Hasta La Gadget!

Imagine if you could switch between your PlayStation 3, XBox 360, and your Wii or other game console seamlessly without having to remove your headphones to hear the audio, or in some cases even to talk smack with the friends you’re gaming with. That’s what the new Logitech Wireless Headset F540 was built for: superior audio, ease of use, and seamless switching between up to three consoles. The F540 headset, available for pre-order at $149.99 list, comes with a base station with three RCA audio inputs so you can connect three audio sources to the same headset.

The F540 has built-in support for voice chat through the PlayStation 3 and the XBox 360, so if you connect those consoles, you won’t have to do anything special to use voice chat with other gamers. The headset is completely wireless, recharges its 10-hour batteries over micro-USB, and features a noise-cancelling microphone so your teammates hear you and not your dog barking in the background. All of your audio controls are right on the earcup, so you can control the volume, mute the microphone, or switch audio inputs just by tapping the side of your head. 

Benjamin “Ben Heck” Heckendorn popped by the PCMag offices today to talk up his brand new Element14 Web series, The Ben Heck Show. Those of who are familiar with Heck’s work (which I assume applies to a large chunk of the folk who regularly go out of their way to read gadget blogs) pretty much know what you’re in for–mods, mods, mods (and not the kind on scooters).

Heck’s best know for his console mods, of course–making portable versions of the Atari 2600, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and newer systems like the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii.

Heck’s mods–and his new show–go beyond that, however. In the first episode, Heck modifies an Xbox 360 controller for a gamer who lost control of one of his hands. In fact, Heck told Gearlog that he would love to get into the prosthetics field at some point.

As for future shows? A multi-episode series showing users how to build their own pinball machine? Yes please.

Episode two debuts next week. Heck promises lots more explosions to come. Check out the first episode, after the jump.

If you live in the New York area, meanwhile, you can meet Heck at the Maker Faire in Queens this weekend.

In the beginning, it was hard not to see Microsoft’s refusal to embrace Blu-ray on the Xbox 360 as a result of the fact that the company had originally sided with Toshiba’s HD DVD format–a battle that, of course, the company ultimately lost.

Even as Blu-ray became the clear victor of the battle and former HD DVD supportser (including Toshiba itself) embraced the format, Microsoft wasn’t exactly falling all over itself to adopt the media.

And now, as other companies are beginning to abandon physical media in favor of the streaming variety, it looks as though Microsoft may have ultimately done itself a favor by waiting it out. Now seems like a pretty good time for the company to pat itself on the back for such foresight.

Stephen McGill, the head of Xbox operations in the UK, did the honors. “Blu-ray is going to be passed by as a format,” the executive told a UK site. “People now recognize what a smart decision it was to keep the [Xbox 360] pricing low,” Gill said, in reference to the lack of a Blu-ray drive on the device.

It’s hard to argue with the suggestion that Blu-ray will ultimately be eclipsed by non-physical formats–we’re seeing the same phenomenon occur over in the music world. Though, thanks the the war on technology waged by record labels, the process has been relatively slow and painful.

As broadband becomes the norm, it’s clear that movie streaming services are the next logical step in the evolution of movie delivery. The question then, is how long such a transition will take. It’s certainly a gamble on Microsoft’s part–but then, the last time the company invested itself in a next generation movie format, that didn’t work out all that well.

The Halo series has always been about addictive multiplayer experiences, so it’s most disturbing to find out that campaign co-op gaming on the latest title is a non-starter for people without a hard drive attached to their 360. An issue has been identified by users of the 4GB Xbox 360, whereby attempts to team up on the baddies with your buddies — whether locally or via Xbox Live — is met with an error message saying that a HDD is “required for this game type.” This affects both Halo: Reach and the earlier Halo: ODST. Adding extra memory via USB has been found to be ineffective, but at least Microsoft has stated that it’s aware of the limitation and is “quickly working to resolve it.” Standard multiplayer is predictably unaffected, so we suggest taking your rage out on some newbies while the MS techs figure out their caching algorithms.

Halo Reach requires hard drive to play in co-op mode, Microsoft working on this ‘temporary issue’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 02:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A little piece out of the Tokyo Game Show this morning (where, quite frankly, I would much rather be right now than at my desk on this gloomy Monday morning in Manhattan): Sony has announced that it will be introducing 3D Blu-ray support for the PlayStation 3 with the console’s next system software update.

The update–version 3.50, for those keeping track–will roll out to 38 million PS3s tomorrow, September 21st. Back in April, Sony rolled out version 3.30, which added the ability to play games in stereoscopic 3D.