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Chelsea have confirmed midfield duo Joe Cole and Michael Ballack will leave the club this summer. Both players' contracts expire at the end of this month and the future of Cole in particular has been the subject of increasing speculation. The 28-year-old, who is part of England's World Cup squad in South Africa, has already been linked with Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham. As negotiations over a new contract at Stamford Bridge dragged on, it became increasingly likely Cole's seven-year stay would come to an end. Manager Carlo Ancelotti had repeatedly stressed his desire to hang on to the midfielder but behind the scenes the parties could not reach an agreement. Cole has been reluctant to discuss the situation in public but in March he confirmed talks had broken down, saying: "We can't seem to find common ground and it's distracting. At the moment there is no offer on the table, so I know where I stand." Chelsea's s

Real Madrid striker Rafael van der Vaart has declared new coach Jose Mourinho the best in the world. Speaking to the club's offical website, the Dutchman said: "We have the best players and the best coach in the world, so we must win something." "I believe the groundwork for a great long-term project is being laid. It aspires to make Real Madrid a top team for a long time. That's were the team should always be.""I am very excited about Mourinho's signing," he said. "All of us players at Real Madrid have been given a great opportunity. Mourinho is a special coach who brings the best out of every player. He understands his men and he always wins. "The project that's about to begin is very good."

Playmaker Andres Iniesta suffered an injury scare during Spain's World Cup warm-up cruise against Poland on Tuesday. The Barcelona star asked to be substituted late in the first half of the clash in Murcia with a thigh muscle problem as Vicente Del Bosque's side ran out 6-0 winners. Iniesta, who has suffered from a string of thigh problems over the past 12 months, was in excellent form before leaving the field as he set up the opening two goals for David Villa and David Silva. The 26-year-old was replaced by Pedro in the 39th minute but did not head for immediate treatment and took his place on the bench alongside his team-mates. Fernando Hierro, sporting director of the Spanish Football Federation, insisted that they were not too concerned by the problem. He said: "It was a precaution more than anything else. He has a slight strain. He's fine, it isn't a problem." Spain made light of Iniesta's absence in the second period, scoring four further goals with

Fernando Torres made a scoring return as Spain thrashed Poland in their last warm-up match before departing for the World Cup. Torres came on after 66 minutes and showed no ill effects from the injury which had seen him miss the end of the season with Liverpool, but Andres Iniesta went off with a thigh problem, the Barcelona midfielder's fitness was the only concern for coach Vicente del Bosque. Iniesta was involved as Spain cruised to a comfortable 2-0 lead at half-time. The Barcelona star brilliantly set up Spain's first two goals in the opening 15 minutes for David Villa and David Silva, and was in a class of his own for much of the first half, but was forced to depart before the interval after feeling a teak in his thigh. It looked to be just a precaution, but with just over a week until Spain's opening game, Del Bosque was not prepared to take any risks. Xabi Alonso scored a third for Spain with a deflected effort early in the second half, before further strikes from

Inter Milan president Massimo Moratti has confirmed Rafael Benitez will be presented as the club's new coach tomorrow. Benitez has been in talks with the European champions since his six-year spell as Liverpool manager was ended by mutual consent last week. "We have agreed the final details, which were not important things. Tomorrow we shall present Rafa Benitez," Moratti said in a statement on the Inter website, www.inter.it. The Inter president went on to tell reporters that "all that is needed now is a countersignature". Moratti added that negotiations with Benitez had not taken place in person but revealed the Spaniard would fly to Milan in time for tomorrow's presentation. "I think Benitez is not in Italy and will arrive for the presentation," he said. "Tomorrow we will tell you when he will be presented." Moratti revealed that a deal with the 50-year-old had been "more or less done" and had been confident the details would

