The gaming computer market is crowded with offerings that run from entry-level machines that many can afford up to high-end rigs that have massive price tags that only the geeky gamers with lots of money to burn can afford. Origin has unveiled a new gaming PC called The Big O that will undoubtedly give you a nerdgasm when you hear the specs of the beast.

The brains of the operation are a pair of Intel Xeon X5680 CPUs that are each overclocked to 4.3GHz. Each of those CPUs has 6-cores and support ECC memory. Origin will cram up to 24GB of ECC Corsair RAM into the rig for you. Those CPUs are liquid cooled to keep things running cool and quiet. The machine can also be fitted with up to four EVGA GTX 480 FTW video cards.

Those cards are in SLI mode and are among the fastest NVIDIA offerings on the market today. The most interesting feature of the gaming beast is that tucked inside that tall, wheeled chassis along with the computer hardware is an Xbox 360 Slim. The Xbox 360 is liquid cooled as well and can be played while the computer chugs away on PC work. The bad news is that the beast starts at $7,669 and the full features version is a testicle shrinking $16,999.

With texting while driving becoming a big reason for so many car accidents, injuries, and deaths all over the world, people everywhere are looking for ways to deter drivers from engaging in this possibly dangerous activity. The developers of Text No More have come up with a genius way to keep people from texting while driving: give them free stuff!

Text No More is an app available on all smartphone platforms that will hold incoming texts while it is active; sending a response stating that the person is driving and cannot reply. After the app is turned off or the time limit is over, the user will receive a coupon for every text that was blocked. Users can also gain points towards bigger prizes like iPhones and laptops.

Being able to get in on the big prizes requires paying $2.99 USD for the full version of Text No More, but the free version gives access to the coupons and smaller items. Text No More donates 25 cents of every full app purchase to organizations that benefit the families that have lost a family member to texting and driving.

VIA has all sorts of products from mainboards for all manner of computer systems to CPUs and other offerings. The company has many embedded offerings that have the mainboard along with the CPU for various uses in the business and enterprise markets. VIA unveiled its newest embedded offering today called the EPIA-M850 aimed at commercial use.

The mainboard is a mini-ITX offering with the latest 64-bit VIA Nano E-series processor inside. The CPU is paired with a VIA VX900 media system processor to create a complete platform for commercial embedded multimedia and media center uses. The board can be had with two models of the Nano processor.

One model of the embedded system uses a Nano processor at 1.6GHz that is cooled by a fan. Another model uses the same processor at 1.2GHz with no fan needed for cooling. The hardware acceleration chip supports ChromotionHD 2.0 and offers hardware acceleration for VC1, H.264, MPEG-2 and WMV9 HD video formats.

When it comes time to build up a new gaming PC many gamers look to Cooler Master for a case that looks good, performs well, and won't break the bank. The company has some very expensive cases that look cool and then it offers some more mainstream cases that even those on a budget can afford. The latest chassis from Cooler Master falls into the latter category.

The case is called the HAF 912. It is made from steel with a mesh plastic front bezel. The chassis measures 91" x 18.9" x 19.5" with the stand attached and weighs in at 17.8 pounds. The case is designed with robust cooling in mind with support for multiple 200mm fans and up to four 120mm fans. The case is also designed to accept dual 120mm fan radiator for liquid cooling.

The interior of the case is modular with hard drive cadges that can be arranged in several layouts. The first cage has space for four 3.5" HDDs and the second has spots for a pair of 2.5" drives. The rear panel has seven expansion slots and grommets for liquid cooling. The case is deep enough for new high-end video cards that are long. A cut out behind the CPU for mounting coolers makes things easy for those apt to change coolers frequently. The chassis will ship on September 14 for $59.99.

If you have been following the ExoPC Slate over the last several months, waiting for the day you could order the thing for yourself, that day has come. The ExoPC Slate is now up for pre-order for those who are registered for the site forums. The pre-order offering comes with good news and bad news that may temper your enthusiasm for the Slate.

The bad news is that the maker of the Slate has had trouble getting GPS to work on the device and therefore at this point it is unknown whether the 64GB version up for pre-sale will have GPS when it finally ships. The expectation is that GPS will not be supported at launch. The good news is that in light of the question about GPS, the company has cut the pre-order price a bit.

