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Goodbye, Norma Jean: Apple’s “Get a Mac” Ads are over

Posted: 08 Apr 2010 05:22 AM PDT

Of two things I was always sure: that people would not talk to me at parties and that Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads would be around forever. I imagined showing my grandchildren the ads in 2040, explaining that once, a long time ago, the animated corpse of John Hodgman used to be a real man and now as he capers about on our 3D holoscreen talking about the PC’s lack of a fission reactor power supply, gobbets of preserved flesh strung up like a puppet on a skeleton of titanium, well, you can still see some of that same schlubby good humor in that soulless meat pop that I enjoyed back in 2010, before the Happening. That will never happen, people. Apple is discontinuing the campaign.

In an interview with AV Club Long said that Apple hasn’t brought them back into the studio in a long while and that he believes they’re going to “move on.”

Quoth he:

“You know, I think they might be done. In fact, I heard from John, I think they’re going to move on. I can’t say definitively, which is sad, because not only am I going to miss doing them, but also working with John. I’ve become very close with him, and he’s one of my dearest, greatest friends. It was so much fun to go do that job, because there’s not a lot to it for me. A lot of it is just keeping myself entertained between takes, and there’s no one I’d rather do it with than John.”

Goodbye, sweet princes.

via Giz

Plastic Logic Que to ship around June 24th

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 08:00 PM PDT


It’s sexy and expensive, like a solid gold lady, but the Que is struggling with the usual first-run production woes. At least we have a shipping date now: June 24th. It’s my favorite of the “vanilla” e-readers, but I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ll ever hold one?

Surprise, surprise: Modern Warfare 2 map pack breaks records

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 07:30 PM PDT

Here’s another one to file in the “Duh” cabinet. Although at least one person resisted its siren call, that didn’t stop millions of war-crazy gamers from buying Modern Warfare 2’s Stimulus Package map since its release last week.

Now, it was no big secret that it would sell like gangbusters (in spite of that $15 price tag), but the real figures probably have Activision execs seeing stars. According to a recent press release, sales have shattered Xbox Live records for downloadable content: 1 million people downloaded it within 24 hours, and more than 2.5 million copies were sold within the first week of its release. We here at CrunchGear would like to offer our most sincere congratulations to all parties involved, but seriously, can we get more than 5 maps next time?

Two new pirate jokes relating to Apple

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 07:00 PM PDT


Q: On what chipset do pirates like to build their tablet platforms?
A: AAAAARRRRRRRRM A8

Q: What carrier do pirates have their iPhones on?
A: Matey&T (okay, that one needs to be done out loud)

Why yes, I did just make those up! Thank you, you’re so kind.

Samsung’s new webcam sensors are “high performance, high definition” – kind of

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 06:30 PM PDT


When the first 720p webcams came out, I was pretty skeptical. And I still am, considering that their image quality isn’t very good. I mean, you may as well stick with 640×480; at least it’ll be clear. 1280×720 pixels is a lot to ask from a sensor the size of a ladybug. And those cheap little lenses simply can’t resolve the detail necessary to justify such a pixel count. But that won’t stop Samsung. They’re going to pump out tiny, “HD” sensors like there’s no tomorrow.

I don’t know, guys. It just seems silly to be pushing “definition” when the product really has none. I don’t speak merely of the Samsungs, which of course I haven’t seen yet, but pretty much every cheap HD product out there. What’s the point of resolution if you lose out on smooth motion, good color, and clear edges? But alas, “HD” sells. Expect even the lowest-end laptops to be sporting HD webcams soon. At least you can probably choose VGA in the settings.

Another pico projector, this one from Sapphire

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 06:00 PM PDT


I never thought I’d see the day when pocket-sized projectors would be so thick on the ground that I can’t tell the difference between them. Well, that day is come. While the big guys (TI, HP, 3M, and others without two-character acronyms) have their own entries into the pico-projector field, there are a ton of me-toos out there that don’t really add anything to the equation. Try as I might, I can’t find any significant differences between this new thing and the MPro150 I just reviewed.

That said, competition is good, and this thing doesn’t look any worse — although it does cost a bundle and a half. Over $500 and it doesn’t have any internal storage? I don’t know. I’ll have some of the newer generation to review soon, so we’ll see if this thing is outclassed or merely overpriced.

