Amazon has just announced the next generation of Kindle! Set to be released on August 27th, this new Kindle is 21% smaller, 15% lighter, and has a 20% faster E Ink refresh rate. It will come in 2 colors: the new graphite and the original white. The 3rd gen. Kindle will be available in a $139 WiFi only version and a $189 WiFi+3G version. Other improvements include better battery life, increased storage (4GB), an experimental WebKit browser, and higher display contrast. These are the main updates in the new device but there are some other minor tweaks to the hardware and software. Overall, pretty cool.

Update: It’s already available to pre-order right here: http://amzn.to/cdW4XZ

Hey look! New Apple products! Last night the Apple web-store was closed down and when it re-opened, we were greeted with new Mac Pros (yesterday’s rumor was right!), new iMacs, a 27-inch LED Cinema Display, and the Apple Magic Trackpad. Let’s start with the Mac Pros.

Apple’s Mac Pro has been needing a good refresh for some time now. This ultra-expensive desktop rig can now support up to 12 cores of processing power! This is capable through Intel Xeon server-class chips. If you’re not willing to pay the outrageous $5,000 entry fee for a 12-core Mac Pro, you can also get the 8-core rig starting at $3499 or the quad-core rig which starts at $2499. Both of these less expensive models have gotten a small processor speed increase to 2.8GHz and 2.4GHz. As far as RAM goes, you can customize your machine with up to 32GB of the stuff. Hard drives you ask? Well, you could get 4TB of standard HDD storage or an array of 4 512GB SSDs. Both options are ridiculously expensive. The last thing worth mentioning about the new Mac Pros is that they start with the Radeon HD 5770 graphics card. You could also configure a dual-card setup or bump up the 5770 to a 5870. These new Mac Pros arrive in August.

Next up are the new iMacs. These have also been needing a refresh but definitely now as much as the Mac Pros. The iMac line now features Core i3, i5, and i7 processors,an SD card slot, some discrete ATI Radeon HD GPU option, and IPS panels. Also, you can get an SSD as a primary or a secondary drive. No changes in price or look. Everything’s under the hood. Reports are saying that these things are blazing fast though. So, good job Apple. These are available today.

Third, is a new 27-inch addition to the LED Cinema Display line. For the not-so-low price of $999, you can get your hands on one. They boast a resolution of 2560 x 1440 and an aspect ratio of 16:9. Not much else to say here except that these new 27-inch Cinema Displays will ship in September.

Last but not least, is the Apple Magic Trackpad. This didn’t come as much of a surprise. Essentially this thing is a trackpad for desktops. It has a glass-covered aluminum body that connects to your machine via BlueTooth. It’s powered by batteries and is shipping today for a mere $69. Looks pretty cool!

Robert and Lucas kick off today’s podcast with 3 news stories:

• New Kinect Details: http://www.omnitechnews.net/2010/07/microsoft-confirms-new-kinect-details-plus-a-new-xbox-360-arcade/

• HP Slate 500 specs leaked on HP: http://www.omnitechnews.net/2010/07/hp-slate-500-specs-leaked-and-confirmed/ Also: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/22/hp-slate-no-longer-a-consumer-product-will-arrive-for-enterpris/

• iPhone 4 Rescue Program launches: http://www.omnitechnews.net/2010/07/apple-launches-iphone-4-bumper-program/

The new poll on www.omnitechnews.net asks the question: What is your favorite phone OS?

The website of the week is www.flickr.com, a great photo sharing website.

Well it’s out with the old and in with the new. That’s what we always say. We never really say that but we have a redesigned contact page. Instead of having a list of email addresses, we now have an interactive form for you to fill out. We hope that it makes it easier for our visitors to ask questions, and report bugs from our website. If you have a question that you’re dying to ask us, just head over to www.omnitechnews.net/contact.

The Mac Pro is currently unavailable at Apple’s online store and in quite a few US retail stores. This along with a few other rumors lead us to believe that Apple might be giving the Mac Pro a pretty substantial update within the coming month or two. Of course there’s no official confirmation but it’s definitely a likely possibility. What will we be seeing in this TBA Mac Pro? Things like USB 3.0, high-end graphics card support, and faster FireWire have all been speculated. Hopefully we’ll be seeing this updated Apple Mac Pro soon.

Update: Ok, well it’s back up now. That’s still not proof that a new Mac Pro isn’t coming but as of right now, no update.

Apple’s emergency Bumper program is now live. There has been a special app posted in the app store that allows you to receive any bumper or 3rd party case you choose when purchasing a new iPhone 4. As you know however, this deal only lasts until September 30th. Unfortunately cases and bumpers usually won’t be delivered to you for 3-5 weeks! So if you were lucky and already purchased a Bumper for your iPhone, you’ll be getting a full refund from Apple pretty soon.

So I purchased my Alienware M11x about 2 months ago. It is a great machine and was worth buying. I couldn’t wait to download and test some games on it. For this example I am going to be using the game Just Cause 2 which I bought just after I received the M11x. After I had installed my most used programs like Zune, Firefox, Chrome and many more, I was getting around 15-30fps on Just Case 2 while the laptop was over clocked to 1.7ghz.

Little did I know that my disk was over 10% fragmented as revealed from statistics in backups. Over the next month or so, the disk got more and more fragmented as hard drives do when being used. Gradually, Just Cause 2 ran at as little as 5-10-fps. Very recently I discovered that my hard drive was 67% fragmented. This is 57% over the recommended time to defragment it. I immediately used the default Windows application to defragment the hard drive. Around the same time I removed lots of my excess applications.

I booted up Just Cause 2 and I got a constant 50-60fps. This is much higher than I have ever got on the M11x. The bottom line of this little tale is to make sure your hard drive is defragmented (unless you have a solid state drive). Yes, I know, it’s not very “geek-like” to not defragment your hard drive every week but I have learned my lesson. I’m pretty sure this is why my desktop computer runs so slow as well…

On a side note, I’m back in America so make sure you check www.youtube.com/omnitechnews because I will be doing some more videos very soon.

We knew that this was coming but we had no idea it would happen this soon. The Google Nexus One is officially all sold out in Google’s online store. The webpage where the phone was previously sold now says "the Nexus One is no longer available for purchase directly." You can still technically get the Nexus One through Vodafone in the UK or KT in South Korea. The one other option for getting your hands on the Nexus One is through a developer program that Google will likely be launching soon. Well, Nexus One, you’ll be dearly missed.

Yeah, we’re just as surprised as you are. We all thought the HP slate was dead but it looks as if the recently cancelled tablet might be making a comeback. Some of the people at IDG news discovered a webpage hidden deep within the inner-workings of www.HP.com. This page revealed quite a few specs for a device called the HP Slate 500. Just what kind of specs? Well, we know that the “Slate 500” will boast Windows 7 Home Premium, an 8.9-inch touchscreen display, a 1.6 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 2 cameras for video and stills. So, what do you think? Is the HP slate still alive despite what the company had previously said?

Microsoft has just announced the official pricing and release date of Kinect. As rumored, the standalone device will cost $150 and will be available on November 4th. The other option would be to get the Kinect bundled with the just-announced new Xbox 360 arcade for $300. The new $200 Xbox Arcade will feature 4GB of internal storage, a matte finish, and like it’s older and shinier brother, 802.11n WiFi. It will ship August 3rd. So, to recap, you can get the Kinect for $149 on November 4th, the new 360 Arcade on August 3rd for $199, and the two bundled together for $299 sometime this holiday.