For now, it's just a demo of the tech that Epic's put together, which relies on the OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics powah in the 3GS and latest iPod touch. But, the killer point is that Epic is planning "to make this available to licensees at some point in the near future," meaning we could one day see games running Unreal 3 on the iPhone. And since the engine will run on the 3GS only, it seems that tipping point with games we worried about, where iPhone and 3G users don't just get worse graphics, but are actually shut out of entire games, isn't so far away.

Epic tells Anand we're going to see Unreal running on another mobile platform at CES. Which, on a broader scale, shows that mobile gaming is about to get a lot more serious now that mobile chips are powerful enough to deliver legit gaming experience. Could we really be seeing the beginning of the end for dedicated handled gaming consoles, like the DS? It seems, for once, more possible than ever. We just need better controls. [AnandTech]

• Samsung PN50B550 50″ 1080p plasma $979.99
• Toshiba 46XV645U 46″ 1080p 120 Hz LCD Best Buy $999.98 with Free Toshiba BDX2000 Blu-ray player bundle
• Sony KDL-40XBR9 40″ 1080p 240 Hz LCD Best Buy $1244.97 with Free Sony BDPS360 Blu-ray player and HTSS360 5.1 Home Theater in a Box system
• Sony KDL-46XBR9 46″ 1080p 240 Hz LCD Best Buy $1704.97 with Free Sony BDPS360 Blu-ray player and HTSS360 5.1 Home Theater in a Box system
• Samsung PN42B450 42″ 720p Plasma $624.99 Best Buy

Not too bad. Not too bad at all. [HD Guru]

Sometimes the journeys we take through this life begin and end in the most unexpected ways. My encounter with Welles in the last days of his life centered on a common interest: Sony's new one-piece camcorder, the Betacam. It had just come to market and Welles, always the genius filmmaker, had big ideas for what he could do with one. With Welles there were no limits. "You can't do that" wasn't in his vocabulary. This was a short, but very passionate story.

At the time I was running Television Matrix, a small video production facility in the Sunset-Gower Studios in Hollywood. I had been in California only a short time, having moved from Miami the previous summer. I had started in video production in 1975 and had been shooting mostly news for the networks throughout Latin America. Business was good because the networks were switching from film to tape in this period and they were short of video crews. In late 1982, I purchased something totally new—one of the first Sony Betacams delivered in the United States.

Beta Goes To Hollywood

One of our clients in Miami had been Entertainment Tonight. During a lull in a location shoot with Robin Leach, then an ET correspondent, I'd shown him the new Betacam. Leach had been offered a chance to do his own television show, but could find no one in the mid-1980s who could bring in a one-hour episode for his very low budget of $100,000. The Betacam, Leach thought, might be the answer.

"Could this work?" he asked me at the time. "Maybe," I responded. Only the Sony Betacam camcorder—the first one-piece camera and recorder ever made—and a standalone player existed. To edit, one would need to connect the player to another format to finish the work. That would mean integration with a one-inch Type C format system.

Leach made me an offer. If I could figure out how to make all the technology work, he would move me and my crews to LA to do the production on his new reality show. That motivated me to call Charles Felder, then the president of the tiny Sony Broadcast office in New York. My timing couldn't have been better. It turns out that Sony had the same thoughts about how to extend the Betacam and I had brought them the right project at the right moment. In a flash, we made a deal. In exchange for a small financial investment on my part, Sony would build an experimental facility in LA. They would make it a "first" that they'd advertise and show to others in Hollywood.

The Hottest Video Editing Suite in Town

The prospects were exciting for everyone. An elated Robin Leach began to plan for the new show, and I, along with several freelance crew members that I had worked with, moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 1984. One of the reasons we picked the Sunset-Gower lot (the old Columbia Pictures Studios) was it housed the broadcast center for the 1984 Olympics in LA that summer. When the Olympics ended, the networks would have a huge fire sale of their used broadcast equipment on the same lot. I had targeted the pieces we needed in advance, bought the gear, and moved it to our new edit bay days after the games ended.

We were lucky enough to hire Jim Fancher, now chief science officer at Technicolor in Hollywood, to build the facility. He was far more than a brilliant engineer. As a hands-on "can do" guy, he was also a natural-born negotiator who could coordinate the different technical approaches of companies whose gear would not work together. I will always picture Jim lying on his back under a rack of gear talking with tech support at some company about why their product wouldn't work.

