When it comes to making geeky gadgets and game consoles, even geekier Ben Heck is right up there at the top of the list of modders to watch. Heck made portable systems out of PS3s and more for a long time before he got his own show with element 14. Heck's latest episode had a cool portable conversion for a Sega CDX machine.

Apparently Heck routed the parts used for the case and everything else needed for the project on the episode. The final product looks pretty darn cool, even if it is big by portable console standards today. Heck said, "It was a blast taking something as awesome as the Sega CDX and making it even easier to use with a smaller footprint so I can bring it with me everywhere. Not only that, but I reminisced about Full Motion Video games from the early '90's and a few diamonds in the rough like 'Snatcher' and 'Lunar: The Silver Star.'"

The episode covers everything for the portable though the design to the final construction. If you really like the finished product, you can even register to win the thing at element14. "This latest episode is a must-see, not only for Sega Genesis fans, but also techies at heart," said Alisha Mowbray, senior vice president of marketing, element14. "While the show is aired in English, it caters to enthusiasts around the globe."

Fans of PC shooters will know the Battlefield name and we also know that the next installment of the franchise, Battlefield 3 has been in development for a long time. EA and DICE haven't really said much about the long development cycle and all I can say is that the game had better be good after the long wait.

The first official trailer for the game has surfaced and NVIDIA has the video over on the GeForce site for you to check out. Keep in mind the video is just a teaser and as such, everything is hazy and you can't really make out much detail. What you can see looks realistic.

The game will land this fall and has some cool tech to make it look more realistic called Frostbite 2.0. EA describes the game like this, "One moment you may be marching down a hilltop listening to the hypnotic sound of a firefight in the distance or admiring the way the light reflects off the smoke plumes of ground to air missiles rising from the city you're about to engage. The next you're on an urban street, surrounded, claustrophobic, fighting for your life and looking eight ways at once with all your senses on high alert."

Intel's Sandy Bridge chip problem is causing quite the kerfuffle. Working in retail selling these boards everyday is going to be hard for the next few months. What do you tell customers? As a retailer we're having to explain a huge issue which is daunting to a new customer coming in off the street, however most manufacturers are stepping up to the plate with some great service.

Gigabyte now has a free tool to check 6-series motherboards for their SATA problem. It will check if the installed hard drives are connected to the defective SATA ports, whether the board is prone to the said defect. Not all 6-series motherboards have the issue, so having a tool like this is quite helpful. Nice work Gigabyte!

Superbowl 2011 is one of the most exciting times of the year for an Australian like me. I don't want the football action, but give me those $3 million, 30 second movie teasers that roll around each year and I'm a happy boy. This year is no different, we have the finale of Michael Bay's Transformers movies, JJ Abrams' Spielberg-ian Super 8 and Chris "Flame-On" Evans as Captain America. Check out the first trailer for Transformers: Dark of the Moon below:

Well, that was just off it's dial wasn't it? Looking forward to that a fair bit for turn-your-brain-off special effects pr0n. Next up we have JJ Abrams Super 8. I personally think it gets the 1980's feel just right and feels like Close Encounters mixed with The Goonies, with an entire new angle I'm sure we'll see from Abrams.

Next up we have Captain America, which I personally didn't have much faith on. But, the more I see, the more I like and this trailer is no different!

During CES 2011 in Las Vegas last month, we got a chance to get an exclusive video preview of Xigmatek's upcoming Elysium super tower case.

Chris went on video as you can see above and talked about the Elysium and what makes it special. One of the big things about the Elysium is that it was designed to fully and properly support the massive and much spoken about EVGA SR-2 motherboard that supports two Intel Socket LGA-1366 processors, a bunch of RAM and loads of PCI Express slots.

Besides that, the Elysium comes with support for a lot of large cooling fans that should keep things running just nicely. There is support for large radiators on the top and bottom of the case. Not only that, but there is also support for 12 hard drives and even an additional 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drive that can be slotted in easily at the top front area of the case.

Beware, Verizon data hogs! Hiding behind the announcement of preorders starting for the iPhone 4 was another smaller and less publicized note. A new policy has been found on Verizon's site that states that download speeds are going to be reduced for the top five percent of data users on Verizon's network.

