Content and news by Rob Williams

Popular online reference site, HowStuffWorks, has been acquired by Discovery for an incredible $250 million. An acquisition is not that surprising, especially by Discovery. HSW is one of the most popular reference websites out there, and it has become one of my favorite sites to read over the past few years. They manage to take absolutely simple subjects and develop interesting articles around them. You gotta respect that!

Discovery initially plans to merge HSW’s text content with the network’s video footage, and plans to incorporate HSW in its future programming plans. CEO David Zaslav, who came from NBCU earlier this year, said Discovery’s own websites haven’t done well. “We’re way behind in new media and digital…I don’t think we win just by building vertically.”

Source: paidContent

It’s no secret, Linux users suffer with a blatant lack of games on their OS. I say “blatant”, because it seems a lot of game developers deliberately shun the alternative OS, even though most game engines work just fine. id Software is one of the few who actively support Linux, and we love them for it. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is no different, with a Linux client of the demo just released. Sadly, the full client is not yet available, but it should be in no time.

Despite owning the game already for Windows, I gave the demo a quick download to test on my Linux machine. I have to say, I am very impressed with how well it runs! I’m using a single core AMD at 2.7GHz with an NVIDIA 7800GT card and at 1680×1050 High Detail, the game ran fantastic! You can see a screenshot from my quick test below. According to the folks at Phoronix, an Unreal Tournament 3 Linux demo client should be available soon as well. Finally, Linux users are getting more reason to game it up!

However, we will say that with using NVIDIA’s GeForce 7 or GeForce 8 hardware it had ran well for us internally during the internal beta. Using ATI’s Radeon X1000 and HD 2000 series graphics cards with the fglrx 8.41 driver and later have also played great on ET:QW. Another thing to keep in mind is that Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is threaded well and will really shine on multi-core machines.

Source: Phoronix

To my knowledge, actual sales figures for Halo 3 have not yet been announced officially, but unofficially, some numbers should come forth later this week courtesy of NPD. According to initial reports, September saw software sales of $655 million, $300 million of which are thanks to the Xbox 360. It’s estimated that Halo 3 was responsible for 66% of that figure. In addition to software sales, Microsoft also managed to move 450,000 consoles during the same month, actually beating out the Wii, which had moved 425,000 units. As has been the theme for the past year, the PS3 came in last place with 150,000 consoles sold.

“We believe Microsoft’s Halo 3 drove most of the sales growth, accounting for over $200 million (3 million units) in sales… Although we think that sales of Halo 3 accounted for virtually all of the growth during the month, we think that the game drove hardware sales and positions the industry for even greater sales in November and December, when many Halo players will be ready for a new challenge. We are optimistic about software sales through the end of the year.”

Source: Next-Gen

If this doesn’t bring back fond memories of my NES-addicted childhood, I am not sure what would! According to Gamespot, Bionic Commando will be making a return to current-gen consoles and also the PC. Now, being a huge fan of the classic version of the game, I can’t help but get excited… but after seeing how many popular 2D to 3D conversions have gone awry in the past… I am not going to get my hopes up. Still, it’s great to see old series revived for the new generation of consoles (and gamers).

The robotic revamp, cleverly dubbed “Bionic Commando,” follows one Nathan Spencer as he runs from the law (he was framed!) through a ruined city (badds terrorists blew it up!). His only companion? The trusty grappling arm, perfect for swinging across gaps, hurling objects, rappelling down buildings and rudely reaching across the table for the salt.

Source: Joystiq

When Apple launched their iTunes Plus DRM-free music service back in May, it paved the road for such adoption by the record labels. Since then, many other music services have been jumping on the bandwagon, but had a certain advantage. While Apple was charging $1.29 per DRM-free track, most other music services were charging only $0.99, the same price of DRM-infected tracks on iTunes. Well it seems that Apple has no desire to become the second most popular music store, and have effectively changed the price of all available DRM-free tracks to $0.99. But hey, if you happen to like DRM, then those tracks will still be available as well, for the same price.

In addition to more DRM-free music, Apple will also lower the price of iTunes Plus tracks from $1.29 to $0.99 (this includes the recently released George Harrison solo catalog). Remaining DRM’d selections will continue to be priced at $0.99.

Source: Mashable

Here’s a solution to a problem you likely didn’t even know existed. The PC version of BioShock apparently limits the amount of times you can install the game on your PC. Like Windows, this number will cease to exist if major hardware is swapped inside your rig. The “Revoke Tool” exists to remove an “activation token”, which means you are then able to re-install the game as many times as you like, assuming you run the tool after each install.

