Content and news by Rob Williams

Nokia’s original N-Gage didn’t fare too well on the market, although it was quite an interesting product. It simply didn’t have any real redeeming features, except for the fact that it doubled as a phone. Well, they are finally releasing the latest incarnation and the games are looking sweet.

Developer support is quite good this time around, so hopefully it will last a little bit longer on the market. Paired with the fact that you can use this on a normal phone (from their supported-phones list of course), it should open the door for more who are wanting to play the games. Each game available will have a demo, while the full version will run between $8 – $14. I can pick at least five games that I’d love to give a go, including the one in the below image. It’s just too bad I don’t own one of the supported phones…

“As we expand our focus from a dedicated game phone to a gaming service, we are making getting and playing games even easier,” said Jaakko Kaidesoja, head of the games business at Nokia. “The N-Gage service combined with powerful devices, world class titles and brands, and interactive social networking features, takes the mobile gaming experience beyond traditional boundaries.”

Source: Nokia

According to Microsoft’s Gamerscore blog, Halo 3 has finally gone gold and is now preparing for it’s Sept 25 launch. I am not a massive Halo fan like some, but it’s hard not to be excited about this one… it just looks incredible! Also according to the blog is that the developers are gearing up to shatter day-one sales records, which was originally set by Halo 2 way back in November of 2004. With all this hype, it might just happen.

Three years in the making by renowned developer Bungie Studios, “Halo 3” is now finished and will begin its journey to store shelves around the world in less than four weeks. “Halo 3,” which has already set new records as the fastest preordered game in history, has exceeded one million presales in North America alone. The title is set to shatter day-one entertainment sales records when it is released worldwide beginning Tuesday, Sept. 25.

Source: Gamerscore

Last Friday, we took a look at one of the first DDR3 kits on the market, OCZ’s DDR3-1333 Platinum. This week, we are continuing that theme with Kingston’s DDR3-1375 CL7, also one of the first kits available. How does this one compare to our OCZ kit? Read on to find out.

Those of you who haven’t made the high-def jump due to prices might have a reason to in the near future. According to reports, budget electronics manufacturer Venturer has plans to release an HD-DVD player by this holiday season that will retail for an SRP of $199. If specs prove true, the player will support 1080i via HDMI and Dolby TrueHD.

According to a published report, Venturer has revealed pricing for its recently-announced SHD7000 HD DVD Player. As we first reported yesterday, budget electronics manufacturer Venturer plans to release a value-priced HD DVD player ahead of the holiday shopping.

Source: High-Def Digest

To say that Apple’s iPhone has a slew of fanboys is an understatement, but who knew that the biggest one was Nokia? Engadget is reporting on a new Nokia phone that was displayed at their GoPlay event yesterday, and man, does it look kind of similar to EXACTLY like the iPhone, or what? Even the interface shifts the images around the same. I guess imitation is the… best way to sell your products, as they say.

Oh come on, what the hell is that? A Nokia branded iPhone? It was presented during Nokia’s GoPlay event this morning as a glimpse into the future of Nokia interface design. Oh, and it’s due out next year. When pressed during the Q&A about the striking similarity to the little Cupertino device, Anssi Vanjoki — Nokia’s Executive VP & General Manager of Multimedia — said, “If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride.” Well, ok then.

Source: Engadget

I try to like Vista, I really do, but the more I use it, the more I want to throw the computer. So, to say I am looking forward to the upcoming service pack is an understatement, although the upsetting thing is that there are far more bug-fixes than there are feature-updates. No matter, as long I can finally copy a 50Kb file and have it take less than three hours.

If you are dying to know what’s new/fixed, the official blog has posted a thorough list. In gist, application compatibility and device drivers should both see improvements. Reliability, security and performance will all have numerous fixes including, “Improves the speed of copying and extracting files.” Oh, and the entire SP will weigh in at 1GB.

The purpose of Windows Vista SP1 is different from the purpose of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). Windows XP SP2 was a special update — Microsoft recognized that it was in a unique position to address new and emerging security threats, and the service pack was the best answer. To address these threats, Microsoft incorporated significant, well-considered changes into the service pack, which had a significant impact on application compatibility.

