Hasta La Gadget!

(Credit: Microsoft)

Logos and logo stickers are a big deal for companies about to make a big push on a new product, and forgive us for getting this one wrong. Microsoft’s Windows 7 Compatible program, which labels qualified products as being Microsoft-approved to work with Windows 7, is designed

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We can’t say this was unexpected, but Sony just pinged us to say that that Nazi PS3 ad is “totally fake” and was made without their approval — here’s the statement from the executive president of BBDO Chile, which made the ads:

This creative design did not involve and was never approved by Sony Computer Entertainment or Sony. This “mock campaign” was developed by BBDO Chile staff and was submitted to various creative competitions/festivals without prior notification or approval from SCE/Sony, and it is not representative of the views or advertising policies of SCE/Sony. BBDO Chile apologizes for using this creative concept without authorization or prior approval, and for its misrepresentation of the PlayStation brand and its values.

Settles that, we suppose — although we’re guessing BBDO Chile isn’t going to be Sony’s agency of record very much longer.

Filed under: Gaming

Sony says Nazi PS3 ad is a “mock campaign” and not real originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS is good for canning concepts just before they’ve had a chance to truly thrive, but thankfully the company has made an obvious effort to bring its “Marine Cool” mainboard to life. After peeking said device at CeBIT earlier this year, the SABERTOOTH 55i has become the first actual, working product to be based around the technology. The newly-developed TUF series is designed to handle “extreme conditions,” and while ASUS claims that it’ll survive “military-style testing,” we wouldn’t recommend submerging it under liquid or blasting it with a railgun. For those looking to piece together a new Core i5 / Core i7 rig, feel free to give the read link a look for all the details, but don’t bother searching high and low for a price or release date.

Filed under: Desktops, Peripherals

ASUS intros first ‘Marine Cool’ motherboard, the SABERTOOTH 55i originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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"I hope at their best they are beautiful, funny, warm, poignant, odd, and memorable," Sophie Blackall says of the paintings in her Missed Connections series.

(Credit: Sophie Blackall)

OK, so your “Missed Connection” post on Craigslist never led to a great romance with that cute hipster who looked your way on the L train–let alone an e-mail from anyone vaguely resembling her. But those hopeful words you sent out into the ether may not be lost after all.

Brooklyn illustrator Sophie Blackall is immortalizing Missed Connections posts in the form of some pretty wonderful and whimsical paintings. And who knows? Maybe your note to that girl with the nose ring and headphones is now a work of art.

“Messages in bottles, smoke signals, letters written in the sand; the modern equivalents are the funny, sad, beautiful, hopeful, hopeless, poetic posts on Missed Connections Web sites,” Blackall writes on her blog. “Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I’m trying to pin a few of them down.”

Her original paintings, created with Chinese ink and watercolor, measure about 11 inches by 17 inches and have names like “Hairy Bearded Swimmer,” “I Had a Blue Hat,” and “Seeking Girl Who Bit Me TWICE Last Night While We Were Dancing.”

Blackall sells 8.5 inch by 11 inch prints of her illustrations for $40 (with free shipping) on crafts site Etsy and plans to release a book based on the series in 2012.

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Ah, the future. Full of uncertainties and possibilities, yet one constant remains: the Vostro 430. Designed from the ground up to withstand global upheavals like Windows 7, this humble little box is fully configurable with your choice of Core i5 or Core i7 processors and ATI or NVIDIA discrete graphics, along with up to 16GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, an optional Blu-ray drive, a 19-in-1 memory card reader, a couple of PS/2 and serial ports to support your older devices and, of course, plenty of room for further expansion (including no less than 10 USB ports). Best of all, it boasts a starting price of just $699, with some fairly high-end options still well within reach under the $1,000 mark.

Filed under: Desktops

Dell introduces “future proof” Vostro 430 desktop originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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