The new iBook offers the choice of a CD, DVD or CD-RW drive for easily burning music CDs, or a "Combo" DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive for both burning CDs and watching movies on DVDs. New iBooks include both iTunes, the world's best and easiest to use "jukebox" software, and iMovie(TM) 2, the world's most popular and easy-to-use consumer digital video editing software. Every new iBook model has a brilliant 1024-by-768 resolution 12.1-inch TFT display that has as many pixels as a typical 14-inch notebook display. Every iBook is powered by 500 MHz PowerPC G3 processors, and offer up to twice the onboard memory, twice the memory expansion, and twice the storage than previous models.

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After a host of price dips and jumps last week, today sees the memory market pretty much grind to a halt. RDRAM has dropped in price slightly, but you can expect to pay what you would have last week for everything else. In the SharkyExtreme Weekly Memory Prices, we have a list of the best prices we can dig up on PC system memory as well as the name and number of the vendor selling at each lowest price.
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It's been awhile since we've heard anything about Micron heading out of the PC biz and into the world of Web hosting, but a new article over at ZDNet states that Micron has sold the assets and liabilities of its PC business to investment firm Gores Technology Group for an undisclosed amount. Gores is a company that specializes in buying ailing businesses and turning them around. Most recently, it purchased The Learning Company from Mattel. [Story: Story: ZDNET]
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Western Digital Corporation has announced  availability of the new 60 GB FireWire external hard drives. Western Digital's FireWire external hard drives offer personal storage with plug-and-play connectivity to high-speed devices such as digital cameras, digital video camcorders, and scanners and are ideal for transferring digital video and audio in real-time to desktop or portable computers. Each WD FireWire hard drive includes full-featured digital video editing software (Adobe Premier 5.1 LE for Macintosh and Ulead VideoStudio for Windows). The external hard drives provide a complete solution for Internet downloads, music files, video files, data files and photos.

Western Digital's FireWire product line also includes 30 GB FireWire external hard drives. The hard drives are compatible with any PC or Macintosh with a built-in FireWire port or a FireWire adapter, using either Windows 98 SE or Mac OS 8.6 or higher operating systems. For computers without FireWire ports, Western Digital offers a PCI adapter for desktops and a CardBus PC Card for notebooks, which will add the FireWire interface to these legacy systems. All WD FireWire products carry a one-year warranty.

In other Western Digital news, the company has reported revenue of $533.4 million and a net loss of $3.0 million, or $.02 per share, for its third quarter ended March 30, 2001, which includes a $11.9 million operating profit in its hard drive business. Unit shipments of approximately 6 million desktop hard drives in the third quarter reflect sequential growth of 3.5 percent from the 5.8 million units shipped in the second fiscal quarter and better than 15 percent growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company's industry-leading 7200 RPM drives accounted for more than 50 percent of third quarter revenue, compared with 42 percent in the second fiscal quarter.
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The Forums Spotlight is a highlight of just a few of the new topics posted in the SharkyForums, where over ten-thousand enthusiastic computer users post daily for help, to discuss the latest trends and products, or to just shoot the breeze in the Off Topic forum. This week the forum readers discuss Computers that hang on restart, a hardcore Linux discussion, SB Live Platinum, File Sharing, Exahertz, and much more!
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Immersion Corporation and InterAct Accessories, Inc. announced that they have settled Immersion's pending patent infringement action against InterAct. Pursuant to the terms of the settlement, InterAct will take a license and pay royalties to Immersion based on sales by InterAct of vibrotactile gamepads and steering wheel peripherals for dedicated gaming consoles such as the Sony PlayStation and PlayStation2, the Nintendo 64, and the Microsoft Xbox. In addition, InterAct will pay an undisclosed sum to Immersion as compensation for past sales of such devices by InterAct. Finally, InterAct and Immersion will work together to develop new touch-enabled peripheral devices to be distributed by InterAct.

In other Immersion news, the comapny announced that first quarter 2001 total revenues were $5.4 million, as compared with $3.3 million in the first quarter of 2000, an increase of 63%.
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Creative Technology Ltd, which posted a third quarter loss, said on Friday it hoped to return to the black in the fourth quarter ending June 30. Known for its Sound Blaster soundcard and Nomad JukeBox portable music player, Creative is projecting sales of US$260 million in the fourth quarter, against net sales of $263 million in the third quarter. It expects fourth quarter operating expenses of $64 million versus $90.3 million in the third quarter and steady gross margins of 27 percent.
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From Hardware Central: The Inside Line: The Innovation Recession -CPU speeds keep ratcheting upward, but PC sales are heading south. Could it be because, except maybe for 802.11b wireless networking, there's little to excite would-be upgraders? Vince Freeman has a prescription for today's sluggish market.
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Here is today's list of some of the most recent hardware related articles, reviews, and contests posted around the net:

• mikhailtech has a Mushkin Rev.2 High Performance RAM review
• PC Stats has an informative article on upgrading your BIOS, and when you should upgrade
• Everything USB sends word that USB 2.0 driver is near completion. Check out the details here.
• TweakTown have posted a review of the GlobalWin WBK38
• Tech-Gods has posted a review of the i815EP CUSL2-C mainboard from ASUS
• Futurelooks takes a look at the Kodak DC3800 Digital Camera in their latest review
• NeoSeeker has a brand new AVC 112680 Athlon Cooler review
• SystemLogic.net is giving away 2 128MB stick of the winners choice of PC133 SDRAM or PC2100 DDR memory from Crucial Technology
• GamersDepot has reviewed Gigabyte's newly released GeForce 2 Pro video card
• TweakTown takes a look at the Prolink Pixelview GeForce2 MX graphics card
• The Tech Zone is offering you a chance to win a GeForce 3
• HWOC has a new article which provides some details on how to mod your case
• Overclockers Online has recently reviewed the Overclockers Hideout Blizzard watercooler