Filed under: Features, Gaming

There’s only a select few titles that are really worth obsessing over for nearly half a year, but apparently, Rock Band is indeed a member of that upper echelon. After months of drooling over images of the game’s accompanying hardware assortment, the star-studded title has finally landed on store shelves, and according to Electronic Arts, copies haven’t been hanging around for long. In a report posted yesterday, EA noted that it moved “hundreds of thousands” of boxes over the Thanksgiving weekend, and judging by most every review we’ve seen, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. ‘Course, with so much critical hardware packed in, it’s not terribly surprising to hear that some early adopters found a few flaws, but it seems that EA has fessed up to the issues and is offering VIP treatment (read: immediate replacements) to those with jacked up axes.

Now that you’ve had some time to work out those vocal cords, brush up on your drum rolls and mosh in your own living room, inquiring minds are dying to know how you would have done things differently. We’ve already given you a shot to vouch for your rhythm game of choice, but haters and posse members alike can feel free to step up to the proverbial microphone and voice your wishes. Would you have thrown in a Telecaster rather than a Strat? How about embedding an accelerometer in the microphone in order to accumulate kudos for mindless twirling? Totally bummed by the omission of a wildly flamboyant mic stand a la Steven Tyler? Whatever your beef, don’t hold back on this one — your All Access pass to remixing Rock Band has (un)officially been granted.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming

Details are unsurprisingly light on this one, but DigiTimes has it that NVIDIA is gearing up to launch its next-generation GPU just after the Lunar New Year in February 2008. Reportedly, “sources at graphics card makers” have revealed that the GeForce 9 series will include the D9E — a “high-end product that adopts 65-nanometer manufacturing,” supports DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 — and the mid-range D9P, which will supposedly adopt 55-nanometer processing. Apparently, the former will be the first product in the new family, while the latter won’t see light until June, but of course, we’d take every ounce of this with a healthy serving of salt for the time being.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Handsets, China Unicom, Apple, OS X, China Mobile

Barely a fortnight after Apple began talking with China Mobile about getting the iPhone into the ginormous Chinese market, it seems that negotiations are off — or still on, or something. Yesterday, Nanfang Daily reported that China Mobile’s CEO felt that the “iPhone model was not suitable for China,” but unnamed reporters suggested that the real reason behind the call-off was the inability for both entities to agree on — surprise, surprise — a revenue sharing model. Today, however, a report over at Bloomberg notes that Apple has in fact not ended discussions with China Mobile, and moreover, it was said to have “denied newspaper reports” claiming otherwise. ‘Course, we’ve got two sides of the story here, and while Apple may feel that there’s still room to negotiate, China Mobile may see things quite differently. Time will tell, we guess.

[Via Macworld]
Read – Nanfang Daily report
Read – Bloomberg report

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming

Doesn’t Nintendo know we’ve got a bit of a weight problem going on over here Stateside? The company just released its highly-anticipated Wii Fit in Japan today, which will most likely sell like gangbusters, while simultaneously symbolizing the death of the hardcore gamer in Nintendo land to a small portion of the faithful not completely won over by Miyamoto’s latest charming contraption. Unfortunately, the Wii Fit won’t crossing any oceans until early next year. Nintendo’s official Japan street date for Wii Fit was December 1st, but it seems that at least a few online shops are disregarding that pesky fact.

[Via Wii News]

Read – Buy at Play-Asia
Read – Buy at Amazon Japan
Read – Buy at Success-HK

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Gaming

We’ve been hearing quite a bit about next week’s Fall Dashboard Update for the 360, but Microsoft’s finally ready to spill all of the beans. Obviously, the biggest update is the “Xbox Originals” downloadable Xbox games, but other improvements include enhanced online profiles, increased social networking, beefed up parental controls, improved menus, and our personal favorite: DivX support. It’s all hitting on December 4th, starting at 2AM PST.

[Via Joystiq]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

While some past pronouncements of world-changing inventions haven’t exactly panned out as promised, this latest one will at least have a pretty large stage on which to prove itself, with none other than Al Gore and others paying £1,000 or more apiece in the audience. As you might expect, however, things are being kept as vague as possible ahead of the big unveiling, which is set to go down later today in London. One of the few apparently clued in in the matter, British Inventors’ Society founder Kane Kramer, would only go so far as to describe it as “a new science, a Super Material,” adding that, “It would be 80 per cent cheaper than any alternative means of production, and it will contribute in a major way to reducing climate change.” So, it’s “something,” but we’ll just have to wait and see if it delivers as advertised.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Cellphones

We’ve already seen the idea of data-to-voice translation passed around, but NEC’s latest software is far beyond the drawing board. Reportedly, the firm has developed a system that can understand around 50,000 Japanese words and translate them to English text on the mobile’s display in just a second or two. The software was made compact enough to “operate on a small microchip mounted in a cellphone,” and was designed especially to help users convert common travel phrases. Notably, it would be technically possible to make the English translation vocal, but according to NEC spokesman Mitsumasa Fukumoto, the firm isn’t looking into that possibility at the moment. No word on when we’d see this technology hit the masses, nor if any other language combinations were in the works, but this would certainly make touring English-speaking locales a lot less strenuous for Japanese speakers.

[Via Physorg]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

According to a recent report, the French head of stun-gun maker Taser has plans to create a “mini-flying saucer like drone which could also fire Taser stun rounds on criminal suspects or rioting crowds.” Antoine di Zazzo, fervent proselytizer of the electroshock weapon, is cutting through the is / isn’t torture noise of recent UN reports with the news that the non-lethal device is about to make a serious splash in France, with president Nicolas Sarkozy promising to hand one to every policeman and gendarme. Of course, once di Zazzo’s army of tiny, hovering stun machines take to the air — sometime next year — the police probably won’t have to worry about brandishing their weapons.

[Thanks, Craig B.]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Joshua Topolsky