The original pre-order price was pegged at 799 CAD and the new pre-order price is 749 CAD. The company states that the 749 CAD price tag will remain even if it is able to get GPS working in time for the devices to ship. The tablet promises 4-hour battery life and other good news is that the 64GB SSD inside the Slate is one of the blazing fast Sandisk units.

If you are looking forward to getting your hands on the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet and don't want a contract with a carrier it will cost you. The Samsung Tab has landed on Amazon and the pre-order price for the machine is listed at 799 euros. That is a lot of money and most people will opt to buy one through a carrier that will be subsidizing the price of the Android tablet.

Other speculation has the Tab selling in the $200 to $400 range depending on subsidies. You can bet the higher-end of that range is where the tablet will land. The Galaxy Tab is an Android tablet in case you have been living under a rock. Reports are that O2 will offer the thing for 99 euro with a 27.50 euro monthly contract for data.

The first offering will have a 7-inch screen. Samsung is working on an 8-inch and a 10-inch version of the Tab as well. The current 7-inch tablet will have WiFi and 3G data capability. The screen resolution will be 1024 x 600 and the machine has a 1.06GHz application processor with PowerVR SGX540. The battery promises 7 hours of use for movie playback and it has a 3MP camera, GPS, 1080p video capability, and up to 32GB of storage.

Toshiba, a leading Japanese electronics maker, has done a voluntary recall of 41,000 laptops nationwide due to overheating issues that could make the laptops a possible fire hazard. In a notice released by Toshiba, they state that "The notebook computers can overheat at the notebook's plug-in to the AC adapter, posing a burn hazard to consumers."

The laptops that are involved in the recall are the Satellite T135, Satellite T135D and Satellite ProT130. 129 reports of overheating and case plastic melting have already been reported by owners of these laptops, with two minor burn injuries and two minor property damage reports being made as well. A software program that detects overheating and shuts off external power has been made available by Toshiba as well.

With all the things that the iPad is capable of doing, I can see people wanting a way to mount the thing to the wall easily. Being able to wall mount the iPad is a good way to watch video while you are in bed or use the iPad to view recipes in the kitchen. If you have a home automation system with iPad controls, mounting it to the wall makes a cool touchscreen control.

The trick is getting the iPad securely mounted to a vertical surface. A new system called the PadTab has started shipping as of today. The system is a very simply setup with a square section that attaches to the iPad or other tablet and a WallTab that can be placed on any vertical wall or surface.

The tabs stick to your device using an industrial strength adhesive. If you wall mount the WallTab portion you can paint it to match the wall color. The system can also be used to mount the iPad to a mirror, cabinet, or fridge door. You can mount to anything the adhesive will stick to. The PadTab system is shipping now for $29.99 with two WallTabs so you can hang the iPad in two places.

I am glad that the days of the gigantic wireless receiver for wireless mice and keyboards are gone. Today just about every maker out there uses small receivers for their wireless gear that you can plug into a USB port and just leave there. The small devices don't block the USB ports around them either, which was an issue with large receivers of the past. The average flash drive is still a large and bulky gadget that looks like those old receivers though.

LaCie has unveiled a new flash drive called the MosKeyto that is just about as small as those little nano wireless receivers. The MosKeyto measures a scant 21 x 16 x 10 mm and weighs 10g. Despite the small size of the storage device, it has a decent amount of storage with 4GB and 8GB versions available. This might be the perfect external storage device for netbook users running out of storage space.

The MosKeyto is so small that you can just plug it in and leave it. The MosKeyto is Windows ReadyBoost compatible and supports USB 2.0 ports. The 8GB version of the flash device is $27.99 and the 4GB version sells for $17.99 making them cheap. You can order either capacity straight form LaCie right now.

One of the reasons I steer clear of shooters on the console is that I am a mouse and keyboard man. I prefer shooters on my PC, but there are some PC games that are best suited to a gamepad or a joystick. Any gamer who has tried to play a racing sim or a flight sim will tell you the mouse and keyboard are not best for those types of games.

Logitech has unveiled several new gamepads for PC gamers that look a lot like controllers that PS3 players will be used to. The F310 has a floating D-pad and ships with profiler software for programming the buttons. The F510 is the same as the F310 with the addition of rumble feedback. The really cool controller is the F710.

The big feature of the F710 is that it is a wireless controller and uses 2.4GHz technology to connect. It uses the familiar nano-receiver Logitech uses for all its wireless gear. All of the controllers have the familiar shoulder buttons from console controls. Pricing and availability information is not offered at this time.

