Content and news by Rob Williams

Created by Anders, this fully-functional LEGO vending machine consists of four light sensors, four touch sensors, four motors, and two RCX’s. It even has a coin-slot with the total amount being shown on an LCD display.

If you are bored and happen to be a fan of legos, this is the perfect round-up for you. The vending machine is by far my favorite here, but the Connect 4 game is pretty sweet also.

Yahoo is considering selling songs at a price of $1.99 each, which is roughly double that of an iTunes song. But Yahoo is hoping that regardless of the new price, DRM-less MP3s will attract a significant amount of people. Being without restrictions, customers can afford to play music on any device they desire. Yahoo says that DRM is very expensive for companies to implement, even for its own online store, it would much rather spend the money on developing end-user experiences.

It’s good to finally see that someone stepped up to the DRM-free plate. Of course, there are a few downsides. $1.99US per song is not a great way to welcome users. Yahoo! believes that this will appeal to a specific crowd. In reality, this is good only if you want a single song and not an entire album. It would be cheaper to buy the actual album in the store and have the -best- sound quality, any way you look at it. We’ll also have to see how long it takes the RIAA to step in.

Microsoft this week released a formal pledge, a list of 12 rules that the company said it will abide by, in order to facilitate healthy competition in the software market. Microsoft said that it will comply by the self-imposed rules, as well as comply with industry and government regulations.

In a way, this is actually pretty cool. If Microsoft ends up sticking to their own commitments, that would be even cooler.

Age of Empires co-creator and Iron Lore co-founder Brian Sullivan has been discussing his studio’s first game, Titan Quest, but along the way has openly wondered whether World Of Warcraft’s success is part of the reason for the decline of the PC retail game market.

There are some great points made here. There’s no doubt that WoW has very, very dedicated players and many of them. However, I think the entire MMO market would be included in this speculation. How many people do you know that play MMO’s religiously go out any buy new games on a regular basis?

After 700 reviews and over 650 video reviews, it’s time to reflect. Take a peek through 7 years of Rodney Reynolds Video Reviews. Rodney also explains how he got started doing video reviews and much more. Warning: It will be funny at times, so popcorn is definitely recommended! Watch the Video to find out more…

Congrats to Rodney on the big accomplishment. It would be a lot of work to churn out 650 video reviews, especially solo. I have to wonder where he hides all of that stuff!

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 20, 2006 – Intel Corporation today announced that it is making a number of senior management changes focused on improving the company’s structure and achieving faster and better decision making. The company also announced that two senior executives will be retiring.

You can read the full press release right here.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — July 20, 2006 — AMD (NYSE: AMD) today reported sales of $1.22 billion, operating income of $102 million, and net income of $89 million, or $0.18 per share, for the quarter ended July 2, 2006.  These results include $18 million of employee stock-based compensation expense and a net gain of $10 million associated with Spansion LLC.’s repurchase of its 12.75 percent senior subordinated notes. 

If you are interested in additional information regarding the quarter results, you can read the full press release on the AMD website.

Cases & Enclosures
• Antec P180 – Hexus
• ICY Dock Removable Hard Drive Enclosure – Bjorn3D

Cooling
• Corsair Nautilus 500 Water Cooling – TechARP
• Jetart Aquacool AK2000 – XS Reviews
• Zalman CNPS8000 – Red and Blackness
• Zalman CNPS8000 and CNPS9500 CPU Coolers – Driver Heaven
• Zalman ZM-RF1 Reserator Fan – OCIA

Memory & Storage
• Crucial PC2-6400 Ballistix 2GB – PC Stats

Motherboards & Processors
• ECS RS482-M – Hardware Secrets
• MSI K9N SLI Platinum AM2 – MadBox PC (Spanish)

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Brando Optical Twin Mouse – DragonSteelMods
• FSP Group Booster X3 (Snapshots) – Hexus
• Logitech G3 – Modders-Inc
• Razer Krait – NGOHQ
• Xtrac Pro HS Mouse Pad – Think Computers

Displays & Video Cards
• Asus EN7600GT Silent – PC Stats

Complete Systems, Competitions & Etcetera
• Building a Socket 939 Workstation – XYZ Computing
• Dell XPS M1710 Metallic Black 17-inch Notebook – PC Perspective
• Lenovos ThinkPad T60 – Tech Report
• JVC GZ-MG505 – Digital Trends
• Rock LE Dungeons & Dragons Laptop – BIOS Magazine

Motorola announced today that has shipped its 50 millionth Motorola RAZR V3 handset. The company celebrates today at the U.S. Cellular Store in downtown Chicago by giving away 144 RAZRs in two hours (one every 50 seconds—clever, huh?)

Any way you look at it, that is a lot of cellphones! I’ve never understood the infatuation of the Razr, but Motorola is certainly doing something right.

Has the shine come off online auctions? eBay chief Meg Whitman has acknowledged that the site has lots some of its “magic”, as the balance tilts away from home sellers to professional retailers. Not that eBay is grumbling too much. The company reported profits of $310m on turnover of $1.4bn for 2Q 2006 yesterday. eBay also has $4bn cash in the bank. $9bn worth of trading went on under its roof in the period.

