Content and news by Rob Williams

Whew, Sony has got to be crying in a corner somewhere. One of the biggest titles for the PS3 this holiday season, Unreal Tournament III, has been delayed until “early 2008”. This is solely to do with the Unreal Engine 3 not functioning as it should on the PS3 hardware. It affects more than just UT III as well. Stranglehold and BlackSite: Area 51 are two other titles that will feel the lag, due to utilization of the same game engine.

PC fans are not going to be affected by this delay, however. Good thing, as it would then be me who would be in a corner crying.

“While we regret that these delays will cause us to lose some valuable holiday sales in the near term as well as shift revenue for some of these titles out of 2007 and into 2008, we remain confident that our technology strategy and product plan position us to grow both revenue and market share as we move into the heart of this console cycle,” said David F. Zucker, president and CEO of Midway Games, while also confirming next-gen updates to franchises Blitz and Mortal Kombat.

Source: DailyTech

I like Best Buy’s Geek Squad service about as much as being forced to use Windows Vista on a 286 with half of a keyboard and monochrome monitor with an exercise ball as a chair and no beer in the house. But there has to be some good in everything, right? In this case, I do applaud Geek Squad, as they manged to throw a child porn trafficker behind bars for 11 years. Next time you ask yourself, “What kind of idiot uses a service like Geek Squad?”, the answer is, “Those who hand over a computer loaded up with child porn”.

It’s been a rough week for PC users who get their hard drives serviced at Best Buy. First, the RIAA trained its legal guns on a young woman who had Best Buy swap out the hard drive in her computer, a move they believed was designed to wipe evidence of P2P infringement. Now, a man in Arkansas has just been sentenced to 135 months in jail and a $10,000 fine after a Best Buy tech found child porn on the man’s hard drive.

Source: Ars Technica

Whats this have to do with tech, you ask? Not much of anything, but that sure doesn’t take away from it’s “cool” factor. Autoblog links to a video of a few lucky people who had the opportunity to drag race both the W16 1,001HP Bugatti Veyron and my brand new dream car, the BMW M3 V8, which pushes out a “modest” 414HP. It’s not much of a surprise which car wins, considering the Veyron can go 0-60 in 2.5s, but I’d still be willing to save the $1,420,000 and stick with the Bimmer.

The Veyron is a true supercar that costs a cool $1.4 million, hits 60 mph in less than three seconds, and has a limited production run of a few hundred copies. Regardless of the obvious disparity between the two cars, someone just had to pit the two against one another in a race and put the video on YouTube.

Source: Autoblog

Windows Vista has been out since January, but I’ve still seen no reason to make the shift to Windows Vista. Granted, I am not a major gamer, and I admit it, but no DX10 titles have seemed to deliver the goods to warrant a Vista installation. Our friends at HotHardware have taken such ponders into consideration and delivered a comprehensive look at the top current DX10 games and compare both image quality and performance to their DX9 counter-parts.

I’ve made no attempt to hide the fact that I dislike Windows Vista, but I do admit that it might be both Crysis and Unreal Tournament III that will coax me into installing the stable, reliable and fast OS. Those games are coming along amazingly…

In this HotHardware article, we showcase many of the most popular DX10-capable games, like Bioshock, World In Conflict, Call of Juarez, Lost Planet, and Company of Heroes, and feature current image quality comparisons versus DX9 modes with each. The article also details the associated performance levels across many of the more popular graphics cards, from both the mid-range and high-end. After digesting all of the data, you be the judge. Are we there yet?

Source: HotHardware

Valve sends along word that both Portal and Half-Life 2: Episode 2 are available for pre-loading. If you’ve pre-purchased the Orange Box or any one of those titles by themselves, you can begin the download now in preparation for next weeks (October 10) launch. Team Fortress 2 also experienced some loving care two days ago, with an entire slew of bugs being ironed out. At this rate, the game should be bug-free for launch. That’s how things work, right?

