Intel rips into NVIDIA’s Ion platform

Intel and NVIDIA aren’t exactly hiding their differences with each other these days, and it doesn’t look like that’s about to change anytime soon, especially when it comes to NVIDIA’s turf-encroaching Ion platform. According to a document apparently now making the rounds in some circles, Intel not only says that NVIDIA is simply reusing an integrated graphics chipset designed laptops and desktops, which will “in turn leads to higher costs as well as high power consumption,” but that NVIDIA is overstating interest in Ion from OEMs, saying that “as of this writing, no customer has publicly disclosed plans to design Ion-based products.” Intel reportedly further goes on to say that “NVIDIA’s Ion HD playback may not be as good as NVIDIA claims,” and even if Ion is more powerful, “neither gaming nor video transcoding are relevant to netbook and nettop users.” As if that wasn’t enough, Intel closes things out by saying that since it’ll be releasing its own update platform by the end of the year, “the window of opportunity for Ion is very short.” Of course, there’s still no indication that any of this will lead to a hard break between Intel and NVIDIA, although NVIDIA does at least now have VIA to fall back on.

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Intel rips into NVIDIA’s Ion platform originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cheap Geek: Dell 4-Hour Laptop Sale, Best Buy iPhone Sale, LeapFrog Sale

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If you’re wishing you were in New Orleans partying on Fat Tuesday, take your mind off of it with these fun deals. Check out Gearlog’s finds for Tuesday, February 24:

1. I guess if you’re Dell, you don’t have to have a 1-day-sale, a 4-hour-sale is enough. Starting today at 2 p.m. CT, Dell is having a 4-hour sale on laptops. Which laptops are on sale? Well, until the sale starts, it’s a mystery to us too. Check out the sale, but make sure you get there in the 4-hour window: The sale ends at 6 p.m. CT.

2. If you’ve been a member of the Best Buy Reward Zone program since at least February 21, then you’re in luck. You can save up to $100 off of an iPhone 3G this week. Here’s the deal: if you’re a regular Reward Zone member, you can save $50 on select iPhone 3G, including the 8GB and 16GB models; if you’re a Premier Silver member (which apparently costs money to be a member), you can save $100 on those models. So, if you happen to fit any of those classifications, than make sure to get over to Best Buy before the sale ends on February 28.

3. LeapFrog is having a sale on gift packs. Save up to 40 percent off of select gift packs, and receive free shipping. Get the Didj Hanna Montana gift pack for $89, down from $152. It includes a pink Didj custom gaming system, pink customization kit, carrying case, and Hanna Montana Learning Game.

4. Finally, all geeks need to eat, right? For today only, Jack in the Box is offering two free tacos if you print this coupon.

Masses to Marvell at tiny wall plug computer?

You might have heard of or even used a powerline network adapter, such as the one made by Netgear that plugs directly into the wall. Now think of a similar-looking device that is an entire computer.

The SheevaPlug computer.

(Credit: Marvell)

Marvell on Tuesday introduced a new kind of personal …

Sony announces Lilac PSP, Hannah Montana and Assassin’s Creed entertainment packs

Tired of PSP colors yet? Sony doesn’t think you are — and it also thinks you’re a lady, because it’s squarely targeting the new Lilac PSP at girl gamers. Tween girls, to be specific: the Lilac will debut as part of a $199 Hannah Montana Entertainment Pack that features young Miley’s PSP game, a UMD with a few HM episodes, a 2GB memory stick, and some fun stickers. What do the less overstimulated among us get? An Assassin’s Creed Entertainment Pack that’ll launch with Altair’s PSP debut later this year and “other content that will announced later.” Awesome, thanks for loving us too, Sony.

[Via Joystiq]

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Sony announces Lilac PSP, Hannah Montana and Assassin’s Creed entertainment packs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Skimming the Kindle 2 and other e-books gadgets

When avid reader Oprah Winfrey raved about the digital reading device called Kindle, it shot to the top of the holiday must-have list.

As an updated device from Amazon.com, called Kindle 2, hit the market Tuesday, CNET TV Senior Editor Natali del Conte visited the “CBS Early Show” to give viewers a look at the new e-book reader and compare it to the latest versions of similar devices.

The Kindle “has lived up to the hype,” del Conte says. “It’s one of those things you don’t absolutely need, but once you get it, you can’t live without it.”

Among Kindle 2’s improvements over the first one:

• It’s thinner.
• The original held 150 books; the new one holds 10 times as many.
• 3G downloading means you’ll get books downloaded on the fastest mobile network available in the United States; download a book in fewer than 2 minutes.
• It has text-to-speech reading of books.
• It plays MP3 music files.

The Kindle 2 is still pretty pricey, at $359. But del Conte says it’s worth the bucks “if you’re an avid reader. If you average it out, you’re going to be saving money on books, because buying the books online is less expensive (than doing so conventionally), and you purchase the device only once. There are a lot of ways to read books online, if money is an issue.”

