Filed under: Desktops

Just like we heard, AMD has gone live with Phenom. With it, we've got an entire new platform, codenamed "Spider." The Spider PC platform combines AMD Phenom quad-core processors, ATI Radeon HD 3800 series graphics, and AMD 7-series chipsets with CrossFireX and AMD OverDrive software for what AMD calls the "Ultimate visual Experience." That's the hype. Early reviews, however, are pretty much "underwhelmed" by the launch. Oh, the HD 3800 cards are ok (for mid-range graphics) and the 7-series chipset "is in good shape," but AMD needs to roll-on those clock speeds beyond the 2.2GHz Phenom 9500 ($251), 2.3GHz Phenom 9600 ($283) and 2.4GHz and 2.6GHz Phenon 9700 and 9900 (available in Q1 2008 for $300 and $350, respectively), and do it quick, if they hope to pull ahead of Intel's quad-core offerings. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem likely.

Read -- AMD Spider press release

Read -- PC Perspective benchmark
Read -- HotHardware benchmark

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Sure, you can already mouse around on your Linux-booting or web-browsing PS3 system to your heart's content, but Epic wanted to level the FPS playing field just a bit, and is bringing keyboard and mouse support to its PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3. Epic VP Mark Rein was concerned that having multiple control methods would give some players an unfair advantage, but apparently those problems have been worked out. In addition to bringing a potential end to those endless mouse vs. dual stick debates (unlikely), this also might mean we'll be seeing some PC-to-PS3 compatibility for online play, for the ultimate test of fanboy forum smack.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Yep, it's August, that means the 80GB PlayStation 3 is due to go on sale. Sony didn't previously give us a date or anything, but it looks like GameStop / EB Games is stocking the $599 80GB console (bundled with MotorStorm), and claims shipment in 24 hours. Granted, we're now officially back to square one with a lower end PS3 priced at $499 and a higher end PS3 priced at $599 (and no option to compete directly with the Xbox 360 Premium's $399 $350 price tag), but if you're thinking about upgrading that PS2, at least your options are better than they were a couple months ago.

[Thanks, Steve and vidGuy]

Read - GameStop
Read - EB Games (same thing)

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Since Microsoft apparently didn't suffer enough indignity with the whole J Allard-in-dreads happenings -- we were sure our caption contest sealed the deal -- another Xbox exec has gone on record making predictions on Sony hardware, unfortunately without similarly high stakes. Xbox director of technical strategy Andre Vrignaud is betting a steak dinner with the staff of Level Up that Sony's going to hit the market with a $399 PS3 SKU by Black Friday 2007. His thinking is that Sony won't want to stick with a $599 80GB PS3 as its sole offering, and therefore will drop the 80 gigger to $499 and supplement it with a stripped down $399 40GB PS3 that skips out on WiFi, a memory card reader and backward compatibility. Of course, Sony's not talking much about SKUs ever since its total PR disaster on the 60GB price cut during E3, but that doesn't necessarily mean the company is ready to take a page out of Microsoft's book and go all PS3 "Core" on us.

[Via GamesIndustry.biz]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Sure, this one would be a breeze to Photoshop, but the fact that a Circuit City brochure so recently and successfully predicted a PS3 price drop gives us cause to hope. The teensy picture above purports to depict a new Wal-mart ad with that oft-rumored new $349 price point for the Xbox 360 Premium. The EXIF data checks out, so if it is a prank at least they took the time to do it right. No better way to figure out the legitimacy of this one than to wait it out -- and start betting on sales boost figures if Microsoft does indeed cut the price.

[Thanks, Brad]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Sony is reporting that its overall net profits more than doubled during the past quarter, bolstered by the success of films such as Spider-Man 3, and snappy sales of its traditional electronics. Things in the company's PS3 camp, however, still looked a little bleaker than the Japanese giant had probably hoped for. Losses for the game system rose from 26.8 billion yen to 29.2 billion yen, with 710,000 units sold worldwide -- not real impressive when compared to competitor Nintendo's Wii sales of 3.43 million. In a somewhat ironic aside, Nielsen GamePlay Metrics, a division of Nielsen Co. which tracks video game activity, says that the most played game system last month was Sony's seven-year-old PS2. The report shows the aging system leading other consoles with 42 percent of use, followed by the original Xbox at 17 percent, and Xbox 360 at 8 percent. The Wii and PS3 fall at 4 and 1.5 percent, respectively. Should be food for thought for everyone at Sony who doesn't think backwards compatibility is a big deal.

Read -- Sony net profit doubles despite PS3 losses
Read -- PS2 most-played console in June

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

You know it's a pretty slow summer Friday on the Reuters news beat when one of the biggest stories making the rounds focuses on the shocking revelation that Nigerian students are using their shiny new OLPC XOs to do what hormonal young men have being doing since the dawn of time: look at naked women. The esteemed wire service's African correspondent breathlessly reports that a journalist from the News Agency of Nigeria had seen pornography on a few children's notebooks, which led the country's publication of record to surmise that "efforts to promote learning with laptops in a primary school in Abuja have gone awry as the pupils freely browse adult sites with explicit sexual materials." Why, the NAN report makes it sound like these kids are spending their days at some seedy adult bookstore and not even attending school at all. Luckily for the porn-addicted youngsters, administrators of the pilot program are aware of this critical problem, and will soon be installing filters that will very likely block out a slew of legitimate pages while still allowing them to see all the flesh they want on Myspace. Will someone please think of the children?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Oh sure, Microsoft is kind of bummed about a few things. It just posted a $1.9 billion loss ($1.2bn coming from Q406, when it started dealing with the red ring of death) and its head of Xbox, Peter Moore, just took off (or was fired); the Zune may be a bit of a laggard, selling just 1.2m units in the course of ten months (compare to Apple's brisk iPhone sales, thought to be between 500k - 1m or more in just a few days), and the fact that "Vista is doing ok, but it isn't blowing the doors off," according to one Microsoft-trading stock manager. Still, Microsoft's bottom line ain't nothing to scoff at: profit is up 7.3%, with the company taking in $3.04 billion over $51.1 billion in sales in its last financial. These figures are boring to some, we're sure, but there's something kind of fun knowing that Redmond could probably afford to buy the world's beaches at $1 per grain of sand.

Read - Microsoft financials: +3bn hit points
Read - Xbox 360 posts $1.9bn operating loss [Via Joystiq]
Read - Zune sells 1.2m units, hooray Zune

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Scientists have implemented a successful bioeradication program of an invasive water weed in Africa's Lake Victoria. Two insect biocontrol species, weevils in the genus Neochetina, were used, along with mechanical removal, to control the highly invasive water hyacinth, which has also plagued waterways in the southern United States.