"CanSecWest takes place on March 9 and as usual, there’ll be the annual Pwn2Own hacking contest. However, this year there’s a new platform on the block -- Google’s Chrome OS -- and the search giant is happy to encourage participants to give it all they’ve got. ZDNet reports that Mountain View is offering a prize of $20,000 for the first person to crack its Chrome OS notebook via a vulnerability and sandbox escape in the Chrome browser."

"We’ve used the HQV benchmark version 1.0 for a few years now, and have only recently adopted the newer 2.0 version for some of our reviews. The latest build is far more complex and demanding than the original benchmark, but the raw scores don’t mean much unless you understand how to interpret them. Because of this, we’re taking our readers through a step-by-step explanation of the HD HQV Benchmark, version 2.0.

"Have gamers merely come to expect multiplayer in FPS games? Monday Crysis 2 executive producer Nathan Camarillo told CVG that generally first-person shooters actually need multiplayer features in order to succeed on the market today. Other gaming genres typically don't require that particular component to have longevity." | more

"It’s always nice to see the company you work so hard for do well. Also nice? Getting a big fat bonus when it posts record breaking financial results. VentureBeat reports that Intel employees are receiving four times their usual bonuses thanks to the company’s record-breaking year. As if that weren’t enough, Intel is said to be giving workers the equivalent of three extra days of pay on top of that." | more

"Nvidia released news today that Intel has agreed to pay the graphics maker an aggregate of $1.5 billion in licensing fees payable in five annual installments, beginning Jan. 18, 2011. Just as big news is that Nvidia and Intel have also agreed to drop all outstanding legal disputes between them.... Under the new agreement, Intel will have continued access to Nvidia’s full range of patents.

"However, there was at least one cool scanner at CES this year, even if it seemed a little gimmicky. Made by LG and sporting a handful of LEDs and a little mirror on the underside this peripheral does indeed scan and perform as a perfectly adequate mouse. According to USA Today, it’s a 300 dpi scanner and the price for the peripheral has not yet been decided. The mouse itself is just a regular, old wired USB mouse." | more

"Friday during CES 2011, Bigfoot Networks said that its Killer E2100 gaming network tech has been embedded on a combined LAN/audio card called ThunderBolt. This combo card will be included on the upcoming ROG Rampage III Black Edition motherboard from ASUS." | more

"As performance computer users, we hate to feel held back from accomplishing a task because our hardware is too slow. The little hourglass (or the spinning rainbow wheel) can sometime drive us insane when we perceive that we're able to work faster than our computers." | more

"Duke Nukem Forever will finally be a reality thanks to Gearbox Software picking up the pieces, so be prepared for a Duke revival. Some very ambitious and talented fans in Finland decided to shoot a short film with Duke Nukem spending some quality time inside a strip club before the alien invasion. It was all done in a day with a single Red One HD camera." | more

"We all hate spam. At one time or another, it feels like the bane of our existence. Most of us just hit the delete button (or first tag it as junk) and the move on with our lives. Not Daniel Balsam, though, who quit his day job to take on spammers full time. Balsam was working as a marketer eight years ago. After one too many pitches to enlarge one part of his body or another, he had enough. He quit his job and went to law school. Now he makes a living by suing companies that send him spam mail. Now he takes spammers to court in California.