New gaming headset from SteelSeries
SteelSeries has announced a new headset, the SteelSeries Siberia Neckband Headset. The difference between this model and the previous models is that the new model is that it uses a neckband instead of an over head design. The design is quite eye catching and it comes in white and black. As this headset is targeting gamers, it has been designed to be comfortable even after hours of usage.
The extra padded ear cups should allow for the extra comfort needed by good gaming headsets and the built in retractable microphone means that there's no risk of damaging the mic when you take the headset with you to a LAN party.
The new Sibera headset was fine-tuned with the help of professional gamers, DJ's and rock musicians according to SteelSeries. Hopefully this should allow for some excellent sound quality, both in games and for other uses. The new headset will be available some time in Q3 and no price has been announced as yet.
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Logitech Unveils First 'Air' Mouse
Update: Oops, looks like I was beaten to the news on this one, with Lars having covered it earlier on in the day.
Though i'll leave this post up, as I think such a cool mouse is worth a double mention.
Logitech being the rather innovative mob that they are, have cooked up something very unique and interesting in the way of an entirely new form of mouse.
Continue reading: Logitech Unveils First 'Air' Mouse (full post)
RV670 delayed until 2008?
According to a post on Fudzilla, the RV670 won't be out until early 2008, despite all sorts of rumours that it will be out in time for the Christmas holiday season. Not only that, but the RV670 was designed for 65nm, although it's now looking like it will be moved to 55nm before it enters production. The RV670 is the missing piece of the puzzle right now, as it fits the space between the GDDR4 version of the Radeon HD 2600 XT and the Radeon HD 2900 XT. The RV670 should have a 256-bit memory controller and will as such replace the Radeon X1950 Pro.
The advantage of moving to 55nm is a smaller and cooler running chip, as it will draw less power, which means less heat. Again, according to Fudzilla, we'll see dual RV670 cards appearing, although we're still waiting for dual Radeon HD 2600 XT cards to appear in retail. A dual RV670 card is meant to outperform a GeForce 8800 Ultra according to Fudzilla, although the question is how cost effective this solution will be.
Fudzilla also claims that there won't be any other cards this side of Christmas from AMD, although some websites believe that a shrunken version of the R680 will be available in time for the holidays. Apparently this is meant to be another 55nm part with PCI Express 2.0, HDMI, HDCP and UVD. This sounds very unlikely, especially considering that the Radeon HD 2900 XT doesn't have the UVD engine and making this work and then having a new 55nm part taped out in the next couple of months would be something of an engineer feat.
Samsung launches 4 new digital cameras
Samsung has launched four new digital cameras today, the L730, the L830, the L83T and the S85. Starting with the L730 and L830, which has 7 and 8 Megapixels respectively, these two entry level models features 3x optical zoom, a 2.5-inch LCD and 16MB of built in memory. Both models also features Samsungs face recognition system and video capture up to 800x592 pixels. Both cameras accept SD memory cards up to 4GB in size and both models have an aluminium body.
The L83T is a more stylish version with a none protruding lens, but it still has 3x optical zoom. The L83T has an 8 Megapixel sensor, a 2.5-inch LCD display and 19MB of built in memory. It also accepts SD memory cards. Again, it features Samsung's face recognition technology, but it adds Samsung's ASR image stabilization system. As with the previous two models, the L83T will record video of up to 800x592 at up to 30 fps in MPEG-4.

Continue reading: Samsung launches 4 new digital cameras (full post)
Logitech MX Air, no need for a desk
Logitech has launched yet another mouse, but this time it's something rather different, both in terms of design and in terms of what it can do. This new MX Air is not like your average mouse, this is a sleek, futuristic looking input device that could be straight out of one of the latest Hollywood blockbusters. And it's more than skin deep, as the MX Air has some pretty cool features on offer as well.
First of all, it still has a laser, just like the other mice in the MX series, but this is about the only thing it has in common with your average mouse. Pick it up off the table and it still works, as Logitech has implemented a motion sensor technology they call Freespace. This allows you to use it freehand, just move it around and the cursor will follow. As if this wasn't enough, the MX Air also allows for gesture commands, press and hold a button on the mouse and move the mouse to perform the command.

Continue reading: Logitech MX Air, no need for a desk (full post)
XBOX 360's Future To Get Brighter
After a prolonged period of frustration amongst many XBOX 360 owners in terms of its reliability issues (due mainly to overheating), things are finally looking up from here on.