Roundup: Three Blu-ray players for less than $300

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET Networks)

During the 2008 holiday season, we found plenty of affordable Blu-ray players to recommend under $300. Fast-forward a couple months, and we’re surprised to find that many of those players are either discontinued (Panasonic DMP-BD35) or are no longer discounted.

You can still get …

Engadget’s recession antidote: win a Razer Arctosa gaming keyboard!

This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs (including today’s news that 1,000 will lose out in a “restructuring” of Nokia) got us thinking. We here at Engadget didn’t want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back — so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. We’ll be handing out a new gadget every day (except for weekends) to lucky readers until we run out of stuff / companies stop sending things. Today we’ve got a Razer Arctosa black gaming keyboard on hand. Read the rules below (no skimming — we’re omniscient and can tell when you’ve skimmed) and get commenting! Hooray for free stuff!

Special thanks to Razer for providing the gear!

The rules:

  • Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for “fixing” the world economy, that’d be sweet too.
  • You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)
  • If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you’ll be fine.
  • Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
  • Winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one Razer Arctosa gaming keyboard. Approximate retail value is $50.
  • If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.
  • Entries can be submitted until Friday, February 27th, 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
  • Full rules can be found here.

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Engadget’s recession antidote: win a Razer Arctosa gaming keyboard! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mad Catz Street Fighter IV FightPad Review: I’m Going to Kill You So, So Bad

Let’s get this much out of the way: Shoryuken for shoryuken, the Mad Catz Street Fighter IV FightPad is a vastly superior instrument of destruction compared to the standard Xbox 360 controller.

Price: $40

Verdict: In one sense, the verdict is that straightforward—the fantastic floating D-Pad and arcade-style six-button layout crush the regular Xbox 360 controller when it comes to fighting games. The FightPad makes my game so much better, so much more precise, I don’t think I could go back to using the old pad.

Here’s what I mean: With the old pad, on average, I would successfully execute Fei Long’s rising dragon kick (or insert any dragon punch-based maneuver) about 5-7 times out of 10 tries. With the FightPad, it’s like 9 times out of 10. Moves requiring 720-degree motions, like Zangief’s super, come off much easier as well, and exactly when I want it to (when someone’s up in my face—PILEDRIVER). Back, forward, back forward style specials, like with Honda or Blanka, aren’t noticeably easier to perform, though.

The shape and layout of the FightPad kinda reminds me of a Sega Genesis controller, and is for the most part, excellent, though if you have elven hands it might feel a little too big. For me, with medium mitts, it fits perfectly, no matter which way I hold it (I actually turn my right hand palm side down, so I can mash the buttons with my fingers whenever I play fighting games) and there’s some breathing room for gorilla-handed people too.

But there are some things you should know about that would be dealbreakers if beating people didn’t matter above all else. Numero uno, on the Xbox 360, this sucker is wired, which is lame balls for a $40 controller. It also feels very cheaply made, with glossy plastic Mad Catz found and melted down after it fell off a Christmas ornament truck. The rubber coating on the sides and back helps a little bit. Last, the sound quality coming through the headset on this thing is really terrible, like I was stranded on a desert island with a cellphone from 1987—it’s noticeably crappier than it is on the regular Xbox 360 controllers.

Those things said, if you wanna do better in Street Fighter IV—or any fighting game really, since it worked fantastically with Samurai Showdown II and SFIITHDR as well—and not have a real reason to curse at your controller when you get scrubbed, but don’t wanna (or can’t) drop the money on the outrageously awesome Tournament Edition FightStick, this is a reasonable alternative, if you can actually find it for the $40 MSRP.

P.S. If you wanna play Street Fighter IV with me, @reply me on Twitter and we’ll set something up later this week.

‘Quake Live’: Productivity-destroying Web game

(Credit: iD Software)

Set the wayback machine for 1999/2000, and you’ll find a lot of Gen-X office workers doing the same thing I was back then–wasting hour upon hour of company time playing “Quake III” (or “Unreal Tournament II”) with my office mates. (At least in my case, …

Originally posted at Digital City Podcast

Hitachi acquires Fabrik, looks to expand market presence

We keep hearing that it’s a buyer’s market out there, and for anyone with any amount of cash (that’d be Hitachi, in this scenario), the getting is pretty great. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) has just announced that it has snapped up Fabrik, Inc., a privately-held supplier of personal and professional storage solutions. You may be more familiar with the said company’s brands, as G-Technology and SimpleTech tend to ring bells much better than a name easily mistaken for clothing. According to Steve Milligan, President of Hitachi GST, the acquisition will soon become “the cornerstone for the next phase of Hitachi’s business transformation,” though he certainly didn’t bother to elaborate. Who knows — maybe one day soon we really will see Hitachi taking on the likes of Western Digital and LaCie in the external sector.

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Hitachi acquires Fabrik, looks to expand market presence originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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