Electronic Arts announced today that they will be broadcasting their press conference, live from, ah, Spike TV of all places. You all remember Spike TV, right? It used to be called TNN and only showed reruns and the Grand Ol' Opry? And then it turned into something resembling a bastard child of the NASCAR channel and G4? Yeah, well, that's where EA's press conference is going to be, June 6th, 12:30PM PDT.

EA has already stated they're going to be showing a new Battlefield 3 Demo, gameplay from Mass Effect 3 (sick!) and "news on unannounced projects." So if you have American cable, tune your Tivo to Spike- otherwise...well, I'm sorry you don't have Spike TV?

Also, kids: please don't confuse Spike TV with the Spice Channel (not a food network).

The next installment of tickets for this sure-to-be insanely fun conference goes on sale 5/25 7PM PDT, so if you're located in the US you'll have plenty of time to get home from work only to post up on your computer, eagerly awaiting the the clock striking sevenfold. Or something. Either way, you'll get another chance, and tickets are actually a very decent $175- though if you miss out on those, you'll have the opportunity to spend $500 to go to a dinner with the Blizzard / Activision Execs. Oh, c'mon, it's for charity.

Readers will recall that BlizzCon tickets first went on sale the same day as the prophesied Rapture, which we believed had the potential to drastically interfere. The event however weathered the End of Days (I refuse to repost the trailer, go watch it yourselves) without a hitch, as the allotted tickets for that round sold out in less than 24 hours.

Check out more information at Blizzard's BlizzCon site or check out the posts below.

Boo yah! If you're not making the trek to this year's E3 (or paying for the horrendously expensive passes), you'll at least be able to catch Nintendo's presentation at 9AM PDT, Tuesday June 7. Also, bonus if you're a Wii player: exclusive Wii-only content following the presentation. Make sure to watch, as Nintendo will be announcing their brand new system, which is basically SNES controllers with touchscreens in them. Awesome.

Nintendo did something similar for this past winter's Game Developer's Conference here in San Francisco- gotta say, I really wish more tech and game firms would do this type of thing, as those conferences never get any cheaper! Press release to follow, or check out the blog post.

If this were my own tech site, where I didn't have to type up a few paragraphs on the news I post, the only word that would accompany this news would be: Wow. I would end it with "Wow" and a link to the YouTube video - but holy bloody crap, Sharp and Japanese national TV broadcaster, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) have jointly developed an 85-inch LCD compatible with Super Hi-Vision, a next-generation television broadcast format.

The new format comprises of 33 megapixels, or 16 times the resolution of HDTV, Super Hi-Vision is being pushed as offering a powerful, life-like image reproduction. R&D began in 1995 (!) and they aim to have trial broadcasts before the decade ends. Sharp used their UV2A2 LCD technology which allows them to create the first direct-view LCD compatible with the insanely high resolution performance of Super Hi-Vision.

Sharp's TV features a Super Hi-Vision-compatible LCD, 85-inch in size, a native resolution of hold-onto-your-pants 7680x4320, a brightness of 300 cd/m2, a gradation of 10 bits for each RGB color and a refresh rate of 60Hz (boo!). The new LCD will be shown to the public at NHK's Science and Technology Research Laboratories in Tokyo from May 26, 2011 until May 29, 2011.

Ah, Logitech. You've put a smile on my face today. Logitech have released tablet-based accessories for the iPad and Android users out there, this includes keyboards, bluetooth mice, wireless speakers. First up Logitech have the Tablet Keyboard for iPad, US$69.99, Bluetooth compatible, includes a case and stand and also media controls.

Next up we have the Keyboard Case for iPad 2 which sells for US$99.99, it includes a very swish-looking keyboard (of course!), Bluetooth, rechargeable battery and 10-hour battery life. This is one of the best accessories, as the iPad 2 can dock into it and act like a netbook, or click on top of it and be used as a case to protect the screen. The final accessory from Logitech for the iPad is the Logitech Wireless Speaker which retails for US$99.99 and is a Bluetooth-based speaker setup which allows you to play music directly from your iPad without any wires, it features dual two-inch drivers which Logitech say are set to deliver rich, stereo sound and plenty of bass. The speaker lasts for up to ten hours straight playing, and is rechargeable (includes an internal battery).