The Orange Box will be available via Steam and at retail outlets beginning next Wednesday, October 10th. In preparation for launch, Valve has begun pre-loading both Portal and Half-Life 2: Episode Two to those who have pre-purchased The Orange Box. The pre-purchase campaign, available via Steam and at participating retailers, grants gamers access to the Team Fortress 2 beta and extends a 10% discount off the regular price of $49.95.

Is your monster computer starting to get weak in the knees? Have a huge wad of cash in hand? Then OCZ’s latest PCP&C 1200W power supply could be for you. The Turbo-Cool 1200 features a “single +12V rail” for the ultimate of stability. Being an NVIDIA SLI-certified product, the PSU features three 6-Pin and three 6/8-Pin video-card connectors, making this appropriate for ATI’s highest-end cards as well.

The unit provides efficiency of 83% and features an impressive 90A on the +12V rail. I’m still not sold on the reasons for requiring such a large beast, but if you can see through the doubt, you can pick up one of these for $499. You can read the full press release below.

Sunnyvale, Calif. – October 3, 2007 – OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance memory and PC components, today announced the release of the Turbo-Cool 1200 power supply from PC Power & Cooling. Designed to offer the consumer market a professional-grade computer power supply, the 1200W Turbo-Cool is the ultimate power solution for those that require the very best, long-lasting, industrial-grade components for their mission-critical system or leading-edge gaming machine.

Source: OCZ Press Release

Nowadays, there are so many rumors floating around, it’s difficult to track them all. Even worse, sometimes rumors can overlap reality and confuse everyone. Well, the Xbox 360 Arcade Edition has been floating around rumorville for a while, but when two different websites list the SKU, it becomes a little more believable. Both are listed at Amazon and Toys’R’Us, with Amazon having the price set to $279.99.

At this point in time, no one knows exactly what the Arcade Edition is supposed to be used for. Some speculate that it might be a replacement for the Core system, which makes sense to some degree. Being an Arcade edition, it must have a hard-drive though, because the focus would be on downloading the games off of Xbox Live Arcade, naturally. But at that point, what would it lack, when compared to the Premium which retails for $70 more? Hopefully the answers are not going to be too far off.

Source: Amazon.com Via: Engadget

Game developers today seem to have it rough, with constant reason for setbacks and delayed launches. Richard Garriott’s latest offering, Tabula Rasa, has been delayed for an additional two weeks, setting the launch at November 2. Reasons for the delay seem to be caused by higher-end content, and despite this, NCsoft’s game plan is still to allow those who’ve pre-ordered the game a full three days access to the retail content prior to the official launch.

To this end we are moving our Pre-Order headstart date to 10/30/07 and our commercial service start date to 11/2/07. This short but critical amount of time will give us time to address several issues including stability and balance as well as allowing our players to test the continent of Ligo (L38+) and our major changes to crafting for a few weeks rather than a few days. Our entire development staff feels this extra time is needed as does our beta community. We feel confident that this extra time will make a difference on launch day.

Source: Tabula Rasa Official Website

We all knew it was coming, but Microsoft made official the fact that new Zune units will be hitting the shelves next month. Though “Zune 2.0” has been a term being thrown around a lot, Microsoft is not referring to their new products as such. This makes sense, as even the previous-gen Zunes are able to utilize the new 2.x firmware.

Included in the new line-up is a 4GB and 8GB flash-based Zune and also an 80GB HD-based model, which was to be expected. The new models beef up the feature-set and many are quite worthwhile. Microsoft is pushing the “social” aspect with the launch of a revamped community feature. How well that will take off will be yet to be seen, but it’s clear that Microsoft isn’t sitting around twiddling their thumbs. I could sure go for some Linux support, though…

We’re expanding our family of devices with the addition of three new digital media players: Zune 4GB, Zune 8GB and Zune 80GB. The sleek, black Zune 80GB hard-drive model has a bright 3.2-inch screen and comes with new Zune Premium Headphones; the ultraportable Zune 4GB and Zune 8GB flash models are both available in pink, green, black and glossy red.