Cristiano Ronaldo believes being drawn in the toughest of the World Cup groups could spur Portugal on to great things. Carlos Queiroz's side open their Group G campaign against Ivory Coast next Tuesday before further tricky-looking pool assignments against North Korea and Brazil. But the Real Madrid star is not concerned by the magnitude of the task ahead. "I think Portugal is doing well. It's true that we play a very tough group stage but this helps us to improve even more," he said at an event hosted by gaming site bwin.com. "Portugal is in a very good moment. It's true that the team has changed a lot. We will spend lots of time together before the tournament starts and that will help us to play a better World Cup this year. "The first games of the group stage are very important." Ronaldo believes his side and group rivals Brazil can count themselves among the six favourites for the showpiece event in South Africa. "Theoretically you can say

Everton midfielder Tim Cahill admits losing team-mate Steven Pienaar would be a "big loss". Pienaar put in a number of excellent performances for the Toffees last season but has not put pen-to-paper on a new contract as he looks to focus on the World Cup. The South Africa star is set to play in the tournament's opening game against Mexico in Johannesburg on Friday, but his domestic future is yet to be resolved. There has been reported interest in the 28-year-old from big clubs and Everton will hope he signs a new contract as he only has one year remaining on his existing deal. Cahill, who signed new terms for four years at Goodison Park last month, says Pienaar is a top player, and hopes he decides to stay. "Pienaar is a great player," the Australia international told Everton's official website. "A good character who is good for the team and we are good for him. "I have to respect his decision (to wait for contract talks) because I am a professiona

John Terry insists training without Ledley King will not be a problem if they line up alongside each other at the World Cup. Following the injury to Three Lions skipper Rio Ferdinand on Friday, coach Fabio Capello must decide who will partner Terry in the heart of the England defence. His side take on the United States in their opening Group C clash in Rustenburg on Saturday, and speculation has mounted that King will get the nod for a starting berth. The Spurs centre-half has chronic knee problems which limit his training opportunities, but he is confident he can get through the rigours of a World Cup. Terry and King played the first 45 minutes against the Platinum Stars on Monday and the former England captain is confident they can form a solid partnership. "We've got a good understanding. I think everyone knows we used to play together at (amateur London side) Senrab many years ago," he told Sky Sports News. "The understanding is there and always has been. We'

England captain Rio Ferdinand has shrugged off concerns about Wayne Rooney's discipline. Rooney was booked for abusing referee Jeff Selogilwe in the 3-0 World Cup warm-up win over the Platinum Stars. The official claimed he was insulted by Rooney - whom he said apologised afterwards - and told the Manchester United striker he will risk getting a red card if he behaves in a similar way when the World Cup gets under way. However, central defender Ferdinand - out of the competition because of a knee injury - praised his Manchester United team-mate's disciplinary record since he was dismissed during the defeat of Portugal at the last World Cup. The 31-year-old told BBC Radio Five Live: "I don't see Wazza (Rooney) having a problem disciplinary-wise at the World Cup at all. "Wayne's disciplinary record has been magnificent over the last couple of years, since the incident in Germany. He's done so well to get where he is now." Selogilwe was quoted in severa

Rafael van der Vaart is confident Holland have the quality to compete with the very best and be in with a shout of winning the World Cup. Holland are not generally considered to be among the favourites - who number Spain, England, and Brazil - but Van der Vaart is warning opponents not to underestimate the quality they have in their squad - particularly if Arjen Robben can recover from a hamstring injury in time to take part. "We have very good players like Spain, and a very good coach," he said at an event hosted by gaming site bwin.com. "We have Sneijder, Robben, we have lots of quality. And if we get there in good shape, we definitely have possibilities to win the World Cup."

Top seeds Roger Federer and Nikolay Davydenko made serene progress into the second round of the Gerry Weber Open in Germany. World number two Federer, who has won the tournament on his last five appearances dating back to 2003, extended his unbeaten record at Halle to 26 matches with a 6-4 6-4 success against Finn Jarkko Nieminen in just over an hour. One break in each set was enough for the Swiss to wrap up a routine win in which he was on target with 75% of first serves. Second seed Davydenko was initially made to work hard by home player Simon Greul, who pushed him to a first-set tie-break. The Russian, though, cruised through the breaker 7/1 and then reeled off the second set to love. But third seed Mikhail Youzhny crashed out to home wildcard Nicolas Kiefer in three sets. It looked like business as usual when the Russian won the first set but Kiefer, who as world number 181 was conceding 167 places in the rankings to his opponent, roared back to win 4-6 6-1 7-5. There was further

