The number of options available for Mac users to buy Thunderbolt cables from outside Apple is growing, with companies announcing longer and competitively priced cables that will also work with upcoming Windows PCs with Thunderbolt ports.

Just over two months after its last major release, Linus Torvalds has posted the newest version of the open source Linux kernel, which supports new graphics processors from Nvidia and Intel, improves file system functionality and comes with a new security module.

Advanced Micro Devices hopes to provide thin-and-light laptops that are less expensive but equally speedy to Intel's ultrabooks with its new A-series chips, which the company officially announced on Tuesday.

Lenovo is working with chip maker Intel on a future ThinkPad tablet based on Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, a Lenovo executive said.

Dell and IBM announced servers with Intel's latest Xeon server chips, which will bring faster throughput and memory allowing servers to take on more complex workloads while reducing data center costs.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) isn't just all tablet, cameras, and laptops; there's plenty of news for the PC component geek, too, ranging from tiny flash drives that pack a lot of heat to the hand-held gaming console.

Cringely here, reporting from CES in Vegas, where rude beasts walk the earth (at least, the ones that don't crawl or slither), impeded in their forward progress only by hip-deep mounds of tablet PCs. Everyone appears to be tapping, swiping, and gesturing on some kind of sleek black touch-sensitive device, when they're not squinting at blurry 3D screens waiting for their turn with the polarized glasses.

Home is where the network is: That's the mantra of networking vendors at the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 in Las Vegas this week.

Is the desktop PC dead? Far from it.

Rumors suggest that Intel's forthcoming Sandy Bridge integrated CPU/graphics platform will find its way into the lower-end range of the next generation of MacBooks. Bearing in mind Apple's cozy relationship with Intel and its habit of adopting each new generation of Intel's processors, this would make a lot of sense.