From FiringSquad

With the release of the GeForce GTX 460, NVIDIA's board partners are trying all sorts of things to make their product stand apart from the crowd. Between designs like the dual-fanned ECS Black edition, Galaxy's removable fan, and MSI's completely different cyclone cooler, there are a lot of creative ideas for you to check out. However, most of these are not yet available, with most of the dozen GTX 460s listed on Newegg being based on the reference design.

iXBT Labs take an in-depth look at cache-size vs number of cores for performance.

You may remember our article series How CPU Features Affect CPU Performance that we published in 2009. That time we analyzed the performance of a number of processors to understand what affected it. Then we updated our test method and decided to do the same, but in situations and tasks closer to real life. Just like the last time, we're going to start with AMD -- with its Socket AM3 platform to be exact.

Techware Labs

With home media computers finding their way into many people's living rooms a need for high-powered hardware in smaller form factors is on the rise. Many early adopters of Home Theater PCs or HTPCs simply installed tower systems near their high definition TV or wired existing desktop systems in other rooms to the TV. Now with more widespread adoption many users wanted power horse computer capable of high definition multimedia playback but in a size more suitable to the TV area.

From iXBTLabs

Today we shall review the Foxconn H55MX-S motherboard based on the Intel H55 chipset. The company has been making inexpensive products of late, so it only has a couple of more or less top-class Socket 1156 motherboards -- the P55-based Inferno Katana series.

From Neowin.net:

Valve will be releasing Alien Swarm for free today on Steam. Alien Swarm was originally created as a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 by Black Cat. The version Valve is releasing today has been completely re-written as a stand alone game and according to the official announcement, "In addition to the game, Valve will also release the complete code base for Alien Swarm. This includes updates to the Source engine SDK and full Steamworks integration. If you’ve ever thought about developing a mod on the Source engine with Steamworks, this release provides more insight and examples for using Steamworks in game production."

From C/Net News

Unmanned stealth plane may pick its own targets

Britain's Ministry of Defence recently unveiled an unmanned stealth attack aircraft that redefines "autopilot"--it's designed to fly halfway around the world and choose its own targets without human intervention, according to a report in The Globe and Mail.

From Information Week

The Stuxnet rootkit launches even with AutoRun and AutoPlay disabled and is known to affect Windows 7 Enterprise Edition x86 operating systems.

Security experts are warning of never-before-seen malware, dubbed Stuxnet, that spreads via USB drives, infecting PCs via an unknown -- aka zero-day -- Windows vulnerability. Unfortunately, the attack works even with AutoRun and AutoPlay disabled, and affects at least Windows 7 Enterprise Edition x86 operating systems.

From the The Register:

A British-made solar powered aircraft has been airborne above a US military test range in Arizona for more than seven days continuously, it has been announced.

From DailyTech

Also, U.S. Senator voices outrage about Apple's handling of the iPhone antenna problems

Life is tough as an engineer.  Last year Ruben Caballero, a senior engineer and antenna expert at Apple, reportedly warned the company's top management, including CEO Steven P. Jobs, that the current production plan was badly flawed.  Lacking any insulation, he recognized from experience that the antenna would likely be in for some serious issues.

Bloomberg received the information from a source close to Caballero.  Caballero, who still works at Apple has declined comment.  Apple also declined comment.

From Computer World

A case giveaway? A recall? Duct tape? Analysts say any of those options, and nothing, is possible
By now, the entire civilized world knows that Apple Inc. has called a press conference for tomorrow, presumably to address the antenna and reception problems experienced by some iPhone 4 users.