Android-based Logitech accessories next! The Android accessories are virtually identical, including a Logitech Tablet Keyboard for Android 3.0+ at US$69.99, this version does not include the case, but is an actual separate dock and keyboard. It still features that Bluetooth goodness and is capable of being used within 30 feet of your tablet. Next up is the Tablet Mouse for Android 3.1+, this mouse retails for US$49.99 and features an ambidextrous design, laser-tech and of course, Bluetooth.

Newsflash, Blizzard: A lot of people (who probably wouldn't be attending BlizzCon anyway) in the California area are very aware of May 21, as it's the day that Armageddon officially begins. And I'm not talking about a level-mod or Diablo 2 marathon gaming session- literally, the End of Days. Not this End of Days though, unless that Jeffersonian scandal of his was some act of divine intervention to clear his schedule in time to save the world.

I digress.

Anyway, in case the Earth isn't consumed by heavenly fire tomorrow morning (On that note, does Armageddon have a time zone? Does that mean midnight tonight? Could a cosmic-level event really be dependent on an arbitrary measuring system created by humans? I think I'd be more trusting of this if it coincided with the passing of a meteor, or an eclipse. Or, I don't know, even a solstice. C'mon Zealots, step your game up), BlizzCon tickets will be on sale for a limited time only. More information below from the blog post and more information on what could just be a religious conspiracy to sell T-Shirts.

Developers have complained for the longest time that piracy is the number one killer in sale numbers but it is now looking like the used-game sales could be an even bigger problem. Fable III designer Mike West says that the sale of second-hand Xbox 360 games costs the developer more than piracy on PC.

He elaborates by saying:

Apple is set to inject their ultra-thin MacBook Air range with some Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt goodness come this June/July. The refreshed models will bring the Air range in line with the Sandy Bridge-refreshed MacBook Pro and iMac range that have just recently been updated. DigiTimes is citing industry sources saying that the supply chain makers for the new models remain the same.

Quanta Computer doing assembly work, Catcher Technology supplying casings and Simplo Technology and Dynapack supplying the batteries. The refresh should cause quite the stir as it'll give Apple the much needed speed boost in their ultra-thin notebook line at the same time as winking toward competitors like Dell and Samsung who are tripping over themselves trying to compete.

ASUS are really going for gold with the AM3+ platform by including the Republic of Gamers (ROG) teaming of two motherboards in the form of the ASUS Crosshair V Formula and The Ultimate Force (TUF) Sabertooth 9900FX which go hand-in-hand with AMD's 990FX chipset that is designed to run up to four discrete graphics cards. ASUS are keeping the color scheme in line with other TUF-series boards and it doesn't look too bad at all.

The board comes with ultra-durable components, 10-phase Digi+ VRM, four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3-1866MHz memory and connects to the 990FX chipset over a HyperTransport 3.1 link. The board includes four PCI-Express 2.0 16x (capable of 16/4/8/8x or 16/4/16/nc - depending on what is installed). The electrical x4 slot is wired to the SB950 southbridge and is placed there to hold PCI-Express SSDs (such a great addition).

One each of the PCI-E x1 and PCI end the slots in a slower fashion. Storage wise the board sports six internal SATA 6Gbit ports supporting RAID, two internal SATA 3Gbit from a third-party controller, one power-eSATA/USB combo and one normal eSATA on the rear. To finish the board off we have 8+2 channel HD audio powered by a Realtek ALC892 with optical SPDIF output, one GbE port, four USB3.0 ports (two rear, two via header), a bunch of USB2.0 ports and Firewire.

Rovio's famously awesome Angry Birds has reached a very amazing milestone. Downloads have topped 200 million, Apple's iPad and iPhone have contributed to this success by a large portion but the franchise has grown up a little bit. Angry Birds has seem phenomenal success even on Google's Chrome Web Store with 5 million downloads.

Keep in mind that Rovio had more than fifty games before they struck gamers across the globe with the amazing Angry Birds. Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka has shown off Angry Birds hoodies (omg!) and has said that he sees Angry Birds as a huge entertainment platform which isn't just limited to merchandise and movies but he will be experimenting with location-based services and other schemes to blend the game's footprint into the real world. Interesting, huh?