Content and news by Matt Serrano

It looks like we finally know what was up Voodoo’s website  which went up in smoke a few days ago. HP’s gaming brand released two new products, the Envy ultraportable and Omen PC. In my opinion, both take a significant step forward in terms of style and functionality, but the specs aren’t quite up to par with what can be had for less (which, granted, has always been the case with Voodoo to an extent).

The products are the first ones the company has built from the ground up. The Envy 133 features a 13.3" LED screen, carbon fiber exterior, built in Ethernet port in the power brick , and Splashtop’s instant on operating system among other features. The Omen is a spiritual successor to HP’s Blackbird that takes measures with the chassis to further improve airflow and allow ease of use. Things look promising (and very, very sexy), now bring on the benchmarks!

Windows Home Server has been a product rough around the edges for a lot of people. While some have happily used boxes with no issues whatsoever, others have been unfortunate enough to experience data-threatning bugs that turn them off of the platform.

Thankfully, Microsoft pushed out its new release candidate for the operating system’s "Power Pack", which will bring along a host of new features as outlined by ArsTechnica:

• Support for PCs running Windows Vista x64 editions
• Backup of home server Shared Folders
• Easier and enhanced remote access capabilities
• Better energy efficiency
• Improved performance
• Chinese and Japanese versions

The update also fixes potentially dangerous (and frankly terrifying) file corruption bug, which plagued a lot of users making the entire backup solution effectively useless. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of WHS and would rather use a more affordable and tested solution such as Ubuntu Server or FreeNAS, but the appeal and simplicity is there for home users who simply want to backup their data. Hopefully this fix will be the first of many from Microsoft’s doors.

We’ve seen delay after delay for Windows Home Server (WHS) Power Pack 1 (PP1) as Microsoft makes sure to thoroughly address a file corruption bug in addition to adding various new features and fixing bugs in the operating system. The software giant has now released build 1771 of WHS PP1 for public testing, a move that means the company is reasonably satisfied with the update and now wants to confirm that users feel the same. Redmond has also opened a new channel of communication for the beta: Power Pack 1 subforum on the Windows Home Server Community forums.

In case you’ve been under a rock for the past few hours, you’ll probably be somewhat excited to know that Apple announced a few exciting products and the company’s 2008 Developer’s Conference. First up (well, technically last), the company lifted the veil off of the new phone, which sports 3G data, GPS, a lower pricetag ($199 and $299 for the 8GB and 16GB versions respectively), a new white model, better battery life, a flush headphone jack, and as one would expect, all of the features of the 2.0 upgrade which is due out in early July for existing owners.

The main draw here is really the inclusion of two things: the lower price and availability. Apple expects the phone to be available in 70 countries by the year’s end, and the phone shouldn’t exceed the $199 price in most cases. This obviously opens up the potential market a great deal, adding 65 new countries to the list. Even if you have no interest in the phone, the new discounted price will surely attract eyeballs from both customers and competitors.

Two things that weren’t mentioned during the keynote are the end of iTunes activations and data plan pricing, which has been increased from $20 to $30 with the inclusion of 3G. AT&T has since stated that they removed this option because people wanted the ability to activate the phone in store and walk out with it (which, oddly enough, was already possible), but I believe this is a blatant effort to combat the unlocking scene because of the new subsidized price.

Along with the new phone, Apple also told developers that they would offer a solution for the inability to run processes in the background by implementing a sort of server-side notification system that would run through Apple’s servers, free of charge for developers. The company claimed the upside would be increased stability and performance.

There was a demonstration of a new service, called MobileMe, which replaces .Mac, that the company calls "Exchange for the rest of us." The idea is that information (email, photos, calendar, address information, files) could be accessed from any "computer" and synced through the "cloud" wirelessly. This will undoubtably be an attractive feature for new users with more than one computer, or an iPhone, for instance, but I’m sure the $99 price tag will put some potential customers off.

Lastly (whew), Steve Jobs mentioned the new 10.6 release of OS X would be called "Snow Leoperd", as the rumors suggested, but…. didn’t go into any details. Developers were offered a preview "after lunch", but no details have been released.

