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If there’s one thing Guitar Hero and Rock Band taught us, it’s that we don’t need strings to be a rock star and rip gnarly riffs with the best of them. Sure, they’re just video games, but the Misa Digital Guitar is the real deal, and it’s just the kind of stringless guitar living room legends have been waiting for.

Consider the Misa a glorified MIDI controller whose sound “is limited only by what you connect it to.”  There are 144 note buttons for the left hand to sift through, while the right hand rocks out by tapping a touch screen control pad. And of course it’s powered by Linux, which means the door has been left wide open for programmers to conjure up some funky modifications.

We can already sense the blood boiling from traditional guitarists who see this as yet another abomination of music, but if it helps any, Misa’s designers admit their creation shouldn’t be compared to acoustic or electric guitars saddled with strings. After all, “those are different instruments, for different art forms, for different music. This is electronic music.”

Hey, have you heard the news? Apple’s making a tablet, and it’s going to be awesome. It’s going to have a touchscreen, and it’s gonna be a tablet. And it’s going to be awesome!

Confused? Then you haven’t been listening to the Maximum PC podcast. But Gordon’s rant notwithstanding, Apple really is making a tablet (we think), and according to the Wall Street Journal, HarperCollins Publishers is currently hammering out a contract with Apple to provide electronic books for the upcoming tablet.

Like everything else surrounding the Apple tablet, details are fuzzy. It looks as though HarperCollins will set the prices of the e-books, and that they’ll come with some additional features, but it’s anyone’s guess whether they’ll be sold in a new e-book store or via the iTunes Store.

Either way, HarperCollins is turning the heat up on Amazon, which currently rules the e-book kingdom, at least until Apple finally starts shipping its long rumored tablet.

Both AMD and Intel have fully embraced DDR3, and as a result, no one wants DDR2 anymore. Demand for DDR2 has fallen by the wayside, while DDR3 is selling through the roof. For Korea-based DRAM makers, the situation has left them with a surplus of DDR2 modules, and they don’t want them any more than consumers do.

The solution? Bundle DDR3 modules with DDR2 chips. Doing so will help clear out DDR2 inventories that have been piling up, and will also help keep the price gap between the two standards from widening. According to DigiTimes’ industry sources, the strategy is to minimize the impact that a DDR2 oversupply and DDR3 shortage would have on the market.

As it stands, sport market prices for 1.3GHz 1Gb DDR3 chips are averaging about $3.08, compared to $2.50 for 800MHz 1Gb DDR2 chips, according to the latest data from DRAMeXchange.

I’ve been a stalwart user of TweetDeck for all my 140-character messaging needs for quite some time now. But that’s the problem with having a favorite freeware program: Your devotion to a tried-and-true application could be preventing you from reaching out and discovering a program that does an even better job. I mean, TweetDeck–awesome as can be–sure isn’t perfect. There are a few features I wish I could get my hands on and, conversely, a few features I wish I could excise from the program with one almighty keystroke.

So all this got me thinking. I cover a lot of apps in these weekly Freeware Files roundups. But apps typically go through a number of changes throughout their lifespans. For better or worse, not every app is always going to look like it does when it’s been profiled in a Freeware Files column. And with new programs entering the freeware fray at all times, what’s a great recommendation one day might turn out to be an average or dull recommendation the next.

So, instead of just profiling five different Twitter apps this week, I’m going to make this more of a challenge. TweetDeck has been a top Twitter application on the market for some time now. What has it been up to since we last took a look at the software. More importantly, what other apps have risen the occasion to challenge–or topple–this killer program?

How is that motherboard makers can cram all kinds of innovative technologies onto a motherboard and serve up marketing bullets that will have buyers thinking they’re investing in a little slice of Heaven, yet when it comes to naming their creations, all that creativity goes out the window? To quote Bill Belichick, “It is what it is.” In any event, meet the newest member of MSI’s P55 motherboard family, the P55-GD85.

