Filed under: Gaming

Clearly due to the current heat on Microsoft concerning the Xbox 360 RROD, disk scratching, and overheating scandals, Sony's Dave Karraker is mooning on the company's official blog over a recent PS3 Vault "stress test" called "How to kill a PS3 console" which showed the company's game system to be surprisingly resilient in the face of extreme conditions. "A lot of noise has been made recently about the reliability issues of one of our competitor's systems," Karraker said, then went on to kick some sand in Redmond's eye by adding "Did it fail? Nope. Like the Energizer Bunny, it kept going and going and going." Admittedly, the tests -- which included running games and Blu-ray movies for 108 hours in a typical "living room" environment, placing the console in a freezer van then lowering the temperature from 50 degrees to zero, and powering the PS3 in a sauna where heat increased from 100 degrees to 120 degrees over a nearly three-day session -- were quite e...

With all the coverage of how the Xbox 360s are failing left and right in the past few months, there hasn't been much coverage of how sturdy the PS3 is. PS3 Vault took a PS3 into harsh environments, continuously using it for 108 hours with various games and Blu-ray movies. Their findings? The PS3 is pretty much indestructible.
The guys did three tests, one at room temperature, one down at 0 degrees F (below zero), and one at 120F. Besides slight condensation on the cord in the cold and a burning smell in the heat, the PS3 actually held up perfectly fine. It went back a working environment and plays just like normal. [PS3 Vault via Kotaku]

Ars Technica has a lengthy piece that re-sounds the battle cry against AACS, the copy protection scheme for Blu-Ray and HD DVD—specifically, the gimpage it's bringing to both PCs and Macs in order to sate Hollywood's fears of casual piracy.
The video path basically has to be locked down at every point, and both Microsoft and Apple's OSes are required to employ "techniques of obfuscation clearly designed to effectively disguise and hamper attempts to discover the approaches used" so it's harder to hack, among other great "features."
Because they want PCs and Macs to be able to play high-def content, neither Microsoft nor Apple are in a position to tell Hollywood to take a flying fuck, either—to wit, Vista's already loaded down with it, and Apple's on the Blu-Ray board, so expect them to saddle up soon enough.
The bottom line for end users is that they're stuck with a copy protection system that's a total pain in the ass, while it devours system reso...

Filed under: Laptops

Notebook Italia has shots and specifications for a rumored 17-inch Dell Precision M6300 laptop, which could replace the ageing Dell Precision M90. We'll start with the most interesting feature, which is a BTO option for up to 8GB of installed RAM available when you include a copy of Vista 64-bit. Beyond that, the M6300 is rumored to feature Intel Core 2 Duos from 1.8GHz up to 2.4GHz, with a 2.6GHz Intel Core Extreme X7800 topping out the line. It'll also come with options for NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M, 2600M, or FX 3600M graphics cards. There will apparently also be options for 1440x900, 1900x1200, and 1920x1200 glossy and matte displays, and a Blu-ray drive configuration. The word is that this model could ship by August 31st, so at least you haven't got long to wait. 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment, is in a sticky situation. He needs to defend why his company exclusively backs HD DVD when the format is trailing Blu-ray by a long shot. Maybe glass-half-full talk day after day is what leads him to say things like this:
The people who have bought so far aren't early adopters, they are early, early adopters.We hate to tell you, Mr. Kornblau, but HD DVD has been on the market for almost a year and a half now. Those "early, early adopters" are who you should be calling normal customers. If not, we think something may be going wrong. [AP]

After making an announcement back in June, Onkyo is set to release their first HD DVD player, offering HDMI 1.3a with Deep Color technology, 24p playback, HD Audio, and 1080p upscaling. The DV-HD805 will also be one of the first to offer high bit rate audio streaming via HDMI.
The upscaling duty will be handled by Silicon Optix's HQV Reon VX processor and the onboard sound will support Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio. If this sounds familiar, it's because the same technology resides in the Toshiba HD XA2. Though Onkyo has stated support for both HD DVD and Blu-Ray players , this is their first foray into either market. The DV-HD805 is set to release this fall for $899. [Onkyo]

Filed under: Laptops
It's not all that long ago that Sony bumped its VAIO FZ laptops into Santa Rosa territory, but it seems that the company is planning to expand the line even further, with Notebook Italia today getting word of a pair of new FZ2 series laptops. As with its current FZ offerings, these new laptops will each pack 15.4-inch WXGA displays, but they get an upgrade in the processor department to your choice of Core 2 Duo T7250 or T7500, along with NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GT graphics on the higher-end of the two, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and your choice of Blu-ray or DVD combo drives. No word on a release date just yet, it seems, but they'll apparently set you back $1,299 or $1,399 depending on the configuration.

[Thanks, Laura]
 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

It looks like Dell is finally readying a followup to its M1710 speedster with the XPS M1730. The 17-inch laptop will of course be packing some Santa Rosa muscle, but according to rumors Dell's also going to provide that new Core 2 Extreme X7800 chip for the real speed demons / big spenders out there. For graphics the base models will be getting an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GS card with 256MB of memory, with a 512MB GeForce 8700M GT waiting in the wings. Other rumored specs include 4GB max of RAM and a 512MB or 1GB Intel Turbo Memory option, Bluetooth 2.0, Blu-ray and that welcome numeric keypad addition. The word is this one will go on sale August 27th, and while the paint job is bordering on "crime against humanity," hopefully Dell will have a few more acceptable options to decorate this gaming beast whenever it does hit the market.

[Thanks, Matthias]Continue reading Dell XPS M1730 spotted in the wild?
 
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Filed under: Gaming, Transportation
While we're sure a number of you have a Yellow Dog Linux-equipped PS3 around for leisure's sake, Axion Racing is using a similar setup to "manage one of seven autonomous vehicle cameras." The San Diego-based team is reportedly eager to show onlookers "things [other than gaming and Blu-ray playing] that can be done using a PlayStation console," and expects the device to mesh well with its array of Dell computers, SICK laser finders, Bumblebee stereo cameras, and FLIR infrared cameras." Of course, who knows what could happen if a stray android climbs on board and fires up a round of MotorStorm while it's trying to concentrate. 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Now that Hitachi has announced a Blu-ray camcorder to put some of that high-def footage on, you've got to have something to record onto, right? Verbatim will ship 8cm Mini Blu-ray Recordable/Rewritable (BD-R/RE) blank media in August for Japan, with shipments to North America and points beyond in October. The media will hold 7.5GB on a single side, with recording times of one hour for 1920x1080i resolution, and up to two hours at 1440x1080i. The discs come with Verbatim's standard hard-coat finish for protection against scratching and dust, making them pretty reliable for the kinds of stresses you'll see filming your own season of Survivor: Fargo. 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!