Hasta La Gadget!

Frankly, you’ve probably had enough PlayStation news to last you a bit, but just in case the PS3 Slim, firmware 3.0, and PSP Minis weren’t enough, the company revealed today an update to Home. Like everything else it seems, version 1.3 is also due out in September, and in addition to things like in-store item previews, cameras, and other new objects, you’ll now have the option to launch any game from inside Home itself. Some titles like MotorStorm and Far Cry 2 that fully support the universal game launching have their own special icons and multiplayer functionality, while others will simply open up to the main menu. We’re interested in what integration those fully supported games might enable, but either way, that’s still one less excuse for avoiding Home. Now if they could only do something about all those annoying avatars…

Filed under: Gaming

PlayStation Home 1.3 will let you launch any game from inside the metaverse originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nothing too exhilarating here, but if you’re looking for something new to sit atop the peak on your ear, Samsung‘s got a new trio it’d love for you to consider. The most interesting of the three is undoubtedly the WEP870, which marries a noise-canceling Bluetooth mono headset (with BT music streaming) to a set of earbuds. As with the less thrilling WEP850 and WEP470, this one also features multi-connection technology in order to pair with up to two BT devices at once. The 870 steps things up with an LCD screen to display battery level, call status and BT connection status, while the other two handle calls and little else. All three are available for purchase right now for $89.99 (WEP870), $69.99 (WEP850) and $39.99 (WEP470).

[Via HotHardware]

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals

Samsung’s WEP870 Bluetooth headset comes with earbuds, bundles of joy originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Microsoft has run through several versions of its free Movie Maker application for various Windows platforms, most of them earning a fair amount of criticism. The latest edition, Windows Live Movie Maker 1.0, does easily turn photos and video clips into slide shows and movies, but it is far from perfect. Released from beta on Wednesday, this is functional freeware that’s aimed squarely at the casual consumer crowd. Although mostly easy to use, its toolset and interface lack a certain sophistication that users of all levels would appreciate.

Installation tips

The fresh-out-of-beta Windows Live Movie Maker (not to be confused with Windows Movie Maker, minus the ‘Live’) is compatible with Vista and Windows 7 operating systems only. It comes bundled into the Windows Live Essentials suite of apps, but you can separate it out with a little click-surgery. To get Movie Maker only, you’ll need to uncheck the boxes for the other programs in the suite, leaving Movie Maker selected. Before the app finishes installing, take care to read the penultimate window; if you race ahead, you’ll be changing your default search to Microsoft’s Bing and your home page to MSN.

Windows Live Movie Maker comes bundled in a software suite.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Interface

With its visual ribbon of menu actions, Windows Live Movie Maker emulates the look and feel of Microsoft Office 2007 applications. The preview window is portioned out to the left of the screen and the gallery of photos and clips you’ll import sits on the right. Interestingly, tool tips appear above the Edit, Options, and Format tabs to alert you that these are the menus for video, audio, and text tools. These tabs disappear when you’re not using them. While we like this feature, we also wonder why Microsoft didn’t just name the original tabs ‘video,’ ‘audio,’ and ‘text,’ and dispense with the highlighted tabs-above-the-tabs.

Making instant movies

Microsoft’s emphasis on the visual hits home when you get started. In addition to adding photos and video clips through a menu button, you can drag and drop them into the storyboard. Likewise, you can click and drag to move clips around. For extremely simple movie-creation, after you arrange the clips, a click of the AutoMovie button (in the Home tab) ties the clips together with a title, transitions, and pan and zoom effects. If it doesn’t add a song clip for you, it prompts you to select one (again, through the Home tab.) Automating movies and slide shows this ways is a great two-second option for casual or time-stressed users. After all, you can always tweak later.

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Originally posted at The Download Blog

The new Nikon D300s is getting some raw-image support from Adobe.

(Credit: Nikon USA)

Adobe Systems has released a test version of its Camera Raw 5.5 plug-in so Photoshop can handle raw images from the Olympus E-P1 high-end compact camera, Nikon’s new D3000 entry-level SLR, mid-range D300s SLR, …

Originally posted at Underexposed

Ouch. That looks painful.

(Credit: Screenshot by Gamersyde/Polyphony Digital)

Forza has it. GRID has it. Heck, even Need for Speed has it. We now have video proof, coming out of Gamescom 2009, that Gran Turismo 5 will finally get damage modeling.

Of the 1,000 vehicles available for play …

Originally posted at The Car Tech blog