[via Expert Reviews]

Hacker says he’s got Linux on the PS3 again

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 05:30 PM PDT


It was only last week, on the 1st, when Sony announced it’d be removing the Install Other OS option from the PS3 — an option already missing on the PS3 Slim. Predictably, there was outrage, and now, a hack. Renowned hackster Geohot has shown that by a simple restore trick, you can get 3.21 to let you install another OS — but if you’ve already updated and lost the ability, there’s nothing you can do at the moment.

It follows the pattern we always see, illustrated above. It probably won’t be long before a more thorough hack is released that allows updated PS3s to run Linux. Thanks to Geohot for his hard work, and no thanks to Sony for trying to tell its loyal customers what they can and can’t do with their console.

[via Kotaku]

The Dell Latitude E6410 ATG has attitude

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 04:36 PM PDT

What do you get when you combine the new Dell Latitude E6410 with a semi-rugged frame? Obviously this ATG model. Yeah, I know, lame joke but I don’t have time to to think of a more clever intro so deal with it.

The Latitude E6410 ATG is basically that. It has the same Core i5 and Core i7 options, the same available hard drives, RAM, webcam and WXGA screen as the non-G.I. Joe model. The only options it doesn’t seem to have is the discrete NVIDIA graphics and optional WXGA+ screen. This model even comes with Dell’s Latitude ON instant on OS. So yeah, this model is just like the standard version.

But this tough guy has been certified to the military standard 810G for shock, vibration, temperature, humidity, and altitude — it looks the part, too. Inside is Dell’s Tri-Metal case, fast-response free-fall-sensor on the hard drive and reinforced display for additional insurance.

The base Core i5, 1GB of RAM model runs $2,114. However, if you happen to have a company credit card handy, you can easily spec one out that includes a Core i7, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, mobile broadband, and a Blu-ray drive for just under $5k. You’ll have to wait a bit for this one even though Dell is now accepting orders. The product page says it won’t ship until 4/23 so you’ll have a good amount of time coming up with an excuse why you spent your boss’s slush fund on a semi-rugged notebook.

The Dell Latitude E6410 and E6510 bring Core i5, Core i7, and discrete graphics

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 04:19 PM PDT

Dell has been building notebooks under the Latitude nameplate, well, forever, right? It seems that way, but the series keeps trucking on as the company continues to load the latest goods onto the platform. The E6410 and E6510 builds upon the success of the previous generation but ditches the 2009 specs for chips that are a bit more 2010.

Gone are the Core 2 Duo CPUs. They have been replaced with Core i5 and Core i7 options. The graphics are now taken care of by either an Nvidia NVS 3100M 512MB DDR3 or Intel HD GPU. Hard drives options vary from a 500GB 7200RPM, a few 5400RPM drives, or 256MB SSD. Really the only thing that seems to be used from the current generation is the 14.1 WXGA or WXGA+ LED LCD and 15.6 HD options — even the chassis got recevied some upgrade love.

Dell is now using its Tri-Metal casing for the E6410 and E6510. That brings not only a aluminum, magnesium allow, and steel chassis, but also reinforced hinges and beefed-up latches to the mix as well. It’s available in three colors, as well.

The notebooks are available now with prices starting out at $1,014 for a stripped-down Core i5 package, but can climb with the base Core i7 model starting at $1,750.

This is the best fan-made Call of Duty: Modern Warfare live action movie you’ll see today

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 03:51 PM PDT

Actually, it might be the best fan-made Call of Duty: Modern Warfare live action movie you’ll ever see, and it only cost $209.42 to make says the YouTube description. Here’s hoping that part 2 comes real soon.

Samsung Spinpoint MP4: A 2.5-inch 640GB 7200 RPM drive meant for us

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 02:52 PM PDT


Doesn’t it seem like 2.5-inch hard drives have been stuck at 500GB for a while? Well, Samsung is the latest to announce its next-gen hard drive platform and while it doesn’t have the same 750GB capacity as WD’s latest 5400 RPM drive, we’ll take the Sammy’s 7200 RPM speed with a little less storage any day.

The Spinpoint MP4 is now available in 250GB, 320GB, 500GB, and 640GB capacility. It offers the standard 16MB of onboard cache and SATA 3Gbit/s interface. The company expects it to build upon the success of its 640GB 5400 RPM drive that it release last year. That’s great, but all we care about is getting faster drives in our notebooks. There’s even talk about offering it in external form later this year as well.

