Switched On: Next for the nano

For all the grousing about the minimal changes from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S, Apple's fastest smartphone incorporates sweeping shifts compared to what the company did with its iPod line. From keeping the waning iPod classic in the lineup to leaving the still-potent iPod touch untouched save for a blanching and price reduction, the venerable digital media player line seemed all but ignored at a time of year when Apple once primed the holiday pump for MP3 players.

Yet, while the iPod touch may not have received the processor boost or Siri-ousness of the iPhone 4S, it at least continues to remain vibrant via access to Apple's app store. That's not the case for the nano, once the flagship of the line. While Apple's smallest touchscreen device gained new software that enlarged the main icons and brought new clock faces, these improvements are also being offered to owners of the last-generation iPod nano via a software update.

Maingear brings Intel i7-3960X Extreme Edition chip, Epic Audio Engine to desktops, extreme gamers

Looking to add a dash of extremity to your gaming existence? Maingear's got you covered, now that it's added a second generation Intel Core i7 CPU to a handful of its desktop offerings. Today, the company announced yet another upgrade to its SHIFT, Quantum SHIFT and F131 desktops, with the addition of the Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor. According to Maingear, this extra horsepower will provide gamers with a 34 percent improvement in performance at normal speeds, while offering similar enhancements in video editing and 3D rendering capabilities. That's all thanks to the fact that the i7-3960X can be overclocked at a handsome 5.2GHz, with a quad-channel memory structure that brings even more bandwidth to the table. On top of that, the company has also added its own EPIC Audio Engine to this troika of rigs, using Aphex's processing technology to offer audio that, according to Maingear, is "more balanced, more articulated, and simply put, better sounding."

Intel's Sandy Bridge E gets rounded up and reviewed, the E is for Excessive

You can guess how this one's gonna go: top marks for performance and a shriek of despair when it comes to value for money. Is there anyone out there who really needs an over-sized six-core CPU that requires its own chubby LGA-2011 socket and tailored X79 chipset before it'll even switch on in the morning? Could people seriously be persuaded to drop a grand on merely incremental improvements in technology, such as 15MB of L3 cache and a bigger 600MHz Turbo Boost for stock clock speeds up to 3.9GHz? Well now, let's not get distracted. Even if there were no market -- which there is -- Intel would probably carry on releasing world-beating desktop chips simply to remind us that its rivals can't, and we'd probably carry on reading about them. So here goes, a bunch of reviews covering both the i7-3960X and i7-3930K variants, which together represent the absurd awesomeness of Sandy Bridge E and are on sale at Newegg for $1,050 and $600 respectively:

AnandTech: bemoans the absence of an on-die GPU, criticizes the X79 chipset, and dislikes the "performance/functionality tradeoffs"
PC Pro: sedately noted that the i7-3960X shows an "improvement" over i7-2600K in real-world benchmarks, and that "AMD must be sweating."
HotHardware: regards the 3960X as an "excellent overclocker" despite its vast power consumption, and says it combines with the X79 chipset to make "the most potent" desktop for gaming, content creation or productivity.
Tom's Hardware: describes the 3960X as a "symbolic king in a crowd full of value," and the 3930K as the processor moneyed enthusiasts should be lusting over.

ExtremeTech: says "the 3960X is a great chip on a solid platform," but cautions that only the most demanding gamers and content creators need this kind of power

Rock-steady Gigabyte G1.Sniper2 Z68 motherboard gets a nod of approval

Not enticed by all that Sandy Bridge E havoc that hit the PC market today? Good for you, because there's still plenty of life left in the first-gen LGA1155 Sandy Bridge processors and Gigabyte has put out another high-end Z68-based motherboard to prove it. The G1.Sniper2 just won itself a HotHardware recommendation, and if you look past the violent branding and color scheme you'll see why: the $360 premium card has the full gamut of ports and connections and delivers rock solid stability even when overclocked right up the limits of an i7-2600K CPU.

University gets $188 million AMD-based supercomputer, free copy of Norton

It used to be that you only needed a bachelor's degree and elbow patches to be taken seriously as an academic, but now it's all about that 50-petaflop supercomputer with 500 petabytes of storage whirring away in the basement. The University of Illinois used to shop with IBM, but it's just about to have a brand new Cray XK6 installed instead, so it can continue providing computing power to the National Science Foundation's Blue Waters project. It's not all about inciting gadget envy, of course: the machine's unlikely truce of AMD Opteron 6200 16-core processors and NVIDIA Tesla GPUs will help more than 25 teams of scientists to model and understand real-world phenomena, from the damage caused by earthquakes to the way viruses to break into cells. Breakthroughs from these projects will -- hopefully, one day -- make the $188 million total cost of Cray's products and services seem like a bargain.

Boxee Box Live TV dongle shipping for $49 in January 2012, pre-orders open

No point in hiding in plain view, eh? Boxee has just affirmed that the leaked Live TV dongle is legit, and it'll be splashing down on North American shores in January. The Boxee Box Live TV dongle will allow North American users to connect an antenna to their Box to watch channels like ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC in HD with no monthly fee -- assuming you're close enough to an OTA tower to receive said signals, of course. Once equipped, a Box will be able to fetch content from the major networks, Vudu, Netflix and Hulu, though you may want to spring for that bolstered internet connection.