Source: Windows Vista Blog

It’s not often I receive a press release about a cable and actually read it, but this one is different. Honeywell, of all companies, has released a new HDMI cable that is designed to diagnose image and audio quality as it passes through, to assure you are receiving the best result possible. It will correct HDCP and EDID data before it reaches your TV, meaning you should see nothing but a sharp picture and no artifacts. High-quality HDMI cables are expensive as is, but considering this one has computing power, you can expect to pay a premium when finally released.

“We’ve made this cable intelligent by integrating a chip into the connector that performs two major functions,” said David Coleman, Program Manager, CE Cable Products, Honeywell. “First, the chip’s line driver ‘cures’ corrupted HDCP and EDID data that can lead to serious audio and video artifacts. Second, we added ‘light’ in the form of LEDs embedded into the connector that let installers monitor the most critical elements of the HDMI interface for problems.”

Source: Honeywell Press Release

After intense delays, ATI released their RS600 chipset earlier this year, which was originally meant to compete with Intel’s G965. In May, Intel launched their updated IGP chipset, the G33, so Gary from AnandTech thought he’d pit it against ATI’s offering to see how well it fared. The overall conclusion is what’s expected. RS600 doesn’t natively support 1333FSB, of course, and it’s performance in some areas is a little lacking, though most of the gaming runs were in its favor. Worth a read if you are in the market for an IGP chipset though.

At this time, the abit board does not support the 1333MHz FSB processors at a native 333FSB. These CPUs will boot but remain at 266FSB and even trying to overclock the FSB manually to 333 results in numerous black screens or instability during testing. Our newly arrived Blu-ray drive from Pioneer would not work in the abit board. The SB600 equipped boards need a BIOS update for compatibility and abit has yet to provide one or even answer our requests. Also, we had a problem with a PCI based Firewire 400 card not working correctly, though it appears after a driver update this problem has resolved itself.

Source: AnandTech

Though Vista was released over seven months ago, there’s been no software to support Microsoft’s push on DX10 technology. Sure, we’ve seen a few games with “patches”, but that’s hardly an impressive showing. Most recently, Lost Planet included DX10 support, but showed us virtually nothing special. It didn’t help that the game was boring to begin with, either.

Hard|OCP takes the latest DX10 game for a spin, Call of Juarez. This isn’t a game with a simple patch… it’s a game that fully supports DX10 right out of the box, though DX9 is still supported, of course. Their opinions? Very good, overall. It seems like we might finally have a reason to boot into Vista.

For the first time this year we are seeing DirectX 10 provide a real improvement to the gameplay experience. We noticed mostly the higher resolution textures and relief mapping along with HDR and lighting improvements. The texture difference is literally night and day. In DirectX 9 mode all mountain, rock, tree, and ground surfaces have a less detailed texture. Once you run in DirectX 10 mode these textures are replaced by a higher resolution detailed texture and better pixel shader effects such as relief mapping. That alone makes the game look very different between DX9 and DX10.

Source: Hard|OCP

Amimon caught the attention of many at CES this past January with their wireless HDMI technology. Well, the product has finally gone into production and has begun shipping to manufacturers for use in their devices. Sadly, being a fabless semiconductor company, there are no accessories for those who are looking to turn their wired HDMI into wireless. The dongle would likely be too bulky, which is why everything is integrated inside the TV or projector.

The biggest deal though, is the fact that this wireless technology fully supports 1080p by pairing two chipsets together and sending dual 720p/1080i signals to create the complete 1080p experience. I don’t even have an HDMI-capable TV yet, but the wireless version has me intrigued. I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of this at the next CES in January.

Amimon is a fabless semiconducter company, so it won’t be building dongles and boxes using this tech, but will supply them to consumer electronics manufacturers. Amimon is hoping WHDI will become the new wireless HDMI standard, and told us by January, 2008 at CES, a variety of its partners will be announcing products with the WHDI interface, either installed internally or deployed in the form of dongles that transmit and receive the WHDI signal.

