Hasta La Gadget!

For years now, Voodoo PC’s fearless leader (that’d be Rahul Sood) barely went a month without teasing this or that, or better yet, introducing the new hotness. In terms of cutting-edge design, these guys were at the front of the class. And then came the HP tie-in, along with the worry that the Voodoo name (and “DNA”) would eventually be swallowed whole. After dishing out a smattering of VoodooDNA machines under the HP label, Rahul and his company went radio silent. In fact, we haven’t heard a peep from Mr. Sood for nine whole months, and we really began to wonder what was going on when HP issued the new Envy 13 and Envy 15 with nary an official hint of Voodoo’s fingerprints.

Now, at long last, Rahul has emerged from hiding, and he’s got a story to tell. In short, Voodoo is still alive and well, but it’s certainly not the same company that shocked the world with its ENVY m:790 laptop in late 2004. In fact, Rahul’s been working on some pretty unorthodox projects, ranging from healthcare (okay?) to futuristic stuff for HP’s Innovation Program Office. In a lengthy letter to the world, he explains that the initial push to get Voodoo completely underneath HP’s wings was done in order to give Voodoo access to global partners, and in turn, to ship its products to every corner of the world. When speaking about the Envy 13 / 15, he proclaims that HP’s own laptop team simply lifted ideas from Voodoo prototypes and designed them internally; the truth is that Voodoo didn’t design either machine, it only influenced them. The removal of the “VoodooDNA” tagline — according to Rahul — has to do with “the overall design language, the target market, and the fact that [Voodoo] wasn’t directly involved in the design.”

In the end, Sood admits that there’s still a chance you’ll see another Voodoo-branded machine in your lifetime, but he also confesses that it has transitioned from a desktop and laptop company to “something beyond.” He also makes clear that he hasn’t forgotten about his promise to change the future of desktop gaming, and that new products from HP will continue to boast Voodoo’s fingerprints. Typical Rahul — it just wouldn’t be a formal conclusion without a tease or two, now would it?

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Voodoo’s Rahul Sood emerges from hiding, gives us all the low-down originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You remember Moneual, right? You know — the guys and gals playing a torrented movie on their demo unit at a trade show. Now that we’re on the same page, have a look at the show-stopper above. That’s the Hello Kitty-embellished MiNEW A10, or in other words, the most outrageous nettop to ever see the light of day. The wildest part is that existing A10 owners can even make their relatively sane looking machine morph into cuteness overload for the tidy sum of ₩150,000 ($123). Or you can just get a whole new rig that no one else has to know about for ₩540,000 ($443) — totally your call there. One more frightening look is after the break.

[Via Akihabara News]

Continue reading Moneual’s MiNEW A10 nettop gets preciously attacked by Hello Kitty

Filed under: Desktops

Moneual’s MiNEW A10 nettop gets preciously attacked by Hello Kitty originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know we expend a lot of digital ink talking about oomph and va va voom, but sometimes you just need a computer you can give to your old grandpappy and let him go wild with the Reader’s Digest online edition. The Linutop 3, sporting a custom Linux OS atop a blistering 1GHz VIA C7 CPU, 1GB of RAM and a tremendously capacious 2GB SSD, is just that sort of machine. It asks for a mere €340 ($485) and 20 watts of power, and lets you expand storage by adding an internal hard drive or plugging a memory stick into one of six available USB ports. Sure, you’re unlikely to use it for more than the bundled Open Office and Firefox applications, but have you considered this thing’s potential after bumping that clock multiplier and dipping the whole thing in liquid nitrogen? Have you?

[Via The Register]

Filed under: Desktops

Linutop 3 out to seduce minimalists, cheapskates originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 06:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Don’t get us wrong — we’re all in favor of purposeless, ostentatious, and classless displays of wealth — but we prefer it to be a little less… tacky? German manufacturer High End PCs have the high end part down pat — they’ll dip your desktop in all manners of gold (up to 24 karat!), cubic zirconia and of course, diamonds. Now, we don’t have any specs on these puppies — though we suspect performance is beside the point. Our only real qualm with the product is that it looks like a Kleenex box from Don Johnson’s bathroom in 1986. But, if you have a stack of money hanging around and you just can’t be bothered to think of really awesome things to do with it, Gaiser’s PCs start from about $8,000 and run up to around $33,000.

[Via Oh! Gizmo]

Filed under: Desktops

Gold, diamond-leafed Gaiser PCs might just bring Marie Antoinette back from the grave originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our Recession Antidote series has been firing on all cylinders for awhile now, but today we’re breaking things up a bit with an extra special giveaway. In case you couldn’t guess, we’ll be transferring ownership of our very own custom-built HTPC — which was featured yesterday in a ‘How to build an HTPC for under $1,000′ guide — and one lucky reader will be able to wrap their arms around a shiny new entertainment rig. We won’t bother breaking down the specs (just check out yesterday’s piece for that), but we will bother thanking the outfits who made this come together as well as point you to the fine print below for instructions on how to drop your name in the hat.

Huge thanks to nMEDIAPC, Intel, ASUS, OCZ, Hitachi, LG, Gigabyte, Auvio and Microsoft 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. One (1) winner will receive one (1) custom-built HTPC. Approximate value is $1,000. That special Engadget Touch is provided gratis.
• 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 Wednesday, July 22nd, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
• Full rules can be found here.

Filed under: Desktops, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Engadget’s recession antidote: win our custom-built HTPC! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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