Custom-made God of War PSP up for auction

While it may not be to everyone's taste, this one-of-a-kind God of War PSP is certainly an impressive bit of console modding, boasting not just a spiffy paint job, but a few additions that dig into the PSP itself. Those include a red acrylic window on the rear of the unit that'll let you see the UMD spinning, as well as some red LEDs that light up the PSP's two shoulder buttons (head on over after the break for some more pics). Only the most die hard God of War fans need apply here though, as last we checked the bidding was around the $1,200 mark. On the upside, 15% of the final sale price will go to the Child's Play charity, and you'll also get that classy velvet-lined case to display your new prized possession in.

Source

eBay offers custom made Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3

Konami and Sony’s limited edition Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 may have been enough to satisfy a few fans of the game willing to pay a premium for their console of choice but, for sheer excess, it has nothing on this custom-made system built by the folks at Morpheon Mods, which is now up for auction on eBay. Among the many details adorning this shiny creation is a laser-cut, stainless steel MGS4 marquee, a laser-etched image of Solid Snake, a carbon fiber Fox Hound logo on the rear, and 14 white micro LEDs to light everything up just right.

They even got Hideo Kojima himself to autograph the console and, perhaps best of all, they wrapped everything around a fully backwards compatible 60GB PS3. Just don’t expect any of that to come cheap, as bidding is already topping the $1,500 mark with six days left, though you do also get pretty impressive collection of Metal Gear swag with it, and 15% of the proceeds will go to help the Child’s Play charity.

Source: Engadget

New Nintendo DSi: camera, music playback

Nintendo’s hit DS portable machine will come with a digital camera that will allow players to mix images, scribble on photos and create new faces, the Japanese game maker said Thursday. The Nintendo DSi will go on sale in Japan on Nov. 1 for 18,900 yen ($180), and will be available overseas next year. Dates and other details for overseas plans will be announced later by the company’s regional units later, President Satoru Iwata said. Iwata said the revamped DS is meant to be the first toy camera for children and a tool for network-building and party fun for older people in the company’s ongoing quest to make gaming popular with everyone — not just a niche crowd. One in six Japanese already owns a DS, according to Kyoto-based Nintendo, which also makes Pokemon and Super Mario games. But the goal is to make the DS a must-have for every Japanese, Iwata said.
The improved DSi is thinner than the current DS model, and will have a bigger screen, he said. The machine also comes with an audio player, to play sound stored in a memory card. Users will be able to change the speed of the sound. In a demonstration, Iwata showed that players will be able to listen to a foreign language lesson at a slower speed, or distort music or voices to a shrill pitch for fun. Nintendo also demonstrated new game software for its hit Wii home console, including “Wii Music.” Players just need to jiggle their remote controller to feel as though they are playing any of 60 musical instruments, including a drum set, sitar, saxophone and piano, although there are only 50 preprogrammed melodies. Nintendo has sold 77.5 million Nintendo DS handheld devices worldwide, nearly 23 million in Japan, far outselling Sony Corp.’s rival offering, the PlayStation Portable, at 41 million globally — 10 million in Japan.

Source: AP

Mobile Projector Phone, Do We Need One?

Here’s another mobile projector phone concept but this one is a bit more thought out, tho not without its problems. It offers portability and the communications functions of a mobile phone with a projector to support a new lifestyle.

As you’ve probably guessed, anything on screen can be projected onto a wall. There’s support for real time conferencing tho the camera faces the ceiling when in projector mode so I guess you’ll look like some floating head from the viewer’s perspective.

Perhaps the only reasonable utility is the ability to watch stored movies on a large screen, possibly HD since storage capacities have ramped up exponentially. Users can enjoy an array of multimedia this way, everything from videos, maybe video games, and TV.

Now to the obvious problems. Projectors produce a lot of light to get sharp saturated images. Surely a phone’s battery would run dry within minutes if tasked with such a job. Not so according to the designer. The projection system is part of a newer generation of miniaturized video components. That combined with advancements in battery technologies provide for an acceptable viewing experience.

Made of polycarbonate that is highly durable, insulating and energy saving with a graphite sheet to increase heat conductivity to dissipate heat. The edge is made of aluminum to enhance heat radiation away from the projector module and function keys. In another words, this thing would get hot!

