CompUSA Closing All Stores

Rumors and speculation about CompUSA's demise turned to confirmation over the weekend when Dallas based Gordon Brothers purchased the chain and announced plans to close it down, ending a 23-year run that began in 1984 as Soft Warehouse. Specializing in restructuring and liquidating retail assets, Gordon Brothers will sell off some of the 103 remaining stores, and shut down the rest after the holiday season.

Blu-ray Dips to $299

Up to this point, consumers hoping for a low cost high-definition DVD player were forced to choose HD-DVD over Blu-ray, but the latter just got a whole more affordable. Samsung's BD-P1400 1080p player received an unannounced $200 price cut, putting the player at $299 and in a better position this holiday season to compete with HD-DVD's low priced units. The Samsung player brings 1080p and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding to the table, two features missing on the Toshiba HD-A3 HD-DVD player, which still enjoys a $100 pricing advantage over the Samsung.

AMD Exec Jumps IN Ship

We're used to seeing AMD executives flee the struggling chip maker, but today AMD announced the hiring of industry veteran Mike Uhler. Former CEO of MIPS, Mike will serve AMD as Vice President of Accelerated Computing, bringing with him an extensive background in developing chip architectures.

Hackers Infiltrate Top Gov't Research Lab

Thousands of visitors to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory may have had their personal information stolen over the last few week as the research lab went under attack by hackers. The compromised information includes names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers from 1990 to 2004. Not compromised was the lab's supercomputer, which contains classified data. The attack was triggered after some employees opened malicious email attachments.

Hand to Replace Game Controllers?

That's what Israeli company 3DV Systems is banking on. Following the buzz surrounding Nintendo's motion controllers for the Wii, 3DV is releasing the ZCam, a 3D camera that captures players' movements by emitting short infrared pulses and analyzing reflections off of objects. More than just gaming, 3DV hopes the technology will catch on to other applications, and they've demonstrated the ZCam being used to navigate menu trees in Windows Vista.

Samsung Swirls Amid Corruption Claims

Best known in the US for computer electronic devices, the Samsung Group keeps busy in Korea by running hospitals, apartments for raising families, funeral halls, and more. And according to a former top Samsung legal exec, they're also known for corruption, allegedly maintaining a slush fund of almost $220 million used to bribe public officials away from prying into Samsung's management practices. This coming amid a widening probe in which prosecutors have banned execs from traveling overseas and raiding affiliates for incriminating documents. Samsung denies the claims.

NSFW™

File this one under "yes, we're serious", but Fark.com wants to trademark NSFW (Not Safe For Work) as it relates to entertainment services. Read the official request here, then be the first to trademark 'LOL' here.