Source: Gizmodo

When you work for a company that creates fantastic FPS games, do you think it’s possible to ignore the other great FPS games on the market? Hardly. You might be surprised though, to hear that Valve has banned BioShock from their offices, but not for the reasons you might think. In an attempt to get the team to focus primarily on HL2: Episode 2, Gabe Newell states that no one can play the game until theirs is finished. Hah! Is this a game we are talking about, or vegetables?

Newell said he hasn’t played it either, but he’s “really looking forward to it”. We’re torn about this news. On one hand, we’re sad for the Valve employees, but on the other hand, we really want to play Episode 2. And then, on our third hand, we think they probably should have thought of this game-banning policy before they announced they were making games episodically.

Source: Joystiq

One of my personal favorite blogs, Boing Boing, has just gone through a redesign and the final result looks great, clean and easy to read. New features include a Gadgets section, headed up by former Gizmodo editor Joel Johnson and a new comments section complete with community manager. Kudos to the BB guys on their redesign, the result is sharp.

I’m writing this from Boulder, Colorado, which seems like a good place to make this announcement — it was in this town that Carla Sinclair and I launched bOING bOING as a print zine in 1988. During the past 19 years we’ve gone through many changes — from zine to webzine to directory to blog. Today, Boing Boing is changing again, in three exciting new ways: a redesign, the return of user comments, and a blog about personal technology.

Source: Boing Boing

If you are wondering why the Earth seems quieter all of a sudden, it’s because millions of Apple fans have suddenly stopped breathing. Yes, another Apple “huge release” is on the horizon, taking place on Sept. 5 in San Francisco. It’s highly expected that Apple will use this event to launch new Mac OS X-based iPods and also iTunes-related upgrades and new features. I am the furthest thing from being an Apple-fan, but I am somehow intrigued. Why? I guess Apple really does have a way with people…

Apple Inc. will use a special media event on September 5th to introduce a new array of digital media offerings, according to digital invitations issued to analysts and members of the media Tuesday afternoon. The invites, which arrived by e-mail, depict an enlarged CoverFlow interface with the caption, “The beat goes on.”

Source: Apple Insider

As if overclocking wasn’t getting too easy as is! MSI has gone ahead and announced a new 8600GT that sports two separate BIOS’, one stock and one overclocked. If you want the overclocked mode, it’s as simple as pushing the button on the card. The differences between the two are not that major (540MHz to 580MHz Core), but MSI claims 20% increases in 3D Mark 06. Free power is great, but I am sure this card will come at a premium, effectively wiping out any money that would be saved.

A press of the turbo button raises the clock speeds up to 580 MHz core and 1600 MHz memory. The shader clock receives a boost to 1508 MHz as well. MSI claims a 20 percent performance boost in 3DMark06 with a press of the turbo button. Other notable features of the NX8600GT Twin Turbo include dual dual-link DVI, HDCP compliance, HDMI output capable and component video output. The card also comes with 256MB of GDDR3 memory.

Source: DailyTech

I can barely keep a great connection between my router and computer (which are right beside each other), but a few Italians have accomplished an incredible feat: 304KM (189Miles) WiFi connection. It was accomplished using a 5.0 GHz Wi-Fi connection and ran between Sardinia Island and Central Italy. Despite the great length, the connection speed was a constant 5MBps.

Wi-Fi transmissions of greater distances have been reported by Gizmag previously, however, this latest endeavor by C.I.S.A.R. has achieved a connection on a 5GHz radio band at transfer rates of 5MBps. “The alignment of two 35dBi antennas at 304km (188.89 miles) spanning sea and land is a very difficult and complicated technical endeavor, but with the Ubiquiti Networks XR5 this was made simple without the need for additional devices. This saved us a lot of time, expense, and resources”, said Mr. Mirco Paesante of the C.I.S.A.R.

Source: GizMag

It was bound to happen. Due to legal pressures, TorrentSpy has gone ahead and blocked US visitors from their search, noting the reason as being privacy concerns. If you recall, the MPAA sued TS last year, which resulted in a judge ordering the site to begin tracking users so that the information could be used in the future. They continued to allow US visitors use the search for many months following, but apparently the hassle has become too great.