I am unsure how they figure that eBay is losing it’s ‘magic’ when it had a 20% gain in users and 35% increase in listings over the past year. If there is indeed any ‘magic’ being lost here, it’s likely due to PayPals high rates. That’s just my speculation though.

The company has elected to release Crazy Stone on DVD just 12 days after its theatrical debut, and with a price of around 10 yuan (or around US$1.25). This mirrors closely the anti-piracy strategy of Warner’s Chinese home video division, which has already been pricing select titles at around 12 yuan (approximately US$1.50).

This is an interesting spin on things! $1.25 seems low for any movie, but the article mentions that the DVD market in China is near nonexistent to begin with. Even at standard DVD prices, we will not likely see this happen on our shores anytime soon. Not as long as their are a billion movie theaters around.

An online banner advertisement that ran on MySpace.com and other sites over the past week used a Windows security flaw to infect more than a million users with spyware when people merely browsed the sites with unpatched versions of Windows, according to data collected by iDefense, a Verisign company.

Ouch. This only affected anyone who was using Internet Explorer, but it’s estimated that over 1 Million users were infested. If you don’t have the latest Windows updates, now would be a good time to grab them.

If you’re looking for an authentic World War II experience with guns, up to 32 players, and 14 crewable vehicles, this is definitely the place to go. Don’t get me wrong, the game is not without its quirks including its somewhat high learning curve. The flow of the game, capturing objectives, and its mature online playerbase make the game definitely worth a try.

Check out the full review at GamePyre.

Well well, the day has finally come. It is now day number 50; the final day for this ATI Linux trial. With that said, it’s about time for me to share some concluding remarks regarding ATI’s recent Linux efforts with their monthly fglrx display drivers. On the first day, I didn’t know whether I would be able to survive without going green (no pun intended), but towards the end of this experience, it was almost like achieving nirvana…

It’s hard to believe that 50 days have passed already. The conclusion is worth a read even if you have not tuned in earlier. The future for ATI is looking good, although there are still some current issues worth noting.

Intel’s quad-core chips, Xeon server processor code-named Clovertown and desktop processor code-named Kentsfield, actually are packages consisting of two dual-core chips, but each package plugs into a single processor socket. AMD, whose quad-core chips are due in mid-2007, uses a more refined design with all the cores on a single slice of silicon.

If anything, it will be interesting to see the results of these benchmarked. In some respects Dual Core is still not being used to it’s full potential in some apps, but how cool would it be to have four cores under that roof?

Four major studios struck a deal with online movie service CinemaNow to offer more than 100 mainstream titles that can be burned to a disc and played on almost any DVD player and television set. Prices start at about $US9 ($A12).

This may be a milestone, but it seems as though the initial movies are older titles that you may be able to score for $10 in the local Wal-Mart bin anyway. We’ll see where this goes… but it does seem like a convenient solution if you don’t feel like leaving the house.

Dennis Hwang may be the most famous unknown artist in the world — his work doesn’t hang in galleries or museums, but it’s been viewed hundreds of millions of times. The 28-year-old webmaster designs the whimsical logos that decorate Google.com’s otherwise Spartan Web site on special occasions.

It’s amazing how simple this job really appears to be, but it’s actually quite a bit of work. One thing I was personally unaware of is during some special occasions, clicking the logo will redirect you to a related website. Now that’s a way to get some traffic!

Cases & Enclosures
• Enermax Chakra – 3D Gameman
• Vizo Paragon 2.5″ One Touch Backup HDD External Enclosure – Think Computers

Cooling
• Zalman ZM-RF1 Reserator Fan Kit – OCIA

Memory & Storage
• Super Talent T1066UX1G5 DDR2 PC8500 – Pro-Clockers

Motherboards & Processors
• AMD 5000+ Versus Intel E6600 – Legit Reviews
• FOXCONN C51XEM2AA AM2 – Motherboards.org

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• nMedia Mute Power MP-400 – Overclockers Online
• OCZ GameXStreme 600 Watt PSU – 3D Xtreme
• Powerware 5125 1000VA UPS – PC Stats
• SilverStone ELEMENT ST50EF 500w PSU – NGOHQ

Displays & Video Cards
• Sapphire’s liquid-cooled Toxic X1900 XTX graphics card – Tech Report

Complete Systems, Competitions & Etcetera
• Microsoft Zune, Coffee, and the News of the Day – Digital Trends
• Samsung T609 Mobile – Digital Trends
• Systemax Wildcat SLI Gaming PC – HotHardware

If you are looking to spend a little extra money for a camera that provides many features and great image quality, you will want to take a look at the P3. It’s capable of 8.1 megapixel images that are actually quite clear at full resolution. In the arsenal is also VGA video quality, vibration reduction and more.

According to a ministry representative, “Japan is planning ultra long-range 30-year weather forecasts that will predict typhoons, storms, blizzards, droughts and other inclement weather.” Maybe they should tell their secret to my local weatherman, who usually can’t even get tomorrow’s weather right.

Now this is cool. Even with the supercomputers power, they admit that they cannot give a percentage of just how accurate they will be though.