We almost made it halfway through November without a Chrome OS rumor, and if the latest inside tip turns out to be true, the oft talked about OS will launch next week so we never have to hear another related rumor again.

At least, that's the word coming from Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch, who says a "reliable" birdie told him we'll all be able to download the lean OS within a week. When and if that does happen, expect sketchy driver support, as Google engineers continue to work around the clock building hardware drivers. Or, according to other rumors, it will be up to hardware manufacturers to get their drivers in line. Whichever the case might be, expected a bit of busted support out of the box.

TechCrunch says the launch will probably be a cautious one in terms of which platform the OS supports. Netbooks will be the most obvious candidates, and it's unlikely Google will tout Chrome as being ready for notebooks and desktops in general. The search-giant-gone-OS-developer might even list specific makes and models that Chrome is known to work with.

Think we'll see Chrome OS next week? Hit the jump and place your bets. 

Citing anonymous sources from notebook heavyweights, news and rumor site DigiTimes says we can expect Intel to launch four 32nm dual-core Arrandale CPUs (Calpella platform) by the second week of January 2010. These will include the Core i5 520M and 430M, and Core i3 350M and 330M.

Details weren't available on all four chips, but it looks like the Core i5 430M will come clocked at 2.26GHz and include Intel's Turbot Boost Technology, which could bump the clockspeed up to 2.53GHz for a single core. The Core i3 350M will also boast a 2.26GHz clockspeed, but no Turbo Boost.

The Core i5 will feature a graphics clock running at 500MHz and up to 766MHz with Turbo Boost, whereas the Core i3 will also run at 500MHz, but top out at 667MHz. All four chips will support DDR3 memory, come equipped with 3MB of L3 cache, and come rated with a TDP of 35W. 

If the Mac Mini and a bag of Skittles were to share a night of unbridled love, we're pretty the love child of such an affair would look identical to the Zino HD, Dell's new line of colorful low-power home theater PCs.

Dell kicks off the HTPC line with several base configurations, each one built around an AMD processor. The least expensive  Zino HD starts at just $230 and includes an AMD Athlon 2560e processor (1.6GHz, 512KB L2 cache), 2GB of DDR2-800 memory, 250GB hard drive spinning at 7200RPM, integrated ATI Radeon HD3200 graphics, 2.1 audio, an 8X DVD burner, and Windows Vista Home Basic. The OS is a bit of a surprise, considering each of the three other configurations come with Windows 7 Home Premium in 64-bit trim.

The highest priced model checks in at $650 and kicks the processor up to an AMD Athlon 2850e (1.8GHz, 512KB L2 cache), doubles up on memory (4GB), adds twice as much storage (500GB), tosses in an ATI Radeon HD 4330 videocard with a 512MB frame buffer, and includes a 20-inch Dell ST2010 widescreen monitor.

All of the models come with 4 USB ports (2 each on the front and back) and 2 eSATA ports.

The Zino HD is available now through Dell.com.

Want to become an instant legend at the park? Master a killer crossover, bust your opponent's ankles, side-step behind the three-point line, and nail the trey. After it swishes through, flash a smirk at your defender and tell him, "it's the shoes" as you point at your custom kicks molded from an old circuit board. This works best if you're also sporting a Commodor 64 t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

Unfortunately, you'd probably end up thrashing the custom-made shoes the moment you stepped out on the concrete, but even if you can't wear them, we have to give props to modder shoe maker Gabriel Dishaw, who took an old circuit board and made a pair of "Nike Blazer Pentium 1.0" kicks. And the best news? This is apparently just the first pair of more to come as part of a series of classic sneakers. Rad.

Want to see more? Dishaw's posted a bunch of pics, which you can access here.

Right from the very beginning, Windows XP has dominated the netbook scene. Vista is just too demanding for a low-power PC, and Linux hasn't been able to win over the mainstream. But even though Windows XP played an important role in the popularizing ultraportable netbooks, Microsoft appears ready to move on.

"We will continue to make Windows XP available for those devices [netbooks], but it doesn't make sense to put marketing effort behind those devices. As much as we make Windows XP available for a year, we won't see it last in the market that long. We will get through the holidays. My gut is we will walk away from the holidays and see that it's not worth keeping on the market," said Don Paterson, director of netbook PCs in Microsoft's Windows client group.

Moving on is something Microsoft probably would have liked to have done with Vista, but it just sucked up too many resources to be a viable alternative to XP. That changes with Windows 7, which looks to become the new standard.

Well here's something we didn't see coming. Microsoft has apparently convinced the patent courts to grant the Redmond company a patent for "sudo," the command every Linux user is familiar with. Think that's mind boggling? Check out the final wording for the patent:

"Although the invention has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological steps, it is to be understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or steps described. Rather, the specific features and steps are disclosed as preferred forms of implementing the claimed invention."

 So how did Microsoft manage to patent the Linux command? We don't know, and it doesn't look like Groklaw does, either. But one thing's for sure - Red Hat's going to have a conniption.

AMD this week unveiled a newly revamped roadmap outlining a pair of all-new processor architectures, as well as plans for its CPU/GPU integration, ArsTechnica reports.

Let's start with 'Bobcat,' which is the codename for AMD's new mobile architecture. AMD says Bobcat was built from the ground-up and will compete with Intel's Atom and VIA's Nano platforms. According to one of the slides AMD showed, Bobcat is "sub one-watt capable," though expect higher-clocked parts to sip more juice than that. The 32nm part will support SSE 1 through 3, and is slated to ship in 2011.

On the server side, AMD also announced its "Bulldozer" architecture. As ArsTechnica explains it, a single Bulldozer "module" will appear as a single processor core to the OS with simultaneous multithreading (SMT) enabled. It's unclear how many instructions per cycle the front-end can dispatch, other than at least four and probably as high as eight. Bulldozer will also launch in 2011.

Motorola has put the word out that it wants to sell off its "Home and Network Mobility" unit. The unit, which makes equipment for cable and wireless companies, is Motorola's largest division, Businessweek.com reports.

According to the latest tech chatter, a deal worth $4.5 billion could be on the table. It's unknown exactly who the potential buyer(s) might be, but the most likely bet would include private-equity firms and makers of telecommunications equipment, like Samsung, the Wall Street Journal speculated.

Should Motorola find a buyer, it would be left with two other divisions: Mobile Devices, which makes cell phones, and Enterprise Mobility, with makes bar code scanners and other equipment for corporate use,

Motorola had no comment on the rumor.

Pharmaceuticals aren't the only ones benefiting from the H1N1 virus. According to Computerworld, vendors of remote access technologies are reporting increased demand for their products in the past several months as companies try to enable more employees to work from home and other remote locations in an emergency.

"What companies are really looking for is the ability to provide secure, remote access to more of their employees," said Micheal Oldham, CEO of Portcullis Systems, a Malborough, Mass-based vendor of secure access appliances. "Most companies already have mobile workforces. What they are doing is planning for scale."

Oldham added that most of the demand is coming from government agencies and larger enterprises, both of which seem to be more aware of the need for planning.

By investing in secure access technologies like the ones offered by Portcullis, IT administrators can ensure that any devices connected to a corporate network from a remote location won't become a security concern. It also buys enterprises a bit of insurance in the event of a pandemic so that business can go on as usual.

There are a lot of winners in the $1.25 billion settlement between Intel and AMD. The most obvious one is AMD, who can use the money to pay off debt and put this longstanding legal dispute behind them. As part of the settlement, AMD also benefits from a new five-year cross licensing agreement.

In some respects, Intel can also be considered a winner, in that the chip maker could have ended up paying much more than $1.25 billion had this lawsuit gone the distance. And like AMD, Intel can put this episode behind them. And with both Intel and AMD no longer distracted by a costly court case, the two chip makers can put their full attention towards R&D.

"It's really good for the industry in general," said Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates. "Both companies had devoted a lot of top management to the fight. It's pretty distracting. You really want top executives concentrating on the business at hand."

OEMs like HP and Dell also come out ahead by being able to choose whichever processors and platforms they want, rather than which ones they're being told to use. And that's good for consumers, too.

It's not often that a bitter legal dispute ends up having so many winners, but that's certainly the case here.

Ten years ago, the phrase "Where's my pancakes" wouldn't be nearly enough to get a robbery suspect off the hook. Even 6 years ago it wouldn't have worked. But that's only because Facebook was no where to be see. What are we talking about?

Rodney Bradford, a 19-year-old resident of the Farragut Houses, was arrested on October 18th for a robbery that took place the day before. His alibi? A status update on Facebook on October 17, at 11:49AM, from a computer in his father's apartment in Harlem, asking about his pancakes.

"This is the first case that I'm aware of in which a Facebook update has been used as alibi evidence," said John Browning, a lawyer and member of the Dallas Bar Association who studies social networking and the law. "We are going to see more of that because of how prevalent social networking has become."