Boxee Live TV works with signals from HDTV antennas (using ATSC) or an unencrypted cable connection (using ClearQAM), and a portable antenna is included. Users who live out in the 'burbs may want to consider something a bit beefier, and if you're hoping to use this thing with something other than the Boxee Box... well, keep dreaming. In fact, Boxee has confirmed that even the forthcoming update of its Boxee software for Mac and PC won't support the device, so you'll be forced to pony up for D-Link's hardware if you're looking to party. There's also no DVR function in sight (sort of defeating the purpose, given just how many TVs have tuners already), but hey -- who knows what'll roll out at CES. Pre-orders are available down in the source link, with $49 claiming your spot in line.

SparkFun announces $80 Electric Sheep development board for Android accessories

Looking for an alternative to the Google-approved Android Development Kit? Then you now have another fairly inexpensive option to consider courtesy of SparkFun. It's officially announced its new Electric Sheep development board, which costs just $80 and will let you build your own Android accessories using the Open Accessory protocol. That means it and any accessories built with it will work just fine with your Nexus One, although there's of course no guarantees it'll work with, say, a future Nexus-6 model -- we hear those might be a bit unpredictable.

Fanny Wang lets you make your headphones as ugly as you want

Making it big in the headphone industry isn't always about sound quality, sometimes you just have to be loud. The folks at Fanny Wang have that covered, offering up some wildly colored cans to help them "break through the noise," as they put it, of the headphone market. Users can customize the outfit's 1001, 2001 and 3001 model headphones on the firm's new interactive website, picking and choosing colors for seven distinct parts, including the cord. Orders take about three weeks to assemble and ship, Fanny says, giving you just enough time to snag some colorful cans before the holidays. You know, in case someone on your list is looking for something sort of like those ColorWare tinted Beats, but with a bit of actual color.

Roku planning to bring set-top boxes to Canada, UK in early 2012

It's been a big year for Roku. The streaming content box manufacturer launched its Roku 2 HD, XD and XS this summer, with a $50 LT model coming just last month. Now, the Netflix / HBO Go / Angry Birds player will cross the border into Canada and the U.K., with the expansion set to begin in early 2012. The company is looking to build its 350 channels with region-specific content, which can be provided free, supported by ads or with a subscription -- and if you choose to add your own content to the service, you'd certainly be in good company.

Archos debuts Arnova 9 G2 Android tablet, offers Gingerbread on a 9.7-inch IPS display

Archos' new Arnova 9 G2 tablet looks to be the very definition of a mixed bag. It's part of the company's budget-minded Arnova line, so it will likely be relatively inexpensive (there's still no official word on a price), and it packs some specs that range from decent to high-end, including a 1GHz ARM A8 processor and a 9.7-inch IPS display with a 1,024 x 768 resolution (the same as the iPad). But it also runs the smartphone-minded Android 2.3 OS on that decidedly tablet-sized display and, as with other inexpensive Android tablets, you'll have to make do without official access to the Android Market (Archos offers the Appslib application store instead). Still curious? Details on everything but a price and release date can be found at the source link below.

Update: Matias emailed to let us know that he spotted an official listing for this device on Amazon.de, carrying a price of 250 Euro. If you're interested, that's about 340 of our American dollars.

Plextor outs M3S SSD: SATA III and an 'ironclad' five-year warranty from $199

Harken to the news of Plextor's latest 2.5-inch SSD, which beats previous offerings with three things you can't complain about: a lower price, a modest spec bump and an extra two annums beyond the usual three-year warranty. The M3S employs SATA III and a Marvell controller to deliver speeds of 525MB/s and 445MB/s for sequential reads and writes, and 70,000 and 65,000 IOPS for random reads and writes. The lowest 128GB capacity will sell for $200 from the end of this month, alongside a 256GB variant for $350 and -- from early next year -- 512GB for $700. The company's proprietary True Speed software is also in attendance, which claims to preserve "like-new" rapidity even as the drive fills up with fragmented data. You'll find further specs in the PR after the break, but alas it has none of the third-person narrative flair we saw last time.

Cedar Trail Eee PCs get previewed in ASUS magazine

Today we learned that ASUS produces its own in-house magazine, stuffed full of thoughtful pieces about the company's products. This season's festive edition of Tech in Style included a holiday gift guide (exclusively packed with ASUS products, of course) and a first look at the Cedar Trail-powered Eee PC 1025C and 1025CE netbooks. Both ship with the latest 32nm processors, come in a variety of colors, have 12 of hours battery life and pack a 10.1-inch slim LED WSVGA (1024 x 600) display. The CE model adds USB 3.0, USB Charger+ (letting you recharge your cellphone even when the Eee is switched off) and WiFi direct connect, which can network with other devices without a standalone router. Both models have already passed inspection by the FCC, so it's likely we could see the wee beasties arriving just in time for the holiday buying season. Head on after the break to see the full page, hewn from ASUS' very own Tech in Style.