AMD has quietly dropped the prices on their CPUs this week, affecting some of their desktop processor line.

The processors saw anywhere from a $3-to-$22 drop.

AMD dropped the price of the Athlon II X4 640 by $22, the most of any processor, from $122 to $100.

A few of their most expensive Phenom II processor had prices cut, as well, with the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition and Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition dropping by $20 each.

Motherboard industry sources say the price drops are due to AMD trying to defend against increased competition from Intel, which owns 80 percent of the market.

Chart via TechReport:

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LG has taken a direct shot at Apple's popular iPad tablet today, making headlines with the bold statement.

"Our tablet will be better than the iPad," said Chang Ma, LG's vice president of marketing for its mobile-devices division.

Ma did note that the iPad is a very nice device, but concluded that Apple locked it down, not allowing consumers to "do much work on it."

Dubbed the Optimus, LG plans to release their Android tablet by the end of the year.

There are little other details known about the device.

Furthermore, Ma says the company wants to take on the iPhone, as well. In the smartphone market, "the race hasn't started yet."

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Samsung has introduced its first portable Blu-ray 3D player this week, alongside 3D HDTVs in an effort to make 3D products more accessible to consumers.

The portable BD-C8000 has a 10.3-inch screen, built-in Wi-Fi, an HDMI 1.4a port and runs on batteries.

Buyers can watch their 3D movies on the go, or connect it to a 3D HDTV via the HDMI output.

John Revie, Samsung senior vice president of home entertainment says the player is priced at $500 and available this week.

Samsung's three new plasma 3D HDTVs are for "budget-conscious" consumers, with the smallest, the PN50C490 3D TV, starting at just $1100. The TV is 50-inches and is 720p supportive. The mid-sized 1080p PN50C680 has a 50-inch screen and costs $1,599.

The larger 1080p PN58C680 has a 58-inch screen and costs $2299.

"We'd like to believe that 3D has raised the bar for ... the immersive entertainment experience," says Tim Baxter, president of the consumer electronics division at Samsung Electronics America. "The opportunity for 3D is constantly evolving. We think it will follow a path very similar to what we experienced with HD rollout and Blu-ray rollout."

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According to the WSJ, LG will begin using Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processors in upcoming smartphones, marking just the second time a company has agreed to use the chips in their mobile devices.

Currently, smartphones from Samsung, Motorola and others use processors from Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.

Microsoft's now-defunct Kin smartphones used the Tegra chips, but poor branding and marketing led to heinous sales of the devices. Microsoft's Zune HD media player uses the Tegra line, with excellent results.

The new deal should breathe new life into both companies, especially on the heels of LG announcing a loss for their mobile division for the first time in years.

It is unclear what operating system will be paired with LG smartphones using the Tegra chips, but most tend to agree it will be Windows Phone 7, Microsoft's upcoming mobile OS. The Tegra chips should be able to flawlessly power Xbox Live gaming, one of Microsoft's headlining features of the new OS.

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The Belgian ISP Telenet has posted via their forums an interesting list this week; the subscribers who have used the most bandwidth in the last month.

At the top of the list was a user of their TurboNet service, and that subscriber used an incredibly high 2.7TB worth of bandwidth for the period of July 4th to August 6th.

Continuing down the list were a few more users with excessive amounts of data transferred, with seven other users with over 1TB for the same period.

Those subscribers used 1.86TB, 1.49TB, 1.33TB, 1.1TB, 1.08TB, 1.07TB and 1.04TB, respectively, with most using the ISP's TurboNet XL service.

If you are curious as to why Telenet posted the top 25 bandwidth hogs, it was to encourage users to move from capped plans (50GB or 80GB) to their more expensive "fair use" "unlimited" plans. "Fair use," according to the ISP "means that you can send and receive a very large quantity of data via the Telenet network. Telenet will only ask you to adjust your consumption in the case of excessive volume consumption that may threaten the comfort of other subscribers."

Ars, while agreeing that 2.7TB is excessive, says they were told of an American in 2009 that used 4TB in one month, from a consumer account.

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HP, speaking during their Q3 earnings conference call, have confirmed a WebOS-based tablet for 2011.

Furthermore, the company promised a Windows 7 tablet, as well.

Says Todd Bradley, of HP's Personal Systems Group: "You'll see us with a Microsoft product in the near future, and a WebOS-based product in early 2011."

HP acquired Palm, including all their patents and the WebOS mobile operating system in April for $1.2 billion USD.

After the acquisition, it was unclear if HP would continue their long-standing partnership with Microsoft, and it is apparent today that they will.

HP's WebOS tablet should be a direct competitor to Apple's popular iPad, as well a plethora of upcoming Android-based tablets.

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AfterDawn, has signed a licensing deal with French Bestofmedia Group for publishing localized editions of Tom's Hardware in Nordic countries. Today, the first of the localized sites went online when Tom's Hardware Finland was launched.

Tom's Hardware, founded in 1996 (and owned by Bestofmedia since 2007), is one of the best-known online technology publications gathering more than 30 million worldwide visitors each month. With Tom's Hardware focusing on PC technology and hardware and AfterDawn.com focusing on digital entertainment technologies, we believe we can effectively cross-promote both properties in Nordic countries, delivering our readers a more complete take on latest technology news and reviews.

As both companies are advocates of localized online content, the match was quite logical for both of us. Tom's Hardware wanted to expand their global reach to new countries and AfterDawn wanted to have a strong PC technology presence in the Nordic region. AfterDawn is Finland's largest technology website, with more than 5% of entire online population visiting the site on weekly basis and our ambition is to grow our traffic significantly also in Sweden, Norway and Denmark -- and now we have also another strong technology brand to support that goal.

We expect to launch Tom's Hardware in the remaining Nordic countries -- Sweden, Norway and Denmark -- by end of 2010. If you speak any of these languages and wish to be a part of the Tom's Hardware Nordic team, please contact us. We are looking for tech oriented people for translation work.

-Petteri Pyyny, CEO
AfterDawn Oy

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In May, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) wrote in their official blog that the PlayStation 3 would soon be getting the Mubi movie streaming service.

The service has a large range of independent, classic and international films and was first announced at the Cannes Film Festival. The service will include "festival gems, classics, famous independent releases and art-house flicks" from such famous directors like Quentin Tarantino, Gus Van Sant and the Coens.

Today, the SCEE has priced the movies available on the service, €3.59 per movie ala cart, or €12.99 for an unlimited monthly pass.

Mubi will hit PS3 owners in the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Australia and New Zealand in October.

Adding some social elements to the service, Mubi will let users become "fans" of movies, as well as share recommendations with friends.

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According to "three separate development sources" who spoke to Eurogamer, the next generation PSP will be the same size as the current PSP-3000 model, but will include touch-sensitive controls on the back of the device.

Each of the three sources say they have both seen and used the new PSP, describing the display as "rich and detailed."

The main new feature, however, is the way new games are controlled, with the touch controls.

Sony is still developing the handheld, and the company has been showcasing the prototypes with first-party games over the past few weeks.

The company has also already "settled on a business model" but that is still unclear. A digital-download only model, similar to that of the PSPGo, is likely.

Two of the sources claimed a holiday 2011 launch is imminent.

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