http://www.thetechlounge.com Hardware and Cosumer Electronics - News, Reviews and Coverage en-us Fri, 8 Aug 2008 15:44:20 -0500 Fri, 8 Aug 2008 15:44:20 -0500 General general Copyright 2008, TheTechLounge, Inc. 60 http://www.thetechlounge.com/templates/thetechlounge/images/88x31_ttl.png http://www.thetechlounge.com 88 31 http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/552/HTC+Touch+Smartphone/ Thu, 7 Aug 2008 15:35:23 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/552/HTC+Touch+Smartphone/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/551/BFG+9800+GX2+1GB+Video+Card/ Tue, 5 Aug 2008 17:06:04 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/551/BFG+9800+GX2+1GB+Video+Card/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/550/In+Win+Alpha360+MiniTower+Case/ Mon, 4 Aug 2008 02:06:38 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/550/In+Win+Alpha360+MiniTower+Case/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/548/EyeFi+Wireless+SD+Card/ Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:44:11 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/548/EyeFi+Wireless+SD+Card/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/547/Palit+HD+4870+512MB+Video+Card/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:13:14 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/547/Palit+HD+4870+512MB+Video+Card/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13106/Mega+Man+9+kicking+it+old+school+with+intentional+bugs+glitches/ "Capcom's going out of its way to make sure its deliciously stale Mega Man 9 offers a true 8-bit experience, bugs and all. The company's Hironobu Takeshita recently told Gamasutra that the download will have the look and feel of a NES-era release, and that things such as sprite flicker have even been included as a -- thankfully optional -- feature. " The fact that Capcom is making a conscious effort to retro-fy this release of Mega Man makes me giggle gleefully. We've seen the face of next-gen, and some of the time, it results in a wonderful gaming experience...]]> Wed, 6 Aug 2008 11:37:25 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13106/Mega+Man+9+kicking+it+old+school+with+intentional+bugs+glitches/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13104/New+York+Times+compendium+on+internet+trolls/ "“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium. “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” said one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his legal identity. Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama,...]]> Wed, 6 Aug 2008 11:28:24 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13104/New+York+Times+compendium+on+internet+trolls/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13102/NVIDIA+Hitting+the+Fan/ "The word on the street is even more worrying, as we're hearing rumours of Nvidia considering to pulling out of the chipset business altogether. Considering that Intel didn't grant Nvidia a QPI license, what is left for Nvidia's chipset business? Not much, that's for sure and with the announcement last month that Nvidia will use the nForce 200 bridge chip as a solution for adding SLI to the X58 platform, these rumours might not be too far from the truth." Nvidia Reportedly Plans To Exit The Chipset B...]]> Fri, 1 Aug 2008 17:43:43 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13102/NVIDIA+Hitting+the+Fan/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13100/Losing+Faith+Nintendos+Ignorance+of+the+Hardcore/ "Like many, I was utterly bewildered by Nintendo's E3 2008 press conference. The missing "core" game announcement was disappointing, but not quite as unsettling as the unshakable notion that I was ultimately wrong about Nintendo's intentions towards gamers who've stuck with it since the beginning. And as I walked out, I had the concentrated sense that as a longtime Nintendo fan, I was being forgotten, or at best, misunderstood. With an hour to burn at its E3 conference, Nintendo offered up Wii Sports Resort, Wii Music, Animal Crossing: City Folk and just a few o...]]> Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:47:41 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13100/Losing+Faith+Nintendos+Ignorance+of+the+Hardcore/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13099/Nintendo+And+54+Companies+Battle+Evil+R4+In+Court/ "The R4 allows easy software piracy by fitting right into the DS's cartridge slot. Data is stored on a Micro SD and downloaded from websites via a flash drive, and the R4 has a small slot that the Micro SD card goes into. In a statement released today, Nintendo announced that these R4 devices "allow illegal uploading from the internet", adding that "it is causing severe damage to our company and software makers, and this is something that we cannot possibly overlook." In conclusion, Nintendo adds that such devices hurts the growth of the entire game industry and steps must be t...]]> Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:03:05 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13099/Nintendo+And+54+Companies+Battle+Evil+R4+In+Court/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13097/The+True+Story+of+the+Hurricane+Katrina+LightningLaser+Memorial+and+the+PegLeg+Biologist/ "Joe Davis is telling me about his design for a 110-foot lightning-laser tower that will literally seize a hurricane’s force, bottle it up and hurl it angrily back into the sky. It’s intended as a memorial for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Davis—whose official role at MIT is research affiliate associate in the biology department—plans to name the tower "Call Me Ishmael." I ask him why, but before I finish the question, he smashes his steel peg leg down onto the table. Good answer. When Davis’ proposed 110-ft. memorial lightning tower is finished, it will...]]> Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:47:42 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13097/The+True+Story+of+the+Hurricane+Katrina+LightningLaser+Memorial+and+the+PegLeg+Biologist/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13096/Make+yourself+really+creepy+looking+with+faceswapping+tech/ "People don't like showing up in Google Street View. Nobody wants their face to show up on Google Maps when they were just minding their own business buying home pregnancy tests, hemorrhoid cream and slim-fit condoms. Well, this new "Face Swapper" software automatically switches out features on peoples faces with features from photos in its database, creating horrifying cross-gender hybrids." If you've been pondering what you would look like as a member of the opposite sex, the time is now. I'd probably opt for an Arnold Schwarzenegger mash-up so I could atta...]]> Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:09:24 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13096/Make+yourself+really+creepy+looking+with+faceswapping+tech/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13094/Virgin+Galactic+shows+off+White+Knight+Two+launch+vehicle/ "MOJAVE, California -- After years of secretive construction, Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic presented the first stage of its commercial launch platform, White Knight Two, today at the Mojave Air and Space Port. After Scaled Composites put the rocket plane Space Ship One (SS1) into suborbital spaceflight twice in 2004, thus winning the Ansari X-Prize, Virgin Galactic placed an order for 12 similar spacecraft capable of carrying six passengers and two crew members into space. Before those ships can get into space, however, they will need a lift up -- which is what White Kni...]]> Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:36:51 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13094/Virgin+Galactic+shows+off+White+Knight+Two+launch+vehicle/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13093/EAs+Spore+a+week+from+being+finished/ "Spore has been the industry's most-anticipated title for at least a couple of years. When I first wrote about it, during E3 in 2005, in one of the very first extensive interviews with Wright about the game, I penned these words: "Next year, Electronic Arts will release Wright's next attempted masterpiece, Spore." Clearly, Maxis didn't release the game in 2006, nor did it come out in 2007, when it was also planned for launch. There have been all kinds of reasons for the delays, but whatever happened in the past, the game is definitely looking good and I think I wou...]]> Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:39:09 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13093/EAs+Spore+a+week+from+being+finished/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13092/Hasbro+Sues+Over+Scrabulous+Facebook+Game/ "Hasbro is suing the creators of the popular Scrabulous Facebook game, after a request the toy company made to the social network earlier this year to pull the game went unanswered. In January when Hasbro first began to fuss about Scrabulous, many were perplexed — wasn't the prolific Facebook board game an homage to the original, arguably even a sort of viral marketing? But today's infringement suit announcement comes just after Electronic Arts, through its partnership with Hasbro, launched its own official Scrabble game on Facebook, a launch no doubt complicated by the...]]> Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:12:10 -0500 http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/13092/Hasbro+Sues+Over+Scrabulous+Facebook+Game/