If you are one of the hoards of computer users that has a glut of digital content on your machine that you really want to watch on your big screen in the living room you may have been eyeing some sort of media streaming device. Many folks will be waiting for the new Apple TV unveiled yesterday to hit stores and use that to stream their content as best they can. The big issue with the Apple TV and any other Apple product for that matter is that Apple gear is locked down.

With the new Apple TV coming in at only $99 a bunch of the big names in the streaming market cut prices to compete with Apple. Boxee has pinned an official price to its updated Box landing in November and isn't concerned with pricing the Boxee Box along the lines of the Apple TV. Boxee has priced the new Box at $199, $100 more than Apple.

The company defends its pricing saying that many people will prefer the open nature of the Box. I would bet Boxee is correct, there will be a number of folks willing to spend more for a device that is open and can stream anything. That said most folks will want content from iTunes, which will make the Apple TV hard to beat.

If you are an ardent iPad user who is also a Twitter fiend today is your lucky day. The Official Twitter for iPad app has now landed and it looks pretty darn cool. You don't even have to have a Twitter account to use it, you can download and lurk all you want. The official app is built to take full advantage of the iPad interface.

The app uses Panes that let the user tap Tweet to open a pane on the right. If that Tweet has a video or a photo embedded, you can tap that to open it in another pane and then move between the panes open by swiping left or right. The app supports media inline. That means if a Tweet has a video in it you can play the video right in the Tweet without having to leave and if the video needs to load you can leave it loading and continue to check out the Tweets.

The app is built to work with gestures as well. One example is the ability to pinch a Tweet to view details about the author and to take actions like reply. Since you don't need a Twitter account to use the app, you don't have to log in either. You can grab the Official Twitter app for the iPad right now on the App Store.

Antec is making a big move into the world of computer audio with the formation of their fully owned subsidiary, soundscience.™ The first product from soundscience will be an all new 3D 2.1 speaker system dubbed the soundscience rockus.

The rockus 3D system uses 3Dsst™, soundscience's proprietary 3D technology, to "actively analyze incoming stereo audio signals and intelligently place them into a 3D sound field." This allows a more realistic and immersive sound experience for movies, games, and video. There is even a dedicated music mode for superb stereo sound reproduction. The rockus will be officially introduced at the IFA Trade Show in Berlin, Germany on September 3rd and is planned to retail for $249.95 USD when it launches this fall.

Full Press Release courtesy of Antec:

Canon is and easily recognizable name in the photographic world. The company has been making cameras since the digital camera was a dream in some geeks mind. Canon is big in the camera world, but what some might not know is that the company is also big in the research and development end of the camera market and actively develops new tech.

The latest new tech from Canon comes in the form of what it claims is the world's largest CMOS sensor. The gigantic sensor measures 202 x 205mm. The sensor is so huge that only one is made from each 300mm silicon wafer. The new sensor is 40 times larger than the next largest commercial sensor Canon produces today.

The benefit of that huge size is that the sensor can gather more light than other sensors on the market can today. That means that the sensor is able to take still shots with detail in low light conditions that other cameras would not be able to operate in. Canon also improved the circuitry to allow the sensor to record video at 60 fps with only 0.3 lux of illumination. That is about half the amount of light we see on the typical moonlit night.

I use Gmail for my personal email account and over the years I have ended up on mailing lists for stuff that isn't spam, but really isn't that important to me. What that means is that while Gmail does a decent job of filtering all the offers for pills to make my Johnson larger into the spam folder, I still end up wading through tons of mail to find the stuff that is important to me and I need to respond to.

Google has announced a new beta feature for Gmail users called Priority Inbox that will be rolled out to all Gmail users over the next week or so. The new feature looks at the messages you reply to and the people you email most and sets those as higher priority than others. When a message from one of those users comes in it will be automatically filtered to an important box for you to check first.

The user will also have some control over what ends up getting tagged as priority. If a massage lands in the priority box that isn't important the user can click a minus sign to show it's not important. At the same time messages that are important that don't end up in the priority box can be sent there with a click of a new plus button.

With the iPad blowing up the sales charts and taking a bunch of sales away from the netbook market it's no surprise that there are hoards of new tablets coming soon to a store near you. Many people are waiting for tablets with Android as the operating system to start to hit the market rather than buy the locked down iPad from Apple.