With the large influx of iPhone users expected to begin gobbling up data at a frenetic pace due to the size of the App Store, Verizon is launching a pre-emptive strike at possible network slowdowns by easing up the most egregious data eaters. Verizon stated that "Our proactive management of the Verizon Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95% of data customers aren't negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few users."

There's no way to tell whether you are one of the unlucky top five percent or whether you've been throttled without doing the checking on your own. With early reviews stating that Verizon's iPhone data service is slower than that on AT&T, those changing brands may not be able to tell whether they are getting regular or throttled speeds. It will most likely be more noticeable for those on other devices being throttled as they will have a better idea of the speeds they have been getting.

Anon is at it again - this type targetting Egyptian and Yemen government websites. Supposedly 500 Anonymous users took down websites for the Egyptian Ministry of Information and the ruling National Democratic Party in Egypt.

As for Yemen, websites targeted included the Yemeni Ministry of Information, the tax office, and the website for Yemen's long-serving president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Anon used their infamous Low Orbit Ion Cannon to take the websites down, the same trick used last year to take MasterCard, Visa and PayPal down.

Supposedly Anon is quite interested in targeting countries that are usntable, Anon is currently focusing on anti-government protests in the Arab world. Just last month Anon took down websites that belong to the Tunisian government and the stock exchange in support of the uprising that forced the country's dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee.

Back in late December, I mentioned that a company called HEX had a cool silicone watchband in several colors that would turn your new iPod nano into a watch. The only downside to that is that geeks that like to use their nano for working out with the NIKE+ accessory couldn't use the HEX band. HEX has announced that in April it will have a new version of its cool watchband.

The new version of the watchband is called the Sport Watch Band and it is fully compatible with the NIKE+ accessory. The change for compatibility appears to be nothing more than cutting the side out of the case so the little dongle for recording your workout parameters can be installed. I would think if you already own a HEX watchband a sharp knife and a steady hand could mod yours to work with NIKE+ too.

HEX also has a new armband that you wear around one of your guns to hold the cable in place so it doesn't flop around on you while you run. Having cables bouncing on your arm as you workout is irritating after a while. The silicone of the watchband also projects the nano while you work out. Pricing is unannounced at this time, but it should be very close to the $30 the original cost.

There are tons of TVs on the market today that run the gamut from small screens that fit in smaller rooms or for those on a tight budget to massive screens that run thousands of dollars and have all the bells and whistles. If you are looking for a smaller screen LED backlit HDTV to fit in a bedroom or office Sceptre has some really cool offerings and has added some new sets to its Galaxy Line.

The Sceptre Galaxy series TVs are available in several colors including black, pink, red, blue, and chrome. The colors are a nice touch, but the specs are what most people are concerned about. The line has full 1080p resolution for the 24-inch screen and the TVs can be used as a PC monitor as well. The TVs are under an inch thick at their thinnest point and slightly under 2-inches at their thickest.

The dynamic contrast ratio for the screens is 14,000:1 and the panel response time is 5ms. Connectivity includes dual HDMI ports, the sets have a USB port as well for direct viewing of photos, and audio files from a flash drive. The sound system in the TV has a pair of 3W speakers and brightness is 250 cd/m2. The sets are widely available for $399.99.

I would bet that a bunch of you have watched shows on Hulu that you missed during the week. Hulu is a great way to catch up on the shows you miss or that your DVR can't record. The catch is that some of the shows don't show up for weeks after they air on TV making you even more behind.

Hulu has announced that it has signed a new content agreement with Viacom. The agreement will get some Viacom shows back on Hulu the morning after they air. These shows include The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. The deal will also bring some of the cool older shows Viacom has to Hulu Plus subscribers. Any geek that was around in the 90's probably watched Beavis & Butthead. The deal will get the back episodes of the animated comedy on Hulu Plus along with Chappelle's Show (I'm Rick James Biatch!), The Hills, and Reno 911 as well.

Other new shows will hit Hulu Plus 21 days after they first air. These 21-day delay shows will include Jersey Shore, Teen Mom 2, and Tosh.0. A 21-day delay might as well be never in my book; I have forgotten about a show by that point and don't care to watch it.