The charges against Bradford where dropped when Facebook verified that the update, which occurred during the time of the robbery, originated from his dad's PC. Of course, this begs the question of how anyone can be sure that it was Bradford who typed the message, and not someone else.

"This implies a level of criminal genius that you would not expect from a young boy like this; he is not Dr. Evil," said defense lawyer Robert Reuland, adding that the Facebook entry was just "icing on the cake" since Bradford had other alibis.

But what about in other cases? With Facebook for the first time being used as an alibi, we wouldn't be surprised to see this type of defense being employed more often, including by those who really are guilty.

Where do you see this headed? Hit the jump and sound off!

Trend Micro has issued a warning that the Koobface botnet has begun pushing out a new component capable of automatically registering a Facebook account and confirming an email address in Gmail to activate the fake persona. Once Koobface becomes part of the social network's community, it begins randomly joining Facebook groups, adding friends, and posting messages to people's walls.

"Overall, this new component behaves like a regular Internet user that starts to connect with friends in Facebook," says Trend Micro. "All Facebook accounts registered by this component are comparable to a regular account made by a human. The details provided about the account are complete such as a photo, birth date, favorite music, and favorite books, among others. In addition, every account registered is unique in such a way that the details vary for every account registered."

That's pretty wild, and it's done using Internet Explorer to create and register the account, according to Trend Micro. But what's interesting is that the Koobnet botnet halts its dastardly deed if the affected user is kicking it old school with IE6.

So how do you avoid being duped by a fake friend? You could become a loner, but that might get, well, lonely. Common sense applies - be sure you know who it is you're adding. And as usual, be wary of clicking on links. Trend Micro says the messages posted through Facebook's wall contain a link that leads to the fake Facebook or YouTube page hosting the Koobface loader component.

A Microsoft manager has gone on record saying one of Microsoft's goals with Windows 7 was to "create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics." After posting the story, Maximum PC reader Tekzel commented, "That dude is sooo going to get in trouble." Tekzel, you sooo called it.

It didn't take long at all for Microsoft to distance itself from Simon Aldous, the partner group manger who made the comment. In an official Windows blog post this morning, here's what Microsoft had to say:

"An inaccurate quote has been floating around the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was “borrowed” from Mac OS X. Unfortunately this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed."

Oh snap! Microsoft went on to suggest reading an AP story with Ms. Larson-Green and a couple of other articles linked in the blog to learn more about the design of Windows 7.

We did some digging, and from what we can tell, G.Skill's correct in claiming that it's new DDR3 kit is the fastest around, so long as we put the CAS Latency (CL) setting front and center.

The new kit, which is part of G.Skill's Pi series and "specially tuned for Intel Lynnfield Core i7 870, 860 processors," comes rated at DDR3-2200 with 7-10-10-10 timings at 1.65V. It's available in 4GB (2x2GB) form, but is it really the overall fastest?

That's a tough one to answer. A quick peek on Newegg shows one other DDR3-2200 memory kit, this one from Super Talent. It comes rated at 8-8-8-24, so we're willing to give G.Skill's kit the slight edge, at least on paper.

G.Skill says its new modules will be available through collaborated distribution partners "immediately with affordable price."  As of this writing we weren't able to track down a kit online.

Talk about vindication. AMD waited a long time for this day and took a lot of heat from the Intel faithful, but the chip maker finally got it was looking for: a huge settlement.

Finally putting to rest the longstanding antitrust dispute, Intel and AMD announced today a settlement agreement in which Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion, as well as agree to "abide by a set of business practice provisions." In return, AMD will drop all pending litigation and withdraw all of its regulatory complaints worldwide.

"While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development," the chip makers said in a joint statement.

The dispute dates back to 2004 when AMD filed a case accusing Intel of unfair business practices that entailed snuffing the smaller chip maker out. Intel allegedly offered sizable rebates to key vendors in exchange for either dealing exclusively with Intel, or delaying the launch of AMD products.

While AMD has agreed to take its money and run, Intel might not be out of hot water completely. The settlement doesn't prevent governments from initiating antitrust cases against Intel.

With somewhere between $250 and $300 to play with, there are a lot of PC parts and peripherals you could buy. A Core i5 or i7 processor, for example. You could upgrade your videocard, replace your motherboard, slap an SSD into your rig, or even buy a bigger LCD monitor. Or you could buy a flashlight. Say what?