Designer: Eun-Young Kim

Source

Sony unveils new 10MPx Cybershot cameras

Sony Electronics on Thursday announced two new Cyber-shot digital cameras, the DSC-T700 and the DSC-T77. The cameras retain Sony’s slick T-series form factor with slim, pocket-friendly brushed aluminum bodies, sliding lens covers, and multiple color choices. The 10.3-megapixel T700 is intended to double as a high-res portable photo frame, while the entry-level T77 comes with additional automatic shooting modes.The Cyber-shot DSC-T700 replaces the DSC-T300 and offers 10.3 megapixels, 4GB of internal storage, and a 4x optical zoom. The star of the show, however, is the camera’s crisp and bright 3.5-inch, 921k-pixel LCD touch screen, which offers three times the resolution of the T300. To compare, the improved LCD is the same size as the screen you’ll find on an Apple iPhone, but images should look even crisper: the T700 offers 210 pixels per inch (ppi), while the iPhone has only 163 ppi.

To encourage users to put their T700 to work as a portable photo frame, the camera will ship with software that will easily sync, transfer, and organize pictures from your computer—even those not taken on the T700. The app will also automatically resize images for storage and viewing on the camera’s LCD. The T700 should hit store shelves in late September for about $399. The second new camera, the entry-level Cyber-shot DSC-T77, replaces Sony’s DSC-T70. Like its predecessor, the T77 has a 3-inch LCD touch screen and a slim-form-factor (just 0.6 inches wide). It improves on the previous model with 10.1-megapixel resolution (up from 8 megapixels) and a 4x optical zoom (up from 3x). For the T77, Sony has also added more features to its automatic shooting mode, including anti-blink, red-eye reduction technologies, and improvements to the Smile Shutter function, which captures an image when the camera detects a smile in the frame. The T77 should also be available in late September and will keep the T70’s price of $299.

Source: Pc Magazine

Cryptex Mobile: Feel the code

Opus Dei has been needing a mobile phone to call their very own since the demise of the Knights Templar. If only designer Marc Schömann was catholic and lived 600 years ago, this baton style mobile phone might have saved them from a Dan Brown style disaster. This phone called “_______” (yup, it has no name) uses haptic technology to provide physical feedback for making a call. To turn it on…twist a section, to dial a number…twist a bunch of sections, to make an international call…break your wrist! There is no display and no buttons. The vibrate feature should prove popular with 50% of the world’s population.

Designer: Marc Schömann
Texts from the designer:

You turn the dial of every element to the desired cipher. If you entered the number you turn the first segment “to phone” (green LED). If you want to hang up the call you turn the first segment to “hang up” (red LED). The phone works without buttons and without a display and based on the old dial phones.

Source

Microsoft offers new 60GB version of XboX 360

Microsoft today announced an Xbox 360 console with triple the storage space of the original console, but for the same price of $349. Available in retail stores in the U.S. and Canada starting in early August, the upgraded Xbox 360 will include a 60GB hard drive for storing music, movies, television shows, and game content. In addition, Microsoft today dropped the price of its 20GB Xbox 360 console in the U.S. and Canada to $299 while supplies last.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Arcade, which comes with a 256MB memory unit and five Xbox LIVE Arcade games, will continue to sell for $279, and the premium Xbox 360 Elite with a 120GB hard drive will also stay at the $449 price. The Xbox 360 60GB console includes a wireless controller, HDMI output, headset, free Xbox Live Silver account and a one-month Xbox Live Gold subscription.

Source: Cnet, PC World

Apple cuts price of MacBook Air by $500

Apple Inc. has quietly reduced the price of its most expensive notebook by $500, cutting the cost of the upper-end MacBook Air to $2,598. The MacBook Air, which Apple launched in January to some fanfare, has been sold in two configurations since then: with a traditional 80GB magnetic platter hard drive and a 1.6-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, or with a 64GB solid-state drive and a 1.8-GHz CPU. Solid-state drives (SSD) are built from flash memory and, unlike hard drives, have no moving parts.

The MacBook Air with the solid-state drive is more expensive than the one with the hard drive, but several Apple-specific Web sites, including AppleInsider, noticed that Apple had dropped the price of the SSD-equipped model by 16% on Thursday, July 3. Prior to the price cut, the solid-state MacBook Air sold for $3,098. The less expensive hard-drive-equipped MacBook Air retained its $1,799 price tag, according to the Apple online store. The price cut came from changes on two of the MacBook Air options. Selecting the SSD now adds $599 to the price of the notebook, compared to $999 earlier. Also lowered was the 1.8-GHz processor option, from $300 extra to $200.

Source: Computerworld

JVC Camcorder Records Up To 50 hours!