One of the things that Apple rolled into the iPhone on AT&T a long time ago was the ability to tether the device to give your other electronics and gadgets access to 3G connectivity. AT&T in its infinite wisdom decided to block that feature because its network of epic suck couldn't stand up to more data use. With the Verizon iPhone only a few weeks from landing in geeky hands all around the country with the tethering feature intact AT&T has more pressure to allow it on its network.

AT&T has already told us officially that on February 13 some of the smartphones on its network will in fact get tethering. However, the geniuses at AT&T won't tell us what phones will get that feature. AppleInsider reports that one geek read the review from David Pogue of the NYT of the Verizon iPhone and in the original story posted, Pogue said the iPhone was getting tethering on Feb 13.

If you go look at that review now the tethering comment has been removed. It would be safe to bet that Pogue knows tethering is coming and let the cat out of the bag early and was forced to remove the comment. If the iPhone on AT&T doesn't get tethering it will be one more reason to move to Verizon for us all.

Snorre Valen has nominated WikiLeaks for a Nobel Peace Prize. WikiLeaks has shown us the behind the scenes happenings of governments, where the governments would not have ever shown us this type of information.

He has been heralded as a diamond in the rough by the public and as a terrorist by the government. Governments saying that a normal man who has not deliberately killed anyone is a terrorist, yet, the confidential information he leaked makes him that said terrorist, funny.

Snorre has said "Liu Xiabao was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his struggle for human rights, democracy and freedom of speech in China. Likewise: Wikileaks have contributed to the struggle for those very values globally, by exposing (among many other things) corruption, war crimes and torture - some times even conducted by allies of Norway. And most recently: By disclosing the economic arrangements by the presidential family in Tunisia, Wikileaks have made a small contribution to bringing down a 24-year-lasting dictatorship.

Google, unlike Apple and Microsoft don't seem to release something and then just slowly modify it over the year/s, instead they release something and never stop modifying while at the same time prepping Honeycomb for tablets as a serious release on the tablet market.

Honeycomb is set to really change things up for Google and will give them a very strong hand to fight against the onslaught that Apple is sure to bring with the sequel to their ever-successful iOS-based Apple iPad.

Honeycomb has a few features up it's sleeve such as a redesigned home screen - top left brings the search functions, top right gives application access and the bottom bar now has the traditional Android buttons - additionally, there are now no physical buttons. There are now also advanced notifications in the bottom right hand corner of the screen as well as the settings option.

Google have launched Google Maps 5.1 for Android which allows you to connect to a location to a real place by checking in there using Latitude. You can still use Latitude to automatically update and share your location, but check-ins let you add context to the location - like captions on a photo.

Latitude can be set to automatically detect your location, but there are now some unique features like notifications. If turned on, it will check you in at a nearby place once you arrive, this stops you from forgetting to check in ever again. Automatic check-ins is quite self-explanatory as it will check you in automatically once you get there without having to touch your phone. Check-out does the opposite, it will check you out so your friends aren't left guessing whether you're there or not.

Because Latitude is built directly into Google Maps for Android, check-ins work across Latitude and Maps seamlessly. If you were to check into a store ar restaurant, you'll see it's Place page with reviews to help you order. If a friend checks in somewhere, you can go straight from their Latitude profile to its Place page to learn about it, open Google Maps Navigation (beta) which would then give you turn-by-turn directions to them, and more.

Epson has projectors that are for mobile pros, education, and home theater fans in its line up and many of the offerings from the company are among the best in their classes. Epson has announced today that it has two new projectors going into the line aimed at education use. The projectors would work equally as well in the office and other settings too.

The new projectors are the PowerLite 905 and 915W. The projectors are similar with the differences being brightness and resolution. The 905 sells for $999 and has 3000 lumens of white and color light output with XGA resolution. The 915W has 3200 lumens of color and white light output with WXGA resolution and sells for $1099.

Other features of the two are common like HDMI inputs, 16W speakers, and mic inputs. The projectors have plug and play capability for showing presentations from a computer. They can be turned on and off from a wall switch and the projectors have a 1.6 x optical zoom. Both of the projectors will ship in March around the country online and in stores.

Gigabyte is one of the more popular computer hardware makers in the industry with a variety of mainboards and video cards that range from entry level to high-end enthusiast offerings. Today Gigabyte has unveiled a pair of new entry-level video cards using the NVIDIA GT 440 GPU. The video cards include the GV-N440TC-1GI and GV-N440D3-1GI.

