It’s been almost 2 months since the first Android 2.0 device hit the market, the Motorola Droid on Verizon Wireless. Since launch in November, I made the switch to Verizon because the release of the Motorola Droid has finally brought a device to Verizon which has a chance at competing with the iPhone currently available exclusively with AT&T Wireless. This a comparison of my experiences on both mobile platforms.
It’s official, as a follow up to the previous mysterious Metal Gear Announcement, Konami has revealed the next Metal Gear title, METAL GEAR SOLID TOUCH will be for the iPhone. The story takes place during Metal Gear Solid 4 and consists of 8 stages according to Konami Productions. Gameplay on these stages will also unlock special goodies for the iPhone, such as wallpapers. From the title, it seems pretty safe to assume that the game will be controlled with the iPhone’s touch screen. While the details on Konami’s official site are still lacking, Kotaku reports that the game will be available Spring 2009. I can’t wait!
The iPhone Dev-Team has announced that an unlock package is on the way for the iPhone 3g. Set for a release date of December 31, the unlock tool codenamed “yellowsn0w” is being adjusted to be user friendly such as familiar tools like QuickPwn. Unfortunately, iPod Touch 2G owners will have to wait as the Dev-Team made it clear that they have not been focusing on the iPhone’s younger sibling and that you should stop bugging them. Other than that, if you have an iPhone with a baseband version 2.11.07 or earlier, you can finally unlock your iPhone 3G just in time the the New Year.
You can read the official Dev-Team post here.
Logitech recently announced the new Logitech G13 Gameboard. The gameboard consists of a 25 programible back-lit keys an LED display, and an analog, all presented in Logitech’s excellent gaming feng-shui. Like it’s full keyboard siblings, the G13 is capable of programming macro’s on the fly so you don’t have to use a configuration programevery time you want to create a new macro. The G13 also saves it’s game profiles on the device’s onboard memory, making it more portable between multiple computers. The 160×43 LED dot matrix display shows information from your system and games in realtime so you can check your stats in WOW, check your ammo in COD4, or check how much system memory is available. According to Logitech, the G13 will be available in December in the U.S. and Europe with an MSRP of $80. Hit the link for the official announcement from Logitech.
Contrary to previous reports that Home would be launching later this month, possibly the 17th, Sony Computer Entertainment has announced that Play Station Home will be launching everywhere tomorrow! Although it will still be a beta, everyone will be able join. Hit the link to get the entire official announcement.
Circuit City filed for bankruptcy today. If you have been reading or watching the news for the past few weeks, this should not be a surprise. After all, earlier this month, Circuit City closed one fifth of their stores around the country due to the downward economy and fierce competition with other major electronics retailers like Best Buy and even online sources like Amazon and Newegg. Despite bankruptcy, a letter from President and CEO Jim Marcum stated that Circuit City still plans to operate the 566 remaining stores within the U.S.. Where customers might get ticked during the holiday season is the gift card. Circuit City is asking the Court for the authority to honor returns, exchanges, gift cards etc… Marcum concluded his statement hoping things would keep on going as usual. So if you get a gift card from Circuit City this holiday season, try to spend it soon if you can.
After the great success of the Eee mobility laptop, Taiwan based PC manufacturer Asus is planning to take the concept to the desktop platform. The company intends to come out with a machine integrated into a 19″-20″ monitor as well as a model built into a 42″ LCD display. The integrated model is targeted towards someone who prefers the simplicity of the integrated iMac, but has a smaller budget. These models are projected to run around $500 with the integrated monitor setup and a few less Benjamins for a base system. In the future, Asus plans to use the Intel Shelton platform as soon as it becomes available for mass production.
More info after the break.
Continue reading ‘Asus Plans to Budgetize the Desktop Eee Style’
Leopard is officially out and it definately lives up to its reputation. While current 10.4 users may not need to upgrade now, it certainly looks great. It packs a whopping 300+ new features over Tiger. However, most these features are just small GUI enhancements like a shiny new dock. Leopard needs a G4, G5 or Intel based processor. So if you are a remaining G3 user, too bad for you. Some people are comparing this to Vista as a revolutionary upgrade. However the actual differences between Tiger and Leopard are not as apparent as those between XP and Vista. But bear in mind, Vista costs about twice as mich. If you have a Mac, you should look at what Leopard has to offer you. For those you using Bootcamp. The beta is over 
But don’t worry, your current installations will keep working. The differenecs in the drivers are also not that apparent. So Leopard is great for new Mac users, and definately worth considering for current Tiger users.
While most of us at DigitalLife were wondering why Sony was not there, we couldn’t help but notice Sony’s ghost lurking about the show floor. There was a huge Blu-ray poster in the main lobby that really no one could explain. Maybe the monsterous HD-DVD truc took care of the opposition as they clearly dominated HD media at the show. Where were you Sony?
More of the Rotpod crew arrived this morning at Jacob Javits Convention Center. We will be bringing you more updates as the day progresses. So far, the show has exceeded my expectations from yesterday. There is a lot of state-of-the-art technology here that you can get hands on experience. We will keep updating the blog with pictures as the day goes on. Unfortunately, the upload bandwidth is very limited here.
After we get the public scum out of here (joking), we can finally enjoy the place with only those special enought to call themselves part of PC Magazine’s Bloghaus. Pat and I are chilling with fellow bloggers from other reputable organizations including PC Mag, GearLog, gotFrag, and even members from the PMS and we have a great view of most of the convention from the upper terrace. Tomorrow we will keep you updated as we get more from the show, so look foreward to our demos and videos coming soon.
Pat, and I are here at Digital Life at Javits Center in New York City. Sorry about the image quality, we didn’t bring the real cameras in today. Tomorrow we will have better image quality.
Metal Gear turns 20 as Konami partys in Tokyo celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Metal Gear series. Hideo Kojima revealed 2 new games to enter the Metal Gear collection, Metal Gear Online and Metal Gear Solid Mobile. Metal Gear Online is an online tactical combat game that uses the Metal Gear Engine. While Snake doesn’t make any direct appearance in the game, you play as the soldiers from MGS4. MG Online will be completely independent of MGS4 so you don’t have to own MGS 4 to get the multiplayer component of this game. A public beta is already underway for August 2 to September 3.
After a great performance at E3, the Heavenly Sword Demo has made its way onto PS3s accross the world. The demo features most of the same content as the one that was exhibited several weeks ago at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. This was pretty unexpected given Heavenly Sword’s current stage of development being kept under wraps until recently, so if you have a PS3 in your console collection, log on and grab the demo! It’s loads of heavenly hack and slash fun!
Resident Evil 4 returns to impress fans and new-comers alike on the all out family console, the Nintendo Wii. Resident Evil 4 is now making its third re-release after its original release on the Nintendo Gamecube in 2005. But after 2 years of age, this is the best version yet. The main single-player mode is the classic Leon going to save the president’s daughter with suprises from Ada Wong and others. The main difference is the Wii-remote/nunchuk interface. You use the wii-remote to point and shoot through hordes of granadas and various monsters, upgrading your arsenal as you go. The Wii-remote definately reduces the difficulty and therefore the all out fear factor of it’s predecessors but it still makes for a great shooter experience. The only thing bad about this control scheme, is that the laser beam is gone and this ugly pointer is always on the screen. It definately makes the game easier, but it appears more like an arcade shooter in 3rd person. But if you want that classic nail-biting, OMG their coming! kind of experience, you can plug in a virtual console classic controller into the Wii remote and the laser pointer is restored. The classic controller scheme is basically the same as the PS2 version. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition includes all the extras from the PS2 release such as: Seperate ways, Assaignment Ada, Mercenaries, and the video player. Although the game may seem old to hardcore Resident Evil players, it is definately one of the best games on the Wii so far. This game really demonstrates the potential for the Wii to have real mainstream games, rather than those that only draw on the Wii for it’s unique motion-sensing properties. The Wii edition costs only $30, making it a steal for a new Wii game. This game’s availability seems to be meager because it is a re-release of an old title, so you have to go to gamestop or ebgames to get a copy. Bottomline is: if you have a Wii, you should get this game. You won’t be disappointed.
I thought it would never happen to me, that I was safe from what only plagued others. I was just looking over my beautiful shiny DS Lite when I discovered this crack on the left hinge. This was a defect of a large number of DS’s in the first shipment to North America. The problem is not a design flaw (thank god) but a mistake in the manufacturing (an air bubble in a portion of the plastic body). Thankfully, I realized I had purchased an extended 2 year replacement warranty from the kind folks at my local Best Buy. This allows me to completely replace my DS for a new unit (same color) within1 year and replace it once in the following 2 years. For $20, this is definately worth it. I never thought I would use one of these warrenties, but it appears as if my ignorance has caught up with me.
-Elias Tsang
has appealed the district court ruling against their new networked DVR. The RS-DVR would allow Cablevision IO subscribers to record and watch content on a DVR located in Cablevision offices. The main opposition are the media companies that were distressed that their copyright material would be violated by streaming it back to viewers in their homes. “The deployment and use of the RS-DVR would constitute a “public performance of plaintiffs’ copyrighted works” said Judge Denny Chin. Cablevision said it would seek an appeal to the second court circuit. “We continue to believe strongly that [the] remote-storage DVR is permissible under current copyright law and offers significant benefits to consumers, including lower costs and faster deployment of this popular technology to our digital cable customers,” said Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge. The broadcasting companies are concerned that this service would evolve in to an “on-demand” service like Cablevision’s current IO package. However, Cablevision assured that the content would have to be chosen to be recorded by the customer before it aired, just like a conventional DVR. The DVR would also have limited storage space. The main argument is the location of the hard drive. In this case, the DVRs would be stored at Cablevision offices making Cablevision responsible for protecting the copyrights of the broadcasted material. HD support has not been confirmed, but this service has been very controversial among channel broadcasters.
-Elias Tsang
Either you heard of the Guitar Hero II X-Plorer defect, or you cried yourself to sleep over your non-responsive whammy bar. This post is a mini repair guide to get yourself back rocking in no time. This is for part numbers 95065 and 95055, although, other whammy bars outside these part #’s have been reported faulty. Check your X-Plorer’s box for your part #.
1). Remove the 11 black screws on the white body with a #1 or #2 phillips screwdriver. Keep the controller upside down. (Below)
Hit the Jump to see the rest of this tutorial.
Apple announced Monday that it had sold 100 million IPods, Apples ever popular portable digital media player, making the IPod the fastest selling music player in history. When Sony released the Walkman in 1979, it took them almost 14 years to sell 100 million. And don’t even think about the Zune, Microsoft’s latest forcast puts them at 1 million by the end of June 2007.
AMD released an entry in their knowledge base acknowledging compatibility issues with several key applications. Currently, they offer no solution. Heres the full list.
* AIGLX
* Beryl
* Compiz
* MythTV
* TV TIME
* Linux 8.19 Driver and higher
* openSUSE
* SUSE LINUX Enterprise Desktop (SLED)
* SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server (SLES)
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (RHEL-WS)
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server (RHEL-AS)
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux Enterprise Server (RHEL-ES)
-Elias Tsang
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