Running out of space in your camcorder or camera is one of the top complaints from people who document every part of their vacations (another is poor battery life), and JVC has come up with a simple way to deal with it: juice up the hard drive capacity.

The upcoming GZ-HD40 and GZ-HD30 will not only include dual format recording (AVCHD/MPEG-2), but the HD40 will supposedly last up to 50 hours of recording time (in EP recording mode at 120GB). That's enough for a full weekend's worth of action, even if your dad 'forgets' to turn it off. ('Read the instructions Dad! Jeez. Here, give it. You know, just go over there and pour the chips on the bowl will ya? Thanks.')

Interestingly, the cameras also include a UI device called 'Intelligent Grouping,' that groups similarly themed scenes together. This appears to be camcorder’s version of the all-too popular 2.0-style tagging function. There's no word about whether these 'groupings' are automatic or whether they will allow you to define them. For example, I'd like to group all of my 'random head collisions in the middle of my vacation trip' clips, (which will help for the pleasant CAT scan coming up), and of course, not all of them occurred at night, or while playing sports.

Olympus' Omni-directional Camera Sensor Makes Pictures Look Like HAL-9000 Clones

If the imaging group at Olympus has its way, we might soon start to take pictures with omni-directional cameras. This will either lead to panoramic, life-altering photo perspectives, or it just might make pictures unnecessarily complicated and so dizzying as to be useless.

Yesterday, Olympus' Future Creation Lab announced a new 360 CCD sensor/lens combo prototype that will allow photographers to take pictures of 360-degree views. These types of sensors have a curved symmetrical axis, and are about 1.18 inches in diameter.

The way they work is that as light passes through the curved lens when taking a picture, the internal reflection is captured in a wide-angle 360-degree limited view, allowing for a 'full' perspective of a single image. It's assumed that the sensor in development will be able change the magnification and size of the viewfinder's perspective. In a way, this is just a different approach to adjusting the depth of field.

The omni-directional system is also defined as axisymmetrical, but the sci-fi inclined will inevitably call it something else: Pictures that look like HAL-9000.

New Eee Monitor Might Be All-In-One Entertainment PC

Asus' new mystery-meat Eee product is called the Eee Monitor. A quick look around the back, though, reveals that this is more than a mere display, although just how much more remains, as we said, a mystery.

The Monitor appears to be a 20" screen with a gaggle of sockets on the back panel: Three USB ports, an ethernet port and a modem port, various audio in and outs, a card reader and a built-in webcam. Tellingly, there are no display inputs, which suggests this might be an iMac-alike all-in-one.

Laptop Mag also points out the Denon logo bottom right, which leads to speculation that this is some kind of standalone entertainment unit, especially if it contains a rumored TV tuner. Price, availability and actual real specs are all still unavailable, but one thing is sure. The March of the Eee continues.

The end of Windows XP next Monday

Software giant Microsoft will stop selling its ubiquitous XP operating system on Monday. But that doesn’t mean the seven-year-old software won’t continue contributing to the company’s financial performance for years to come. Terminating XP was expected. It comes just 18 months after Redmond, Wash.- based Microsoft introduced a new, more advanced operating system called Vista. While the new system is powerful, upgrading means spending lots of time and money to rework applications designed to run XP specifically. As a result, some companies, including Microsoft partner Intel Corp, have balked at adopting Vista, preferring instead to continue using XP.

Though Monday will be the last day Microsoft sells XP or provides free support for the “hundreds of thousands” of computers that are estimated to run on it, the company has come up with a novel way to wring money from the aging operating system: It is killing XP but isn’t letting it die. One way Microsoft will still make money from XP is by charging to provide support. Because the software continues to be popular, Microsoft’s “extended” support program is sure to generate lots more revenue. Microsoft will offer the program at least through 2014. That will likely attract lots of big corporate customers. Meanwhile, Microsoft will make more money by supplying XP to computer makers Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and others. Because Vista has had trouble making headway in the corporate market, computer makers have asked for “downgrade rights” - the right to continue offering XP on their notebook and desktop computers after.

Source: CNN

Bill Gates to retire from Microsoft on Friday

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was set Friday for his last day of full-time work at Microsoft - the company he founded 33 years ago on a hunch that personal computers would become an integral part of everyday life. The world’s largest software company said that it was not planning any public events to observe the transition, though the change would be marked by internal events. Gates, 52, will continue to hold the title of non-executive chairman and work about one day a week at Microsoft. He intends to devote the rest of his time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the wealthiest charity in the world, which is aimed at improving healthcare around the world and reducing extreme poverty. Founded with the vast fortune he made as Microsoft prospered, the foundation has an endowment of some 38.7 billion dollars with billions more expected to roll in as Gates transfers his massive personal wealth. Legendary investor Warren Buffet, currently the world’s richest man, has also pledged to transfer the vast majority of his wealth to the foundation.

Gates handed over his role as Microsoft chief executive to his long-time partner Steve Ballmer in 2000, when Gates became the company’s chief software architect. Under a carefully planned succession programme, Gate’s duties will be taken over by two top Microsoft executives. Ray Ozzie will be in charge of day-to-day management issues, while Craig Mundie will be in charge of long-term planning. The company, whose Windows operating system powers some 90 per cent of the world’s personal computers, has a market capitalization of about 260 billion dollars and employs more than 78,000 people in 103 countries. But even as its cash cow products of Windows and the Office productivity suite look set to continue their stellar earnings, Microsoft faces tough competition as Google’s online dominance threatens to cut into Microsoft’s core businesses.

Source: M&C

Omnia, competition for iPhone from Samsung

Samsung Electronics South Korea released on early Monday preview details on the company’s new smartphone, before the mania of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference begins in California. The Samsung Omnia (SGH-i900) is similar in looks and function to the Samsung Instinct (SPH-M800), but with a few more bells and whistles. For starters, it sounds like it has a very promising camera. With five megapixels and anti-shake technology, this may be the first camera on a phone that produces pictures you would actual think of printing, not just posting to Facebook. This is an improvement over the 2-megapixel cameras on both the first-generation iPhone and on the Samsung Instinct.

The touch-screen smartphone, which runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 and features Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Opera 9.5 as its Web browser, will also have Wi-Fi. That’s something the Instinct also lacks. Like the Instinct, the Omnia has visual voice mail, 3G capability, Bluetooth, an FM radio, and GPS functionality. The smartphone, of course, also doubles as a music player and, with 16GB, will be able to hold up to 4,000 songs or 100 minutes of video, according to Samsung. More details on the smartphone’s specs will follow when the Omnia (SGH-i900) is officially unveiled on June 17 at Communicasia, the 2008 Singapore Expo. The Omnia (SGH-i900) will become available in Southeast Asia first and then be launched to other markets over the second half of 2008, according to Samsung.

Source: Crave

The Dell Mini Notebook

Dell CEO Michael Dell was showing off a cherry-red mini notebook at the D6: All Things Digital conference this week. This will be Dell's first entry into the now-hot market for subnotebooks, which has taken off in the last 6 months with the unexpected success of the Asus EeePC.

After eagle-eyed Gizmodo editor Brian Lam spotted the notebook, Mr. Dell gave him an exclusive closeup look at the thing, and a little later Dell officially confirmed the subnotebook's existence. No details on specs yet, though the company is saying the product is a response to a call they made to the user community to help the company design a mini laptop.

But if you go by the initial impression of the blog community, the unnamed mini-Dell might be one generation behind.

Why? The screen seems a bit-too small (it looks like 7- 7 ½ inches), and looks a bit chunky compared to the newest Eee PC.

There's a Windows key on the released picture, and Dell has a long history with Microsoft, but it wouldn’t surprise us if they also offered a Linux option.

I looks like the laptop includes a web cam, average-sized keys (edging all the way towards the end of the case) and as Lam pointed out, three USB ports, a card reader, a VGA port and an Ethernet port.

Samsung plans 256GB SSD drive this year

Samsung Electronics plans to launch within this year a flash memory-based solid-state disk that boasts a 256GB capacity and high-speed interface, it said Monday. The drive, which was unveiled in prototype form at a Samsung event in Taipei, has the same form factor as a 9.5-millimeter high 2.5-inch hard-disk drive for which it is designed to be a drop-in replacement. Solid-state disks (SSDs) are an emerging type of storage device that use flash memory chips in place of the spinning magnetic disks used in hard-disk drives.

The memory chips mean the drives are more sturdy and typically have a higher performance but the per-byte storage cost is also much higher, so they are generally more expensive. That has largely restricted them to niche applications but as flash prices come down they are expected to become more widely used. The prototype drive announced today by the company has a read speed of 200M bytes per second (Bps) and a sequential write speed of 160M Bps, said Samsung. Samples of the drive will be available to customers from September with mass production due by the end of the year. A version with a similar form factor to a 1.8-inch drive is also expected to be available in the fourth quarter of the year, the company said.