I don’t know where to start on this one. Application activation is bad enough, with Windows, Photoshop and others, but now this foolishness has gotten into our games? Honestly, I don’t think I could agree with someone as much as I do with Photoboy, from the Kotaku comments section, “These days you’re better off buying the game and then just leaving it on your shelf while you download and play the warez version. At least that way your PC doesn’t get infected with any shitty copy protection systems and you legally own a copy of the game.“

Thursday it was announced (and rather quietly I might add) on BioShock’s community website, The Cult of Rapture, that a downloadable tool is now available that will revoke one of your activation tokens. What does this mean exactly? Well mainly it means that you will now be able to erase and reload your copy of BioShock onto your PC as many times as you want without using up one of your activation “tokens” provided you don’t make any major changes to your current hardware.

Source: Kotaku

AMD announced three new ATI TV Wonder products today, the PCI and PCIe 600-Series and also the 650 Combo USB, suitable for desktop and notebook use. All three tuners allow watching/recording of Analog, Digital, Digital HDTV and even ClearQAM Digital HD Cable.

The most unique of the three is the 650 Combo USB, not only because it’s portable, but because it offers dual tuners to allow “Combo” tuning of any available tuning modes. It also offers video processing such as a comb filter, noise reduction and also edge enhancement. Both the 600 PCI and PCIe tuners have an SRP of $99, while the 650 Combo USB has one of $149. All three will be available at Best Buy, through VisionTek branding.

Sunnyvale, Calif. – Oct. 15, 2007 – AMD (NYSE: AMD) is expanding its TV Wonder(TM) product lineup that enables HDTV on the PC. Available through VisionTek at Best Buy stores across North America, ATI TV Wonder(TM) 650 Combo USB, TV Wonder(TM) 600 PCI and TV Wonder(TM) 600 PCI Express transform PCs into exceptional high definition digital video recorders. The TV Wonder(TM) family of products is AMD LIVE!(TM) Ready and Certified for Windows Vista(R) — delivering The Ultimate Visual Experience(TM) and strengthening the value of multimedia PCs.

Source: AMD Press Release

Being a Linux user, I am sometimes limited to what I want to do, especially when it comes to creating sparkly graphs for our reviews, which is why I choose to use Office 2007 on the Windows machine. But a recent announcement by the OOo folks intrigues me. At a recent conference, a foil on one of the slides called 3.0 an “Outlook replacement”, which sounds great to me. Plans are even noted to include Thunderbird as the e-mail client.

I admit it, I love open-source software. On this Linux machine, I have only a single piece of commercial software (Nero Linux) and I am pleased with all of the other applications I use. But, the reason I choose to use Office 2007 over OOo 2.x is because when I do use it, I can’t help but feel like I’m back in the Windows 98 days using Office 97. Sure, looks are not everything. I am a huge advocate of that. But for universal adoption, 3.0 better have some sweet eye-candy. For the sake of everyone who loves OOo though, we hope it’s not bloated like Office 2007. See, I’m not pro-Microsoft.

At the OpenOffice.org 2007 conference about a month ago there was a presentation on what to expect in the next major milestone for their Microsoft Office competitor. “The presentation mentions bundling Thunderbird with their Office Suite, and refers to it as an ‘Outlook replacement.’

Source: Slashdot

The folks at Futuremark have been developing benchmarking applications for years, so they have a good idea of what enthusiasts and computing noobs alike are looking for in an application that’s designed to evaluate your systems worth. While the results of these “synthetic benchmarks” are often disputed for their usefulness, most people enjoy using them for the simple fact that they are… well, simple. Who can argue with that?

PCMark is designed to evaluate all aspects of your system and deliver individual and overall scores to help you determine what part of your rig needs improvement. Previous versions have been somewhat lackluster… even when running the full suite. PCMark Vantage is going to change that, however. In the short time I’ve been using it, I have to say I am impressed so far. While I can’t disclose specifics at this point in time, I will say that it delivers a far better overall system test than previous versions, which should help it become a worldwide standard in system benchmarking. The release date has not been announced, but Futuremark have never been ones to wait too long to launch after an announcement.

With an easy to use interface and clear scoring, you will be able to select exactly the type of tests you want to use and then choose the right upgrade components or complete PC that will fit your needs. This easy-to-use product gives you the same tools and knowledge that virtually every professional tester in the industry uses.