Source: Zune.net

I haven’t yet had the chance to give the Team Fortress 2 beta a go, but I will have to in the next few days, prior to it’s actual release. I admit that I had little interest in the game since it was first announced, but I have yet to hear a truly poor comment about the game or it’s gameplay. Though I still wish we saw Half-Life 2: Episode 2 a while ago instead of TF2 right now, it looks like the trade off is going to be worth it.

That all aside, one of my favorite new websites, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, has posted a huge TF2 class roundup. Split into nine different parts, they take a look at reasons why a class exists, why they are useful and why they are useless. It’s a light read, but comprehensive at the same time.

Since the Team Fortress Beta went live, the collective bodies of Rock, Paper, Shotgun have been running around with cartoon projectile weapons pretty much non-stop. When that “Pretty much” kicks in, we have a break and write about Team Fortress 2, just to mix things up and keep it fresh. The following are the nine short critical examinations (with gags) of the character classes that Jim, Alec and myself conjured up with special Word Science.

Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Remember that video of the image resizing technology that would properly scale any image to look good with any aspect ratio or size? Well as it turns out, it’s now available as a plugin for the GIMP image manipulation tool (available for Linux and Windows).

I took a few minutes to install it and give a quick test, which saw results nothing like the examples in the video. I loaded a photo that I shot in New York last week and tried to scale it down both height-wise and width-wise. Below you can see the original, followed by the two edits using the Liquid Rescale plugin.

It’s evident that the rescaling process didn’t deliver the effect I was looking for, and the process took far longer than a simple Image Scale process that’s already included in the GIMP. The above photo was the only one I have tested with due to lack of time, but you shouldn’t just take my word for it. If you use the GIMP, download the plugin and see what you can manage.

Source: Lifehacker

I can’t count the amount of times I have been asked, “What’s a good Windows alternative to Nero (or Roxio or etc)?” I’ll admit, being primarily a Linux user, I have had no such experience with various free alternatives only because I have come to enjoy Nero quite a bit over the years. Download Squad lets us know that CDBurnerXP 4 has just been released, and despite it’s name, it will run on Windows 2000/XP and Vista. According to what I’ve been reading in the comments, this is a worthy application to install regardless of whether or not you want to just save money.

While Windows XP and Vista include some basic CD and DVD authoring features, CDBurnerXP is about as full-featured as many commercial applications out there. And it’s free. The program is donateware, so if you want to download the latest beta versions you’ll need to make a contribution.

Source: Download Squad

Just a reminder for all those who haven’t checked out our coverage yet, we attended DigitalLife in New York last week and relayed a huge whack of information of what we saw and learned about. Before DigitalLife began, we hit up Showstoppers and talked to over twenty companies to see what they were up to, though I admit I think I enjoyed the free Heineken more than anything…

During the show, we took a hard look at both the Gateway One and AGEIA’s latest happenings, all while showing you what was around the showfloor in two different articles. Of most interest to me is the Gateway 30″ monitor as shown above. If you are into higher-end displays and upscaling is important, that’s one first-look you will not want to skip over.

Anyone who owns a car hopes that it will last enough so it will feel as though they had their money’s worth. Some are happy with 100,000 miles, others may try for 300,000. But how about 930,000 for a 12 year-old car? That’s right, some Honda Civic owner managed to get 930,000 miles out of the car without ever having engine or transmission troubles.

The car is on its ninth timing belt, ninth water pump, and fourth clutch. But the engine and transmission are original, as are the floor mats. The car even comes with records. The most incredible thing isn’t the mileage, though. It’s how the owner put the miles on the car: driving on business trips from Atlanta… to Seattle… and San Francisco.

Source: Autoblog

The rumor train doesn’t stop for long, does it? According to GamePro France, Sony is planning a “big bang” announcement on Oct. 12, next Friday. Speculation has it that it is likely to be the long-rumored 40GB PS3. Not to dampen the mood, but if that’s the announcement, then it’s really far from being a “big bang”. A price drop in general would be nice to see, but I wouldn’t shrug at a new Twisted Metal game announcement either.