Somehow, thanks to Jim, it all came together on time and on budget. By fall, we were ready. The show, now called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, went on the air. To be honest, I thought it was dumb idea that would last for one season if we were lucky. All I really cared about was that we had moved to Los Angeles and that Leach had paid for everything. I was ready for whatever came next. I can honestly say it was one of the great shocks of my life when the show became a major hit. I was totally unready for it.

We had built the first interformat edit bay in the nation (Betacam to one-inch), and Lifestyles was the first major magazine show to be shot using the new format. We had made history. The cost of television production had come down—way down. At least by half. Word spread fast and we were running facility tours in no time. Sony even hired Milton Berle to do a two-page ad for the facility and the technology concept behind it.

Enter Orson

A freelance editor for our show, Paul Hunt, also did some sound work for the legendary actor/director/producer/genius Orson Welles. He told Welles about our Betacam facility, now running almost around the clock, and from that moment on the great man's insatiable curiosity about every new sound and imaging technology took over. Welles wanted to meet me, and thus came a lunch invitation many film buffs would have died for.

To be honest, I knew very little about Welles. I had majored in television and radio at the University of South Carolina in the 1960s and it was hard to escape the many contributions Welles made to the broadcast and film industries. From audio special effects to remarkable moving dolly shots, Welles was a genius of the first order. But outside of having seen Citizen Kane, I didn't know the details of his career nor did I pretend to.

Our first lunch at Welles' favorite haunt, Ma Maison, was a roaring success. For reasons I still don't fully understand, we hit it off. Welles was curious about all things video, especially the Betacam, a device he envisioned to be an Arriflex camera that didn't need film. As our first meeting continued, Welles' small dog, who was seated at the table next to me, kept nipping at my leg. It was annoying, but I didn't dare take a swat at Orson Welles' beloved dog!

That lunch led to many others throughout 1985. In the earlier days of our relationship, he tested me in strange ways. One night, after midnight, Orson (he insisted that everyone call him Orson) called to ask for help in solving a sound problem he claimed to be having. He was recording and editing some narration on his Nagra tape recorder in his bedroom in the hills above Hollywood Blvd.

"Frank, after I do a splice with a razor blade, I get a bump in the sound when I play back the tape. What should I do?" he asked. This was a very strange question from the man who had practically invented modern sound recording. He had scared the nation with War of the Worlds and was asking me such a basic question about audio editing. Though half asleep, I knew he had to know the answer and instantly recognized it as some sort of test.

"Orson, your razor blade is magnetized. Get another one," I answered. "Oh, OK," he responded, apologizing for waking me and then promptly said goodbye. I went back to sleep and never heard of the issue again.

"Call Sony. Make It Work!"

As he learned more about video camcorders and nonlinear editing, Orson became determined to do a video project of his own. We visited New England Digital for a demo of nonlinear sound editing on the Synclavier. As for video, Orson wasn't content with just renting a Montage, one of the first non-linear video editors. He wanted his own, and he wanted it to sit next to his flatbed film editor at home.

As the talk turned to money (it always did in Orson's case), I offered to contribute video facilities and help him raise money for a one-man show to be called Orson Welles Solo. The production would be a retrospective of Orson's favorite theatrical material along with a big dose of magic—both new tricks and archival footage from Orson's glory days as a working magician. Our facility was already booked around the clock, but it didn't stop me from promising Orson anything he wanted.

Through a long and convoluted series of events (and with the help of the late Paul Rothchild, producer of The Doors, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Janis Joplin), the money was raised and the production was set to begin. Now Orson focused on how he'd use the two Betacams we'd secured to shoot the show.

Just as he had accepted no conventional technical limitations when he made Citizen Kane in 1940, Orson approached video in the same unrelenting way. In 1985, Betacams had Saticon tubes—not CCD sensors—and their ability to sync to one another via time code was, to put it mildly, a bit crude. Orson didn't care. He demanded that the handheld Betacams float around the set wirelessly and always be in perfect sync. He also directed that we shoot directly into bright lights and he didn't want to hear about any problems with lag.

"Call Sony and tell them to make it work," Orson demanded, slamming his fist on a table at one point. "Don't ever tell me 'No.'" I called Sony, and Sony responded by sending two expert engineers to help Orson push the video envelope on the project.

The day before the shoot was to begin in November, 1985, the Betacams were tweaked to the max. The jury-rigs—and there were a lot of them—were tested and re-tested. Every engineer and crew member that was to be in Orson's field of view was told that the words "you can't do that" were to be stricken from their vocabulary. With this project, I demanded, we will find a way to do any and everything Orson wants to do. All the old excuses about the limits of video will be left at the front door.