Source: Futuremark PCMark

If you are a Windows user, then there is little doubt you’ve been in this situation. You are working away, multi-tasking with five or more applications… finally getting some work done. All of a sudden, a prompt rocks up the bottom right-hand corner telling you to reboot to finalize updates. This of course, will pop-up every few hours at best, so you really have no choice but to succumb to it’s unpleasant nagging.

Luckily, The How-To Geek has posted a… how-to, on how to disable these prompts. This can be done with a simple registry hack or by use of a small application. I tend to re-install Windows every other day, so I am not sure how much use it will prove to be to me, but luckily I am in the minority. Give the article a gander and show that prompt who’s boss!

We’ve all been at our computer when the Windows Update dialog pops up and tells us to reboot our computer. I’ve become convinced that this dialog has been designed to detect when we are most busy and only prompt us at that moment. The real problem comes into play when Windows gets tired of reminding us and says that the computer is going to reboot in 5 minutes, and the only way you can prevent the inevitable is to temporarily disable Windows Update.

Source: The How-To Geek

You might be a PC modder, but how do you know if you are an addict? When you begin to sniff the metallic paint you are using? No. You might be an addict when you begin modding arm casts, such as the one Tech-Daddy shows off in our forums.

Friends of his family have a son who broke his arm, and of course, knowing a great modder was nearby, he wasn’t just going to sit there. The result, while hilarious, is something pretty amazing as well. I have never broken my arm before, but if I did, this is exactly the type of cast I’d want to be sporting.

I did this over the course of an afternoon. It took about 3 hours to mask, draw, cut and spray. Lemme tell you, cutting multiple layers of tape on a frikken fiberglass cast is a MAJOR pain in the a$$!!! I was pretty happy, and so was he. He’s gotten some comments on it at his school. I think he will be the *only* kid to have a custom arm cast!

Source: Techgage Forums

It’s not that often that we see an unboxing of a product that hasn’t even been announced yet, but Engadget has just that thanks to the help of a reader. As expected, the Xbox 360 Arcade Edition is designed for those who want an Xbox 360 for the primary purpose of taking advantage of Xbox Live Arcade and includes -no- hard-drive, 256MB memory card and composite cables.

On top of all that, the console includes a disc that’s preloaded with five games: Boom Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, Luxor 2, Pack-Man Championship Demo and Uno. It even includes an HDMI port, but no cable of course. Overall, not a bad bundle for $279, but the lack of a hard-drive is bound to “drive” people nuts after a while. Ok, that was bad.

Thanks to Emanuel, an intrepid tipster who went above and beyond the call of duty, we managed to get a full unboxing of the Xbox 360 Arcade before Microsoft has even been able to send out a press release about the thing. Whenever the console officially lands, you can expect to pick up the hard drive free console for $279.99.

Source: Engadget

Gamers, they love free stuff. Luckily, Toys’R’Us is willing to allow gamers everywhere to fill that need with their “buy 2 get the 3rd free” sale, which doesn’t seem to be limited to specific titles. So if you’ve been dying to pick up Hannah Montana but would feel like less of a man knowing that you paid for it, your chance to pick it up guilt-free has arrived. I’d be all over that one, but sadly, the deal is not available to Canadians.

“The free game will be the one that’s the lowest price of the three.” The sale is available online and in store and goes from today Oct. 14 until next Saturday, October 20. My guess is that as the week goes on, the pickings will get slim, so put on your running shoes and warm up the credit card, we’re going shopping!

Source: Kotaku

Despite having a number of models available, ASUS is still not a name that’s synonymous with notebooks. But one thing is certain, they don’t push out poorly designed products. We are taking a look at a perfect example of what a quality notebook should be, with the G1S gaming series.

One product that turned heads at DigitalLife a few weeks ago was Palm’s $99 Smartphone. According to the official company blog, it is now available, but only for Sprint’s EvDO network. It appears that $99 is the result of rebates, hopefully none of which require an envelope and a stamp.

Initial reviews seem positive, with Pogue noting that the phone is “loaded, loaded, loaded” all while being “the least expensive smartphone in history.” After watching his video review, you will agree that it does pack a punch. I’m impressed by it’s voice recognition, but $7 a month is asking a wee bit too much.

Touch screen? Check; there’s a flimsy plastic stylus tucked in the back, and your finger works well, too. Camera? Check; the Centro takes very good 1.3 megapixel stills and videos. Memory-card expansion? Check; up to four gigabytes. Removable battery? Check: 3.5 hours of talk time. Ringer on/off switch? Affirmative; no frantically hunting through menus as the concert hall lights dim.