Source: PC World

Tiny USB Digital Camera

Check out this fun concept camera from designer Sungwoo Park called "Eazzzy". Eazzzy is an 'Easy digital camera' that requires no additional connector for transferring data to other devices. It has no viewfinder, no LCD screen and only one button. Its just a prototype for now and I don’t think it has a good picture quality. The concept is pretty awesome anyway.

A Golden iPod for David Beckham's!!!

To celebrate David Beckham’s 100th contribution to the English national football team, his colleagues got him a 32Gb iPod Touch that’s been personalised just for him in gold. As you can see it is not just your standard Apple product but rather a golden 32-gigabyte personalised version to mark the occasion. Congratulation Becks!


Source

Samsung SGH E490 : Sleek, Stylish, Sexy

Couldn't help posting a review on the Samsung SGH E490, since I've been using it for the last 10 months and have fallen in love with it...

Personally I'm not a big fan of the 'open and answer' flip or clamshell phone design. To each his own right. But I have to say, quite a few manufacturers have taken it to whole new level, with sleek and stylish designs and dual screens. Let's not leave out the colors. Well, not all of them may be as appealing as the next but most manage to pull it off without a hitch. A good example of fashion and elegance in a flip phone is the Samsung SGH – E490.

Like I said before, the design of the E490 is quite elegant with a smooth metallic color finish and the cool style is only accentuated with the silver linings. It's also rather slim and lightweight for a flip with dimensions like - 94 x 49 x 15.5 mm and it weighs 83g. On the front you'll see a monochrome screen (128 x 32 pixel resolution) that’s just 32 x 8 mm wide, but has a choice of 7 colors in case you'd like to go with one that matches the replaceable panels you may have chosen. Yes the panels are changeable too. Just above the screen is the 1.3 megapixel camera.

On the right hand side is the Hot-Swap microSD slot for external memory and the dedicated camera key is just underneath that. On the other side are the propriety USB/Charger/Earphone socket. Why oh why couldn't they just have another socket for the earphones? Anyways, moving along, underneath that are the volume keys that also double as the zoom keys. Flip her open and you have the clear 176 x 220 pixel, TFT screen with 65K colors. Just beneath the screen are 2 speakers that aren't great but they aren't so bad in speaker-phone mode. I have to admit, I thought the keypad would pose a bit of a problem but thanks to the large keys and the 5 way nav-pad I had absolutely no issues. There are also 3 dedicated keys for the MP3 player, messaging and the browser. Ain't tat sexy... :) My Samsung SGH E490...

Detailed Specifications
Source
...'B'...

Fly Launches The 'Hummer'

Fly, the flagship brand of Meridian Mobile, today launched its most awaited phone, the Hummer. For this purpose, French handset maker ModeLabs has carried over GM's (General Motors) Hummer license to the mobile phone. This design has been styled after the Hummer car and comes in three colors — Yellow, Military camouflage and Black.


Also present for the occasion was Malaika Arora Khan, who is the brand ambassador of Fly Phones. "When I came to know about the phone first, my first impression was that the phone is obviously for the males. Having used it, however, I feel quite differently now," she said.


The Hummer comes with a 262K color LCD with touch screen, a 2MP camera, 256MB MicroSD card bundled, FM radio and MP3 player. The phone is just one amongst 15 more to be launched in the next quarter itself, as informed by CEO, Rajiv Khanna. "We have plans to get really aggressive in the market, but as of now the strategy calls for streamlining the business channels before we can start work on branding," he said.

The phone will cost Rs. 10,000 in the market and is customized with Hummer paint color.

Source

Third-gen Zune to hit in 2009, make it to Europe

Seeing how long it took the Zune to make it over the northern border and into Canada, it shouldn't be any surprise that it's going to take even longer to get to Europe -- not until late next year, according to the director of Microsoft France. The wait should be worth it, though: that's when the third generation of Zunes will be released, as well as a Europe-friendly version of the Zune Marketplace. There are also some sketchy rumors that Windows Mobile 7 devices will be able to take advantage of Zune content and services, but it doesn't look like Microsoft has anything to say about that yet -- but if that goes down you know a Zune phone is right around the corner.

Diamond-studded iPod shuffle to be auctioned in London

Yeah, there's a lot of good, civically-minded things you could do with your cash... but wouldn't it be more fun to blow it on a 1GB iPod? If you're dying to prove how little £20,000 (or around $40,000) means to you, here's your chance. A jeweler named Thomas Heyerdahl has created an 18 karat, diamond studded, white and pink gold iPod shuffle, meant to be auctioned at a charity in London. We've seen an almost identical version which appeared to be selling just for the heck of it -- at least this one seems to be going to good cause.