On the Evening Before the Big Shoot

As technical preparations for the shoot continued, Orson taped an appearance in the late afternoon on Merv Griffin's syndicated talk show. Normally, Orson disdained conversations about his past. He'd always say he wanted to talk about the future, not "go down memory lane." But, uncharacteristically, he did go down memory lane that afternoon with his old friend, Merv. Orson charmed the audience, both with stories and card tricks.

After the show, Orson had dinner at Ma Maison and then headed home to finish writing the script for our first taping, now only hours away. Our first day of shooting was to be in auditorium on the UCLA campus. Orson would call when he was ready for us to go to the location.

The next morning, as I awaited those instructions from Orson in my office, the phone rang. It was Paul Rothchild.

"Did you hear the news," he asked gently.

"What news?" I replied.

"Orson Welles is dead."

Orson had died of a heart attack during the night. He was found slumped over his typewriter, working on our script. Minutes later, a Welles assistant called and said bluntly: "Frank, the project has been canceled."

Welles' Legacy and Love of New Technology

I drove home—numb and unable to function. After the initial days of despair, my incredible year working with Orson Welles took on a new dimension. A new journey would begin. Those same Betacams were used to record Orson's memorial service a few weeks later and that event, in turn, introduced me to the remarkable men and women who had been associated with Welles from his days with the Mercury Theater. The film critic Leonard Maltin and I did a documentary with these fascinating people, and I later produced, with Mercury Theater actor Richard Wilson, a retrospective of Orson's best radio work from his personal tape collection.

A couple of weeks after Orson's death, his cinematographer, the late Gary Graver, came by my office for a visit. Gary said something I will never forget.

"I've been driving around for two weeks with Orson's ashes in the truck of my car," he said, matter of factly.

"What?" I responded, quickly envisioning a fender bender with the Hollywood legend's ashes being scattered across an LA freeway.

"I'm not going to take them into my house," Graver said, almost fearing the prospect. "What should I do?"

I thought for a minute, looked a Graver, and said, "I don't know." Some months later, Welles' ashes were buried in Ronda, Spain, on the property of a longtime friend, retired bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez.

The demise of our video project left me yearning to do some kind of major Welles project to fill the void. As I reviewed our time together, I recalled an extraordinary story that Welles had taken nearly two hours to tell me on a leisurely Saturday afternoon a few months earlier. It was about the events surrounding his production of Marc Blitzstein's musical, The Cradle Will Rock, in 1937. It was, Welles told me, the only time in U.S. history that the military was sent out to shut down a Broadway play. He wanted to make a movie about it, but had failed to raise the money.

That was it. I would try to get the film made. It took the support of many of Welles' original Mercury colleagues—including the late actor/producer John Houseman—and a lot of crazy investors to keep the project alive over the years. Most importantly, it took Tim Robbins, who recognized the power of the story early on and spent most of 1990s writing and directing the film that eventually came to the screen.

Houseman once said that it's rare in this life to be touched by real genius. Welles, said Houseman, was the real thing—perhaps the only real genius he'd ever known. Now, I understand what he meant. Welles, long before most filmmakers, saw the powerful potential of small format video. Yet, he was perhaps 20 years too early to enjoy the real fruits of the video revolution in his own work.

Whenever I see a tiny new camcorder introduced, or see Apple upgrade a revolutionary application like iMovie, I think of Orson. Oh, how excited he'd be. The pure magic of it all! If he were alive today, he'd be making his movies without regard to raising huge amounts of money. That, for both Orson and his audience, would be an achievement that we'll never be able to enjoy.

Frank Beacham is a New York City-based independent writer at www.beachamjournal.com. Beacham was executive producer of the 1999 Touchstone Films release of Tim Robbins film, Cradle Will Rock. He and George Demas have written Maverick, a new play based on the events described in this story.

Top CC image from Scary Cow/Flickr; shot of Orson with camera from MovieMail, which sells the brilliant latter-day Welles documentary F for Fake.

I'm not talking about obvious screwups like Microsoft whitewashing their Polish advertising campaign (which they apologized for), or Intel's obviously unfortunate—but probably accidental—Core 2 Duo campaign. I'm talking about ads that never got pulled, never prompted an apology, and that, to most people, probably seem harmless. Who, dear readers, will be the 1949 GE of 2060? And for what? Racism? Sexism? Some as-of-yet-unnoticed *ism? Am I oversimplifying what constitutes progress? Difficult questions!

