After five days of intense competition in the International DOTA 2 Championships at Gamescom, six Ukrainian kings have emerged victorious, known as team Na'vi (yes, Avatar fans). And along with the immense pride in securing their #1 result, they also get to walk away with a cool $1M in prize money.

Chinese team EHOME came in a close second, securing their runner up prize of $250,000. The remaining top six teams (out of 16 teams in total for the event) that were awarded include :-

1. Scythe.SG - $150,000

The ongoing bitch-slapping between Valve and EA has resulted in (what my opinion will be) the biggest FPS title of the year being blacklisted from Steam; Battlefield 3. EA have decided to launch Origin, their own digital distribution service and ditch Steam in favor of it.

Valve boss, and leader of the resistance of releasing Half Life 3, has sais that [in response to EA pulling a bunch of games from Steam":

GamesCom 2011 - News is flowing through for Borderlands 2 and it's sounding like its coming along well. Details from the Borderlands 2 livestream are that it includes (new in the sequel); Splitscreen online, trading items with others in a "reasonable way".

The UI has been "nearly entirely reworked. The splitscreen skill tree is way better". There are also now "no problems with eligibility for multiplayer". Gearbox are aiming for more diversity in the environments and there will be a new game+ mode.

Gearbox also talked of "refined" vehicle controls, inclusive of power-sliding and "independent suspension", Randy Pitchford also teased they might try to support Halo-style point and go controls and direct steering, he says "as a gamer, I want both."

GamesCom 2011 - NVIDIA has hinted at GamesCom that they could be working on technology that would allow users to stream games from their PCs to other devices within the home.

Bit-Gamer talked to "an NVIDIA representative" who wouldn't offer any concrete details [of course], but did give some hefty hints towards such a device:

It seems Apple have shrunk the size of the Samsung Galaxy S to make it look more like a clone of the iPhone in their latest Dutch lawsuit filing. As you can see in the picture below, not only have Apple shrunk the physical size of the Galaxy S handset, but they've also gone into the App Drawer so it looks identical to the home screen of the iPhone. Android users will know, this is not how the phone looks like by default, as there is a desktop with widgets - not Apps like the iOS.

Apple have shrunk the Galaxy S by what seems around 10%, to look absolutely identical in physical size to the iPhone so they can cry fowl that Samsung are copying their design. It was only last week in which Apple submitted shrunken pictures of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet from Samsung, in which they filed a picture misrepresenting the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as an incorrect 4:3 aspect ratio, while the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is actually a 16:10 ratio.

Apple - are you scared? Well, you must be. How about instead of playing like spoilt bullies, you bring out something that changes the industry again, instead of being stagnant and attacking the competition with lies.

GamesCom 2011 - If there's something I don't want on consoles, it's two things. Half Life (at least release it exclusively for PC, Valve, that's all you can do) and Diablo games. Well, it looks like Blizzard weren't listening to me and are now wanting to push Diablo onto consoles. Blizzard all but confirmed that it's preparing Diablo for consoles at GamesCom. Diablo 3 lead designer Josh Mosqueira said that Blizzard "is very, very serious about bringing the Diablo 3 experience to the console."

He noted that Blizzard are already assembling a team to handle the project with Josh continuing:

Gabe Newell, founder and all-round awesome sauce man at Valve has confirmed that DOTA 2 will not see the light of day until 2012 at the earliest. Right now, the only thing close to a release is an invitation-only beta that is planned to follow the GamesCom 2011 show in Cologne, Germany. Newell has been quoted saying:

DOTA 2 has however, been playable on the show floor at GamesCom 2011, but only for teams invited to compete in Valve's tournament dubbed, The International. Newell also stated (in regards to the business modem that Valve will use for the game) that they "don't have a plan." He did add:

Corsair have announced the worldwide retail availability of 90GB variants of their Force Series 3 and Force Series GT lines today. Both SSDs sport SATA 6Gbps, with a maximum sequential read speed of 550MB/sec and a maximum sequential write speed of 500MB/sec. The Force Series 3 uses asynchronous flash memory to provide the industry's best 90GB SSD performance value, while the Force Series GT is designed for enthusiasts who demand the fastest performance available, sports ONFI synchronous flash memory and boasts read speeds of up to 555MB/sec and write speeds of up to 505MB/sec.