Joule iPad stand is $129 of pure art

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 01:49 PM PDT


Need a fancy pants stand for your iPad? Have $129 to spend? Get yourself a crazy Joule stand. The Joule basically holds your iPod in a standing positon and its made from a few pieces of solid aluminum. It comes in polished or black anodized and you can request custom coatings or engravings.

This thing is almost totally handmade in California by the same guys who made the amazing Element Case.

Magnetically attached tilt foot at the rear allows for quick and easy view angle adjustments.
Rubber pads at the bottom assure a firm grip on any surface.
A velvet lined recess holds the iPad comfortably and securely.
Designed and made in California.
Limited quantities available.

Product Page

Zero Punctuation: God of War III

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 01:00 PM PDT

Summery: Kratos muders a lot of people. That’s it. (but it’s still entertaining to watch)

Review: The Apple iPad

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 11:52 AM PDT

In these times we have little opportunity for mystical religious experience. By “religious” I mean the feeling that something exciting is about to happen – whether after death or immediately, through the intercession of a divine being, a miracle in life. The neophilic mind has craved magic, craved the new and spectacular, since prehistory. Man deified thunder, worshiped the cave bear. Over time we have refined the impulse; we have learned to associate it with places and things of our own creation, which provoke the mystical feeling in themselves and in what they represent. Cathedrals were at once a site for worship and a site for awe, and our better natures were expressed in them for centuries.

These days a small minority of us, mostly situated in the developed world, have replaced the awe of religious experience with the awe of technological advancement. To further that line of thinking, the fanboy is, it can be argued, a new form of religious supplicant and the fanboy’s most prominent church is the Church of Apple.

The Apple iPad is like a great comet heralded in a cloud of rumor and tailed by equal parts excoriation and praise. I bring up the concept of religious experience because, for many of us, something like the iPad is the closest we get to the presence of a divine being. If you consider the situation, it is very mythic: we hear rumors of something; a prophet (Walt Mossberg) appears to tell us rumors of its coming; lesser prophets (bloggers, Gene Munster) talk up the coming; finally, it arrives with a tumult of excitement, lofted skyward by the high priest (Jobs). Unlike religious experience, however, a device cannot sustain us emotionally and so we are reduced to waiting for the next one… and the next. I know I’m getting metaphysical here and I apologize for this little exercise in throat clearing before I begin a review of one of the most anticipated products in several years. I’ve been thinking a lot about the juncture of belief aka “fanboyism” and technology and I think the iPad is a perfect example of the melding of these profane yet natural impulses.

Short Version
So with this we begin my iPad review. I’ll tip my hand right now: My official opinion is to wait. The device, as it stands, is so close to the original iPhone that you get a sense of Deja Vu when you open the box and are exposed to the empty canvas bare of apps. Out of the box it is, at best, a large iPod Touch. As Adam Engst wrote on Tidbits: "Here’s the thing that I’ve realized after using the iPad – it’s a blank slate, a tabula rasa." This is both good and bad. Because even the iBook store is not pre-installed, Kindle konverts may be disappointed and because most of the best functionality comes in the form of iWork for iPad and any number of apps and games, as a pure, unadulterated Apple artifact it is a bit underwhelming.

But what should you wait for?

I certainly enjoy using the device, and I will be purchasing a 3G model when it comes out because I don’t want to be tethered to Wi-Fi. You could also wait for the second generation and I think many of the unconverted iPhone users will take that route once they see enough iPads to get jealous. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s talk about…

The Device

As a piece of industrial design the iPad is gorgeous. It is surprisingly heavy – I suspect the glass gives it the heft – and curiously devoid of ports and buttons. Those unfamiliar with Apple’s mobile styling will wonder where the USB port and other slots are hidden and, obviously, there is no trick. The device has a single iPod-style jack at the bottom (but charges only on 10-watt USB ports so won’t charge from older pre-USB 2.0 computers), volume buttons under a screen position lock on the right side, and a headphone jack/mic on top along with a small outlet for a speaker on the bottom. Click here to hear a demo of recording quality.

The iPad is clearly something you have to take care of. The huge screen is just askin’ for a crackin’ and the rear side doesn’t fare well against whatever nitty-gritty crumbs, dust, and what-nots you might have on your table, making Apple’s $39 case (or another case of similar quality) a must. The case, incidentally, also doubles as a stand so you can use the iPad like a little TV on your airplane tray. With a tap of a button the iPad also doubles as a digital picture frame.

Communications

Wi-Fi on the iPad is a bit of a mixed bag. When you’re too far from the base station you’ll either work fine or, in some cases, won’t have a connection at all. In situations where most of my devices have worked just fine using my home Wi-Fi the iPad suffered from outages. Apple has semi-acknowledged this problem, and it’s likely that future models will correct this if it isn’t addressed in a firmware update.

The Wi-Fi iPad has no real GPS chip. Instead it uses an assisted method that triangulates based on Wi-Fi signals. In my limited tests it did find me with some degree of accuracy. The 3G model will have assisted GPS as well as cellular triangulation. As it stands, the Wi-Fi model is not a sufficient dedicated GPS device replacement – not that you’d want this thing on your dashboard or, worse yet, out on the trail.

Because it transmits over the a/b/g/n Wi-Fi standards, you’re fairly future-proof. Page downloading and rendering is quite speedy and app and document downloads are also speedy over Wi-Fi.

Media Playback and Gaming

The iPad is an excellent media player out of the box. It plays AAC and MP3 files and syncs with iTunes without issue. The three step process for choosing videos, however, is a bit convoluted. First, you see your video list in thumbnail mode. Then you see the video information and a button to play. Finally, you see the (usually letterboxed) video. Audio quality is fine (your headphones have a lot to do with audio quality anyway) and video quality is excellent. Fans of HD video should be aware that the iPad supports up to 720p and not real 1080p HD. HD content will, of course, be resized for display on the 1024×768 display. The iPad supports, officially, H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second.

The iPod feature works like a standard iPod but, because of the larger screen, has more data on one page.

Photo viewing is not particularly noteworthy although you can now copy and paste images from multiple sources into other applications. For example, you can take an image from an iBook and paste it into a Pages document, a welcome productivity enhancement.

The iPad is actually a great tool for the photographer on the go. With the optional SD card or camera connector, viewing photos on this is made a matter of plug and play. I look forward to the inevitable camera tethering app.

Typing and input

The question is whether you can get work done on this device. My initial assessment is “yes” but with caveats. The keyboard in both modes is made for the thumbs. You can turn this thing into more formal typing machine if you put it down, and I’m pleased to note it works very well. Typing is an acquired taste and you will miss spaces and other punctuation if you go fast enough. Spell correction assists with most errors and the rest must be caught on the fly lest they pile up. All of that said, I just typed this entire paragraph on a subway train using my thumbs and all ten fingers, alternating typing styles as I went. I do not enjoy the feeling of hard glass on the delicate tips of my girlish fingers – I’m used to real keyboards – but the fact that I’m able to type comfortably is a revelation. One pet peeve: if you tap elsewhere on the screen with an errant finger your cursor moves quickly and imperceptibly. It’s a bit frustrating.

The standard iPhone OS design elements apply in his new device including the pop up magnifier for viewing text and all of the rotating item selection elements familiar to long time users. No surprises here.

Productivity

As I mentioned before, work can be done on this device. It is more laptop than it lets on. The iWork suite is the jewel in its productivity crown but almost everything else – email, notes, calendar – have been revamped and improved for the larger screen. Mail is a bit wonky in portrait view – a small window pops out of the account identifier and over your current message – but this is fixed when in landscape mode and you have a large, 3/4 screen dedicated to the message and a 1/4 section dedicated to a list of emails. Sadly, Mail still uses the iPhone's "single inbox per account" method. I think a universal inbox a la some Android and Blackberry phones would really make this shine, and some enterprising developer is certainly already working on this.

The defining metaphor for the address book and calendar is the common, paper datebook. The apps are photorealistic to a fault – Apple's design aesthetic has been heading in this direction more lately and I'm not sure I quite like it – but as it stands it's an nice way to see data that is often jumbled on other screens.

Because my mission here is to review the device "out of the box," I'm loath to mention Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. However, if you've used these apps on the desktop then you'll be pleased to note they're great on the iPad. The problem, however, is that the iPad versions of these apps support styles and do not allow you to change fonts on the fly. Obviously this is a limitation due to the storage size and processing power and I suspect it will soon be remedied.

The battery is amazing. It fell down to 60% after a full day of use including lots of gaming and movie watching. I was quite impressed and you will be as well.

iBook Reading

This is where I need to take the iPad again out of its virgin state and talk about an add-on app. Much lip service has been paid to the Kindle v. iPad debate and I think, right now, that point is moot. First, Amazon isn’t in the hardware business. The Kindle was their best guess at making an ebook reader and, not surprisingly, they succeeded with plenty of first mover advantage. But place the Kindle and the iPad together on the same table and it’s like looking at the man-chimp before and after it touches the monolith – in one scene it’s a bone flying into the air and in the next it’s a space station tumbling across the starscape. The difference is that stark.