More to the point, will my kids watch these PSP ads in history class, come home, and ask me why I was such a terrible human, back in 2009?


Yep, probably. Post your best guesses in the comments, about, you know, the future. [CopyRanter]

• Creative's $500 Nomad Jukebox (pictured above), was not only "sleek"—at least when compared to a CD Walkman—but "can hold as much music as 150 CDs."

• The Extiva was a $350 DVD player from Samsung with the Nuon chip, so "you can also play videogames." Not sure which videogames we were referring to there.

• Our pick for digital camera was Nikon's twisty CoolPix 990, 3 million pixels for 1 thousand dollars.

• Gateway laptop with 12.1-in. display, 550MHz chip and a year of free AOL was "a great deal" at $1300.

• Two-way pagers from Motorola, $180 each, let you send messages back and forth, and came in "four hot colors."

• LG's Touchpoint 3000 smartish phone cost $400, combined an address book and an organizer, and had one killer app: "Tap someone's name, and it dials for you."

• The $300 Iomega HipZip took little PocketZip magnetic disks instead of flash memory so it was easier to "get with the MP3 revolution"—hooray for obscure proprietary formats that died within a year!

• Cybiko was invented a decade ago but promised to do almost more than what the Peek does today—with wireless messaging and an MP3 "attachment."

• "It's near impossible to find this killer game console—and just as hard to find good titles to play on it." The console? PlayStation 2.

• Handspring Visor Prism, the great hope of the PDA world, had a cartridge slot so that you could "turn it into a cellphone, an MP3 player, or a miniature digital camera." Only trouble was when the cartridges started costing more than the $450 PDA.

The whole list is pretty hilarious—I encourage you to pop over and read more. [Time.com]

I apologize for the crappy quality of some of the images—I had to go grab promo shots found out on the web. For some reason, Time didn't preserve our gorgeous photoshoot online. Guess they thought the internet was just a fad.

A daily news summary will be on offer for WSJ readers, in addition to the digital version of the paper. The digital copy of the paper will sell punters back $14.99 a month, with the daily summary another $5, and the New York Post will cost $9.99 a month, exclusively sold on the Reader Daily Edition.

On sale sometime before 2010 (that's 13 days, then), it'll cost $399.99. [WSJ]

The winter months are the hardest time to not want new stuff. We're inundated with sales, and in a few short weeks we'll be ogling next year's tech at CES. As the resident Gizmodo "no I won't upgrade my PowerBook" curmudgeon, I'm here for support. Take a look at the gear I use, and how despite its age, all (well, most of) it has plenty of life left.

I Call Him FrankenPod

No, you're not seeing things. The image above is indeed a picture of my primary media player, and yes, it is an iPod mini.

Go ahead, get the Borat jokes out of your system.

Done? Okay, now hear me out. Don't judge a book by its cover. As far as I'm concerned, this little guy can blow away nearly any other MP3 player on the market.

Under the hood, I swapped the 6GB microdrive with a 16GB Compact Flash card. I can easily change it out for a 32 or a 64GB card once prices come down. It's also running what I consider to be the most feature-rich firmware around, Rockbox. What looks like a beat-up iPod mini is actually a robust, nearly indestructible flash-based portable audio player, all built for a fraction of what a new one costs.

The mini isn't the only old iPod that's easily moddable. Considering about 118% of the United States' population has an old iPod lying around somewhere by now, chances are you've got what you need for a fun weekend project. Even if your heart's set on the Zune HD's OLED display or the Touch's app catalog, some love and a little elbow grease can breathe old life into that old iPod, and give you a great secondary PMP.

The Little Computer that Could

When I walked into Gizmodo HQ on my first day, I was nervous. Some of that anxiety was the new job jitters, but I was mostly afraid that my 12" PowerBook wouldn't cut it. Gizmodo moves fast, and my aging machine certainly doesn't. I was on the verge of upgrading, but decided to see how my old hardware fared before taking the plunge.

Long story short: It did the job. Barely. But through compromise, I made it work. I love Firefox and all of its extensions, but Safari runs at half the resource load. Photoshop Elements does what I need without the huge footprint of CS. With a little thought as to what applications I was running, which ones I didn't need, and where I was willing to compromise, my plucky PowerBook and I made it through the summer.

As much as I love the little guy, it's not like I haven't thought about replacing him. I almost pulled the trigger on a new MacBook last month. At the last minute I decided that instead of buying a computer that would last me 2-3 years, I wanted another that could feasibly last for 4+. Whenever that computer comes out, I'll probably bite, but until then I'm happy squeezing a little extra life out of my aging hardware.

