Google on Wednesday announced that it will encrypt Gmail at all times, not just during sign-on, and make the process an opt-out feature rather than opt-in.

At this point, Google only uses this encryption process, known as HTTPS, during the sign-in process in order to protect your password. HTTPS keeps e-mail encrypted as it travels between your web browser and servers and is mostly used for things like banks and credit card company Web sites.

Intel on Thursday officially unveiled its new, 32-nanometer family of processors at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) here, including the Core i7, i5, and i3 processors, the Intel 5 Series chipsets, and Intel Centrino Wi-Fi and Wimax adapters.

Intel chief executive Paul Otellini took the stage at a CES keynote to discuss how computing is no longer confined to the PC and is becoming increasingly mobile – an advance made possible via Intel processors, of course.

Samsung's new Bada smartphone platform will support multiple Web browsers, social networking, and multitouch screens, Samsung executives explained at a launch event in London on Tuesday. But there are still many painful questions about this nascent smartphone OS - including whether it will ever come to U.S. phones.

"We are opening a new era of smartphones for everyone by deploying the Bada platform in a massive number of handsets," Samsung EVP Hosoo Lee said.

Nvidia has quietly begun taking aim at Intel through a series of editorial cartoons, poking fun at the chip giant through a site known as IntelsInsides.com. Nvidia representatives and the cartoonist himself confirmed that Nvidia hosts the site, which is also linked to on its corporate blog. So far, IntelsInsides.com has only poked fun at Intel, although Bob Sherbin, Nvidia's head of corporate communications, said that other targets could be forthcoming.

Xerox on Tuesday announced a new silver ink (among other things) that it's calling, and apparently is, a breakthrough in printable electronics, a leading edge concept that's generated a lot of discussion but few actual products to date, largely because of the issues that Xerox's new technology addresses.

Microsoft has updated the advisory for MS09-054, a cumulative security update for Internet Explorer, to describe its impact on Firefox users. The first version failed to mention any impact, leading to what may have been an overreaction on Mozilla's part.

An entry on Microsoft's Security Research & Defense blog goes into the matter further. The bottom line: Firefox users should apply MS09-054, even though it's labeled as an update for IE.

Nvidia launched its second-generation GPU computing architecture on Wednesday, code-named "Fermi". Oak Ridge National Laboratory will design a supercomputer based on the Fermi, an executive said.

The "Fermi" announcement kicked off Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference, which will run the remainder of this week in Silicon Valley.

Intel has begun producing 32-nm "Westmere" chips, the focus of the company's Intel Developer Forum in two weeks.

Intel plans to announce on Sunday night that is has begun manufacturing its 32-nm shrink of its Core microprocessor line, which the company refers to by the umbrella code name of "Westmere". Those chips will be spearheaded by the so-called "Dales" chips -- "Clarkdale" for the desktop, and "Arrandale" for the notebook -- which will contain an Intel CPU and graphics core together in the same package. Arrandale is expected to ship during the fourth quarter of 2009.

Toshiba will sell its first Blu-ray DVD player starting in November, the company announced Thursday.

The BDX2000 will retail for $249.99. It includes BD-Live, which lets users take advantage of Web-based interactive features via an Ethernet connection. The device also includes an SD card slot, which may be required to access some of the BD-Live content, Toshiba said.

Advanced Micro Devices has launched a low-power version of its six-core Opteron processor in time for VMworld, a key virtualization show that opens on Monday.

The six-core AMD Opteron EE consumes 40 watts, and is designed for 2P servers, among the most popular in the virtualized server space. The chip will cost $989, and will begin shipping on Monday.