While TorrentSpy is appealing the court ruling, it has decided to block US users rather than give up their personal data to the MPAA, keeping in line with its initial privacy policy. The site is still accessible, and you can browse to your heart’s desire, but performing a search on TorrentSpy will give you a message from the company explaining its decision to block US users and a list of other sites to visit. See here for a list of torrent tools.

Source: Mashable

I am personally tired of hearing about Crysis, only because I want it to be here already! We’ve been anticipating playing this graphical wonder forever it seems, but according to Joystiq, we will be treated to a PC demo in less than a month. As the picture suggests, Turbo mode is recommended for anyone using a 486. Not much is known about the demo yet, but it will likely do a great job of making us want the game even more.

And depending on how efficient your computer is at mashing pixels, vertices, shaders, polygons and textures into beautiful three-dimensional vistas, “demos” is either short for “demonstrates”… or “demolishes.” Either way, you’ll find out on September 25th, when EA releases a PC demo of Crytek’s first-person stunner, Crysis. Included in the preview will be the shooter’s first level and “a huge surprise from Crytek,” which we expect will take the form of evil canines leaping through windows at some point.

Source: Joystiq

Microsoft is -the- company everyone seems to love to hate, but you have to feel sorry for their streak of bad luck lately. It’s no short of asinine. In the case of WGA though, they are really shooting themselves in the foot. We posted over the weekend that their WGA servers were down, which caused many people to have invalidated Windows installations. It turns out that “less than” 12,000 people were affected, which is a high number regardless of how much it’s downplayed, especially given the fact that it was over the course of only a few days. Microsoft has got to wake up and realize that this WGA thing is not working out so well.

It was a fortunate time for WGA to go belly up, if there’s such a thing as “fortune” involved in downtime. By 3:30 PM PT on Friday, most of North America was already thanking their favorite divinity that it was Friday at the local pub, and Europe was well into enjoying its weekend, too. The same outage at 6 AM on a Tuesday could have been significantly worse. Then again, Microsoft might have discovered the problem quicker, too.

Source: Ars Technica

I am a huge fan of the racing genre, so I guess you could say I am highly-anticipating the next entry to the Project Gotham Racing series as well. PGR4 drops on October 2, but luckily there is a vast amount of info to peruse to help hold you over until that time. Today, Pro-G has stumbled upon a list of various cars and bikes that will be found in the game.

Some interesting vehicles are listed here, such as Tesla’s 2008 Roadster, making PGR4 the first game to feature the car, as far as I am aware. The “Veyron-killer” Caparo T1 is also listed, along the usual slew: 2004 Gallardo, 2005 SLR McLaren and 2004 F430. Bike buffs have reason to be excited as well, especially if you are a classic collector. Imagine hopping on a 1962 Norton 500 Manx and racing it up with today’s bikes. Or the Triumph Trident? Many sport bikes are included as well, such as the CBR600RR and Ninja ZX-14.

Microsoft Games Studios and Bizarre Creations have announced details of a selection of cars and motorbikes which will be featured in Project Gotham Racing 4. Ten cars including the Ferrari F430 2004 and the Lamborghini Gallardo 2004, plus nine bikes such as the Honda NR750 1992 and Triumph Trident 2005 have been announced.

Source: Pro-G

Intel has updated their vPro business platform today, noting that “Today, the business desktop PC just got more secure.” One notable new feature is Intel TXT (Trusted Execution Technology), a technology that protects data within virtualized environments, which might prove incredibly useful to IT guys all over, since vritualization usage is spreading like wildfire.

Improved is their System Defense Filters, used to better identify potential threats to the network traffic flow. Cisco also has a part in the new vPro with their embedded trust agent, a manageability solution that doesn’t rely on any OS. However, it allows IT to remotely manage systems even if they are powered-off. Keen. The full press release can be found through the link below.

“Today, the business desktop PC just got more secure,” said Robert B. Crooke, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Business Client Group. “This generation of Intel vPro processor technology arrives with new security and management capabilities along with support from every leading PC manufacturer and software solution vendor in the world.”

Source: Intel Press Release