Built around Intel’s P55 chipset, MSI’s newest addition brings official support for Intel’s 32nm Core i3/i5/i7 processors. It also comes equipped with support for SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0, the latter of which will probably prove more useful during the board’s lifespan.

To make sure the board squeezes out every last bit of bandwidth, MSI tossed in a PLX PCI-E bridge chip “to multiply the PCI-E bandwidth as well as most effective distribution when using the functions of SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0 functions.”

Other features include four DIMM slots supporting up to 16GB of DDR3-2133(OC) memory, a pair of PCI-E x16 ports, two PCI-E x1 ports, an IDE port, seven SATA II ports, two SATA 3 ports, six USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, Firewire, eSATA, and various other odds and ends.

No word yet on price or availability,  though if we had to guess, we’d say “soon” and about “$220 street.”

Those of you sporting a PC made in the the good ol’ U.S. of A. may want to take note – two decades from now, you’ll have no choice but to buy a foreign-made computer. Why? Because according to Acer founder Stan Shih, U.S.computer brands are on their way out.

“The trend for low-priced computers will last for the coming years,” said Shih. “But US computer makers just don’t know how to put such products on the market… US computer brands may disappear over the next 20 years, just like what happened to US television brands.”

Acer’s been on a roll the past year, nudging ahead of US-based Dell in a photo-finish as the world’s second-largest computer vendor, and should Acer continue to fly high, it could pass HP, another US computer maker, for the top spot by 2011.

Leave it to a company called Sparkle to deck out its latest nettop with a unicorn. We’re not sure why, nor do we know what’s up with the funky capitalization in the Calibre CUTi’s name, but hey, it’s the hardware that counts, right?

And on that front,  the Calibre CUTi combines an Intel Atom dual-core 1.6GHz processor with Nvidia’s Ion platform. It also comes with up to 4GB of DDR2 memory, a 160GB or 320GB hard drive expandable to 500GB (also supports SSDs), a 5-in-1 card reader, Gigabit LAN, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, optional Bluetooth, six USB 2.0 ports, 7.1-channel audio, and an HDMI port.

Sparkle says the Calibre CUTi consumes just 14W while idle, or “less than an energy-saving light bulb,” and 30W at full bore.

No word yet on price or availability.

Verizon is in the process of revamping its FiOS bundles. The new packages will include crazy fast 35Mbps symmetrical speeds. This is the sort of internet access that most of us can only dream of. There is, however, a catch. Verizon is also raising the early termination fee from $179 to $360. This mirrors the recent changes to Verizon’s wireless ETF that got the FCC a little upset.

The new “Prime” packages include the aforementioned speedy 35Mbps internet, phone, and TV with 125 HD channels for $140 per month after the promotional period. Bundles with 25Mbps symmetric and 15/5Mbps speeds are available for $125 and $110 per month respectively.

In some ways, the higher ETF makes more sense for FiOS than wireless. Installing fiber into a home is a pricey proposition, and laying all that fiber in the first place is expensive. This probably contributes to the relative scarcity of FiOS. Would you be able to look past the whopping ETF to get this sort of connection? If there’s FiOS in your area, consider yourself lucky that you even have the option.

Rumors are swirling that indicate the recent attacks on Google’s servers may have been carried out with the help of some China-based Google employees. According to sources, a number of employees at the China offices were placed on mandatory leave, and others were transferred. Google even went so far as to briefly cut the workers off from the network to make sure it was secure.

Google is currently remaining tight lipped about this bit of the puzzle. This is strange considering how forthcoming they were with other details. The attack took advantage of a known security hole in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. This has led France and Germany to recommend their citizens stop using the browser for the time being.

Could this be the real reason Google seems so ready to pull out of China? If they suspect their own employees were convinced to assist in the attack, they may feel the situation is already out of control. Are we getting the real story here? Let us know in the comments.