Content and news by Rob Williams

In addition to the game, a collector’s edition of Stranglehold on PlayStation 3 will include a full-length, 1080p version of John Woo’s critically acclaimed action film Hard Boiled on the same Blu-ray Disc. Stranglehold collector’s edition will retail for $69.95, $10 more than the regular edition, and marks the first movie and game hybrid disc for the Blu-ray format.

This is great news and something I hope to see more often. For the $70 price tag, hopefully it’s an amazing game. The movie bonus is nice, but is that all that’s unique with the collectors edition?

Source: Daily Tech

Dell has posted important information on their blog regarding what you can and cannot expect to happen with their pre-installed Ubuntu. Not surprisingly, not much will be altered, it will simply be a fresh install of Ubuntu.

For hardware options not offered with this release, we are working with the vendors of those devices to improve the maturity and stability of their associated Linux drivers. While this may not happen overnight, we do expect to have a broader range of hardware support with Linux over time.

At this time, we are not including any support for proprietary audio or video codecs that are not already distributed with Ubuntu 7.04. These include MPEG 1/2/3/4, WMA, WMV, DVD, Quicktime, etc. We are evaluating options for providing

If it takes Dell to push the better driver movement, then so be it. This is a good thing. However, I am not sure how complete Linux noobies are going to enjoy a fresh Ubuntu system that does not even support DVD or music playback. This of course is standard of Ubuntu installations, but it’s going to be a chore for those who are trying out Ubuntu simply because they “heard it was great.”

The way things are going, the only consumers who will buy the Ubuntu systems are those who could easily install it themselves.

Source: Direct2Dell

UK police have arrested a 25-year-old for selling vouchers in Europe for use with AllofMP3.com. The recording industry body of the UK, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), announced the arrest today, saying that the man took payments from European customers and transferred them to offshore Russian accounts. He allegedly sold the £10 vouchers on eBay and through AllofMP3vouchers.co.uk.

Just one week to go and AllofMP3.com might be no more. It’s sad, because the method of purchase would be ideal for the major music enthusiast. If only there was an iTunes based website like this, without DRM protection of course.

Source: Ars Technica

The KDE Project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.5.7, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and
powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. KDE now supports 65
languages, making it available to more people than most non-free software and
can be easily extended to support others by communities who wish to
contribute to the open source project.

All Linux users who also happen to be KDE users can go grab the latest version off the official website. Not too much is new, but security fixes are of concern to all users.

Source: KDE.org

The 386 Hybrid is the truckmaker’s (and the industry’s) first Class 8 hybrid rig, and if projections are correct, using one could help drive down owner/operators’ fuel costs by $9,000 a year (based on a diesel fuel price of $2.50/gallon), which is some serious green.

Wal-Mart is one of the last companies on Earth that is in dire need to save cash, but hey, this is good for the environment so it seems like a win/win.

Source: Autoblog

Fujitsu just announced a world’s first H.264 chip capable of encoding/decoding 1920 x 1080 (60i/50i) video in real time. The chip features 256MB of onboard FCRAM and ultra low 750mW power draw when encoding video. That means lickity quick, MPEG-2 quality processing with only a third, or half the required storage. The Â¥30,000 ($247) MB86H51 chip is available to OEMs starting July 1st after which you’ll find it bunged into the latest up-scale, consumer-class video recorders.

There will be a lot of people looking forward to these. Real-time conversion will be a huge time saver!

Source: Engadget

Not to be outdone by Fujitsu which recently announced its 250GB 2.5″ 5400RPM MHY2 BH Series notebook HDDs, Western Digital today announced its new 250GB Scorpio notebook HDD. Western Digital’s 250GB Scorpio takes full advantage of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) and features a Serial ATA interface. Spindle speed for the new drive is a respectable 5400RPM.

First Fujitsu and now Western Digital. Where is Seagate in all of this? 5400RPM is no boasting matter, but having 250GB in your notebook certainly is.

Source: Daily Tech

May 21, 2007—The OCZ Trifecta Series was honored by PC World with a 100 Best Products of 2007 Award. The article is available now on PCWorld.com, and will also be featured in the July 2007 issue of PC World, which hits newsstands June 12.

Source: OCZ Press Release

A rescue mission to remember, “Rush ‘n Attack” is a heroic arcade action game, equipped with enhanced graphics, music, and sound effects. Fight through four stages of increasing difficulty to free prisoners of war using a trusty knife along with an array of other weapons from which to choose. Opt to rescue compatriots as a lone soldier, or form a united front with a friend utilizing Xbox LIVE’s multiplayer capabilities. “Rush ‘n Attack,” also known as “Green Beret,” will be available for download this Wednesday, May 23 at 2:00 a.m. PDT.

Source: Gamerscore Blog

Remember that rumor about the 80GB PS3? Well, it’s becoming pretty solid since Sony of South Korea just announced that they’re shipping out an 80GB version for the Korean market. As for Japan, the US and everywhere else? We’re just going to have to wait. Damn, first Starcraft II, then this?

I don’t consider a 33% boost to the hard drive to be such a big deal, but to each their own. It would make sense to see this spread onto our shores eventually, but even in this day and age, 80GB is small regardless of whether it’s in a console or not.

Source: Gizmodo

Unfortunately, people are slowly accepting the fact that some cool things are gone- and they’re not coming back, because someone somewhere needs to make more money. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and remember some of the things that were taken from us.

Many of you will easily recognize half this list. Napster, SuprNova, Lik-Sang and Grokster to mention just a few. I particularly mis Lik-Sang, that site was great.