GamePro France is reporting that Sony has plans for a “big bang” announcement set for Oct. 12. While rumors and speculation have been filling message boards across the internet, we feel safe to say this announcement will probably focus on the mysterious 40GB PlayStation 3.

Source: PS3 Fanboy

Who’s been eating some of those magic mushrooms, hmm? Shoe designer Run Athletics have collaborated with Nintendo to develop a shoe for SMB fans all over. Included is a cool box and shirt, all for $120 USD. If you want to own a collectors item on the cheap, you shouldn’t sit back and wait for these to pass, as there are only 400 available.

For the low, low price of $120 per pair, you not only get a fresh pair of bright white kicks, but you also score a unique shoe box emblazoned with the Mario “M” and a free limited edition t-shirt that celebrates the release. Only 400 pairs of the Nintendo Legacy shoes are available, so don’t sleep on these if you want to be the first kind on your block to blind a friend.

Source: Kotaku

According to various sources around the web, the Zune 2 is just around the corner, as is a new piece of firmware that will be functional on all versions of the device. It’s unknown what functionality the firmware will add, but what’s important is that the Zune 2 will be here before we know it! We’ve seen leaked images in the past, so there is nothing to get really excited over, but hopefully Microsoft will have a surprise or two for us.

Here it is, direct from a trusted source close to the situation — a Zune 1 running firmware 2.1, which will bring all the Zune 2 software goodies and UI tweaks with it when those bad boys are announced on Wednesday. That’s right, we also have confirmation that Microsoft will be making the Zune 2 announcement on Wednesday, which should give the Zune tattoo guy plenty of time to get some new ink before the holidays.

Source: Engadget

I am no audiophile, I have no shame in admitting that I might not notice a few sound quality differences in selective listening tests. However, true audiophiles can recognize the benefits of higher-end equipment, but how about $7,250 for speaker cables? If you have the cash to spare, Pear is selling three metres of their Anjou model for just that.

James Randi, of JREF, is calling both Pear and Dave Clark (audio journalist) out on their claims, as Clark referred to the cables as being the best he’s ever heard. If you are able to distinguish the reasons why Pear’s cables are better, or are able to prove the differences in listening tests, James Randi might just have $1 million for you.

Our rant about those $7,250 Pear Anjou speaker cables found its way to the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), and Randi offered $1 million to anyone who can prove those cables are any better than ordinary (and also overpriced) Monster Cables. Pointing out the absurd review by audiophile Dave Clark, who called the cables “danceable,” Randi called it “hilarious and preposterous.” He added that if the cables could do what their makers claimed, “they would be paranormal.”

Source: Gizmodo

Ahh, who could forget the Atari 2600? The console came out before I was born, and I never really had much experience playing with it while growing up, but it’s hard to dispute the effect that it had on the videogame industry. If you have one in your closet, dust it off and relive some fond memories!

The monstrosity above is an early prototype of the Atari CX2600 Video Computer System that went into production in October 1977. The $199 system came bundled with Combat, two rubberized joysticks, a pair of paddle controllers and a handy dandy RF modulator to mangle your parents’ TV reception.

Source: Retro Thing

An OLED TV may sound like a product that would be a ways off, but not the case at all. Sony has announced the SonyDrive XEL-1 in Japan, an 11-inch screen that features a 960×540 resolution and an incredible 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The downside is obviously it’s size.. and price, at $1,740.

The 11-inch SonyDrive XEL-1 set features a 960 x 540 pixel resolution, terrestrial digital tuner, 2x 1W speaker, and HDMI, USB, and Ethernet jacks in a package measuring 287 x 140 x 253-mm and 2-kg (3.3-pounds). How much? Well, Â¥200,000 or about $1,740 — That’s about $160 per inch of OLED. Rich indeed, but so it goes for first generation technology.

Source: Engadget