to call it a "Paper Dragon".

The PR wars (Or FUD wars.sub.ed) between AMD and Nvidia have started once again as we draw closer to Nvidia's launch of Fermi. Nvidia still believes that Fermi beats the HD 5870, but on the other hand, AMD is selling more and more HD 5800 series cards, and Fermi is no where to be seen yet.

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) on Tuesday introduced eight mainstream Athlon II desktop microprocessors, ranging from dual- to quad-core models. The processors, all built using a 45-nanometer production process, are expected to be used in new PCs offered during the holiday shopping season. Computer makers expected to build systems around the latest offerings include Acer, Dell (Dell), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), and Lenovo.

Nvidia (NSDQ:NVDA)'s flirtation with streaming, real-time photo-realistic rendering may have entered the "officially dating" stage with Tuesday's launch of the graphics chip maker's RealityServer 3.0 for cloud-based visual computing applications.

Modular and powerful. Ultra Products has unveiled its newest line of power supply units, the X4. The lineup includes a total of seven units ranging from 500W to 1600W.

All units are modular and feature 80Plus certification, a single +12V rail design and a 135mm fan to keep the temps at bay. The full lineup includes 500, 600, 750, 850, 1050, 1200 and the top end 1600W models. All of these models come with included thumb screws, zip ties, velcro straps and silicone chassis bracket that ensure simple installation and reduced noise.

Up to 30°C lower temperatures. Denger Den has announced that its Radeon HD 5870 waterblock is ready and should be available in next few days.

It uses a pure copper 110 base, High Flow design and comes with a smoked acrylic cover. The waterblock doesn't cover the Crossfire connectors and thus its Crossfire compatible and certified.

The company states that the new HD 5870 waterblock should lower the temperature by up to 30 degrees Celsius. Of course, it solely depends on the rest of the water cooling setup, but it's nice to know what the waterblock itself is capable of doing.

Not sure what to make of it. AMD's recently released Open CL drives has given us something to think about. Among the new cards listed in the support sheet, including the fresh HD 5800 and HD 5700 series, the driver also mentions two HD5900 parts.

Frankly, we are not sure what to make of this. It is quite possible that AMD will brand the dual-GPU incarnations of HD 5850 and HD 5870 cards as HD 5900 series, dropping the previous X2 suffix, but this is merely speculation.

The upcoming version 3.6 of Firefox will be able to tell if you're listing to starboard--and pass that information along to applications running in the browser.

That's because the browser will be able to detect the orientation of laptops and mobile devices equipped with accelerometers that can tell which way is down. The reason for the work: Web applications running in the browser will be able to use the information, useful for labyrinth-type games with virtual marbles rolling around boards, and any number of other gaming situations.

And GTX260... Several Nvidia partners have confirmed that they had to decide to cancel GTX 285 and GTX 275 based products, as availability was simply disastrous.

We still don’t now if this is Nvidia's strategy to keep the market hungry for Fermi or they simply didn't order enough wafers, but availability of GTX260, GTX275 and GTX285 was so bad that many decided to drop these products and wait for Fermi.

The lucky ones can sell Radeon HD 5870 and 5850, as they are selling good, but the 5870 is mainly on allocation and that doesn’t really help a lot.