HardwareGeeks
Archive for June 2008
Firmware 2.4 To Be Available July 2nd!
SCEA, on the official blog, has confirmed that firmware version 2.4 will include the much requested in-game XMB and trophy system. It will be available to all PS3 owners on July 2nd. Personally I’m very excited to get my hands on this epic update. It has been a long time coming but it is finally here. Unfortunately not all games will be compatible from the start. A lot of games will need to be patched in order to take advantage of this firmware. Regardless of the fact, it is a step in the right direction.
Hit the jump to see how this all works.
Review: HP Mini-note 2133
Intended for the educational market, the HP mini-note is a sleek looking tiny notebook pc built to withstand the day to day bump and grind of the public school system, but it’s appearance and form factor appeal to the masses, as I have spotted it in Starbucks and Airports around the county being used by young professionals to executives.
Weighing in at 3 pounds 4 ounces with its extended battery (6 Cell about 4.5 hours of battery life in our test), the Mini note 2133 is very light weight, and while it is not as thin as the HP Voodoo Envy it’s has one of the smallest form factors around.
Antec Introduces Super-Premium Line of Power Supplies
Today Antec introduced a new Super-Premium line of power supplies designed specifically for enthusiast and gamers in mind.
The new line of power supplies will be called the Signature Series are built to last and according to antec only uses top of the line parts in it’s construction, they also pass 80 plus standards (80 Plus Bronze for maintaining 82% efficiency at 20% and 100% of rated load and 85% efficiency at 50% of rated load), which make the power supplies energy efficient.
Everybody’s Going to Hell!
In a move that was surprising to many, but received joyously by most, Blizzard revealed the secret hiding behind the splash screen seen on their site the last few days and announced Diablo III at the World Wide Invitational 2008 in Paris, France. During the opening ceremonies, Mike Morhaime, co-president of Blizzard Entertainment, wound the audience up a bit more with the proclamation of a “special announcement” and to the strains of the Overworld theme being played by a live guitarist, lead designer Jay Wilson took the stage to demo the game for the excited crowd. The cinematic trailer, an artwork trailer, and nineteen minutes of gameplay from the event are viewable.
State of Virtualization
So I was browsing around and found this horrible article detailing the demise of VMWare and how the sky is falling for them. So here’s a little rebuttal on why this article from ComputerWorld is wrong.
Referenced Article from ComputerWorld
First thing that comes to mind when reading your article, have you ever used VMWare in the enterprise space? Were a Microsoft shop, but we use and will continue to use, ESX server by VMWare. Theirs a number of reasons for this, most have to do with Hyper-V having huge gaps in it’s feature set as of 1.0.
Bluetooth Headsets—CA are you ready?
If you’re a resident of California, I’m sure by now you’ve heard the news reports, radio commercials, etc.. about the handset law that is being put into affect July 1st. On that day, if a police officer sees you driving with a mobile phone stuck to your ear, you will be pulled over and ticketed.
I’m lucky enough to have a built-in solution in my vehicle, however, for those trips where I’m not in my car, I’m still searching for the best bluetooth headset to use with my current phone. I’ve reviewed the nxZEN Plus in the past, and I wonder if Gennum has anything new to offer (if you’re a Gennum employee, send me your latest goodies for review, please 
)
Call of Duty 5: Word at War Trailer
I was just sent the new trailer for Call of Duty 5 World at War, and I have to say it looks like it’s going to be one hell of a game.
I have never been a huge fan of Call of Duty (Please don’t shoot me for saying that) but after watching the trailer I am anxious to get my hands on the game and play it.
Livescribe Pulse Smartpen in Stores soon
Livescribe Pulse Smartpen is finally in stores soon, Amazon.com will have the Smartpen starting the 1st of July and Target Stores Nationwide will have them in stores on the 13th of July.
The Smartpen is basically the adult version of the FlyFusion Pentop computer from Leapfrog. But unlike the FlyFusion which was speaker based, the FlyFusion is both Speaker and LCD screen based, so if you do not want the pen to talk or make and sounds you can silence it and just use the LCD screen on the side of the pen.
I saw a demo of the pen last week, and it basically worked the same way as the FlyFusion Pentop computer, but it had a more sophisticated look.
Intel’s global antitrust mess
AMD has been battling it out with Intel in the courts in the US.
About a year ago, we were able to get a teleconference with AMD Executive VP and general counsel, Tom McCoy, the details of which I posted here after a personal follow-on interview with Tom.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, the other shoe dropped, with the United States Federal Trade Commission, FTC, escalating their former informal inquiry into Intel’s trade practices into a formal full-blown investigation.
Envious because of HP and Voodoo
Rahul Sood stunned Apple users when he posted pictures of himself using a MacBook Air to cut his Birthday cake on his blog, and since then some speculated that something big from Voodoo and HP was on the Horizon.
Then the Voodoo website went up in flames. So we knew something was cooking, just in-time for HP’s Connected World 2008 in Berlin. But no one really knew what it was. (I did just couldn’t tell ya)