Look at how you use your computer. If you're rendering all day, never leave Photoshop, or doing any other heavy computing and you need the speed, then upgrade. But the rest of us can probably hold off a little longer, even tech-obsessed gadget bloggers.

Nice Peeling Chrome Paint, Dude

I'm fairly certain I'm the only writer at Gizmodo without a smartphone. Yes, dumbphones must die, and someday I will upgrade this one. But for now, it makes calls, texts, and even has an almost acceptable music player built in that works in a pinch. Google services run surprisingly well in a WAP browser, too, so I can get email and read my RSS feeds when necessary.

Would I love to have a smartphone? Sure. (Hey Brian Lam and Jason Chen, skip down a few sentences) But it's also really nice to be disconnected sometimes. My Gizmodo email account receives a very steady stream of emails, to say the least. I like being able to walk away from the computer and cut myself off every once in a while, without my phone constantly reminding me that there's work to be done (Okay overlords, you can read on from here).

Just Because it's Old Doesn't Mean it Sounds Worse

No, this stereo doesn't do DTS-HD Master Audio. It has zero HDMI ports. But it still does 2-channel audio pretty well, more than well enough for what I need it to do.

Repurposing old stereo equipment is one of the best ways to build a great system on the cheap. The turntable and receiver are my dad's old gear, coupled with a pair of speakers I yanked off of a CD player I've had since I was 14. The setup won't win me any audiophile cred, but it definitely does a much-better-than-OK job at playing music.

Not to mention that it's pretty cool to listen on the same equipment my dad once used. When I was 17, I found his old record collection in the basement and immediately started spinning it on his long-forgotten turntable. Call me corny, but I think it's pretty awesome to know that 30-some years ago he was listening to the same records on the same deck.

If you aren't lucky enough to have access to your parents' old stereo equipment, it's not uncommon to find some real gems at your local thrift shop on the cheap, tossed away by someone who thought McIntosh is a cheap Apple knock-off.

Okay, so Maybe I Want to Upgrade Some of It

I do have one thing that I desperately want, and will upgrade to soon: an HDTV. I've never owned anything besides tube TVs under 20 inches. The fact that flat-panel prices are finally reasonable, combined with the digital switchover makes it prime time for me to jump the CRT ship.

I want to say that it always makes sense to hold onto your old TV after you upgrade, but in this case it might not. Television sets were at their saturation point well before HDTVs came along. In 2009 there were more TVs per household than people. By now it's likely that you just don't have room for a fourth or twelfth tube anywhere.

If you find yourself needing to dispose of an aging TV, please do so properly. Donate it. Sell it on Craigslist. Or look into electronics recycling centers in your area. An old TV may not have a place in your house or apartment, but it might find a place in someone else's home. It certainly doesn't belong in a landfill.

See? I'm Not a Total Luddite

I might roll with old stuff, but I'm not some sort of quasi-neo-luddite. Plenty of other gadgets in my arsenal are much more recent than what you see here. I have a PS3, my music gets fed to my stereo through a Squeezebox, and I do have another receiver that handles multichannel audio, albeit a relatively cheap and older one (and in case you're wondering, I did take these pictures with a DSLR, but it's not mine).

So yes, even I don't always live by the "never upgrade" mentality. Planned obsolescence and the industry's fast pace make it impossible to live by that creed. But I also think that a lot of the time we feel "forced" to upgrade we're really being driven by gadget lust, that powerful desire which makes us overlook the benefits of using old stuff.

Here's what I always think about when that ol' familiar "gotta have it" feeling hits. The biggest and most obvious perk: buy new stuff less often, save money. I don't know about you, but if I walk away from a big purchase, I feel like I've won. It's like trapping money that was trying to escape from my bank account. And if you've got a bit of the tree-hugging hippy spirit in you, you'll feel good about cutting down on your e-waste output, even if only by a little bit.

Not to mention the freedom old gear provides. I imagine it's similar to the feeling of operating the Mars rovers. I know that my gadgets have gone far beyond their planned mission length, so I throw them around without caring if they get damaged. And once that old gear inevitably goes belly up, I'll feel no remorse upgrading something that lasted for so long.

But that doesn't mean I won't be sad to lose my gadgets. I've heard other tech junkies say that we should never fall in love with technology, because we'll just end up heartbroken when it's time to say goodbye. In my opinion, that emotional connection is exactly what we need nowadays. If we all try to love our gadgets, to start treating them more like companions than disposable tools, a lot more perfectly good gear could be saved from an untimely retirement.

