THE Wall Street Journal claims it has the inside leg measurement of the forthcoming Google phone.
It is reporting that Google plans a series of announcements over the next two weeks about Google mobile-phone software.
Apparently the “Gphone” will bundle together most Google applications, including search, maps, Youtube, instant-messaging, on a mobile platform.
It does not seem that the Google is interested in making a hardware phone. Instead it wants to give away a free operating system that will run on several different models of mobile.
The WSJ cites unnamed sources as saying Google has been talking to Taiwan’s HTC and South Korea’s LG Electronics about making phones.
The Linux-based OS would be “open” to third-party developers, meaning that anyone could create applications for it.
The Google phone would have few restrictions, and would support GPS tracking, Wi-Fi, high-speed “3G” cellular networking and a still and video camera.
T-Mobile has also been given the nod in the US to be the phone’s wireless operator of choice.
The Gphone name, which may not be used, is a mickey-take of Apple’s Iphone. Of course if Google really wanted to take the Michael out of Jobs Mob they should call it the Gsus Phone.
Electronic Arts and Crytek Studios have announced that Crysis, the same one we talked about for past few months if not years, has gone Gold.
If we put a few problems behind us, such as lack of SLI and its Vista-loving “very high” settings issue, we can easily say that Crysis is the most anticipated and most promising game this year.
Still to come, Epic’s Unreal Tournament 3 and various other games, which should be out in November.
Crysis is still scheduled for retail release on November 16th.
The Crysis demo has been out for a few days and we have already heard from various people that Nvidia’s SLI doesn’t work.
We would probably let this one go, if Crysis weren’t a “The Way It’s Meant To Be Played” title. Nvidia reacted and issued a statement that the full game will support SLI; of course, this will happen after you install a patch. In addition to that, it looks as if the Forceware 169.01 64-bit drivers also have some problems with the 64-bit version of the game.
We played with MSI’s latest gaming creation, simply called GX600, today. This machine is based on an Intel T7300 dual core 2GHz CPU with 4MB cache, 2 GB memory and 240GB hard drive.
The heart of the machine is Geforce’s 8600M graphic card with 512MB memory, and we can tell you that this notebook scores about 2300 in 3Dmark06 and that you can nicely play Crysis at 1024×768 at medium settings. This is the best you can expect from a mobile graphic card.
This machine can also overclock with a press of a button from 2.0 to 2.4GHz, and you will gain even more performance. We have yet to play with that setting, but we saw that in action back in September.
Asustek is preparing the release of the Asus G2K 17-inch gaming notebook, based on AMD/ATI technology.
The G2K, which looks like the Intel-powered G2S model, features the ATI RS690M chipset and the DirectX 10 compatible ATI HD2600 dedicated video card with 256MB of DDR3 video memory. It manages the laptop’s 17” 1920-by-1200 widescreen display. According to the product pages, the G2K-A1 model for the US market will come with the AMD Turion 64 X2 TL64 dual core processor at 2.2GHz, 2GB of system memory, a 160GB hard drive at 5,400rpm, and a DVD burner.
Asus G2K-A1 provides 802.11a/g/draft n wireless LAN, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth and 56k modem connections, as well as a built-in 1.3 megapixel web camera. There are also five USB ports, an Express card slot, a 5-in-1 media card reader, a Firewire port, and eSATA external hard drive port. For audio/video output, it utilizes HDMI, VGA, S-Video, and S/PDIF ports. The G2K also has an AV-In port.
The gaming features of the Asus G2K-A1 include the Direct Messenger for personalized messages/e-mail set-up, Direct Flash as DX10 indicator, a gaming focused keyboard, gaming backpack, and gaming mouse.
This laptop weighs 9.6lbs and ships with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium pre-installed.
According to Google Product Search the G2K-A1’s price ranges from $1,628 to $1,847. Keenzo retailer says it will be available starting on 11/19/2007.
As it was previously announced, Flagship Studios have released a singleplayer demo of Hellgate: London.
We wrote earlier that it will allow users to choose among two out of six game classes, the Blademaster and the Marksman. The demo is placed in the streets and tunnels near Holborn Station in London.
You can download the demo (1.4GB) from,
Gamershell Gamedaily Fileshack
Hellgate:London release is still scheduled for October 31st in North America, and Europe has to wait until November 2nd.
Acer is about to upgrade its Ferrari 1000-series notebook with its 1100 series, which looks quite stylish in black plastic and carbon fibre. Acer continues to use AMD Turion X2 processors in its Ferrari line and this could have something to do with AMD’s Ferrari sponsorship deal.
The notebook also features an AMD chipset with integrated Radeon X1250 graphics. The screen measures 12.1-inch and is likely to have a native resolution of 1,280×800.
Other features include up to a 250GB hard drive, a slot-loaded DVD super Multi dual layer optical drive, Draf-N WiFi, Dolby Home Theatre sound, memory card reader and a biometric fingerpring scanner.
The Ferrari 1100 notebook should weigh in at below 2kgs and includes a one-year international warranty. It should launch before the end of this month.
In a bizarre incident in Taipei, Fudzilla ran across a user of the EeePC in a coffee shop. The person was deeply dissatisfied with their product, having purchased it earlier in the week.
The reason? It appears that Asus hasn’t quite finished it yet. It seems the product will have to be returned to Asus so they can upgrade the screen, and for an additional fee they will upgrade the operating system to Windows XP. (Right now from what I could gather, it uses a Linux OS). Check out the exclusive pictures below: Read the rest of this entry »
Microsoft Corporation announced it will keep selling Windows XP operating system until the end of June 2008, delaying plan to phase out its sales by January 30th 2008. The software maker decided to extend XP sales in response to feedback from computer manufacturers who said there were customers who still wanted to buy the older operating system, instead of newer Windows Vista, Reuters reports.
“Some customers have voiced displeasure with Vista due to a lack of compatibility with existing software programs and devices. The hardware requirements needed to run Vista also are a significant upgrade from many older computers. The company downplayed any dissatisfaction with Vista, saying it is the fastest-selling operating system in the history of Microsoft,” the report says.
As of the end of June, Microsoft had sold more than 60 million Windows Vista licenses reportedly.
We had a chance to see and share some of the first Crysis screenshots and we won’t tell you much but we will show two of them with you.
The performance on a quad core Intel machine overclocked at 3.4GHz was not that great and the machine had Radeon HD 2900XT graphics. You are looking at up to 40FPS in this beta. Here is how it looks and later we will add more screens, including some bigger ones, but we are on tight schedule here.
31 FPS on such a machine, we hope it will get better