Source: Mashable

Despite generating over $12K in funds, well short of the $250K goal, the Tux 500 Project was able to secure a spot in the Indy 500 with driver Roberto Moreno piloting the Linux #77 Indy car. He’s back in the pack in 31st place (only 5.5 MPH separates 31st place from 1st) but was able to secure it by re-qualifying with an average speed of 220.299 MPH. Will Moreno be able to pilot the penguin-tipped Indy car to victory next week at the 91st Indianapolis 500?

As a Linux user, I am excited to see this actually happen. I have to wonder though, if it can be done with $12K, why was there an original goal of $250K? That is not a small difference! Either way, it’s great to see it happen.

Source: Slashdot

Intel has now officially released their P35 and G33 chipsets, so we are going to take a look at what they offer to the consumer. In addition to DDR3 support, there are a few other features to take note of, such as increased bandwidth and Intel Fast Memory Support which effectively lowers latency.

There is no official word from Intel in the form of a press release yet, but it’s official: P35 and G33 are now uncovered. “Hard” launch will be closer to Computex however. For a quick primer on what you should expect, you can read our article here. Quick answer: No you don’t need to jump on the P35 band wagon right away.

There are countless reviews around the web as you would expect. We will be publishing our performance reports late this week or early next, due to lack of time with the hardware up to this point. Here are a few other great reviews circulating the web:

Over the course of our testing, we saw the new Intel P35 chipset and DDR3 memory combination offer up gains in the 2 – 5% range in various applications. This was largely attributed to the new Intel MCH and its improved access latency characteristics. There were several occasions where the P35 chipset driven Asus P5K3 Deluxe out-paced its 965 counterpart with the same DDR2 memory running in its DIMM slots. – HotHardware

Intel is going to be making a strong push once again into the chipset market with their P35 and G33 chipsets being announced today, though the real product for enthusiasts looking for dual-GPU support on an Intel board are going to want to wait for the X38 chipset later in the year. If you are going to be building a new Core 2 Duo system in the meantime and don’t mind the single GPU support and want to adopt the new DDR3-memory standard, then the P35 and G33 options look to be excellent products. – PC Perspective

Our P5K3 Deluxe motherboard overclocked like a dream, more easily than any other Core 2 motherboard we’ve tested. Any motherboard based on the P35 chipset should work with a 1333MHz front-side bus, too, so there’s “free” overclocking headroom built-in if you have a current Core 2 processor designed for 1066MHz front-side bus. If you don’t want to pay the premium associated with DDR3, the P35 works with DDR2, too. – Tech Report

We believe consumers are being misled by the manufacturers when it comes to the actual performance of most cameras at higher ISO settings and in low light. So we decided to put together a short article on the truth behind those headline high ISO modes.

This is a great article if you are looking to better understand what higher ISO is all about. There are comparisons between high-ISO modes on both SLRs and compacts to help you better choose which is right for you.

Source: DP Review

The buzz on the expo floor was about Silicon Valley gaming startup Elementeo and its precocious 13-year old founder and chief executive, Anshul Samar. “We inject fun into education,” the fast talking entrepreneur confidently proclaimed, touting his new fantasy role playing board game which he believes will change the way kids learn chemistry.

Yes, a thirteen year old really did say, “we inject fun into education”. Kudos to him for being so damn smart. At thirteen, I was addicted to videogames! So not much has changed…

Source: Venture Beat

Last month, Washington high school junior Sofia Rubenstein used 6,807 text messages, which, at a rate of 15 cents apiece for most of them, pushed her family’s Verizon Wireless bill over $1,100. She and other teens are finding themselves in hot water after their families get blindsided with huge phone bills thanks to hefty a la carte text messaging charges.

Using a cell phone to send that many text messages is almost like buying a computer monitor just to play with it’s controls. This girl text messaged over 200 times per day! She must have thumbs of steel.

Source: Slashdot

We are very pleased to announce the availability of the phpBB3 RC1 package. This is the first release candidate which is meant to become the Gold release if no more bugs or problems arise. Of course there may be more than one release candidate.

phpBB users have a reason to be excited, although I am unsure at this point what all the new features are. Even though this is a release candidate, the RC1 is officially supported, which I assume means the release is very stable. If you like to live on the edge, you might want to give the latest version a go.

Source: Official phpBB Site

India news portals itVARnews and CIOL report about 350 dealers joined in a statewide bandh (that’s a general strike) initiated by Surat-based South Gujarat Information Technologists Association (SITA).

This month, six PC dealers in Gujarat received notices from Microsoft for selling pirated copies of Windows. Microsoft demanding a payment of 200,000 Rupee ($4,955) and a fine of 1,600,000 Rupee ($39,638) if the vendor continued to sell pirated copies of the OS.

The argument is made that Microsoft is charging far too much for their OS in India and that it should scale with the rest of the market. Even without knowing the prices over there, it’s hard to not believe when we see what Americans are being charged (upwards of $400).

Indian computer shops have stressed that they are not charging for the pirate copies, but simply wish to not sell legal copies because of the price. The only resolve we will see from this is for Microsoft to change their pricing structure in India, or we will see Linux usage skyrocket.

Source: The Register

Clark notes that the device will be one of the lightest Tablets in its class and will feature advances in the touch-screen interface to make it more practical to use. The prototype that Clark showed off in the video features a 12.1″ widescreen display running Windows Vista. All of the usual connectivity options are there including Bluetooth and WiFi along with a fingerprint scanner.

Consumers have a direct need for tablet PCs, even outside of a working environment, so adding one to their lineup makes all the sense in the world. Why they took this long to come to that realization is hard to figure out.

Source: Daily Tech