As many of you would now be aware, Microsoft just recently decided to extend everyone's warranty period from one to three years, a decision which cost them around 1 billion dollars in fact.
Further to this, there is now talk of a revised 360 entering the market this fall which will use a 65nm die shrink for the processor and GPU. This means production costs for Microsoft won't only be lower (which you would hope will influence the retail pricing), but the internals will run a LOT cooler as well. This would be a sure way to rid the XBOX 360 of the main overheating issue that has been plaguing it to date.
Continue reading: XBOX 360's Future To Get Brighter (full post)
Corsair preps Padlock flash drive series
Corsair have always had a tendancy to be one of the first when it came to revolutionising an already saturated market of varying types of USB flash drives.
As further backing to that, they have just introduced an entirely new family of flash drives with a "padlock" feature embedded. What this does is allow users a simple way of protecting their data from being accessible to just anyone, this by means of using a series of buttons on the outer-shell. A 4-digit PIN is required to be entered prior to being given access to the contents on the flash chip.
This feature is entirely independant of any system software manipulation. The drives will be available in both 1 and 2GB capacities, and are set to be released towards the end of this quarter.
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Fraps 2.9.0 out, DX10 and Vista support
The latest version of Fraps has just been announced and version 2.9.0 not only adds Vista and DirectX 10 support, but it also features a host of bug fixes and new features. If you're not familiar with Fraps, then you've missed out on an excellent piece of software. It allows you to record video and audio from within games and you can also take screen shots with it. As if this wasn't enough, it also has a built in frame counter for games that don't have this built in.
The latest version has now been updated to add all this great functionality to Vista and as an added bonus, thanks to the new audio subsystem of Vista, Fraps can now record sound directly from a sound stream without needing hardware support. This allows for in game audio capture, even with audio devices that doesn't normally allow for this.
Another new cool addition is the ability to capture screenshots and record video from the Vista desktop thanks to the fact that Aero is using DirectX. Some of the new fixes include screen tearing in some DX9 game video captures, improved resource sharing with multithreaded games and loads of little bug fixes that caused Fraps to crash. Owners of the Logitech G15 keyboard will also be happy to know that it will work properly with Fraps under Vista.
Continue reading: Fraps 2.9.0 out, DX10 and Vista support (full post)
Penryn powered Crysis video on YouTube
A YouTube video of Crytek's upcoming game Crysis running on an Intel Penryn quad core CPU has been posted by XtremeQuest. Although we can't say we've heard of XtremeQuest before, it seems like there are a few YouTube videos of various related stuff, like a Graw 2 chat with the developers.
The interesting part about the Crysis video is the comments made by Cevat Yerli, the President and CEO of Crytek. It's apparently the first time he's seeing the demo running on the Penryn system. The game has been in development for three years and he said he thinks that the performance in amazing. He's really happy about how the game runs on the Penryn and he expects two to three years life span for Crysis.
According to Cevat, Crysis will be able to take advantage of the four cores of the Penryn and Crytek is working hard on adding additional features for multithreaded game play and better AI. The system looks pretty basic, although it's hard to tell from the fairly poor quality video. You can't really make out what the graphics card is, but our guess is that it's a GeForce 8800 series card. There's also an Intel motherboard, it might even be a Bad Axe 2 board, it does at least look very similar.
Continue reading: Penryn powered Crysis video on YouTube (full post)
Dave Orton leaves AMD/ATI
Dave Orton, the former CEO or ATI is leaving AMD at the end of the month according to a press release posted on AMD's website today. This is indeed sad news and it seems like most of the key ATI staff has left AMD since the merger of the two companies. Dave Orton held a press conference about AMD's new graphics products here in Taipei at Computex, just a month ago.
It is worrying times for AMD and if they keep losing key ATI staff at this rate, there won't be much of a graphics team left at AMD. Adrian Hartog and Rick Bergman will be reporting directly to Hector Ruiz as an effect of Dave Orton's resignation.
"Dave's passion and relentless drive catapulted ATI into a solid leadership position in each of the company's graphics, chipset and consumer electronics businesses," said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and chief operating officer. "More recently, Dave was one of the key drivers in the successful integration of AMD and ATI. With his integration work complete and the successful launch of key graphics and chipset products earlier this year, the time was right for Dave to take his personal and professional life in a different direction."