All Force Series 3 and Force Series GT SSDs are backward compatible, so that users with previous SATA revisions can enjoy high performance. Vice President of Memory Products at Corsair, Thi La, says:

Kal-El has been slightly delayed, so we won't see a launch of the chip for a few months yet, but the first tablet based on the new quad-core 40nm Tegra 3 chip, codenamed Kal-El, is going to find it's way into the next-gen ASUS Transformer 2 tablet. The ASUS Transformer has been quite popular, it has near-invincible (almost Superman-like strength?), a keyboard dock with an extra battery and impressive performance all-round. I've been loving my Transformer since I bought it.

NVIDIA CEO, Jen Hsun Huang, said at the last conference call that despite having four cores, Kal-El consumes less power than it's dual-core brother, the Tegra 2. This is a big step for NVIDIA and Huang also said that there are many companies who are working with Kal-El-based designs.

We should see a launch of the Kal-El-based tablets and smartphones in Q1 2012.

GamesCom 2011 - Whilst Battlefield 3 is bringing people to their knees making them beg for a quicker release date because it just looks so, bloody, awesome. Activision and Infinity Ward have had to do something to bring a little candle of light toward their behemoth franchise, Call of Duty. The next instalment, Modern Warfare 3 has now been confirmed at GamesCom 2011 to include dedicated servers.

Noah Heller, who works at Beachhead Studios on Call of Duty: Elite said to Eurogamer:

GamesCom 2011 - Earlier on today at GamesCom 2011 here in Germany, Samsung held a press conference (albeit completely in German) where they debuted their newest notebook which of course considering the event is focused right toward gamers. After seeing great success with televisions and smartphones, Samsung is now trying to attack the gaming market with force.

The Series 7 gaming notebook is a 17.3-inch LED notebook using an Intel Core i7 processor, Radeon 6970M 2GB graphics, flash storage, Blu-ray optical drive, 1.5TB of HDD storage space and 16GB of DDR3 memory. The flash storage i.e. SSD is added on the motherboard itself and comes in at 8GB and is said to improve performance dramatically over a standard HDD... who woulda thought?!

Besides all the high-end desktop replacement specs, the keyboard looks pretty impressive with blue backlit keys and the gaming focused WASD keys are backlit in red. There is supposedly too some fancy cooling in play with the Series 7 notebook, but it was discussed all in German and we didn't get a chance to quiz anyone about it. It's going on sale on September 12th in Europe with a street price of 1799 Euro.

It's been discovered today that Intel is planning to shave pricing on several of its current Sandy Bridge desktop CPUs next month.

The drop looks to be consistently around about $10 on all nine models, which are the dual-core Intel Pentium G630 and G850, dual-core Core i3-2120 and i7-2390T, and quad-core Core i5-2400S, i5-2405S, i5-2500S, i5-2500T, and i7-2600S.

Unfortunately, where most of us would've been especially wanting to see cuts on the more popular enthusiast models such as the i5-2500, i5-2500K, i7-2600 and i7-2600K, they are not mentioned in the list.

One of the big features ASUS was pushing when it launched the Eee Pad Transformer TF101 not long ago is its durable, scratch-resistant, super tough glass. The screen is actually made out of chemically strengthened "Corning Gorilla Glass" that helps protect it from all the bumps and scratches tablets are prone to get.

A video has just been uploaded to YouTube from ASUS which really puts it to the test, with the ultimate goal being to see how much it can withstand before it reaches breaking point.

Normally the thought of rubbing car keys, coins or wood screws all over one of your shiny gadgets would have you cringing pretty quickly, but as you'll see in the video above, in the case of the ASUS Transformer TF101, all the aforementioned talk about the screen isn't just marketing and it really is quite the durable, protective piece of equipment.......... within reason of course (refer to the end of the video).

Detailed info on AMD's upcoming Bulldozer (Zambezi-FX) processors has hit the Internet with Chinese website Corescn.com claiming that the B2 Revisions of the CPU's have hit production and would be on shelves by late Q3 2011. The Bulldozer CPU's have been delayed because of a performance-related bug, with the B2 revision going into mass production sometime in August 2011 and hit markets by September 2011.