Source: New York Times

When Blockbuster decided to go pro-Blu-ray, consumers all over jumped to conclusions. Myself included. Things looked grim for HD-DVD, but Toshiba laughed at everyone and has continued to push out impressive numbers. According to recent reports from the NPD group, HD-DVD player sales have outpaced Blu-ray’s offerings with the help of certain exclusives, such as the Transformers.

Those looking for a true winner out of the two formats will be waiting a while. With both flip flopping each other in sales, it’s going to take something extreme for one of them to die off. Neither will go down with a fight, thanks to the fact that both are backed by deep wallets. Though it wouldn’t be an ideal situation, it’s more likely that everyone will end up having both players down the road, since they are constantly becoming cheaper.

Year to date figures show HD DVD sales comprising 53% of sales, with Blu-ray trailing at 44%. Note the figures don’t take into consideration PS3 sales, though the release did state that Toshiba’s expected sales of over 5 million HD DVD PC and notebook drives in fiscal 2008 would make them competitive with the PlayStation 3.

Source: Kotaku

Remember earlier this month when Radiohead launched a website that allowed fans to choose their own price for the new album? That blew a door open for fans and non-fans alike, because it was essentially a loving punch in the face of the record industry. Well as it turns out, that’s not the case at all, since now it’s known that the band plans to sell the album through one of the big four record companies in the new year.

This is not going over well with fans, it seems, and it’s understandable. This proves that this move was a huge marketing ploy, one that seemed to work well. Although you can still purchase the music online for a price that you set, it’s a lower bitrate, which is another way that they are trying to push you towards purchasing the full album. Oh well, at least there’s still Reznor sticking it to the RIAA.

Like them or not, the record labels still have the broadest reach, giving artists the best chance to get their music to the public. Not every ardent music fan has a broadband connection, and most audiophiles aren’t enamored of compressed MP3 files.

Source: Ars Technica

Published on October 12, 2007

Our own Nate Marion decided a few months ago to go crazy with water-cooling. The victim? His SilverStone TJ07. A perfect choice, as SilverStone’s cases have always been the object of desire when it comes to efficient cooling setups of all sorts. His goals? To take water-cooling to the extreme, and deliver a result you can’t turn your eyes away from. This has all been accomplished, and accomplished quite well.

You can view the entire process in thread found below, from start to finish. The final result is nothing short of stellar. Despite being an elaborate setup, it’s kept amazingly clean with nothing to restrict airflow. The result has to be seen, quite simply. UV lights and UV reflective coolant were used as well, so the case looks even better in the dark. Whether you are a fellow modder or not, take some time to go through the thread and behold this gorgeous beast for yourself! Kudos to Nate for the great work!

So, there you have it, pretty much. One TJ07 case, two MCR320s, one MCR220, two MCP655s, all set up so that I can swap out hardware without draining the loop.

Source: Nate’s Water-Cooling Extreme Mod

With our games becoming larger and more advanced, we constantly find the need to upgrade our computers. Though the GPU is the obvious point of interest, memory can also play a large role, especially when playing games at higher resolutions. I won’t even mention Windows Vista… OCZ has announced their new NVIDIA SLI-Ready 4GB kit, which is the first of it’s kind. Though EPP doesn’t interest me at all, the reason I like these modules is the heatspreader. Black… and simple. The speeds are PC2-6400 with 5-4-4 timings, and pricing is currently unknown but should be around $180 when it hits store shelves.

Sunnyvale, CA—October 9, 2007—OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced the latest addition to the award-winning OCZ NVIDIA SLI certified series, the world’s first 4GB PC2-6400 SLI-Ready DDR2 modules. Optimized specifically for the latest generation nForce platforms, this series features an ideal combination of reduced latencies and high density to support the ultimate gaming experience.

Source: OCZ Press Release

I don’t know about you, but November for me, is going to be one where I have a hard time dragging myself away from a game to get some work done. I’m in the middle of PGR4 at the moment, and Tony Hawk is out next week, and now comes news that Epic will be releasing an Unreal Tournament 3 beta demo within two weeks. I… cannot… wait.

Epic’s grand poobah Mark Rein recently posted on the game’s official forums, dropping some details regarding the upcoming “beta demo” scheduled to come out within “the next two weeks.” Rein revealed that the teaser will contain online multiplayer and instant action bot play; a perfect aperitif for the diehard UT fans. Non-alcoholic for the under 21 set.

Source: Joystiq