A new tablet from Viewsonic has surfaced called the Viewpad 7. The Viewpad 7 runs Android for its operating system, specifically Android 2.2. The 7 in the name refers to the screen size of 7-inches and the tablet has integrated GSM/3G connectivity. Other features include a front facing camera for video calls and a 3MP rear camera for taking pics.

The 3G connectivity also means that the user can use the tablet like a giant Android phone. That is actually a nice feature for the user who only wants to carry a single device and wants a screen larger than the 4-inch max on Android smartphones today. The Viewpad also has WiFi, A-GPS, and a microSD card slot supporting up to 32GB cards. The thing will be shown off at IFA 2010 this week and will sell or the equivalent of $541 over in the UK.

I bet there are lots of people out there who have several Apple gadgets in their home. I know my house does with a pair of iPhones, an iPod touch, and an iPad. To keep from having Apple cables all over the place we tend to fight for the single charge plug that is in the office for all four of the gadgets. A new dock has surfaced from PhotoFast that will make it easy to charge up to four devices at once.

The new dock is called the iPADock and it has a design that allows you to change how many devices can be charged to meet your needs. The dock can charge four iPhones or iPods on its two rows. It can also charge two iPads or a single iPad and a pair of iPhones at the same time. The dock appears to use the stock charge cables for your gadgets.

The dock does not sync data to any of the devices, it is for charging only. In addition to charging the gadgets, the dock also has a place for the iPad Camera Connection Kit to be plugged in. A memory card reader is built-in as well. You can pre-order the iPADock now for about $80 plus shipping. The ship date is set at the end of September.

Fans of Xbox Live are soon going to have to dig a little deeper into their pockets to continue playing online. Starting November 1st, Xbox live is getting its first price increase in its eight year history.

In the United States, one-year Gold memberships are bumping up ten dollars to $59.99 USD. Monthly subscriptions will rise from $7.99 to $9.99, and three month subs will rise from $19.99 to $24.99. Microsoft is running a special deal right now for U.S. customers that will allow them to lock in a year for $39.99 to give them a little buffer before having to pay the higher price.

Other parts of the world will see prices raise as well: Monthly prices are raising in Canada, the U.K., and Mexico. Industry analyst Jesse Divnich said in a statement that "When originally launched in 2002, a Gold subscription cost the same as an AAA video game, $49.99. When taking into account for inflation ($50 in 2002 is roughly $60 in 2010) and the additional services available to Gold subscribers in 2010, such as ESPN, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Last.fm and Video Kinect, a $10 price increase still represents an incredible value to consumers."

I know many people who can't function without music to listen too. If they are outside grilling, playing with the kid's, or at the lake swimming they want music to listen too. If you are the sort that spends a lot of time outside and you want music to listen to while you are out there Grace Digital Audio has unveiled a new line of waterproof speakers that you can use outside without worrying about getting them wet.

The new line includes the Rock Speaker, which looks like a rock unsurprisingly. It has a 1x1" tweeter and a 1 x 4" full range speaker inside. The overall dimensions are 12.13" x 15.51" x 14.29". The speakers are powered by an AC adapter or an internal rechargeable battery and the whole thing is IPX7 approved. Wireless range is 150-feet and the battery is good for 7 hours.

The Schooner II has pair of waterproof speakers with carry handles and is IPX3 approved with a dock for your iPod. Wireless range is also 150-feet and it is good for 7-hours of battery life. The final new set of speakers is the Mini-bullets II with 1x3" full range speakers using double bass boost tech. The speakers can run from a wall outlet of with six AA batteries and are IPX3 approved. The wireless range is the same 150-feet. The Rock Speaker sells for $149.99, Schooner II is $129.99, and the Mini-Bullets II are $99.99.

Google introduced a new call-out service dubbed "Google Voice" last week and noted that the service is only available for U.S. residents at this time.

However, there is a little 'tweak' that can be made which allows us Australians to make use of it, too. And many of you will want to, especially if you often make calls to the U.S. or Canada, as Google is allowing you to do this for free until the end of this year. You can also use Google Voice to call other international numbers for as low as $0.02c USD per minute.

First of all, you need to sign into GMail. From there make sure your Language setting is adjusted to "English (US)". Once you've done that you should see a "Call Phone" option under your name in the Chat section on the left-hand side of the screen. When you click on that you should be prompted to download and install a browser plug-in after which you should be all suited up for calling.