The Nissan GT-R has become something of a cult favorite for a number of types of enthusiasts: supercar slayers, import tuners, and especially track-day junkies. Particularly in the UK, where congestion (and a proliferation of speed cameras) prevents stretching out your car’s legs, where there are legendary racing circuits abound and where, subsequently, Nissan has now rolled out a new Track Pack for the recently updated GT-R.

The Track Pack doesn’t touch the engine, so the same 542-horsepower twin-turbo V6 applies. What it does provide is better cooling for the brakes with extra ducting front and rear, lighter six-spoke Rays alloys, a stiffer suspension (whose dampers can, of course, still be softened for road use), and an interior stripped of its rear seats and bolstered in the front for harder cornering.

Nissan UK is pricing the Track Pack at £10,000 ($15,000) on top of the £74,450 ($116,000) purchase price of a stock GT-R, and fortunately, the kit’s addition doesn’t preclude it from being driven on public roads. Although the package is currently only available overseas, we’re hopeful that when the revised Godzilla makes its way to these shores, we’ll have a chance to get our driving gloves on it as well.

Intel has just been granted a patent that claims the rights to the concept of using initially inactive processing cores to replace failing cores.

According to the patent, increasingly complex processors with a greater number of cores, referred to as many-core processors by the company, will see higher failure rates than single- or dual-core processors. In fact, the patent states that the lifetime of a core may “shorten from generation to generation.” The reasons include electromigration, stress migration, time dependent dielectric breakdown, negative bias temperature instability (NBTI), and thermal cycling.

To alleviate failure concerns, the patent covers an approach of core management, which is heavily focused on temperature monitoring of the individual cores: “Because many semiconductor failure mechanisms are expressed at elevated temperatures, temperature thus has a direct bearing on core MTTF [mean time to failure] and many-core reliability,” the patent document explains. “If the temperature cannot be decreased, a many-core processor would activate spare cores to protect both the possibly failing core as well as neighboring cores. Both failed and spare cores are described to “absorb heat generated by active cores, driving the temperatures on the active cores down.”

In an allocation/reallocation scenario, Intel says that the temperatures of cores can be drastically reduced.

There is no indication when Intel will actually use such a technology, but the examples in the patent start with at least 32 cores total, which use 16 active and 16 spare cores.

Although ultrabooks have just arrived on the market, their biggest competitor is not only the MacBook Air, but the entire tablet sector. Consumers seemingly want thin, portable devices that let them search the internet, play HD movies and HD games without the bulk that’s associated with the standard laptop. To conquer both adversaries, it seems only natural to add touch-based capabilities to Intel’s new form factor… especially with Windows 8 on the horizon.

According to unnamed industry sources, notebook manufacturers plan to install touch panels in ultrabooks next year to accommodate the new touch-based features offered in Windows 8. LCD panel and touch module suppliers are reportedly delivering samples to these companies already. The only problem, it seems, is getting bulky touch screens inside the thin ultrabook chassis while conforming to Intel’s specifications.

To overcome this roadblock, back-light unit (BLU) manufacturers are mounting lighting devices, optical films, and light guide panels onto the upper covers of ultrabooks by using an open cell (which depends on the lid of the ultrabook for protection) or hinge-up process. This will reportedly help reduce the thickness of touch-based ultrabooks and keep them in line with Intel’s sub-0.83-inch specification while still posing a challenge to the tablet and MacBook Air market.

Meanwhile, the sources claim that shipments of Acer’s Aspire S3 and Asustek Computer’s Zenbook have so far met market expectations. As of the end of November, shipments of Aspire S3 from ODM Wistron have reached 200,000 to 210,000 units. ODM shipments of Zenbooks from Pegatron Technology are expected to top 150,000 to 170,000 units by the end of the month.

Over the past two weeks, we have learned about the upcoming Ivy Bridge processors and its “S” & “T” versions. Thanks to another leak, posted by VR-Zone, we now get to see a little about the upcoming Ivy Bridge mobile platform. The M-series will come with 35W, 45W, and 55W TDP. The U-Series will come with a 17W TDP. This is a change from the current Sandy Bridge mobile line up that offered three levels; SV – 35W, 45W & 55W, LV – 25W and ULV – 17W.

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Asus is prepping yet another ROG LGA 2011 motherboard with the Rampage IV Gene, a high-end solution that comes in the Micro-ATX form factor and targets LAN party goers reports softpedia.

Despite its small size, the Asus board includes pretty much all the features that one would expect from a top of the line ATX, or even much larger board, such as SLI/CrossFireX compatibility, a high-end VRM, Intel Gigabit LAN, SupremeFX III sound and out of the box DDR3-2400 support.

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At this year’s 2011 Tokyo Motor Show, Bridgestone unveiled its latest development in tire technology that replaces air with a thermoplastic resin support structure. Unlike conventional tires, Bridgestone’s airless concepts never need to be pumped and can still run after being punctured. Although the exterior of the tire resembles the rugged structure of traditional tires, the interior is a completely different story.

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We’ve seen plenty of tablets embedded into concepts and project cars, but Renault looks to be the first major automaker to bring a fully functional and embedded tablet into a production vehicle. And it’s doing it in two new cars due to arrive next year.

At the LeWeb consumer electronics show in France, Renault unveiled R-Link, a voice-activated telematics platform that combines entertainment, navigation and social functions into a single, integrated seven-inch touchscreen display.

The tablet – which we assume is removable, so this isn’t just a glorified touchscreen – can be controlled through either voice commands, the screen or the steering wheel, and Renault claims that 50 apps will be available when it launches on both the new Clio and Zoe models next year.

Navigation is provided by TomTom and Renault is courting developers to bring even more apps to market. However, the French automaker remains mum on specs and the operating system, both of which could pose a challenge to devs.