Today, the Mozilla foundation released the newest release candidate for their popular web browser, which should be finalized later this month. RC 2 brings more bug fixes to the table, and ads some last minute polish for the final version. Since Mozilla has issued a feature-freeze, you won’t see many differences between this release and the final version, if there are any other releases between the two.

The release candidate will be published on the Firefox website and pushed through the auto-updator in the coming days, but if you want to get your hands dirty now, CyberNet has a links to the files on Mozilla’s FTP servers.

Mozilla has released Firefox 3 RC2 today which is right on schedule, and that means we might still be on for a June launch of Firefox 3! It’s even possible that this could be the last Release Candidate before Mozilla shoots for their world record. This time around there’s probably nothing that you’ll notice as being different from Release Candidate 1, which is a good thing. At this point they are focusing only on bugs that could keep the user from having a great experience with the browser, and if all looks well in this release it could be signed-off on to be the final version.

Lenovo tests the waters in the LCD market with a product that we’ve been waiting quite some time for — a 22" LCD monitor that offers a 1920 x 1200 native resolution. But is its resolution alone enough reason for you to give it the nod?

We’ve known this was in the works for a while now (in a few different flavors), but today Starbucks announced that they would offer free Wi-Fi for their Starbucks card users. The partnership with AT&T would allow you to use the service in exchange for getting "up to four" emails from AT&T per year. Having to keep your card active and opening accounts with both AT&T and Starbucks seems like a bit of a hassle on paper, but the process should be painless in practice.

I can’t say I’m the type to go out of my way to take trips to my local Starbucks, but I can certainly see where and when free Wi-Fi access would be useful. Trips across the country will be less dreadful with the promise of free internet access, and Starbucks’ are quite literally everywhere.

The Wi-Fi freebie will be available starting Tuesday to customers who purchase a minimum $5 reloadable Starbucks Card, register online for the Starbucks Rewards Card program, and use the card at least once a month. The two hours must be consecutive. New members also receive a voucher for a free drink.

Today, Valve announced a new addition to their Steam platform: Steam Cloud. The premise is simply an online service that will keep saved games and configuration files tied to your Steam account, allowing you to install and play your games on any machine, right where you left off. Probably the most promising is the promise that the company will open the service to developers, so other games will be able to take advantage of its features. This feature is something I’ve personally wanted from Steam for a long time. It means that your save file will always be safe in case data becomes corrupt or unrecoverable, and it’s one less thing to beat myself up about after I forget to backup my saved games for a Windows reinstall.

The company also shed light on other features they plan to include, an auto-update feature for drivers, a calendar feature, and a system-requirement checker, similar to Vista’s implementation, which will scan for your hardware and recommend upgrades based on multiple games.

Half-Life and Half-Life 2 will be the first games to support the service. User key mappings will also be saved in Counter-Strike, and Left 4 Dead will ship with the feature.

If players are offline, the service will store the data and then add it to the network on the next connection. According to Valve, saved games and configurations will be stored forever.

ASUS first acknowledged their plans to support DeviceVM’s Splashtop technology late last year, as we mentioned in our recent article, by supporting it on the company’s P5E3 Deluxe motherboard. Recently, however, ASUS sent out a press release saying they would provide their Express Gate software on all of their motherboards. We’ve seen the technology on some of their other boards since then, but we haven’t heard much of introducing the technology to notebooks, until now.

Favored by ASUS primarily for its low-energy usage and fast boot time, one can easily see why Splashtop remains appealing to mobile users. Being able to access a desktop interface to find files, surf the web, or chat online is a major attraction considering the fraction of the power drawn compared to using a full operating system and the near-instantaneous boot time.

The first Express Gate enabled notebooks will be the M70T, M50V and M51T multimedia series, as well as the F8Va/Vr series, which will ship in June of this year. If the past is any indication, I would expect more models to follow in the future.

DeviceVM today announced the release of their award winning Splashtop™ software on numerous ASUS notebooks.  Splashtop is a light-weight operating system that allows consumers to use their computers seconds after hitting the power button.  Models spanning a wide range of segments are to ship with Splashtop pre-installed by ASUS starting in June this year.

Branded “Express Gate” by ASUS, Splashtop software enables users to browse the web, watch videos, listen to music, chat with friends, share photos, and more – just seconds after turning on their PC.  Express Gate is already available on a wide range of PC motherboards from ASUS.  The notebooks announced today are the first to integrate Express Gate for the broad consumer market, including the M70T, M50V and M51T multimedia series and the stylish F8Va/Vr series.