The first two CPU's based on the B2 revisions will be the FX-8150 (FD8150FRW8KGU) Featuring 8Cores/8Threads, 8MB L3 Cache, Stock Frequency of 3.6Ghz (Turbo - 4.2Ghz) while the other FX-8120 (FD8120FRW8KGU) is also an 8 Core CPU with same specs and just a little low clock frequency of 3.1Ghz (T.C - 4.1Ghz). Both CPU's feature TDP of 125W.

We should also expect the FX-6100 (Hexa Core), FX-4100 (Quad Core) and FX-8100 (Octa Core) CPU's featuring 95W TDP. This will be followed by another lineup which would release in Q1 2012 and is set to include 4 new CPU's detailed below:

Sony has officially cut the price on the PS3 in all markets. The 160GB system will now be $250 in the US, 250 euros in the European territories, and 24,980 yen in Japan. The new price drop is effective immediately in all territories except Japan where it'll receive the price drop on August 18. The 320GB model of the PlayStation 3 will see a drop to $300 in the US, 300 euros in the European market and 29,980 yen.

SCEA's CEO Jack Tretton says:

Google didn't just have news today of purchasing Motorola for $12.5 billion, Larry Page also announced that Android has a total of 150 million (that's 150,000,000!!) activated devices worldwide. That's up from the 130 million mark that they hit last month, and Google are continuing to activate over 550,000 new devices each and every day!

To compare this Oranges to... Apples... Apple have only sold a total of 222 million iOS-based devices to date, including the iPod, iPhone and iPad! If we look at the numbers between last month and this month, 130 to 150 million, that would edge closer to 650,000 activations per day... very nice Google. A pat on the green back for you, my friend. Now, release Android 4.x already!

Microsoft are ditching the glossy outer shell on select Xbox 360 consoles for a black matte finish. Major Nelson broke the news, with a 250GB unit in glossy finish and a 4GB model featuring a matte black finish being the current models on the market. Microsoft from now on will not be continuing the manufacturing of the glossy 360, instead it'll use the new matte-finish system. There will still, however, be glossy-based 360s in the form of the limited edition Gears of War 3 console and Star Wars console.

The transition from glossy to matte has already started and the new consoles will be available in a few weeks. So if you want to get in with a glossy model, you'd better run to your nearest electronics store and get some of that gloss on, because soon they'll all be matte.

Dedicated Android partner, Motorola Mobility, have been acquired by Google today in an announcement that was music to my ears. Google Inc. and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011.

Google CEO, Larry Page has a few things to say about the acquisition:

It has just come to light that Intel does not intend to ship its upcoming Sandy Bridge-E (LGA2011) Core i7 processors with a heatsink/fan (HSF). Instead, Intel plans to offer the certified HSF for these processors as a separate, standalone purchase through the same retail channels.

While there's no doubt some people are satisfied with, or even prefer an Intel certified cooler for these high TDP processors, Intel would be banking on the majority of the target users wanting to use third-party cooling options, as it is expected that many of the big name CPU cooler makers will have lineups of LGA2011-ready coolers readily available upon the Sandy Bridge E series launch.

Sandy Bridge E processors have a rated TDP of 130W, but early testing on engineering samples has proven that it can reach as high as 180W under load (and that's at stock speeds).

ASUS today have announced the launch of their new Mini-ITX motherboard based on the AMD A75 chipset, the F1A75-I DELUXE motherboard. Powered by the Fusion APU, the F1A75-I DELUXE has the power to deliver amazing graphics performance when combined with a discrete GPU for Dual Graphics capabilities. Built on the Mini-ITX format, the board is only 170x170mm and ships with a convenient wireless USB remote control that also has a full keyboard for typing on the backside.

A first, for sure and something like this is a huge bonus for HTPC builders. The F1A75-I DELUXE also fills out with DIGI+ VRM, a first on a Mini-ITX board. As well as ASUS throwing in its unique UEFI BIOS, flexible and user friendly, mouse-controlled graphical user interface and ASUS Exclusive EZ mode design can help tune a HTPC easier.

The F1A75-I DELUXE also includes built-in 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Gigabit Ethernet. PCI-Express 2.0 16x slot is included as well as four SATA 6Gb/s connectors, with one an eSATA port and four USB 3.0 connections.