gears

PS3: Final nail in SACD's coffin?

Much has been made of how the PS3 is Sony's not-so-secret weapon in the Blu-ray/HD DVD format war. But I actually held out some small hope--call me naive--that the PS3 might be able to breathe some new life into Sony's near-dead, high-fidelity audio format, SACD (Super Audio CD), which competes with another near-dead, high-fidelity audio format, DVD-Audio.

In case you hadn't heard, the PS3 supports playback of SACD discs. There aren't a whole lot of SACD discs out there, but I happen to own five of them. I made an effort to find them the … Read more

Asus blows ATI's graphics NDA?

So remember that laptop that Asus announced earlier today with the ATI Radeon X2300 graphics chip? Sounds to us like Asus just blew a nondisclosure agreement on AMD/ATI's next-generation graphics chip.

It's been common knowledge for awhile that ATI's next-generation, DirectX 10-compatible graphics chip, code-named "R600," is in the works. It's supposed to be the direct competitor to Nvidia's already-released GeForce 8000-series graphics chips. The actual shipping name of the R600 products has been under wraps, although U.K. tech site the Inquirer claimed last week that the chips would be the … Read more

MP3 players for the jet set

iPods are nice, but if you can afford your own tux and you travel in your own chauffeur-driven Bentley, then you need an MP3 player as sleek-looking as this one, showing at CES 2007.

The three models in the Philips GoGear series are thin, but otherwise standard-featured Flash players. Dressed up in high-gloss black polycarbonate with silver, cigarette case-like contours, they could make Britney Spears look like royalty. Almost.

Each PlaysForSure-compatible GoGear model--the 1GB SA5115 ($99.99), the 2GB SA5125 ($109.99), and the 4GB SA5145 ($139.99)--has a 1.8-inch color LCD screen; red-backlit, touch-sensitive controls; Philips' SuperScroll … Read more

Persuasive Games takes on holiday shopping

If you've played Persuasive Games' past titles such as Bacteria Salad, Oil God, or Airport Security, chances are you'll get the idea behind its latest Flash diversion, Xtreme Xmas Shopping. On the surface, you play a shopper with a demanding wish list to satisfy. If an item on your list runs out of stock before you can purchase it, you lose, presumably having ruined Christmas. As with most of Persuasive Games' titles, though, Xtreme Xmas Shopping attempts to engage players in thinking about a broader social issue--in this case, rabid holiday consumerism--in a participatory kind of way.

While … Read more

A Swiss army USB knife

There are some pretty lame ripoffs, spinoffs and ostensible updates of the classic Swiss army knife on the market, but this isn't one of them. The "Cyber Snipa Dog Tag" combines the most essential of the knife's features--including our personal favorite, the scissors--with 21st century elements such as an ultra-bright LED flashlight and a removable 512MB USB drive, according to Slashgear. (Why a USB key? We have no idea, but we've already demonstrated a demand for them in rugged terrain.) All this in a package that capitalizes on the dog tag trend.

AMD's Quad FX crammed with cores

Like the Onion's Jackie Harvey, we incorrectly referred to AMD's quad-core desktop platform as " Socket 4x4" when we first learned about it, mostly because we couldn't get confirmation of the name of the thing during the investor phone conference in which it was announced. Our bad on that. But with AMD's unveiling today of Quad FX, aka simply "4x4," we can finally address the whole package with a little more clarity.

Aimed strictly at PC enthusiasts, AMD's answer to the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 is a bit more convoluted than … Read more

Sony new firmware update for PSP tied to PS3 launch

We've known for a while that Sony was going to be updating the firmware on the PSP, so its handheld game console could link better with the PS3 and play downloadable PSone titles. Well, that day has finally arrived, and here's the message you get when you actually go to download the update:

"This update includes the following changes: > Revisions to strengthen security have been added. > Playstation Network titles are now supported under [Game]. > [Remote Play] has been added as a feature under [Network]. > [Online Instruction Manuals] has been added as a feature … Read more

Nvidia unveils its one-stop SLI shop

If you've ever tried to build your own desktop, you know that matching all of the parts can be a tricky proposition. Building a PC with a pair of high-end 3D cards presents an even greater challenge, what with ensuring you have enough power, a compatible motherboard, etc. If you know what you're doing, you can go on over to NewEgg, ZipZoomFly, or elsewhere (even CNET) and hunt around for the right components, but that still involves a lot of rooting through search results. Enter the SLI Marketplace, a new section on Nvidia's SLI Zone Web page … Read more

Stupid cat tricks

It may not quite qualify as a new low in tech-blog posting, but gaming blog Kotaku has linked to a Flickr photo of a cat to scale with the Wii, the Xbox 360, and the PS3. Well, a little inside information for you: that cat belongs to none other than CNET Senior Editor Dan Ackerman, and those are his game consoles--or actually, his wife's (she's a gaming journalist).

Ackerman says the cat's name is Nano, because "he was small when we got him," but he's thinking of changing the cat's name to Zune … Read more

Waterproof your iPod

Snapping digital pictures while snorkeling has been a reality for some time with underwater casings for cameras, but what about being able to listen to music while surfing?

H2 Audio has made underwater casings for the iPod available for $90 from Jack's Surfboards.com or directly from H2 Audio. That's pretty reasonable considering an underwater casing for a point and shoot camera starts at around $200.

The H2 Audio casings (Click here for CNET review) come in sizes for the iPod video, the Nano, the original Shuffle, the iPod mini and the iPod 4G. H2 Audio does not … Read more