The recent past has seen Shoaib Akhtar miss out on cricket due to injuries, and it seems that the story might continue. He was seen with a bandage around his calf during a training camp in Lahore. Shoaib recently got a call to the Pakistan Team for the Asia Cup, which is scheduled to begin from 15 June. The calf bandage has once again raised suspicion on Akhtar's fitness, although, the team sources said that Akhtar`s bandage was a precautionary measure to avoid any injury niggle. Earlier, captain Shahid Afridi rubbished reports regarding Akhtar, 34, not being fully fit. "I don`t know who is spreading such false rumors. There is nothing wrong with Shoaib. He is fully fit and it’s showing in his output during training sessions. He is going that extra mile which is a great sign for us," Afridi said. According to insiders, Akhtar is also not happy about being made to bowl extra overs in the training camp.

Sri Lanka captain Tillakaratne Dilshan scored a commanding century to help his side win the Tri-Nation series final against Zimbabwe in Harare. Dilshan (108 not out) shared a 160-run opening stand with Upul Tharanga (72) as the hosts lost just one wicket to overcome Zimbabwe's below-par total of 199, which largely came on the back of former captain Tatenda Taibu's 71. Dilhara Fernando took three wickets, while spin duo Ajantha and Jeevan Mendis snared two apiece to bowl out the hosts and justify their skipper's decision of fielding first. In reply, Dilshan and Tharanga gave their side a flying start. Dilshan was more aggressive and blasted two fours off Chris Mpofu in the fifth over as the visitors posted 34 for no loss. The duo continued to play attacking strokes and looked in complete control in the following overs. Dilshan raced to his half century with a square cut in the 16th over and Tharanga hit a towering six in the next to bring 100 runs up for his side. Tharanga

Suresh Raina and six other Indian cricketers will fly directly to Colombo after completing their T20 engagements against Zimbabwe after the Tri-Series finals. Rest eight other players will be attending a two-day camp at Chennai starting Sunday, TNCA secretary Kasi Viswanathan said. According to Viswanathan, the host for the preparatory camp, the Asia Cup-bound India cricketers would attend a two-day camp here on June 11 and 12 barring Raina, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Ashok Dinda and Pragyan Ojha, who are presently on national duty in Zimbabwe. Other members of 15-member squad, including skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Harbhajan Singh, Praveen Kumar, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Saurabh Tiwary, would arrive here for the camp before departing for Sri Lanka on June 13, Viswanathan said. The Raina led Indian team failed to make the final of the tri-series, involving Sri Lanka and hosts Zimbabwe, but would play two Twenty20 Intern

Dual-SIM support seems to be one of those things Nokia keeps getting asked for, but we have to turn to copycats like Nokla to provide. The Finns have obviously had enough, and have come through on their promiseto pack two slots in a single handset. Don’t expect anything earth-shattering, at least from a smartphone-lovers perspective; the new dual-SIM C1 (C1-00) and C2 handsets are budget phones intended for developing markets. The Series 30 C1 allows users to flip between SIMs with a single key-press, while the Series 40 C2 keeps both active simultaneously. Meanwhile there are a few other basic devices, the Nokia C1-01 and C1-02 , which lack the dual-SIM slots but have even cheaper prices. All of the phones bar the C1 have Bluetooth and memory card slots; the C2 has a VGA camera and GPRS, and its second SIM is hot-swappable. They’ll arrive in Q4, priced from €30 ($37), though there’s no definitive list of launch countries yet.