Source

Intel launches super small Atom processors

Intel Corp. is launching a branding campaign for a forthcoming family of ultra-small chips, hoping to drive demand for two emerging categories of computing devices. The company will use the name Atom in marketing a new microprocessor line that has two variants. One chip, previously known by the code name Silverthorne, is designed to be the calculating engine for pocket-sized gadgets that Intel calls MIDs, for mobile Internet devices. The other chip to carry the Atom brand, code-named Diamondville, is designed for low-end laptop and desktop computers expected to cost around $250.Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., also plans to introduce the brand Centrino Atom for a “platform” of technologies for mobile Internet devices, including a Silverthorne chip and a companion Intel chip that includes graphics functions.

The phrase extends the Centrino brand that Intel introduced in 2003 for technology used in laptop computers. The chip measures less than 25mm square and is packed with 47 million transistors. “This is our smallest processor built with the world’s smallest transistors,” said Intel Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Sean Maloney. “This small wonder is a fundamental new shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience on these new devices. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the industry.”

Source: Intel, WSJ

Apple launches MacBook Air

THINNOVATION

"Thin and airy fairy"

STEVE JOBS IS usually full of hot air, but this time it might be of use.

Jobs revealed the aluminum-bodied MacBook Air is 0.16 inches at its thinnest point, 0.76 inches at its thickest point and weighs just 3.0 pounds.

"When you first see MacBook Air, it's hard to believe it's a high-performance notebook with a full-size keyboard and display. But it is," said Jobs.

Oddly we fully believed it.

The MacBook Air features Intel Core 2 Duo power (1.6GHz standard, 1.8GHz optional), 2GB of memory, Intel GMA X3100 graphics, a 13.3" LED-backlit display and an 80GB, 1.8" HDD for storage.

A 64GB SSD (Solid-State Disk) is also an option on the MacBook Air.

The screen has a standard resolution of 1280 by 800, running on an Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory.

To keep its thin form-factor, the MacBook Air contains only one USB 2.0 port, a micro-DVI port and an audio-out jack, choosing to remove the usual optical drive and ethernet ports.

Other features include the usual iSight web-camera and backlit keyboard. Apple includes 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 as standard.

As rumours suggested, the new MacBook also comes with a multi-touch trackpad, allowing owners to use the same gestures that iPhone and iPod touch users have grown accustomed to.

Source

...'B'...

Microsoft’s 2Q profits through the roof

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday posted a second-quarter profit that surpassed analysts’ estimates on sales of its Xbox 360 game console and Windows programs for personal computers. The world’s largest softwaremaker reported a 79 percent jump in net income, to $4.71 billion, or 50 cents a share, from $2.63 billion, or 26 cents a share, a year earlier. The most recent result surpassed estimates by 4 cents a share. Sales climbed 30 percent, to $16.4 billion. In the year-ago quarter, Microsoft deferred $1.64 billion in sales, cutting revenue and profit. PC sales rose more than Microsoft forecast, bolstering orders for Windows and Office programs. Holiday purchases of the Xbox 360 also fueled revenue, as shoppers bought the console to play the “Halo 3″ shooting game, unavailable on rival systems such as Nintendo Co.’s Wii.

“Halo 3″ became the best-selling game in the U.S. last year after its Sept. 25 debut, according to researcher NPD Group Inc. In the Windows business, the Redmond, Wash.-based company gained by persuading PC-makers to install pricier versions of its Vista operating system. PC shipments rose 15.5 percent in the quarter, according to researcher IDC. Microsoft had projected an increase of as much as 13 percent. It looks that Bill sticks to the old saying and leaves his company at the best time…

Source: Chicago Tribune

Corsair introduces first 32 GB flash drive

The capacities of USB flash drives are constantly increasing and Corsair achieved another milestone with their latest product: they are rolling out two 32 GB drives. The Flash Voyager and its more studier cousin, the Flash Survivor, both sport 256-bit AES encryption. The drives are also bootable. Coated in rubber, the Flash Voyager is fairly sturdy in its own right, but Corsair claims the aluminum-encased Survivor is shockproof and waterproof up to 200 meters.

The Flash Voyager and Flash Survivor are commercially available now for $230 and $250 respectively. Both drives come with a 10-year limited warranty. Early adopters are reporting the drives have fairly respectable 21 MB/sec read and 7 MB/sec write speeds. Get rid of your 128 meg crapdrive, this is the future!

Source: TG Daily