I know more than a few of you out there are eyeing some new toys for the holidays. I am too. But before we let upgraditis get the best of us, let's consider what we already have. Maybe it's still good enough. Maybe there's a new part that could make our gadgets better and provide a fun modding project to boot. Take it from me: There's almost always some way to squeeze extra life out of old gear.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's an old Dell tower around here somewhere that's begging to become a NAS.

Making it easy for everyone to adopt 3D entertainment, good ol' Sony has worked it so that the PS3 will be able to play 3D Blu-ray discs, and the upcoming 3D players will be able to play 2D discs too. In regards to codecs, these discs will use Multiview Video Coding (or MVC), which is similar to the ITU-T H.264 AVC codec we use now, and will actually take up 50 per cent less space on the discs compared to 2D content.

Again clearing up any questions we may've had about 3D Blu-rays, the content will be full 1080p, so even though you're watching in 3D, the quality of the resolution won't be compromised. Expect to see some massive announcements from manufacturers and movie studios next month, including exactly what LG's going to sell in order to reach that 3.8m 3D TV units sold target. [BDA]

Along with Marvel Entertainment comics, Disney, IDW Publishing, iVerse Media and several other publishers have supplied Sony with their wares, with 550 available today, including Iron Man, Spiderman, X-Men, Transformers and Archie.

Download them on your PSP over Wi-Fi, or on your PC and transfer over, with titles starting at 99 cents. Comic Book Guy is currently voicing his disgust all over the internet at the sacrilege of his prized Marvels. [PlayStation Comics]

All that's known about it is that it's 802.11b/g wireless-compatible and connects to a TV. Curiously, it's been filed under the 'display devices' category, for 'televisions, monitor, picture frame.' Any thoughts? A Wi-Fi adapter for Sony Bravia TVs? Something which will let you use your PS3 wirelessly? An adapter for flashing up a message on your Bravia, alerting you to the fact that your Sony Ericsson phone has finished charging? Answers on a postcard, please. [FCC via Sony Insider via Engadget]

In an interview with Nikkei, SCE's Masayuki Chatani, from the company's strategy planning department, has revealed that not only were Sony looking at making the Slim even smaller, but that they were looking at some fairly radical solutions to the problems of HDD sizing.

One of those was to use flash memory instead of the conventional HDD the PS3 currently uses, which would have cut down on the size, running costs and even noise levels of the console.

Another was to leave local storage out of the equation altogether, and instead rely on the PlayStation Network to save all of a user's game data, personal files and settings (similar to how Gmail works, for example).

Chatani says Sony "considered both options", but in the end, "felt that the price would be too high for the amount of storage capacity the PS3 needs", so they stuck with a conventional HDD.

He also says, when comparing the Slim with the PS2's redesign - a model that made far more drastic cuts to the dimensions of the console than the Slim has managed - that reducing the size of the PS3 even further was a possibility, but that in order to do so, the machine's power supply would have to have been made external (as it was on the PS2 Slim), which "would have imposed restrictions on transport and use, making it harder to use freely."

PS3, PSP Made Smaller, Lighter to Capture New Customer Segments [Nikkei]

Dead Space 2: Multiplayer, Bigger World, Space-Floating
This could be both fun and nauseating!

Ever Wonder How Much Money Has Been Sunk Into America's Army?
You don't want to know.

Five Steps to Total Pwnage of a Gamer Girl's Heart
In case you didn't have the attention span to take all 10 prerequisite steps.

Xbox 360 Game Helps You Talk To Girls
No it doesn't.

Pokemon Teaches Your Children To Worship Satan
No no, Pokemon IS Satan.

Blizzard Patches Diablo II, Beta Test It Now
My old discs are about 5 feet away...

PlayStation Home Director Wants "Mini-MMOs" On The Service
Interesting idea.

Frankenreview: The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Spoiler: the reviews deem it excellent.

EA CEO: "I Think Of Pirates As A Marketplace"
A marketplace that's just been robbed.