But remember: the Kindle is not the machine. It’s the soul in the machine. Amazon could have created a thermal paper fax that allowed you to read books on the fly by spooling out from a 100-foot roll and, if we expected nothing better, thousands of us would buy it just to get the books more cheaply and efficiently than waiting for the mailman to arrive or, worse yet, walking into a Barnes and Noble. I’m being facetious, but the Kindle store changed a lot of things.

But remember: the Kindle store is also on the iPad. It’s an app. It works wonderfully, just like the iBook store. My only problem with the iBook store is a dearth of good content. I couldn’t find many books I wanted to read, but built-in ePub support as well as the very simple drag-and-drop method for adding and syncing books via iTunes makes using the app a real treat. The iBook store will not kill the Kindle store – Kindle is cross-platform and backed by the biggest bookstore in the world. However, the experience in the iBook store – again with its photorealistic reading metaphor – is just as nice as the Kindle’s. It’s really a matter of taste and frustration.

My advice? Don’t by the iPad for its e-reader functionality if you already own a Kindle. The Kindle is a very nice e-reader and, unless you think you need the backlit screen, you’re not getting much more than you’re already getting. The iPad is a good e-reader and it’s one of the best in a crowded market.

The Bad
First, the screen takes fingerprints like a mofo. A few minutes of use and it looks like you covered it in lard. It could just be me, obviously, and it probably is. However, invest in a box of tissues or a microfiber cloth. The screen also washes out in sunlight, making a tough sell if you’re trying to read books on a beach vacation.

I have a few very minor issues with the iPad as it stands. First, it’s hobbled by its lack of an SD card slot. As we’ve seen from a number of teardowns there is obviously enough real estate inside the case to fit an SD card slot but, as we know, Apple 1.0 products are very conservative.

I also haven’t gotten over the iPhone OS “buttons on a screen” UI that works so well on the iPhone. Because of the larger screen these buttons, in 4×5 configuration, have too much leading – or space – between them. While I like that it prevents the fat fingered from tapping the wrong button, I just feel like there is too much dead space on the screen. You can, however, add two extra icons to the bottom home bar, a boon to those who want to, well, add two extra icons to the tool bar. Unfortunately, I don’t see Apple allowing for further user configuration of their previous UI any time soon.

Other than that the iPad has no learning curve. I’m pleased with the keyboard and I like the apps. To be completely blunt, out of the box it’s a big iPod Touch but, because of its size and a few very key apps, it quickly becomes much more.

The Bottom Line

To return to my original point – the idea that the iPad is a “magical” thing in a decidedly unmagical world – I can honestly say that Apple got things right here in a way no one else has. The iPad excited us all so much that it’s kind of a let-down to hold the physical manifestation of that hype in your hands but, in the end, this is where we’re headed in terms of industrial design and use case. To look at the iPad in a vacuum devoid of history is to look at a magical device. To look at it with an understanding of what came before it is to look at it as a culmination in almost a decade of flailing by Microsoft and other device makers in the tablet space. The iPad is what we expect Geordi LaForge to carry on the Enterprise (but we’ll settle for Q and Data).

Again, as I said before, this is 1.0 hardware without cellular network capabilities. While Apple did sell 300 to 600 thousand of these things, I wouldn’t say that this device will be the popular incarnation and I expect the 3G model to be a bit more popular, especially with the a la carte service options.

The screen is beautiful. The productivity apps are usable if not excellent. The games are fun and rich. The form factor is striking. Like all new technologies it will take a while for this device to find its place in the world but when it does, watch out. While I won’t say we’re witnessing a miracle here, for folks who need to do a little browsing and a little text editing – along with a little gaming, a little file sharing, a little photo viewing, and all the rest – the iPad is definitely a device worth the investment.


This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Tune in at 3pm EDT for CrunchGear’s live podcast

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 11:51 AM PDT

Here are some of the topics from today’s podcast…

  • The Honda U3-X
  • iPad (sorry)
  • …and more

Feel free to call in at (646) 200-4163 to ask questions.

