The Zone

By golly! two new gadgets to drool about today! First off, like what hoobs mentioned yesterday, Apple has launched three new iPods that mostly have the same functions, only in different skins.

On the left, you have your lonely shuffle, followed by the new Video nano, 'classic' iPod and iPod Touch. In comparision to the iPod Touch, the iPhone sits placidly beside it. We still want the phone instead as the Touch only touts 16GB of flash-based memory and WiFi. 

In other news, HP, in conjunction with Voodoo has launched its (or rather, their) astoundingly beatiful sclupture, the Blackbird 002. Check out the pics after the jump!

I just recently came back from the MSI Media Tour 2007 in Shanghai, China so I apologise for the lack of updates on my side. While it isn't my first time visiting an assembly factory, it was for me for a notebook and motherboard assembly plant so watching its production unfolds was a terribly interesting endeavour. It's a pity we couldn't take any shots of our own, so all of the factory production shots that you'll see in the upcoming report for this trip are basically stock photos approved by MSI.

What I was surpised most of all was how much of the assembly work is still done manually by hand instead of by machine, judging by the hundreds of assembly workers at the factory. I had always thought that notebooks were always churned out by the dime by machines. 

Remember Gateway? They had a huge presence in Malaysia until Dell and Acer came-a-calling; now, after being bought out by Acer, which uses the brand name to penetrate the US market has revealed (sort of) the Gateway One, a purpose-built all-in-one PC. Hey, if Apple could do it with Intel hardware, how hard can it be?

When you think the Japanese are not crazy enough over their hobbies, this piece of news shows you how fandom can get you in trouble. Six bureaucrats from Japan's Agricultral Ministry were reprimanded for editing the Wikipedia entry on Gundams at work. One of them has 260 articles to his name. 260 wikis!!

"The Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam," said ministry official Tsutomu Shimomura. LOL for us.

In other happenings, there's a new WiFi shirt available for you mobile warriors that goes blink blink whenever you wander towards a WiFi access point. The cooler thing is that the WiFi logo itself is detachable and stuck on to other good things such as your backpack, your car, dog/cat, kid..... It works with Wireless-B and G networks as well!

A quick heads up to competitive gamers, because Intel's mega cyber gaming competition is coming to town! Intel's Rampage Asia cyber-gaming tournament will see 15 countries around the region competing for up to US$70,000 in cash prizes! The games to be played are Warcraft III and Counter-Strike 1.6, which I'm sure many of us players will be well-versed in.

Here's the list of the following 10 cybercafes that will be participating in the tournament. If you register at the selected cybercafes during that period you get a free Intel Unstoppable T-shirt, while the first 20 early birds will get a cap as well.   

Of course if you're too lazy to haul yourself to the cybercafe you can register online at the official webpage at http://intel.wcgzone.com. With just over a week away to the first comp it's time to start breaking out your trash talking dictionary again!

Who would have ever thought that a flash hard drive would be so expensive??? Well, you DO get 640GB worth of data, but if you smart alecks are placing your page file on it, be prepared to shell out for more than USD19000 and a whole load of data. The good things about this flash-based drive is that you get loading speeds as fast as your DDR2 memory runs, and it's PCIE based, not to mention that heat output is negligible.

So who's buying? I know I would want one. 

Yesterday at the World GameMaster Tournament Malaysia Finals, we managed to cradle Asus' baby of their notebook family, the Asus Eee PC. Unfortunately the battery was flat so we weren't able to check out its OS and applications. We still managed to get a nice, hands on look of its build, interfaces, and features.

Click the jump for more pictures!

Just came back from LowYat Plaza where XFX just launched the XFX GeForce 8800 GT in Malaysia, the first official launch of NVIDIA's new GeForce 8800 GT in the country. Click the jump for more pictures of the launch and images of XFX's spiffy new card! 

Looks cute eh? Certainly, there are some minus points to be had with such a tiny keyboard and screen, but hey, a million has been sold to an unnamed government, it sold out in Taiwan, and a certain shop in USJ ran out, or rather, is running out of stock. Only RM1299 gets you 512MB of DDR2 RAM, a 4GB SSD (with 1.3GB free space) and ultraportability. Too bad we couldn't win one - we mistakenly registered as media at the photoshoot contest. *sob sob* Anyways, there's also the upcoming 8GB model, along with a cut-down 2GB 'surf' version which omits games and the like for a lean mean machine. And black units are coming soon, so enjoy yours while you can :D

Continuing our love affair with the new Asus EeePC is the latest news that the company is planning a desktop version of their cut-down notebook for senior citizens and children. I've mixed feelings about this: while I think it's a great idea for new users or young children to dip their fingers into the world of IT, the mention that it will most likely not come with a monitor. Bummer. Not to mention you can now build a budget desktop systems for under RM1300, the same price of the Asus EeePC notebook.

Asus will need to pull off a hattrick for the desktop version for it to offer more features than the Asus EeePC, yet remain price competitive, which won't be an easy feat for a notebook that offers quite a fair amount of features for so little. We'll be following their EeePC desktop development news closely. 

Read 

A quick look-see of the 305T Plus from Samsung. If you liked the previous Samsung SyncMaster 305T then you'll like the 305T Plus as practically all the features have been retained. It should be great for DVI-D port devices like PCs and PS3s.  Watch for the full review in HWM June 2008. Just remember, don't sit too close kids!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the first and only Western Digital terabyte hard disk drive in Malaysia and we won it during their Green Power Hard Drive launch this morning! The Green Power range of hard disk drives gives up to 40% energy savings and they come in 500GB, 750GB, and 1 Terabyte flavors. Unfortunately I didn't win it but my colleague who did asked me to pose since I'm less scrawny than him. ;)

Raw, raw, fight the power!

Asus has recently launched the low-end Nova PC boasting a 2l size and design that will spice up any room it's in. Details are still sketchy, although we do know from the Inquirer that it sports an E6320 processor and will cost about USD1000 (about RM3400).

The Nova is in the middle (not the girl, the PC!)

Mimos Bhd has announced that they're releasing a low-cost computer dubbed the "Mak-Chik" computer for rural users. The model can be plugged into a TV and comes with a wireless Internet connection. The price? Only RM500. The Mak-Chik computer is expected to be released in the first half of 2008.

I haven't seen any pictures of this new "Mak-Chik" computer but it's a pretty neat idea. Will this be a strong contender to Asus' own upcoming Eee PC desktop model? I'm really curious how its specs will be like.