Yes, D8 is still going on. It didn’t end after the interview with Steve Jobs. And sure enough, there’s still some pretty interesting things happening. Just as we told you a few days ago, Kakai’s Kno dual-screen tablet still exists, and it was just officially shown off on the stage at D8. There’s a couple misgivings about the tablet right at the start, but truth be told, that’s because the Kno tablet isn’t like the iPad. That’s not a bad thing, though. First and foremost, the Kno is a big product. It boasts not one, but two 14-inch touchscreens. With those big of screens, you should expect that the weight of the device is pretty sizable, and you’d be right. At five and a half pounds, it’s not something you’d want to just carry around with you in your hand. But that makes sense, as the Kno is meant to replace text books, and it’s designed to be a desktop tablet, not one that has become immensely popular thanks to Apple’s variant. The company has already partnered with textbook provide

Computex is proving to be quite the interesting experience this year (not that it isn’t every year). We’ve already seen quite a few cool things come out of Taiwan over the last couple of days, and while a 3D camcorder may not be at the top of your list of things to be looking for, we’ve got to at least admit that it’s interesting, especially considering that high-definition video capturing part. The Aiptek 3D is a budget-centric mini-camcorder, which much like Flip Mino’s out there, utilized a USB interface. The 3D is capable of recording in 3D thanks to dual lenses, and a pair of 5MP CMOS sensors, both of which record at 720p HD. There’s an integrated 2.4-inch 3D panel on the back of the new gadget from Aiptek, which gets rid of the need for glasses. If that’s the only place you want to watch it, of course. The company was nice enough to include the red and cyan-tinged glasses in the box, just in case you want to watch it on your 3D-equipped PC. You can also upload your 3D videos to

Cooling fans aren’t new to the PC market. For most rigs, especially the high-profile gaming units out there, they’re pretty much a necessity. Long hours, and constant usage can make any system overheat if it’s not checked at constant intervals. But, we’ll go ahead and admit that we never expected a keyboard to get the cooling fan treatment. Well, here’s one after all. There’s a catch, though. While Thermaltake has officially unveiled their cooling fan-equipped gaming keyboard at Computex this year, the Challenger Pro, the fan itself isn’t exactly where you might imagine it. After all, not many keyboards need a fan on the inside, now do they? But your fingers might, as they fly across the keyboard to input those much needed commands. That’s right, this cooling fan is placed on a rail at the top of the keyboard, just over the main rows of keys, and positioned at a slight angle so that a nice cool breeze can blow down on your hands. The rail extends across the top of the keyboard, so we

Yes, there are people out there that play video games for fun, and still there are others that play for money. Lots of money, actually. It’s a pretty lucrative business decision, if you’ve got the chops to cut it against the cut-throat adversaries out there. Luckily enough, there are companies like Gigabyte out there who care enough to produce peripherals for the gaming elite, and that’s why the Gigabyte M8000X is so special: it’s got features to make any professional gamer out there a happy camper. Over at Computex in Taiwan, Gigabyte pulled the curtain off the M8000X, which also goes by the name of Aivia. As we said, it’s got plenty of features: it has a 6,000 dpi pro-laser engine, designed explicitly to handle high-speed movement in such a way that you don’t have to worry about missing anything. That’s not the only engine running at a gentle hum inside this mouse. You also get an integrated GHOST Engine, which is designed to memorize upwards of 45 button assignments, which also com

We’ll have to go ahead and assume that the trial run of Target flagship stores selling the Amazon Kindle went well, because Target has just confirmed today that the eReader from the digital retail juggernaut is going to roll out across the country in just a few days. With the inclusion of the Kindle in physical stores, it’s almost like the whole world’s complete now, considering we can now really do all our shopping in one store. The Kindle’s time in brick-and-mortar stores hasn’t been long at all, but according to Target’s Senior Vice President, Mark Schindele, the customer response to the Kindle’s presence has been overwhelmingly positive. With that in mind, Target’s got it in mind to release the eReader in all of its 1,740 stores nationwide, beginning on June 6th. The Kindle is easily one of the best (if not the best ) eReaders on the market, so we’re not surprised at all that more people are picking up the gadget now that they can finally hold it in their hand, and try it out for

