It seems a little late, but I'll be posting wrap up reviews and cool things we found on the Expo floor at last week's GDC, including video and more photos.

The Nintendo section was almost entirely devoted to showcasing the new 3DS. The active 3D engine was pretty impressive, and the 3DS has an adjustment slide that lets the user decide how much he or she enjoys it or finds it necessary (which for the most part, I didn't). No offense to the good people at Nintendo, I just find active 3D disorienting and just a tad bit gimmicky. Luckily, the 3DS didn't sacrifice or slack on any of the other features in the wake of 3D, and all I saw at the booth were wide eyes and smiles.

My own eyes and smile were added to that mix when I tried out two of the augmented reality games that come preloaded on the system. Nintendo uses marker-based AR technology to run their games, launching the AR experiences from a small card (cARd? No? Okay, I'll stop) bearing the familiar Nintendo Question Mark logo. The user orients the 3DS camera toward the card until it recognizes it, and then a variety of things happen depending on what game you're playing.

From Research Triangle Park, just outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, Lenovo announced today its next generation of ultraportable laptops: The ThinkPad X220 Notebook and the X220 Convertible Tablet PC. Lenovo has given the tech consumer the option of purchasing a super-transforming-ultraportable device with detachable keyboard and trusty pen- or instead, you know, a regular notebook. The X220 is not really that regular however, as it brings along a host of nifty features that will be sure to make 2010's Best-Selling Ultraportable Laptop a surefire success in 2011 (According to IDC Worlwide Quarterly PC Tracker, February 2011)

The spec sheets, which we've attached in the gallery at the end of the article, read almost the exact same- Lenovo has outdone their previous efforts in releasing an ultra ultra portable product in tandem with their notebook. The X220 Tablet is therefore quite remarkable in that it possesses almost the exact same external and internal hardware features as its less-transformable cousin, the main tradeoff being that the Tablet weighs in almost a pound heavier than its alternate (~3.88 lbs) with maximum 66% the battery life.

If you want the highlights of their similarities instead of trying to extrapolate them from the Data Sheets below, here's an all-star rundown:

Since January 26th till March 5th thanks to our fabulous community and friends, we managed to donate $6,289.77 AUD to the victims of the Queensland floods.

Today a check was mailed off to the Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal and as promised, you can see a scanned copy of the check above. The Queensland government has already thanked us for the donation as we alerted them about the check that will be mailed once we knew the final amount.

Now, the moment you have been waiting for... the winner of the Aussie Flood Appeal Dream System. A hardcore computer gaming system valued at almost five thousand US dollars. Of course none of this would have been possible without the support of the generous companies who provided parts for the Dream System. Thanks again goes out to Corsair, GIGABYTE, Sapphire, Thermaltake, Western Digital and AVADirect. You guys are the best!

Western Digital has said that it has entered into an agreement with Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) to acquire them for approximately $4.3 billion in cash and stock. WD said on Monday that the acquisition will produce a customer-focused storage company with "significant operating scale, strong global talent and the industry's broadest product lineup backed by a rich technology portfolio".

The acquisition will also strengthen WD's position in the enterprise market, where businesses and consumers are moving their data to cloud-based solutions. Included in the agreement, WD will pay parent company Hitachi Ltd, $3.5 billion in cash and an additional 25 million WD common shares worth $750 million ($30.01 per share) as of March 4, 2011.

With the deal, Hitachi now owns 10-percent of WD shares "outstanding after issuance of the shares", additionally, two Hitachi representatives will now join the WD board of directors at closing.

Owners of Bulletstorms "Epic Edition" get access to the Gears of War 3 beta coming on April 18 - those without Bulletstorm get access on April 25 if they pre-order Gears of War 3 at GameStop in either standard, limited or "epic" edition form.

The beta wraps up on May 15 giving players a month of multiplayer thrashing, there's a tonne of content to unlock in the beta. Below is a list of what is able to be unlocked to those who have access to the GoW3 beta.

Beta Tester Medal - Complete one match in the beta to unlock the Beta Tester medal, which will carry over to your gamer profile in the final game. The Beta Tester title will be featured in the "Gears 3″ multiplayer lobby as well.

Almost two years ago, Google launched a rather mundane attempt to compete with social media juggernaut Facebook. If you weren't reading about how detrimental social media is to your brain and your sense of morality (which you probably, and ironically found on your Twitter or Facebook news feeds), you may have caught this somewhat underwhelming SEO boost to your social network two Aprils ago.