When the mPower Emergency Illuminator starts shipping in March of 2010, it's going to cost as much as three Benjamins. But before you dismiss it altogether, let's go over what it can do.

Other than its unique aesthetics, the mPower's biggest trick is battery life. One of the battery tubes holds a pair of your standard CR123 batteries, but should those fail, another tube contains what the Porsche Design Studio is calling an OnCommand Reserve Battery. The company says the reserve power gives its flashlight a minimum 20-year shelf life and will deliver "power on command when and where you need it."

The reserve power isn't rechargeable and will wear down when you use it, but the company claims it won't degrade from sitting unused. And should you ever need to replace it, another backup battery will run $25.

But wait, there's more! The mPower also comes with a built-in USB port for charging your smartphone and other digital devices. It will first tap into the CR123 batteries to do this, provided there's enough juice in tank, and only sip from the battery backup if needed.

Pretty slick, but is it worth $300? Hit the jump and tell us what you think.

Director of Programming for Xbox Live Larry Hryb (better known as Major Nelson) is a few weeks late on this one, but we still give him props for a pretty hilarious Achievement issued to Microsoft: Shipped Windows 7. Unlocking the novelty Achievement adds a billion points to Microsoft's Gamerscore (even if Apple gets the assist).

"We've been a little busy around the Xbox offices getting ready for the Facebook, Twitter, Last.FM, and Zune Video marketplace release coming up. We did, however, wanted to recognize the occasion the best way we know how: with an Achievement! We had a banner made up for everyone on the LIVE team to sign, then we hung it up in the lobby of the main Windows building," Hryb wrote on his blog.

Well played, Major Nelson.

Mozilla this week released the second beta for its upcoming Firefox 3.6 browser. If you decide to ditch your stable build and jump on the pre-release browser, Mozilla says Firefox will update itself during the beta period and eventually to the final release.

The latest beta squashes more than 190 bugs from the previous version to improve performance, stability, security, and features, according to Mozilla. But it's not all about bug fixes. Users can now change the browser's appearance with a single click, receive alerts about out-of-date plugins, and display native video in full screen. The second beta also adds support for the WOFF font format, expands CSS, DOM, and HTML5 capabilities, and improves upon the browser's JavaScript performance.

The out-of-date plugin alerts might be the most interesting new feature of the bunch. Earlier this week, security vendor Ceznic noted that Firefox accounted for 44 percent of all browser vulnerabilities, 'beating' out every other browser by 9 percent or more. Ceznic noted that part of the reason Firefox led the pack is because of the large number of plugins, which accounted for a "fair amount of the vulnerabilities."

View the release notes and download a copy of the second beta build here.

Apple would argue that Microsoft has been ripping off its Mac OS GUI ever since Windows was first introduced, a notion Microsoft has dismissed on more than one occasion. That being the case, we're willing to bet the Redmond company isn't too thrilled that one of its managers is flapping his gums about Windows 7 taking a liberal cue from Mac OS X.

"One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it's very graphical and easy to use," said Simon Aldous, partner group manager with Microsoft. "What we've tried to do with Windows 7 -- whether it's traditional format or in a touch format -- is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics."

Spending a little time with the redesigned Taskbar is all it takes to see what Aldous is talking about, and it's not too difficult to find other similarities, either. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, though it's not something you want to flaunt if you're Microsoft, or one of Microsoft's managers. These types of admissions have a way of ending up twisted, taken out of context, and capitalized on by Mac OS pitchmen Justin Long and John Hodgman.

In a blockbuster deal, Hewlett Packard on Wednesday announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase 3Com at a price of $7.90 per share. That breaks down to about $2.7 billion and puts HP, which is already a strong networking company, in a better position to compete with Cisco.

"“Companies are looking for ways to break free from the business limitations imposed by a networking paradigm that has been dominated by a single vendor," said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers and Networking, HP. "By acquiring 3Com, we are accelerating the execution of our Converged Infrastructure strategy and bringing disruptive change to the networking industry. By combining HP ProCurve offerings with 3Com’s extensive set of solutions, we will enable customers to build a next-generation network infrastructure that supports customer needs from the edge of the network to the heart of the data center."

The acquisition will help HP build its networking portfolio, particularly in expanding the company's Ethernet switching offerings and routing solutions, HP said the move will also help strengthen its position in the fast growing Chinese market.

Terms of the transaction have already been approved by the HP and 3Com board of directors and is expected to close in the first half of 2010.