Intel has announced two new solid state disk drives made on its leading-edge 34nm process. The two new SSDs are X25M SATA parts weighing in at 80GB and 160GB, and they’re meant to replace Intel’s existing X25M drives in those capacities, but at 60 percent less cost and with better performance. The 80GB X25-M is $225 in lots of 1,000 (down from $595), and the 160GB is $440 (from $945). That’s some serious discounting, and it may well drive even more SSD uptake in the coming quarters despite the ongoing IT spending crunch.

Read the rest of this entry »

Real graphics card competition on the Mac is not something that Apple users are accustomed to hearing about, but with the Radeon 4870 and now the NVIDIA GTX 285 available for the Mac Pro, it looks like we’ve got just that. While Mac gaming may not be any more viable than it was a few years ago, the ability to dual-boot Windows has been a huge win for those wanting high-end PC gaming without having to put another box next to their work Mac. With Core Image, CUDA, Snow Leopard and OpenCL just around the corner, a good GPU is becoming more and more of a mainstream need, and the Geforce GTX 285 looks like it has power to spare.

Read the rest of this entry »

Public radio’s existing iPhone app was already cool—it allowed listeners to hear public radio stations from across the country on their phones, live. But the new version of the Public Radio Player, released this weekend, adds an incredible new set of features that provide a glimpse at the future of “radio.” Welcome to the on-demand, in-your-pocket future, today.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s worth going back and playing the original Wii Sports before you play Wii Sports Resort, in order to give the new game some context. Wii Sports came packed with the hardware in the United States, and did more to sell the system than any commercial ever could. It felt like Nintendo was bringing in a new era of gaming, complete with a brand-new way to interact with our games; the possibilities seemed nearly limitless, and we waited for the flood of games that would take advantage of the Wiimote technology.

Read the rest of this entry »

Apple’s $30 billion cash hoard makes it a popular target for lawsuits, especially from patent trolls and numerous class action groups alleging various product flaws. But every once is a while, Apple is named in a lawsuit that defies all logic. Such a case was recently filed in Missouri Eastern District Court, which alleges that Apple aided and abetted the Mafia to transmit death threats directly to Gregory McKenna’s iPod mini.

Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon.com shocked customers yesterday when it reached out to hundreds, if not thousands of Kindles and simply deleted texts that users had not only purchased, but had started to read. A literary coitus interruptus, Amazon spoiled the readers’ descent into Orwellian masochism with nary a warning or apology. 

Read the rest of this entry »

In a controversial move, Apple has taken away the ability for developers to give promotional codes to reviewers if their App Store offerings have a rating of 17+. This has caused quite a stir in the development world since the news broke yesterday, but not because developers are dying to give away free copies of iBoobs. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon.com shocked customers yesterday when it reached out to hundreds, if not thousands of Kindles and simply deleted texts that users had not only purchased, but had started to read. A literary coitus interruptus, Amazon spoiled the readers’ descent into Orwellian masochism with nary a warning or apology. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Seagate yesterday announced it is shipping a new hard disk, the Cheetah 15k.7, to OEMs and retailers. Aimed at the server segment, the seventh-generation Cheetah drive brings 600GB capacity, 6Gbps SAS and 4Gbps Fibre Channel, and new power management technology to the 3.5″, 15,000 RPM segment.

Read the rest of this entry »

Early PC market share numbers are out from both Gartner and IDC for the second quarter of 2009. Depending on who’s numbers you trust more, though, Apple is either holding its own in US sales or experienced a drop in sales year-over-year to fall from fourth to fifth place.

Read the rest of this entry »