LISTEN: Show Link | RSS Feed | iTunes Link

USB 3.0 adoption could be slowed because of lack of demand

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 11:00 AM PDT

Willing to spend $300+ on a fancy motherboard just so you can get USB 3.0 support? Yeah, that might not be such a good idea, if only because Intel is in no hurry to integrate the spec into its chipsets. That means companies have to go out of their way to offer USB 3.0 on their systems. The odds of seeing USB 3.0 on a cheap-o netbook, then, are pretty much non-existent.

You can probably guess why this is happening: how many applications or devices really need the 5Gb/s speed offered by USB 3.0? Your printer and scanner don’t, and neither does your Flip. How much bandwidth does the typical USB mouse need? I’m going to guess not anywhere near 5Gb/s.

So if there’s no “mainstream” demand for it, then why would Intel et al. goes out of its way to offer it? USB 2.0 is “good enough” for most people, and if Apple has taught us anything in the past 10 years it’s that people are fine with “good enough” products.

This isn’t to say that USB 3.0 doesn’t have its uses. What if you spend all weekend shooting HD video for your student project, and don’t want to sit there all day while you offload the files onto your hard drive? You could save a few minutes there with USB 3.0 I suspect. (Are there even USB 3.0 video cameras yet? I have no idea.)

I imagine that as more and more people have USB 3.0 support, more and more companies will be all, “Cool, let’s release Product With USB 3.0 now!”

Chicken and egg, I suppose.


World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta pre-invites incoming!

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 10:30 AM PDT

Look what just showed up in my inbox! No details were mentioned, dates or anything like that, but I did submit my Battle.net account to the giant database in the sky. ¡Muy emocionante!

FoxSoccer.tv learns that Web sites work best when they’re actually online

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 10:00 AM PDT

Call me crazy, but Web sites usually work best when they’re online. Nobody knows this better than we do here at CrunchGear, where the site is down a good 20 percent of the time. But at the very least you’re not paying for our crummy service, unlike the poor FoxSoccer.tv customers. Fox wants $45 per season for online access to a whole host of content, including live games from all over the world. It’s really not a bad service when it works, but when it doesn’t work people freak out, and rightfully so.

As already mentioned, FC Messi beat Arsenal yesterday in the second leg of the quarter final of the Champions League. FC Messi now plays Inter in the semi-final. It was a monstrously big game, but if you were trying to watch it on FoxSoccer.TV you were greeted with an error message for the entire first half of the game. “The connection has timed out.” Super.

Nothing is more infuriating than trying to be a good guy, paying for a service than can easily be replaced by a pirated stream, and then running into a wall.

It doesn’t reflect well on Fox, with all of its money, that it can’t run a Web site when it’s most needed. Nobody’s logging onto FoxSoccer.tv Monday at midnight, but during the final stages of the Champions League? It simply needs to work, end of.

EPL Talk, a fine site that I read regularly, mentions that Fox is currently looking for Broadband Product Manager. Maybe this person can sort out the site’s issues.

Again, this is particularly onerous because there are so many “pirate” streams out there on every single match day that it takes a truly pious person to elect to pay for a service that they could otherwise get for free. You pay for a service and expect it to work, you know?

Modern Warfare 2 free on Steam this weekend!

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 09:30 AM PDT

STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING~! MODERN WARFARE 2 WILL BE FREE ON STEAM THIS WEEKEND, AND THIS WEEKEND ONLY. THAT MEANS YOU HAVE 48 HOURS TO BEAT A FIVE-HOUR GAME, THEN PLAY MULTI-PLAYER TILL YOU GROW BORED OF IT.

Onkyo’s new notebook is 22mm thin, offers over 14 hours of battery life

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 09:00 AM PDT

Onkyo in Japan announced [JP, PDF] a new notebook today, the Sotec MX1007A4. It has a 10.1-inch screen featuring 1,024×600 resolution and LED backlight, with Onkyo saying one of the two selling points is its thickness (the notebook is 22mm thin – 18mm at it thinnest part). It weighs just 1.16kg, too.

The other selling point is the battery life, which, according to Onkyo, stands at 14.4 hours from a single charge. The notebook is powered by an Atom Z515 (1.2GHz) and comes with 1GB of RAM and a 250GB hard disc. Other specs include an Intel US15W chip set, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, an SD/SDHC slot, two USB 2.0 ports, an 1.3MP web camera, and a fingerprint sensor.

Onkyo plans to release the MX1007A4 in Japan on April 10 (price: $640). No word from the company yet regarding international sales.
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