Best for lowlight

Canon PowerShot S90 ($400)

The camera of the moment, the popular PowerShot S90 is a small but perfectly formed compact for the keen photographer. Concentrating on image quality rather than simply joining in the megapixel race (just like Sony's TX1 / WX1 models), the S90 offers DSLR-like results in a pocketable device, making it the perfect second camera for any self-respecting DSLR owner. A sensible resolution of 10 megapixels and fast zoom lens make the S90 an excellent choice when the lighting drops. This is one camera that you carry everywhere and still achieve breath-taking photos that will look great on your wall. [Review]

Best bang for your buck

Samsung HZ15W ($250)

Samsung can always be relied upon to deliver more for less, and the HZ15W is certainly no different. The HZ15W can't quite match every feature that its main rivals offer, but it does cost a lot less than them. With an amazingly versatile 10x zoom lens, high-definition video and a wealth of beginner-friendly modes, this well-designed camera is simple to use yet offers enough features and quality to satisfy more experienced photographers. The HZ15W could well be the only camera that you ever need. [Review]

Best video/still crossover

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 ($400)

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 is not only one of the best video compacts on the market, it's also one of the best cameras full stop. Support for the AVCHD Lite format almost doubles the recording time, albeit at the expense of editing ease. The dedicated Record button, stereo microphone, wind cut function and audio sampling at 48kHz combine to make the TZ7 a star performer for moving images. It's also a fantastic stills camera too, with an incredibly versatile 12x zoom and top-notch image quality - a great do-it-all, carry-everywhere device. [Review]

Best super slim model

Sony TX1 ($300)

Sony has long ruled the roost in the "it's so slim you can barely see it" category, and the desirable TX1 continues that tradition. Combining a sturdy yet stylish metal body, clever sliding front plate and impressive folded lens optics in a frame that's just 14.1mm thick, the TX1 still manages to pack in a 4x zoom lens and 3-inch touch-sensitive rear screen. You also get the added bonus of Sony's impressive "Exmor R" back-illuminated CMOS image sensor, which greatly improves low-light performance. Available in a variety of attractive colors to match your personality, the TX1 is guaranteed to look as good as you. [Review]

Best wet and rugged

Pentax Optio W80 ($210)

Ed note: Brian Lam reviewed most every rugged camera under the sun last summer, and his favorite all around performer went to the Pentax W80, a Jack-of-all-trades rugged cam featuring a 5x internal zoom lens. Its picture quality doesn't compete with the best point and shoots, and the W80 can only be dropped from around 3 feet, but it can go underwater up to 16 feet and function in temperatures down to 14 degrees. [Review]

There are obviously a lot of other great cameras this year for every budget and level of experience. See all of Photography Blog's camera reviews here (http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/).

Mark Goldstein is the Editor of Photography Blog. Photography Blog has been independently reviewing cameras and reporting photography news since 2003.

iSuppli's latest PS3 teardown finds Sony losing a mere $31.27 less than its manufacturing costs. Of course, these figures don't take into account software development, marketing or any of these other not-insignificant costs that go into putting the PS3 on store shelves.

But hey, it's nice to see Sony not absolutely bleeding money, even after a significant price cut. [iSuppli]

Books, in the paper and ink form, have been around for over a thousand years. You can bet your prized copy of Cloud Computing For Dummies that when the first book, the Diamond Sutra, was finished, those still chipping their chisels into stone, or carving papyrus downed their tools and said something along the lines of "thank the lord, reading's become even easier now!" It was a much-needed change, unlike the electronic books manufacturers like Sony and Amazon have been trying to flog.

A few ereaders existed before Sony swaggered onto the playing field, but it wasn't until 2004's DRM-riddled Librie (upon hearing of the Librie, Boing Boing's ever-militant Mark Frauenfelder exclaimed "This self-destruct feature is sickening. Who would buy a Librie with this deadly defect built in?") that they came into prominence, much like a curried egg sandwich on a humid day. In a rainforest. In Indonesia. With a placard saying ‘SMELL ME' and a marketing budget backing it up the size of, well, Sony's.

A handful of people since then have invested the amount they could've spent on a couple of phones on one of these devices, but that's not the last time they've had to dig deep in their pockets, ignoring the loose change they'd normally spend on a paperback, searching instead for their credit card or Amazon gift vouchers.

With ebooks costing between $10 - $15, you're forced into continually feeding your Kindle/Reader/Nook/Other-warm-and-nurturing-sounding-device with cash, and as the ereaders are so physically large you also need to invest in a manbag just to avoid being mugged. Did we say mugged? We meant "laughed at." There's a reason why you don't see people using them on public transport.

They're impractical and expensive. It's such a Sony trait, to reinvent the wheel when the current model is still going ‘round perfectly. While Blu-ray may've eclipsed the deceased HD DVD (RIP), barely anyone uses an SACD player anymore (disclosure: except, err, me. But only with one album – Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms. Cough.) Even less people than that still use Betamax and MiniDisc. They, like the ereader, are futile exercises in trying to create a market for something that has little demand.