Both of the cards use the same GT 440 GPU that supports DirectX 11, 3D, CUDA and a lot more. Both of the cards have D-sub, DVI, and HDMI connectivity. The N440D3 has 1GB of DDR3 RAM inside that is clocked at 1800MHz. The core clock for the GPU is 830MHz and the shader clock is 1660MHz.

The N440TC has 512MB of TurboCache GDDR5 RAM onboard had a clock speed of 830MHz. The RAM is clocked at 3200MHz and the shaders are clocked at 1660MHz. Both of the video cards are RoHS compliant and the GPUs use 40nm technology. Pricing and availability on the cards is unknown at this time.

We talked a bit about the Toshiba NB550D netbook with the AMD Fusion APU yesterday when it got unboxed. The gang over at Netbooknews also posted up some benchmarks for the new Fusion processor inside the machine to give us an idea how well the netbook performs. The machine has the C-50 APU running at 1GHz and a HD 6250 GPU that supports DirectX 11.

The geeks playing with the system ran 3DMark06 on it and the total score was 1889 3Dmarks. They point out that the score is 120 points higher than the preproduction version of the same notebook they had benchmark before. They upgraded the RAM to 4GB and the score stayed the same. The 3DMark06 score puts the machine ahead of some netbooks, put well behind the score the Atom D525 packing rigs like the Revio 3700 from Acer that put down 2898.

The machine was also ran through 3DMark03 and scored 4854 3DMarks. That is quite a bit better than the Aspire One 532G at 3029 according to Netbooknews. Rounding out the benchmarks is CrystalMark with the score of 37,648. The geeks also used the netbook for some gaming at 1024 x 600 on Crysis and others and the games played without issues.

Last night you probably heard all the news about Intel only just discovering an issue with the Sandy Bridge chipset. We are using the GA-P67A-UD7 motherboard in the Aussie Flood Appeal Dream System and that is one of the many affected products on the market.

The issue of degrading performance and possibly even data corruption over time is seen when using the SATA II ports on motherboards that are powered by the Intel P67 chipset. The Intel SATA III ports are not affected, nor are the SATA ports powered by the two Marvell 88SE9128 chips that are featured on the GA-P67A-UD7.

The Dream System comes with a total of five drives: two Corsair Force F120 120GB SSDs and three Western Digital Black 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s HDDs. Our solution to dodge the problem altogether is running both Corsair SSDs on the SATA III ports (still in RAID 0) and two out of the three Western Digital hard drives on the Marvell controlled SATA ports. As for the third drive from WD, Thermaltake has stepped up to the plate once again and is throwing in one of their Max 5G USB 3.0 external hard drive enclosures. We did intend on adding in a high-end PCI-E RAID controller to take care of this issue, but all of the PCI Express x16 slots are accounted for by use of the three SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 2GB video cards in lovely Crossfire.

D'oh. It appears that the new Intel Sandy Bridge chipset has a flaw that can't be fixed with firmware or software. The issue has required a silicon redesign to fix and some systems shipped before the issue was discovered meaning that there are some Sandy Bridge machines in the wild already that will suffer from the issue.

As far as silicon issues go, it could be worse. The affected machines will continue to work, the issue is with the SATA controller and performance will degrade over time. That means that while your rig might be fast right now, a year or so down the road things could be totally different with IO performance.

Intel is seeing some significant recalls in its future. The chipmaker has reduced expected revenue by $300 million to fix the issue and make the new version of the chipset design. The issue is specifically with the Intel 6 Series chipset known as Cougar Point. The total cost to repair and replace materials and systems on the market already is expected to hit $700 million. Intel doesn't expect the chipset issue to significantly impact its full year revenue. Intel expects to resume P67 chipset shipments in late February and meet full demand by March or April.

Logitech Australia has just announced that consumers are able to get a 100% cash back offer on selected Logitech products. During the month of February, Australian consumers can get a full cash back on various Logitech products. Logitech has set a $300, 000 budget for returning the cost of the purchase back to the customer.

When customers purchase a participating product they will be directed to a website to lodge a claim and will be reimbursed for the full amount of the product. Five separate claims per household.

Below are the list of product Logitech have on offer: