Archive for February, 2008
« Previous EntriesRed Octane lets loose separate Wii Guitar Hero III controller
Friday, February 29th, 2008Filed under: Gaming
Read - Red Octane
Read - Toys R Us
[Thanks, Nic]
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Wait, there’s more! Dell’s Latitude D630 / D830 go Penryn
Friday, February 29th, 2008Filed under: Laptops
Uh, we figured this whole Penryn update thing was all taken care of by now, but for whatever reason, Dell has found it quite pleasing to roll out said chips to its machines on a one (or two) at a time basis. Just a day after the new processors landed in the Precision M2300 and M4300 — and merely two days since they crawled within the M6300 — the Round Rock powerhouse has seen fit to hook up the all-business Latitude D630 and D830. Effective immediately, interested consumers can snatch up one (or both, we ’spose) of the aforementioned machines with a 2.5GHz T9300 or 2.6GHz T9500, both of which include 6MB of L2 cache. Meanwhile, prospective M1530 buyers are becoming increasingly incensed at Dell’s apparent negligence of their favorite machine.
Read - Latitude D630
Read - Latitude D830
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Military Turing test to make autonomous war robots legal?
Friday, February 29th, 2008Filed under: Robots
Not that we’re experts on the matter or anything, but if barrister and engineer Chris Elliot knows a thing or two about legal issues, a kind of “military Turing test” could be the key to legally deploying autonomous systems in battle. As it stands, “weapons intrinsically incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets are illegal” — at least according to Mr. Elliot — but by testing an intelligent war machine’s ability to hone in on legitimate targets and brush off friendlies, all that could change. Of course, actually administering the test still remains a mystery, but considering that remotely controlled armed bots are currently being used in Iraq, we reckon someone’s already figuring out a solution to said dilemma.
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Wii outsells the PS3 4-to-1 in Japan, Sony execs “not psyched”
Friday, February 29th, 2008Filed under: Gaming
Sony, we know you’re trying hard, which is why we think it must sting all the worse when you wake up to sales figures like this. According to a report, the Wii outsold PS3s in Japan 4-to-1 in the month of February, and its games dominated bestseller lists. What does that look like in cold, hard numbers? Nintendo moved 331,627 consoles over the month, while Sony only managed 89,131 units in the same time. But wait, there’s more: in January, the ratio was 3-to-1, which means that Nintendo’s lead seems to be growing as the year moves forward. Still, Sony could have it worse, the Xbox 360 only scraped up a paltry 14,079 Xbox 360 sales in that same span of time.
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Apple MacBook Pro Penryn tests: a little more speed, a lot less heat
Friday, February 29th, 2008Filed under: Features, Laptops
Sure, more speed is great, but on OS X most bumps don’t have an appreciable effect on everyday work (unless all you’re doing is video encoding). We were more interested in what Intel’s Penryn processors can do for the MBP’s heat envelope, so we maxed out both CPU cores in this brand new machine at let ‘em crank for a half an hour. Our test machine may or may not compare to a later 3rd-gen MBP in terms of heat efficiency, but here’s the quick rundown:
Core Duo (2.16GHz)
- Peak: 195° F, fans over 5000 RPM
- Average: 185° F, fans about 4900 RPM
- Enclosure (bottom): very hot to the touch
- Enclosure (top): fairly hot to the touch
Penryn Core 2 Duo (2.5GHz)
- Peak: 176° F, fans about 3400 RPM
- Average: 173° F, fans about 2500 RPM (much quieter)
- Enclosure (bottom): warm to the touch
- Enclosure (top): warm to fairly hot to the touch
The usual Xbench tests are after the break.
Continue reading Apple MacBook Pro Penryn tests: a little more speed, a lot less heat
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Wii FreeLoader gives you region-free gaming without the mods
Thursday, February 28th, 2008Filed under: Gaming
This one has been in the works for a while, but it looks like you can finally pick up your very own region-free enabler for the Wii for $19.99. Wii FreeLoader allows you to play any GameCube or Wii game from any region on your Wii. You just stick the FreeLoader disc into the console, let it spin up, eject the disc and stick in your title of choice — like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, for instance, or some cooking-related title. Since there’s no hardware modding required, this one theoretically won’t void your warranty, but who’s to say how Nintendo will treat you if you somehow break your Wii with it, and there’s always the fear that Nintendo will hit your Wii with a mandatory software update that breaks FreeLoader, so proceed with caution. Or don’t, so much confusing entertainment awaits you!
[Via Wii News]
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Digital Polaroid photo frame concept brings it all rushing back
Thursday, February 28th, 2008Filed under: Digital Cameras, Displays
Polaroid film may be gone, but for some of us with fond memories of the format — for no discernible reason, Polaroids were slow, blurry and expensive — this digital picture frame concept seems a fitting tribute. There’s a dry erase portion on the bottom, and the frame can stand on its own or be pinned to a cork board for added realism. “Standard” mode emulates a regular digital frame, while “Classic” mode slowly fades the picture into view. Yeah, maybe a little too cute for its own good, but maybe we like it that way.
[Via Gadget Lab]
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Why hasn’t anyone hacked the Kindle?
Thursday, February 28th, 2008Filed under: Handhelds
You know, the Kindle runs Linux, has USB, uses all standard processors and chipsets, even comes with free built-in EV-DO — you’d kind of think that stuff (and all the rest) would make it about as high a profile target for hardware modders and hackers as there are. So what gives, why hasn’t the hacker community glommed onto this thing? Hit the poll: anyone can answer, but we really want to hear from the über-geeks in the house why the call to Kindle has gone unheeded.
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Hitachi, Sharp raided on DS screen price fixing suspicions
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Price fixing isn’t ever fun — unless you’re the company doing it and expect to get away with it, and then it’s like a total blast, dude. But hopefully that isn’t actually the case with Sharp and Hitachi, whose offices were apparently raided by the Japanese Fair Trade Commission on suspicion of fixing display prices for the DS; Nintendo’s throw its hands up in the air exclaiming that it was unaware of the supposed screen cartel, and something else about just when they think were out, they got pulled back in.
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Dell snaps Penryn chips into Precision M6300, X9000 included
Thursday, February 28th, 2008Filed under: Laptops
As the Penryn updates slow to a trickle, Dell is looking out for one remaining straggler by updating the potent Precision M6300 workstation. Starting today, users can select either the 2.6GHz T9500 Core 2 Duo or the drool-worthy 2.8GHz X9000 Core 2 Extreme, but curiously enough, only the T9500 is listed as an option ($370 upgrade over the base T7500) when entering the US configuration site. Nevertheless, we reckon Dell will have that sorted soon enough, and while you’re ordering, why not indulge in the 512MB NVIDIA Quadro FX 3600M, too? It’s only an extra $699, after all.
[Via Electronista]
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