That's the crux of my argument. Any company that attempts to own market share in that area is fighting a losing battle. Consumers won't buy an electronic book when they can get a paperback for the same price or even less, and when they can lend it to friends, read it in the bathtub or even sell it on and make a percentage of their money back.

Our grandchildren won't be housing first edition ebook copies of War and Peace in an antiquated Kindle, passed down from generation to generation. There's no opportunity to get sentimental over an e-book, and when it comes to works of fiction and non, which have had thousands of man-hours injected into them, surely that's the reason people read them? To escape for a few hours turning some pages, and then eventually handing it to a friend with a glowing recommendation to read it from cover to cover?

Instead, we're now encouraged to send links to one another or rely on Amazon to recommend titles, and to poke a button to turn the pages. I imagine the writer of Diamond Sutra never would've put up with e-ink page lag, nor been too impressed with having to charge the device after only a few days' worth of pressing a button repeatedly, trying to turn the bloody page.

I have no beef with reading ebooks on a mobile phone or tablet, however.

During September of this year, there were more ebooks added to Apple's App Store than there were games, according to San Francisco-based analysts Flurry. There's an obvious advantage to reading an ebook on an iPhone, as chances are you already own one. You don't have to fork out several hundred dollars on a new device that just displays lines of e-ink. iPhones are devices which serve more than one purpose, and while some ereaders allow for music playback and even gaming, you'd never buy one just to play MP3s on.

Same story with tablets—whether you've got an Archos, ASUS or a secret Apple tablet no-one knows about. Provided the cost of the ebooks doesn't outweigh the cost of a paperback, it's an extra bonus for anyone who owns one of these multi-purpose devices.

Not even the comments of Nintendo President Satoru Iwata bothered me, when he told the Financial Times that they're considering equipping the next version of the DSi with 3G connectivity to download ebooks on. At its heart, any Nintendo product will always be bought for gaming, and if it offers other features such as ebooks, then that's a nice extra. But it won't be bought for the ability to read books on.

While analysts Forrester Research claim that 3 million e-readers will be sold in the US during 2009, it seems even Amazon and Barnes & Noble aren't too confident of the lasting power of their devices. Both companies have launched apps for the iPhone, which give close to 40m users access to hundreds of thousands of books on devices they already owned. Is this a case of Amazon and Barnes & Noble shooting themselves in the foot, or safeguarding themselves over what they know will be a short-lived industry? My money's on the latter, but tell me your thoughts.

The screenshots also show the inherent problem of having a touchscreen be your screen and your control interface. It's much worse here, with the buttons taking up a good 1/4 or 1/3 of the real estate. But it is only $4, and if you're the kind of guy who enjoys games based on series that are more than 20 years old, boy has Sony Pictures got the app for you.

Seriously, how awesome would it be to have 5 person multiplayer over Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, using the iPhone 3.0 SDK, with one person piloting a piece of Voltron? Then you could join together and then do some crazy junk. Pew pew. [iTunes]

The rumors were true after all. Update 3.15 will make the PSP mini emulator run on the PlayStation 3, allowing you to play your bite-sized games on a much larger screen...which I suppose you could already do by hooking up your PSP to the television, but it's all about a seamless experience, right?

Having recently purchased a PSPgo myself, I've browsed the minis section quite often, in the same way one might stand in front of a fridge filled with moldy food, wondering if they really are that hungry.

The update also adds PS3 data transfer functionality, giving those upgrading to a newer model the ability to connect two consoles via a LAN cable and swap data, which would have been incredibly handy for me four months ago.

Soooo. Did we mention Yakuza 3?

PS3 System Software Update – 3.15

According to a recent poll (results above/translation below) of Japanese children 12 and under, they really want...

1. Video game software (over 450 kids said this)
2. Pretty Cure goods (over 100 kids said this)
3. Anpanman goods
4. Books (picture book, book, illustrated encyclopedia)
5. Kamen Rider goods
6. Bicycle
7. Toy car
8. Clothes
9. Stuffed animal
10. Video game console

Since many kids have consoles, they just want video games now—that's fair. But clothes? What self-respecting child under 13 wants clothes?? And have you actually ever seen a picture of Anpanman?

As translated by the esteemed Brian Ashcraft over at Kotaku. [はちま起稿 via Kotaku]

The big change happens this Friday, with all books downloadable in the open EPUB format only. The other news is that the Reader Library 3.1 software will also become available on Friday, bringing both Mac and PC support—head's up, Snow Leopard and Windows 7 users. [Sony]