The Zone

It's pretty much confirmed, even though Microsoft refuses to comment on the rumors: the Xbox 360 Elite is on its way. That's the name of the new Xbox 360 with the 120GB HDD and HDMI port, which both <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/20/xbox-360-elite-new-black-limited-edition-xbox-with-hdmi-and-120gb-drive/">Engadget</a> and April Issue of Game Informer has gotten from their sources. The black color will be released in limited quantities, eventually replacing the current Xbox Premium.

They're expected to be available sometime late April, though Microsoft will apparently churn out an official press release in early April. Price? US$479 (RM1600...though expect the price to be jacked up when it comes to Malaysia). 

To be honest, the Xbox 360 Elite looks like sex. I'd get one, if not for my limited budget. If the price is too high when it comes down over here, I'll just stick to the regular white Xbox Premium.  

Read

We admit that sometimes we have a tendency to be on the ecowarrior side, but then again, things like Steorn and that so-called free energy movement made little or no impact on us due to their vaporware status. If its not available yet, or its still lurking in the pages of PopSci, then we're not buying in. What we're buying in though, is this -

(images are copyright of Digital Chosunilbo)

Those look like gears, no? The basic principle is that wind pushes the paddles on the gears, and each gear is connected to the other, meaning that if a single gear moves, the whole apparatus moves, and that allows for an almost 24 hours charging cycle, provided you've got winds of over 2MPH blowing. Since our office is always buffeted by strong winds, and 20 of them gearwheels cost only US$25 (but of course, we'll still need the capacitors and the batteries and the electronics to keep the charge as electrically 'clean' as possible), prices will sure drop once it reaches mass-production (which is coming sooner than 2009). 

Talk about geeks going green!!! XD

full sauce here = Digital Chosunilbo 

To drop or not to drop? That is the question? When we were told that the  Twinhead Durabook is durable enough to resist shock, drops, and water spillage, we couldn't resist putting the rather beefy notebook to the test.

So did the Twinhead Durabook notebook survived our torture tests? Find out in next month's HWM issue. :D

We're not sure of what's up Samsung's sleeves, but they just released these concept designs that could probably change the view of how we look at and use computers. Probably they were high on something, though as Harry Potter could use one while he's wearing it.

The last one above looks like an Ikea breakfast tray - something good to have if you love watching p0rn eating breakfast while watching Bloomberg on your bed 

If this is real, then Superman should be, too! Scientists have found evidence that Kryptonite is real and present (for the lack of a better word) on Earth and that it has 'remarkable chemical similarities' to the fictional mineral.

Confirmed to be a totally new phenomenon by Brtish and Canadian scientists, the new substance, called Jadarite is not in the green crystallized form that we all learned to love, but its now in a white, powdered form.

Our only hope it that it isn't Tiberium (notice the similarities between Clark Kent's Kryptonite and Tiberium?) 

Heya, how’s everyone? Hope you guys enjoyed the long May Day weekend break. We’re all back in the office and it’s back to work, work, work.

I wanted to update the blog last Thursday about my trip to China but due to technical errors I was unable to do so. I’ll later update that day with part 1 of the trip, so don’t be surprised to find a new backdated entry when browsing the blog entry archives later. :3

In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of NVIDIA’s latest high-priced big boy card to rule all current video cards in the market – the NVIDIA 8800 Ultra. It’s basically an overclocked 8800GTX with a slightly higher overclock of 615MHz for its core clock and 2.15GHz memory clock (effective).

So how much will it cost you? Well, pretty much nearly a whole new desktop system. The Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is US$829. That’s right, a whopping US$829 for a slight bump in clock speed and readjusted fan cooler. Sure it may boast better overclockability but for a reported increase of only just 10% – 15% over the standard 8800GTX, the 8800 Ultra doesn’t really sound like it offers much value for money, considering that when it arrives in Malaysia it'll probably cost more than RM3K.

But if you absolutely want the best performing card in the market and/or you live in a gold-plated mansion, the cost of an 8800 Ultra may seem like peanuts to you.  Expect availability of the 8800 Ultra card by May 15th 2007 in limited quantities.  

One thing I really love about this job is the opportunity of traveling overseas for events and media familiarisation trips. Case in point, last week electrical goods giant Haier brought a bunch of us IT journalists and writers to check out their headquarters in China.

To be honest, most of the members of the media (including yours truly) on the trip never really thought much of the Haier brand until we saw the scale of their operations in China and worldwide did we realize the magnitude of their corporations; fly-by-night factory they aren’t. You will read more about them in next month's HWM special feature. In the mean time, check out the pics I took of the Canton Fair after the jump!

This piece of important news might be a little late but hey, better late than never. If you didn't already hear about it, TM (formerly known as TM Net) recently announced that its ploughing US$50 million (~RM175 million) in a massive project to build a undersea fiber optic cable from SEA all the way to the US. The entire project will actually take about US$500 million (~RM1.75 billion) and quite a few SEA telecommunications companies such as from Indonesia, Thailand and India are sharing the cost.

