Ars System Guide: Gaming Box

Over at Ars Technica, they've compiled a guide to building a gaming PC. They have both a Value Gaming Box and a Performance Gaming Box. The Value system being for the gamer on a budget and the Performance system being for the gamer whom wants the hottest performance out of their gaming PC. The Value system will cost you $1,237.66 not including shipping, and the Performance system will set you back $2,802.81 also excluding shipping. So, if you want to build a gaming system and are in a pickle trying to figure out which hardware to get, Ars has created two very good gaming PC's to base yours off of.

[Via Ars Technica]

AMD's "Asset Light" Strategy

If you've been in the clouds, about what AMD has been up to lately here is your explanation. At AMD's Analyst Day presentation AMD explained their "Asset Light" strategy in quite a bit of detail.

When AMD purchased ATI, they began to submerge themselves into many new product markets. The term "Asset Light" refers to the incorporation of AMD and ATI interests and resources, the optimization of those resources, and the utilization of existing assets to their fullest extent. At the presentation, AMD focused in more detail on AMD's manufacturing efficiency rather than fabrication tactics. If AMD's plans on the embedded fabrication of both CPU and GPU succeed AMD may see an increased demand in markets, which have not been in the path of AMD, thus far. Myself, being an AMD fanboy, I hope that this new strategy aids AMD to get out of the hole which they've been digging, deeper and deeper as days go on, and put them on top of Intel, once again!

[Via Ars Techinca]

Microsoft Slashes $20 Off the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player

On Thursday, Microsoft announced that it would lower the price of their Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player add-on, from $199 to $179, slashing $20 off of the price. To make this deal even more intriguing they are throwing in five free movies, if you buy the accessory between August 1 and September 30.

If you've been waiting for a price drop to buy this add-on its here staring at you directly in the face. Whether you want to add HD-DVD playback to your 360 console, or want a cheap HD-DVD player for your PC (with a little hacking of course) its a great deal, and don't miss out! This could be the push HD-DVD needs to take the lead of the High Definition-DVD wars, but we shall see in the near future, I hope.

[Via C|NET's News.com]

Peter Moore is Leaving the Xbox Team

Peter Moore has resigned from his position of corporate vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division. Why did he resign? Well it seems that he has decided to move back to the Bay Area for personal reasons. What will he do next? Well, sources say that Moore will be moving to EA's Sports Division.

His seat will be left empty for just a mere second as his replacement Don Mattrick, a former Electronic Arts President, will be taking over really soon, a bit ironic don't you think. Mattrick, has been Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division since February. He says that "I'm thrilled to join an already strong team that's delivering truly amazing gaming experiences to customers around the world. I've never been more excited about the future of the industry and firmly believe Microsoft will lead the next great innovations in gaming."

Petter Moore's position will be hard to fill, lets just hope that Mattrick can bring as much for the Xbox team as Moore has. I wish the best for Peter Moore at EA and I welcome Don Mattrick to the team.

[Via Ars Technica]

Reason For Delay

I explain why there has been such a big delay of our podcast releases.


mp3 download

Yahoo! Messenger and Trillian Hit With Critical Vulnerabilities

On Monday, security researchers have disclosed security vulnerabilities for both Yahoo! and Trillian IM clients.

The Bug concerning Yahoo! Messenger, is a buffer overflow flaw, which could be exploited by a specially crafted address book entry. When the exploit is taken advantage of the client responds by crashing as soon as it's hit by the exploit. This exploit although it causes the client to crash, could still be vulnerable to code execution, meaning the attacker could run its own malicious code, and therefore take control of your machine.

As for the Trillian IM Client, it is plagued by two vulnerabilities, after being patched about a month or two ago. Security researches have identified both of the vulnerabilities in Trillian to be caused by the AIM URI (uniform resource identifier). This exploit is very similar to the vulnerability found in both the Firefox/Internet Explorer browsers, last week. Researchers say:

"The first example shows the dangers of passing unfiltered arguments to programs that have registered URIs (much like the firefoxurl: vulnerability). The second example shows that even if arguments are sanitized [emphasis in original] by the browser, many programs can be remotely pwnd via registered URIs and poor development practices."

Vulnerabilities for both clients have yet to be patched. Neither Yahoo! nor Cerulean Studios have not stated when a patch would be released for these vulnerabilities. I advise users of these two clients to be use them with caution, and ensure that you have your virus/spyware protection software up to date.

[Via PC World]

07-12-07 Episode 13 (Delayed)

On todays podcast, we let you know what's going on in the tech world and show you how to correct images in Photoshop. Stay tuned after the show for some exclusive E3 2007 trailers.
Update: This episode will be postponed due to Skype, not playing very well with Vista. We'll try to get this fixed as soon as possible, but without Skype working there is no way to record our calls. Once again, sorry for the inconvenience.

Show Notes:

Todays tech stories:
AMD cuts prices on its desktop CPUs
Toshiba's Latest HD DVD Firmware Upgrade Unlocks Web-Enabled Features
No BS iPhone Review
Beta of Vista Service Pack 1 may arrive sooner than expected
Microsoft to extend Xbox 360 warranty, take $1 billion hit
Microsoft holds firm on Xbox 360 pricing
Nintendo says Wii will remain in short supply
Sony cuts PS3 price by $100
Sony's 80GB PS3 to include SIXAXIS with rumble?
Sony's new PSP is slimmer, includes video output
E3 2007: Candid developer discussion about DirectX 10
Did ya know? It's Fair Use Day: July 11, 2007
Airport Computers "Might Be at Risk"

Todays Photoshop Tip:
Image Corrections

Microsoft Extends Xbox 360 Warranty to Three Years

Today, Microsoft announced that they will be taking a $1 billion hit by extending their Xbox 360 warranty for three years, as a result of many hardware failures. Microsoft views the many hardware failures as being "an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles, the company conducted extensive investigations into potential sources of general hardware failures," Microsoft stated. Microsoft will cover consoles which experience failures up to three years from the date of purchase. Entertainment & Devices Division President Robbie Bach said in a statement:

"The majority of Xbox 360 owners are having a great experience with their console and have from day one. But, this problem has caused frustration for some of our customers and for that, we sincerely apologize."

Many have been plagued by their 360 consoles failing for one reason or another. Myself, knowing many of those who've had troubles with their consoles they still seem to love it, even though it has some quirks. Also many of those customers appreciate Microsoft for taking the blame and replacing their consoles. I just hope that Microsoft can improve the quality of their consoles because since launch, many have had troubles with the 360 consoles. Although this hasn't had much of an effect on the number of loyal users. So, just as a precaution if your experiencing any problems remember to send it off to Microsoft, before the warranty is over.
[Via C|NET's News.com]

Happy 4th of July!

We'd like to wish all of our US subscribers a great 4th of July. We hope that you have a great holiday, who doesn't like holidays, celebrating Independence Day here in the US. We should be back on Thursday, depending on if we're too tired from all the partying, until then we hope you enjoy your holiday!