Content and news by Rob Williams

“Hitachi’s new Deskstar 7K500 drive marks several milestones in the storage industry: It’s the first desktop hard drive to reach 500GB and one of the first to use the speedy new SATA II interface. In terms of how it stores data, though, the Deskstar may be among the last of its kind, as drive manufacturers begin to approach the limits of how densely they can pack data using today’s standard recording technology.”

If you are interested in one of these, the 16MB Cache S-ATA version will set you back a cool $520. Check it out at PC World.

“Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) unveiled yesterday a new line of pricey mobile devices including a high-end camera phone with Carl Zeiss optics and a handset with enough storage for music to potentially compete with the iPod.

The N90 features a two-megapixel camera with autofocus, 20x digital zoom, integrated flash, a special mode for sharp close-ups, and on-phone video editing capabilities.”

100 million! Until camera phones have the same quality as a digital camera, I’ll hold back. Check it out at Tech News World.

“The Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED is Nikon’s first wide-angle lens to feature the Vibration Reduction (VR) technology. It also features a Silent Wave Motor, as well as two ED glass elements and two aspherical lens elements./p>

But just how well does it work? Let’s find out in our comprehensive review of this fascinating lens!”

Check out the full review at Rojak Pot.

“According to reports from WinHEC this week, XBox 360 controllers will be compatible with Longhorn.

The controllers are, as we revealed some months ago, wireless, with the receiver built into the console. We suspect that a USB add-on will be available to PC users.”

This is fantastic. Buy a console, and the controller will work without modding, on your PC. Check out the posting at The Inquirer.

“Microsoft believes in the future of tablet computing because it combines all the benefits of portability with the richness of ink and the ability to read off the screen directly, says chairman and chief architect Bill Gates.

“This has been a major investment for us. It’s something we totally believe in,” Gates told delegates at the opening of this year’s Windows hardware engineering conference (WinHEC) in Seattle earlier this week.”

If you are a tablet PC user, read all about this here.

“Another Contest!! We are giving away a PNY GeForce FX 5200 Verto! All you have to do is have 5 posts in the forums and submit your case to the case gallery. Once you have posted your case reply to this topic with a link to your case in the case gallery. Its that simple! This contest will run for 3 weeks, so get in the Case Gallery and post your case!”

Woot, more contests! Check it out at Think Computers.

“Antec is a name well known especially by gamers and PC enthusiasts due to their ever-reliable and very stable power supply units. In this review, we’ll be examining the Antec TruePower 2.0 430W. Will this power supply continue to live up to Antec’s reputable name?”

Check out the full review at Phoronix.

“”The Antec Phantom offers 350 watts of power in complete silence. Fanless cooling is achieved through heatsinks which are connected from the inside to the outside. The outside casing is all aluminum and therefore helps dissipate the heat. Also, efficiency is 85% at max load which is 10%+ more than others. This is the Cream of the crop in silent PSUs. Watch the Video to find out more…”

Check out the full video review at 3D Gameman!

““Well it seems EVERYONE is into making Pre-Modded cases these days, they are popping up everywhere, and every computer related store you go into has them now. All shapes, sizes and price ranges. Not many really stand out from the crowd anymore, then there is the Atop Xplode Gaming case. This one could be one of those that stands out from the rest. It’s sleeks looks, built in LCD temperature monitor, and interesting replacement of the side window with a mesh screen. Available in an assortment of colors (red,orange,blue,yellow,silver and white). This is one of the first cases I have seen that really incorporates the theme throughout the case, by that I mean the Drive bay covers aren’t plain, they match the case, even down to the mesh screen in them as well!”

Check out the full review at Think Computers.

Stratics is pleased to announce a House of Commons with the developers of the Developers of EVERQUEST today, Thursday April 28th. It will be at 6pm PST / 9pm EST in the #StraticsHoC channel on Stratics IRC. You can connect to one of our IRC servers through the use of your favorite…..

“Will you replace your USB light with retro USB lamp? How about throwing out your desk clock for a stylish pixel USB-powered LCD clock that also doubles as a USB extension cable. Or have you considered a cubic, bus-powered USB speaker piece with a distinctive touch and a built-in USB hub?”

Now these are cool looking USB ‘toys’. Check it out at EverythingUSB.

“Just because a cooler uses heatpipes doesn’t make it superb. While the Kamaboko Z looked promising, the performance wasn’t stellar. It’s still better than the stock cooler of course.”

Check out the full review at InsaneTek.

MMORPG.com had the opportunity to take a tour of the NC Soft HQ, and hangs around with the Auto Assault team a bit. You gotta see Pann’s office to believe it! Definitely a chick with attitude ;) “So where was I? Oh yeah, so this game has really gotten my interest up…..

ELIXIR STUDIOS BEGINS WINDING DOWN OPERATIONS. It is with great sadness that Elixir Studios today announced it is to cease day-to-day operations, effective immediately, and will seek the orderly sale and re-use of all its remaining assets and IP. Following the successful release of Evil Genius in October 2004, the Company has Comment (0) -->

“As you will have seen in our earlier review of the super XTrac Hybrid mouse mat review which really works very well indeed especially in our office as we tend to get a bit messy here we wondered how we could test this new InstaGlide from XTrac. We were as you are perhaps a little doubting.”

This is different, but a good idea! Read all about it at A1 Electronics.

“WHILE SOME MAY say that AMD arrived late to the PCI Express party, one could argue that Intel showed up a little early. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Compelling PCI-E graphics cards didn’t make an appearance until well after Intel’s 900-series chipset launch, but they materialized some time before PCI Express-equipped Athlon 64 motherboards were available on the open market. NVIDIA’s nForce4 platform was the first PCI Express chipset to be widely available for the Athlon 64, but VIA’s K8T890 and ATI’s Radeon Xpress 200 weren’t far behind. SiS recently joined the fray with the SiS756, and even ULi managed to work its way into the mix with its M1573 south bridge companion for ATI’s Radeon Xpress 200 north bridge.”

Check out the full review at Tech Report.

“Building a computer is a fun process that is riddled with choices – if you have sufficient funds. For someone on a budget, the choices are substantially less. After picking out a suitable motherboard, CPU, memory, and hard drive, little is left for the other important components such as the case and power supply. It is with these budget consumers in mind that Raidmax introduces the Virgo 811W computer case, which is what this review takes a look at.”

Check out the full review over at A True Review.

The time is finally here, Beta 1 of Auto Assault has begun. If you have been accepted, you should have received an e-mail stating so. If you haven’t been accepted yet, hopefully shortly they will invite more people when they are able. “We are pleased to announce that the first wave of Comment (0) -->

As announced the other day, executive product Jessica Mulligan left Turbine Entertainment, which are the developers of Asheron’s Call 1 & 2, as well as the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons MMO game. Well, we can now see today why she left Turbine. “Last Friday, Turbine team member Jessica Mulligan announced she was…..

“ATLANTA – April 27, 2005 – Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.), a Time Warner company, today unveiled GameTap, a first-of-its-kind broadband entertainment network that offers games-on-demand plus original programming via a broadband connected PC. GameTap launches fall 2005.”

Hardly one of a kind, as Yahoo Games on Demand and a few others currently do this as well. However, they claim to have licensed over 1,000 games, which is a HUGE plus. Read the full press release on the GameTap site.