This past Thursday, Google announced it had enhanced its Profiles section. I think we all remember what happened the last time Google created a social service that duplicated an existing one, but 8.5 million reminders of their mistake will hopefully avert anything similar this time.

Google users that decide to participate will notice that their profiles will update automatically as new features become available. For the time being, the page looks almost identical to a watered-down Facebook Profile page- but is that necessarily a bad thing? With so much noise in the social media ecosystem, it's almost refreshing to have a clean and simple profile page somewhere. Though Google Profiles integrates aspects of LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, it does come with original features: a "Places I've Lived" Google Maps Interface, a "Bragging Rights" input field, and 10 personal tags for social SEO. All of the user's Picasa photos are of course readily available for posting, but there seems to be a 5-photo limit when posting on your actual profile.

Rovio has been enjoying their sky-rocketing success lately and have TV/movie spin-offs happening but also a new 'collaborative' Facebook game coming out. Currently the PS3 has a version of Angry Birds out on the PSN with Wii and 360 getting their shot soon.

The Facebook version, "there will be completely new aspects to it that just haven't been experienced in any other platform," said studio boss Mikael Hed, who confirms that due to the social site's 'collaborative nature', "the pigs will have a more prominent role". Launching in a few days is "Angry Birds Rio" which is a tie-in with a Fox movie and swaps the evil pigs for monkeys.

Rovio's strategy has been compared to Disney, with Peter Vesterbacka (Rovio's 'might eagle' in Business Development) saying "We're building an integrated entertainment franchise where merchandising, games, movies, TV, cartoons and comics all come together," he added "Look at how Disney got started. Steamboat Willie created Mickey Mouse, then they added more characters. You can see the same pattern today, but everything is happening much, much faster. Other brands used to build recognition over the course of decades. We've done it in one year."

I'm here at the last day of the GDC in dowtown San Francisco, hanging out and checking out the cool tech. Most of the things I'm going to see here are demonstrations of products and games that everyone already knows about from former press releases and the like, but it's still going to fun to play around with it. I wanted to get a first hand look at Nintendo's much-heralded 3DS, especially the AR interface, so my first stop was the Nintendo booth.

The Nintendo array is great- demos of many games including the new Zelda. A very helpful 3DS rep named Jamie introduced me to the AR games. The 3DS uses marker-based augmented reality, meaning the the images and experienced are anchored to a physical object, like a sign or a barcode. In this case, Nintendo uses a small card with the familiar Nintendo Question Mark logo. I played around with two games, the AR Archery game (which I think they should call ARchery if they haven't already) and a game called "Face Raiders".

Playing the games with the active 3D engine was disorienting at first. Developers have been working for a while to get past that particular Uncanny Valley, but my eyes adjusted to it after a moment. The archery game begins with a small box that appears to be harboring a small creature with bright white eyes. The game literally "unfolds" from there, as the user shoots the one box, which turns into many boxes, which turns into targets, and then things get crazy. The game somehow drops into the table, from which a very angry dragon emerges as the final boss. Didn't really notice a life level or any sort of negative incentive in the game, so I can only imagine the skill incentive is the end Time. I overheard two of the 3DS guys laughing about who had done it faster- the top score is 00:43, but I only managed a paltry 1:40. These games are clearly quick fixes and are not intended be profound experiences, just the simple and beautiful design and UI that we've all come to know and love (and be addicted to) from Nintendo.

The GDC is pumping out some great content today with Epic Games using the show as an opportunity to show off some updates to their Unreal Engine 3. The engine is now capable of DirectX 11 tessellation, subsurface scattering on characters, depth of field with bokeh effects for lights, fully modeled hair, and a new reflection effect that add a veneer of realism to the rain-soaked streets depicted.

The results of these additions are some very impressive looking screenshots, but for now the updates are near useless until we get some DX11-based next-gen consoles. The second we get next-gen consoles, I feel there will be an absolute explosion of graphics, right now we're very much held back. The tech and software is there, it's just a matter of time.

Minecraft cleaned up last night at both the International Games Festival (IGF) and Game Developer's Choice Awards (GDC), winning no less than 5 different categories, including the Seamus McNally Grand Prize and Best Downloadable Game. Indie sensation Minecraft, developed by Mojang, has enjoyed a huge success in mainstream and independent gaming communities alike.

Also of note, San Diego Game Firm Rockstar took Game of the Year and three other categories in the GDC, winning four awards altogether. Go SoCal.

Founder of Lionhead Studios Peter Moylneux walked away with the Lifetime Achievement Award, for his involvement and creation of games such as Fable, Black & White, and that favorite classic, Populous: