Qualcomm and Samsung each passed Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in microprocessor sales in 2012, thanks to a slowdown in PC sales coupled with strong growth in smartphone and media tablet sales, according to market research firm IC Insights Inc.

iiyama is releasing another one of its upcoming Full HD monitor, the ProLite B2776HDS-3. Adopting a TN panel, this new 27-inch LED-backlight monitor provides 1920 x 1080 Full HD resolution, 1200:1 contrast ratio, 300 cd/m2 brightness and 3.4ms response time. What’s more, it also comes with two built-in 1.5W speakers, an adjustable stand and a number of connectivity ports including D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI. The ProLite B2776HDS-3 will retail for 33,800 Yen (about $328) in black (released in late May) and white (released in late June) color options.

Enermax offers the most bling fans on the globe and are pleased to launch their latest five fan models along with their new patented technology, APS (Adjustable Peak Speed) Control. As the name implies, the peak speed of these fans can be adjusted as to preference, and the speed will be regulated automatically by pulse-width modulation (PWM) or by an integrated thermal sensor after selecting the particular RPM range.

Western Digital's HGST division announced the launch of world's first 9.5mm thick 2.5" HDD with a capacity of 1.5TB. The Travelstar 5K1500 features three platters with 500GB each, it spins at 5400RPM and has an idle power consumption of 0.5W. Availability is expected in June.

Cooler Master revealed details about the new products it will present at Computex. This includes a new compact Cosmos case, the CM690 III, five new watercooling systems and new gaming gear. The latest and greatest Cooler Master cases Cooler Master will debut new models in several signature series with improved handling, performance and water cooling support. Our new Cosmos case brings a sense of luxury to mid-tower systems with its race car inspired wing doors and space for a 240 radiator at the bottom and a 360 or 280 radiator at the top.

Transcend is proud to announce a new line of mSATA SSDs, the MSM610. Available in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB sizes, these ultra-compact SSDs are equipped with MLC NAND Flash memory chips, a SATA 3.0 Gbps interface, built-in ECC, TRIM & NCQ support, a MTBF of 1 million hours and can deliver read and write speeds of up to 245MB/s and 48MB/s, respectively. Prices unannounced yet.

Samsung announced that it is now supplying its solid state drive (SSD), the SM843T, for use in high-performance servers and storage in next-generation data centers, including Big Data systems. "Samsung Green SSD products are widely acknowledged for their superior performance and quality design having contributed to data center system improvements and operational cost savings," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing.

Prior to E3 and prior to Microsoft's Xbox reveal event tomorrow, Sony has offered up a sneak preview of what the PlayStation 4 hardware will actually look like. Blink and you'll miss it :P

Intel is dabbling in the customization of its x86 processors for specific large-scale customers in the server market. The effort is a strategy to expand its dominance and increase competition vs ARM. Intel will not only select parts based on unusual temperature, power supply or overclocking tolerances, but will now even implement different features or instructions onto chips for specific customers.

Interesting news, I've spoken to the man a couple of times myself. Sean Pelletier has left his position as Senior Technical Marketing Manager for Windows, Windows RT, and Apple notebooks at NVIDIA to take up a position at AMD. It's unknown what Pelletier's focus will be at his new job. 

Ah, serious e-peen stuff, and I'm not talking about the two girls on the photo. Samsung is showcasing several industry-leading technologies and mobile to extra-large-sized display prototypes at the Society for Information Display's Display Week 2013, May 21-23, 2013, in the Vancouver Convention Centre (Booth 700). These include a Full HD (1920x1080) mobile AMOLED display with the world's broadest color gamut, and an 85-inch Ultra HD (3840×2160) LCD TV panel.

You won't be surprised to learn that FM has been working on a new PCMark. For the first time in the series, PCMark 8 will combine performance testing with battery life measurement. You can estimate battery use from each benchmark test or use Battery Life mode to loop a test until the battery is almost empty for more accurate results.

EVGA has teased its new "Active Cooling Xtreme" (ACX) graphics card cooler with a 38 second trailer that unfortunately only reveals that it will incorporate two cooling fans and that more information will be available on May 23rd 2013. The trailer is available after below. Be sure to stay tuned for further updates as we learn more about EVGA’s new cooling system.

Check out this new 4-port USB 2.0 Hub with wired LAN adapter ‘US2-HB4ETX’ from I-O Data. Designed specially for MacBook Air and Ultrabook, this 2-in-1 device is equipped with four USB 2.0 ports and one LAN port. The US2-HB4ETX will become available from late May for 3,255 Yen (about $32).

Here are the ten top selling titles on Steam for the week as reported by Valve:

1.Borderlands 2
2.Metro Last Light
3.XCOM: Enemy Unknown
4.Borderlands 2 Psycho Pack
5.Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
6.Total War: ROME II
7.Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Uprising
8.Reus
9.Call of Duty: Black Ops II
10.Don't Starve

Western Digital released a new line of USB 3.0 portable hard drives, the My Passport Ultra. Available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities, these ultra-compact hard drives come with a USB 3.0 connection interface, NTFS format and have built-in WD SmartWare Pro backup software with Dropbox integration. The 500GB and 1TB models are priced at $99.99 and $129.99, respectively.

HP has showed off their newest Android 4.2 tablet for the mass market. Called the SlateBook x2, the tablet packs a 10.1-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS Full HD touchscreen display, a 1.8GHz NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor, a 2GB DDR3 RAM, a 64GB of internal storage, an SD card sot, a 720p front-facing camera, a 1080p rear-facing camera, WiFi, an HDMI output port, DTS+ capable speakers and runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean OS. The SlateBook x2 will hit the market from August for $479.99 (a removable keyboard dock included).

A report by IHS DisplayBank claims 4.57 million notebooks shipped in Q1 2013 featured a capacitive touchscreen, up 51.8 percent from the previous quarter. The number represents just over ten percent of all 46 million notebooks shipped in the period.