There’s all sorts of talk about Hulu getting some kind of premium service. One that, obviously, you’d have to pay into to get any of the benefits from. And, while many people assumed that the iPad would be the means to that end, considering its presence in the media consumption market, there was another platform that many didn’t even consider. And if sources are correct, it looks like that’s the way Hulu is going. Following in the steps of Netflix, Hulu looks like it’ll be making a long-term appearance on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 . This year at E3, we can guess what’s coming, especially when it comes to Microsoft. We know we’re going to get a full showing of Project Natal, and obviously there will be plenty of video game news coming out of the conference. But what we didn’t expect is Hulu. According to GearLive , who spoke with one of their sources that “is never wrong,” Microsoft is set to unveil the latest edition to their premium Xbox LIVE online service. In the same way that Netflix in

I’ve written in the past about the tragedy of the OLPC. Last week, there was news that the OLPC folks were moving forward with a new device, the XO-3, a new tablet initiative designed to bring a tablet to market. Forget about the fact that the XO-2 never emerged from vapor, now it’s all about the XO-3. It’s also not about laptops anymore it seems. The new XO-3 is a tablet because keyboards aren’t a good idea (perhaps the organization needs to be called the OTPC now?). Promising the best of devices such as the Kindle and high-end tablet features combined in one, the new device will be seen at CES 2011 for $75. Call me skeptical. Very skeptical. Over the years, the One Laptop Per Child Project has over-promised and under-delivered time and time again. Remember that XO laptop? It was supposed to go for $99. Oops, missed that one by a pretty wide margin. How about those cool dual-screen XO-2s? Well, they never made it past the Photoshop renderings. Even with the help of Marvell, it’s very

Samsung’s Galaxy S GT-I9000 has finally launched, with the 4-inch Super AMOLED Android 2.1 smartphone hitting Europe first before rolling out to the rest of the world – the US included – later in 2010. Toting a Samsung 1GHz Hummingbird processor, WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0, along with 3G/UMTS, TouchWiz 3.0 and a 5-megapixel autofocus camera, we’ve been waiting for the Galaxy S for quite some time. As well as the main camera – which has a special panorama mode – there’s a front-facing camera for video calls. You also get the Swype keyboard pre-loaded, either 8GB or 16GB of onboard storage (with a microSD card slot) and a media app happy with DivX, Xvid, H.264, MPEG-4 and other formats. So far Samsung are keeping pricing details for the handset close to their chest, but seeing as they’ve roped in over 100 carriers to offer the smartphone, we’re guessing each will be setting their own price point. That implies free on contract in many European countries, assuming you’re willing to s

The Sonos S5 has been given a makeover, with the company pushing out a new, black version of the all-in-one music system. Priced at the same $399 as its white counterpart, the Sonos S5 has the same five integrated speakers – each with their own digital amp – and can be controlled via either Sonos’ own special remotes or the company’s iPhone and iPod touch app. The new color version follows on from Sonos’ recent software upgrade for the S5, which allows two of the units to be paired up as stereo speakers. While the company still expects most people to use a single S5 as their main source of audio for a room, the ability to couple two up (using one for the left audio channel and the other for the right) is billed as useful for parties and other times you’d want more impressive sound.

AMOLED screens have once again come in for attention over concerns regarding image quality, as Tweakerstook two HTC Legends into the lab to demonstrate the issues they have displaying grayscale correctly. The Legend – shown here snuggling with an Apple iPod touch and an HTC Hero – apparently proved unable to show regular grayscale, instead offering up a range of muted pinks, grays, greens and browns. The Legend’s screen brightness was also a cause for concern, mustering 253 cd/m2 in comparison to the Hero’s 310 cd/m2. Both the Hero and the iPod touch use a more traditional LCD panel, rather than the AMOLED technology used in the Legend and its larger sibling the HTC Desire. Unfortunately Tweakers didn’t have a Desire to hand to include in the testing, though anecdotal reports from some owners suggest it too has patchy grayscale support. One point where the AMOLED displays do deliver is in blacks, however, out-performing both other devices in testing.

Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s retort to Google’s Windows security snub comes word of what’s being describedas a high-risk spyware/malware exploit affecting OS X computers. According to security firm Intego, the spyware – which it calls OpinionSpy but which has also been identified as PremierOpinion – is being distributed through various free screensavers for OS X (full list after the cut), and if installed is capable of “scanning files to recording user activity, as well as sending information about this activity to remote servers and opening a backdoor on infected Macs.” The malware is the handiwork of comScore (through their VoiceFive Networks subsidiary), and is downloaded as part of the installation process for the various screensavers. Some of the affected apps do indicate in the ToS that ”market research” program is installed, but not all; once installed – complete with root privileges – it opents an HTTP backdoor, analyses files on all available volumes, all packets from t

Garmin has taken the wraps off of their GPSMAP 62 series, an update to the popular GPSMAP 60 series. The new GPS handheld has a 2.6-inch sunlight-readable LCD display, high-sensitivity chipset with quad helix antenna, and up to 20hrs battery life; three variants will be on offer, ranging from the basic GPSMAP 62 with worldwide shaded-relief mapping, the GPSMAP 62s with a 3-axis tilt-compensated electronic compass, a barometric altimeter and wireless connectivity, and the GPSMAP 62st with preloaded 100K topographic maps for the entire US. Each can also be used with Garmin’s free Custom Maps app, which takes paper or other digital maps into a format the GPSMAP 62 series can display. Meanwhile Garmin Connect can be used to track waypoints and the like. No word on pricing at this stage,

Google has announced that it expects the first Chrome OS netbooks to launch in late fall, with Sundar Pichai – head of the Chrome project – using Computex 2010 to narrow down the previous “second half of 2010″ window. As the search giant has hinted at previously, they plan on being careful in how Chrome OS is delivered; “We will be selective on how we come to market because we want to deliver a great user experience,” Pinchai said, “we’re thinking on both the hardware and software levels.” While Microsoft has previously dismissed Google’s open-source OS ambitions, Pinchai reckons their reasoning – that developers would need to create new versions of apps, and may be reluctant to do so – is unfounded since Chrome OS has at its core a standards-compliant browser. ”You don’t need to redesign Gmail for it to work on Chrome. Facebook does not need to write a new app for Chrome” he suggested. It remains to be seen who will be the first netbook company to produce a machine running Chrome O

Digital cameras and camcorders today are always matching towards higher resolution and more detailed images and recordings. To be able to store enough of the video to make recording times last requires ever larger capacity memory cards. Kingston has offered up a new SDXC card at Computex that is speed Class 10. The new memory card is the Kingston 64GB SDXC UHS-1 Class 10. UHS-1 is the new class of ultra high-speed bus architecture cards for the SDXC format. The card is designed for fast data transfer speeds of 104MB/sec and future cards using the specification will be able to hit 300MB/s. Kingston promises 10MB/sec minimum data transfer rate and up to 60MB/sec read and 35MB/sec write speeds for the card. This much speed and storage are far from cheap. Kingston will ship the card at the end of the month for $499.

For a long time when you said the name OCZ most of us would think RAM for gaming computers. Today OCZ is a much broader maker of hardware and tech goods with offerings including numerous SSDs, flash drives, power supplies and more. OCZ is at Computex and the company has unveiled a new and very interesting SSD called the RevoDrive. The RevoDrive is a bootable PCI-Express SSD designed to slip into the PCI-E slot on a user’s computer. The RevoDrive is designed for high-speed operation and OCZ claims it is capable of 75,000 IOPS. The write speed for the SSD is 530MB/s and read speed is 540MB/s. The drive is designed for a number of applications including video editing and multimedia creation. OCZ also showed off its new 1.8-inch Vertex 2 and Onyx SATA II SSDs for mobile devices. Both support Windows 7 TRIM command and will find their way into netbooks and tablets.

Sony offers lots of computers today and some of them try and set themselves apart by offering style more than unique hardware. The Sony VAIO W line of netbooks have been around for a while land Sony has now announced a special edition of the VAIO W. The special version is called the VAIO W Series Imperial Lime Edition and carries the Billabong clothing brand on the lid. The machine’s lid is covered in art in bright colors to set the little rig apart from the other VAIO W units. Under the bright paint the machine has a 10.1-inch LED backlit screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768 and a 250GB HDD. Other features include up to eight hours of battery life, an Intel Atom 1.66GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and the machine weighs 2.96 pounds. The normal W machines sell for $449.99 and the Billabong version starts at $500.