It is said that the main reason for the cable is SEA telecommunication companies are hoping to avoid the recurrence of last year's Taiwan earthquake debacle. If you don't remember, the quake pretty much severed most SEA countries from the Internet for several weeks. The new cable expected to be ready in late 2008, will bypass the quake and volcano prone North Asia, and we should have nothing to worry about if any quake hits or volcano erupts in the future.

More importantly though, TM said that it's data capacity will go up from 60Gbps to 75Gbps when the cable is ready. Will this mean faster broadband speeds for everyone? 2Mbps speeds (or more) for the home? TM says its possible but we'll wait and see on this one. The new cable will surely create excess bandwidth and we hope that TM will deliver on that promise. At the very least, we just hope that we will be able to finally get the true speeds that we subscribed to. 

Original link here (via The Star)

I'm now at the HP Mobility Summit in Shanghai, where HP is now showing off their latest lineup of notebooks, iPAQs, and mobile video solutions. One of the main stars of the show were their new HP Pavilion HDX notebook, aka "The Dragon". More pics after the jump!

Class and sophistication in a notebook? Why not, says Acer. Check out these pictures of their recent launch after the jump.

The inevitable has finally happened. In a move that has been a long time coming, any Xbox 360 that is detected to be modded while logged on to the Live service will be permanently banned. Microsoft did not reveal how the checks are made but there are reports of "innocent" owners being accidentally banned at this point in time (see here). Also, there are numerous reports by modded users across various forums that their 360s are unaffected... yet.

According to the infamous 360 community rep Major Nelson (see here & here), the reason of Microsoft wielded the banhammer was to stamp out the hackers and cheaters, but don't rule out software piracy as one of the driving reasons as well. Piracy on the Xbox 360 is still relatively a "minor" issue for Microsoft in these parts of the world but perhaps there is more to this story that it appears to be?  

Could this mean that a local Xbox 360 launch in Malaysia (or in countries heavily ravaged by software piracy) is on the cards? Although it's too premature to assume such a move will happen and since we don't have any solid evidence to back our theory up - our theory will remain a theory.  

Our little birds inside the big M in Singapore and Malaysia concur that Microsoft currently has no plans to launch the 360 locally, but at the same time, they also said that the company is constantly and closely monitoring the situation. Now with this online ban in effect, there should be some positives changes to Microsoft's current stand.    

As much as we like to speculate about the situation, it could be just wishful thinking really. The ban on modded consoles to deny access to the Live service is great, but it doesn't really stop consumers from getting one to play offline exclusively. And let's face it, a sizeable portion of local 360 owners (modded or otherwise) do not take their 360 online. In a way, the ban doesn't really affect them at all.

Nevertheless, the online ban is still great news for the local 360 and gaming scene. By denying gamers the key component of the entire Xbox 360 experience, it could spur potential buyers to opt for an original unit instead. But then again, this is just round one. We expect the hacker/modder community to retaliate with updated hacked firmware or improved stealth modchips. The question is would you want to be part of this cat and mouse game?  

Times are achanging all right but we sure do hope that it's for the better.  

How cool can the Nintendo DS anymore get? From the 21st of May, All secondary schools in the city of Yawata in Kyoto, Japan will be using the Nintendo DS as a learning tool for English. The move was undertaken after a previous trial run with 3rd year students showed a 40% improvement in vocabulary. Now they'll officially introduce it to all 2nd year students in the prefecture.

Will any enterprising local game developer step up to introduce an SPM/STPM version? It would probably sell like hot cakes here.

Read

This nifty mobile phone concept was uncovered late last night on the front page of product design firm kimmu. While it is really an intruiging design, melding aromatherapy and communications, I wonder how would you have access to your SIM contacts and SMS-es when there's no indication of a screen?

Furthermore, won't sweaty palms or pockets make the smells go all wrong? Some food for though, eh?

How rugged is the Corsair Survivor flash memory? Very rugged, according to one tech website that made it went through a torture test from hell. Not only did they submerge it in a swimming pool, they boiled it in a pot of water and whacked it with a hammer. And the Corsair Survivor still performed fine. Now that's a real Survivor. Price? USD 80 - 150 for an 8GB drive. Expensive, but when you need to transfer files at the top of Mount Everest, I guess it would come in handy. 

Read

Business Week has released pictures of what it seems to be the world's thinnest notebook. Intel posed a challenge to its engineers to create a fashionable, and slim notebook that has the ability to connect to wireless networks - any wireless network.

While the lady isn't really a good scale in terms of slimness, rest assured, the gallery over at Business Week showed that a motorola RAZR looked fatter than the notebook which is touted to use only the latest Intel processing technologies. 

More at Business Week, including a photo slideshow