Today, Apple released its long-awaited 10.5.3 update to their Leopard operating system. Weighing in a 420MB, this update includes fixes for .Mac, Address Book, AirPort, Automator, iCal, iChat, Back To My Mac, Mail, Time Machine, Time Capsole, and many more. Updates to Logic Express and RAW compatibility for iPhoto ’08 and Aperture 2 were pushed as well to the appropriate users.

I ran the update on my MacBook, and had to reboot twice. I was fortunate enough not to have any nagging issues from 10.5.2, so I can’t personally comment on fixed bugs, but I haven’t run into any compatibility issues. Some users are reporting issues with SIMBL plug-ins (as with some previous updates), but there is a fix for the problem. If (and only if) you own an iPhone or an iPod touch, a new feature in Address Book allows you to sync Gmail contacts with your iPhone, as it already does with .Mac and Yahoo! contacts.

The company also released a new version of the iPhone SDK, but no information partarning to the update was included. Presumably, this will be the last verison of the "beta" iPhone SDK before Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), beginning June 9. The new SDK is tied to 10.5.3, so there is likely some code linking the two, which could be a technical reason or a clue to a new feature that has yet to be announced.

Apple released the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update today. The latest update to Leopard should appear in your Mac OS X Software Update.

The 10.5.3 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac.

Besides releasing Mac OS X 10.5.3 today, Apple also released a new version of the iPhone SDK (Beta 6). No details have been posted. Apple should be wrapping up development of the iPhone SDK which is expected to be complete by late June. Apple will be covering many aspects of the iPhone SDK during their Worldwide Development Conference which starts on June 9th.

We were so impressed with the Central Axis upgrade for the Shared Storage II at CES that we thought we’d check out the NAS itself prior to the official launch of that software. With 1TB of storage, will the SSII warrant a purchase, with it’s higher price point?

The display market is chalked-full of models that fill up the quality spectrum, from sub-par up to high-end. The VW222 falls into the sub-par category, sadly, with overall poor color representation and noticeable screen-door effects, resulting in a model that should not be considered for purchase.

Logitech’s Harmony division have put a lot of of effort into the One, so we put it to the test to see if it all paid off. In addition to the comfortable design and individually contoured buttons, the One features a large LCD screen, support for over 5,000 brands, a stylish charger and a respectable price tag.

Think large displays are over-rated? Then Samsung’s brand new 743B might just be worth a look. At 17-inches, it sure isn’t for everyone. It offers a 1280×1024 resolution, fast 5ms response time and an outstanding 7000:1 contrast ratio. Does this small monitor pack a big punch?

The long anticipated Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000 is here, but does it impress? The entire package does a fine job of looking good while offering solid functionality, but we found it lacks greatly in a few key areas. The most notable being the price… at $300.

Our Gift Guide continues with an exhaustive look at the entire spectrum of available video cards for all price-ranges. On top of that, we also give our top five list for monitors which range from the reasonably priced to the ultimate drool-worthy. No matter your budget, we have you covered!

Wacom rarely release new products, however last month saw the launch of the Bamboo and Bamboo Fun tablets. We are taking a look at the latter, which is designed not for professional artists, but casual users who want to get more out of their PC. Have Wacom impressed us once again?

As 24″ monitors invade our homes, it’s important to make the right purchasing decision. What matters most? Lots of features, better image quality or the best gaming experience? We are taking a look at Planar’s latest 24″ model to see where it excels… and where it doesn’t.

Gamers on a budget don’t want to be forced to sacrifice quality, and Cooler Master realizes this. Their latest case, the CM 690, can be found online for $70 and under and has enough features to please most everyone.

The Sonata was Antec’s flagship case for it’s time and set the standard for the competition. It offered quiet performance with an affordable price tag for the budget market, which made it a favorite among system builders. Two generations later, Antec is using the Sonata III to improve on it’s legacy and offer builders the same quality and bang for their buck.

Encoding video is not normally ones idea of fun, but Elgato promises to take out some of the pain for Mac users by making the process up to 4x faster, with their Turbo.264. Does it live up to it’s claims, and more importantly, is it worth your $100?