Microsoft have snapped back at rumors that Google is moving to oust Windows based PCs from their employees’ desks, pointing to recent security research that suggests the company is in fact doing more to ensure system safety than rivals like OS X. In a post on the Windows Team Blog, Windows communication manager Brandon LeBlanc suggests that “there is some irony here that is hard to overlook” and points to Yale University’s apparent delay in switching to Google Apps services over their own security concerns. LeBlanc also claims that “even hackers admit” that Microsoft are doing more to ensure Windows security than OS rivals, flagging up Marc Maiffret’s quote that the company is “the model for how to do it.” He also cites newer speculation that Mac systems are increasingly becoming the target for malware, and lists the ways – Windows Update, Firewall and IE8 – that Microsoft has moved to ensure security. Still, it’s prompted the expected arguments in the comments section, with plenty

Delta Electronics have been showing a color e-reader at Computex this week, and the big news is that it’s expected to reach the market in December 2010. The Delta e-Magazine weighs just half of Apple’s iPad, but has a 13-inch display capable of showing colors, albeit relatively muted. The device is based on Bridgestone’s e-paper technology, with Delta apparently working with the company to commercialise the technology. Obviously the primary function of the ereader is for consuming large-scale digital magazines, but according to DigiTimes the e-Magazine also supports pen-input. That would allow documentation to be annotated. Meanwhile battery life is tipped at around 6,000 page turns, which Delta say are completed faster than the displays of rival E Ink. According to Delta executive Hui Lee, the next goal is richer, more saturated colors using particle-based display technologies. That isn’t likely to emerge for the next two to three years, however. No pricing for the Delta e-Maga

Computex 2010 is underway and yesterday Microsoft held its keynote speech and talked about the business opportunities for hardware makers using the Windows platform. Several of the interesting tablets that have been seen at the show are running on the Windows platform, a good example is the slick Asus EeePad EP101TC that packs the company’s new Windows Embedded Compact 7. The Windows version that the EeePad runs is Windows Embedded Compact 7. The compact OS will connect to corporate email, calendars, contacts, and to Windows 7 Device Stage devices for transferring media between PCs and other devices. Microsoft has also announced that Windows Embedded Compact 7 CTP is available now for developers. The developer version of the OS can be downloaded right now with the full version set for release to manufacturing in Q4 2010.

Gamers and computer enthusiasts like to buy computers for gaming and overclocking that have unlocked CPUs. The unlocked CPU makes overclocking for the highest performance possible much easier to do than on a machine with a locked CPU. iBUYPOWER has announced that it is now offering unlocked Intel CPUs across its desktop computer line. The company will be one of the first to offer the new Intel core i5-655K and Core i7-875K processors. Both of the processors are multiplier unlocked for overclocking but are designed to be affordable. Gamers can now also choose to fit iBUYPOWER gaming PCs with the NVIDIA GTX 465 video card. The new CPUS and video card option is available in the LAN Warrior II SFF gaming machine as well as other gaming desktops iBP offers. Systems using the new components start at $949.

We’ve a soft spot for Viliv , since the Korean company have actually managed to get more than one MID and/or tablet device onto the market rather than just push out renders, and so the company’s new Viliv X10 slate is all the more interesting. LaptopMag grabbed some hands-on time with the 10-inch 1366 x 768 16:9 capacitive touchscreen tablet, complete with an unspecified ARM-based processor that’s 1080p HD capable. Connectivity puts the iPad in the shade, too, with HDMI, an SD card reader, USB and WiFi, and Viliv reckon there’ll be options for 3G and WiMAX too. Interestingly, while Viliv were showing an Android-based X10 – running OS 2.1 for Computex, but getting OS 2.2 Froyo in time for the slate’s launch – Microsoft had the same hardware running Windows 7 at their booth. No word on whether it will be offered alongside the Android model, or was just put together to bolster Microsoft’s line-up. According to LaptopMag, both 720p video playback and 3D gaming were smooth and impressive