...More gaming PC's have been sold over the past three years than Xbox 360s, PlayStation 3s, and Wiis combined. The study, which tracks the sales of three different classes of gaming PCs over since Q3 2005, found that 196 million units have been sold between then and Q3 2008, compared to a worldwide total of 74.7 million consoles. As Edge points out, this of course doesn't take into effect handheld gaming systems like the DS and PSP, which sold a combined 125 million units during the same period.

The study goes on to conclude that the $20 billion dollar PC gaming market, predicted to rise to $34 billion by 2011, was bigger, worth more money, was growing faster and had better tech than the console market could provide.

These "CupSpeakers" from designer Dmitry Zagga are MacGyverific. With nothing more than a large disposable drinking cup, a couple of toothpicks, and the included iPod earbuds, Zagga has constructed a sleek, cheap, and easy speaker system for his iPod. He claims the volume increase is "significant," and his photography makes this self-aware DIY project look like something straight out of a Steve Jobs PowerPoint.

Ask and ye shall not receive, in the iPhone world. It’s hard to argue the brilliant potential of Apple's iPhone. The device stands head and shoulders over most smartphones in terms of looks, form factor, graphics, internet capabilities, and touch interface. So when the new 3G iPhone debuted, customers flocked to it, hoping that the oversights of the first generation model might have been addressed by Apple. The wish list wasn't very long, and some items on it seem like they would be almost trivial to implement. Among the desired features as chronicled by Wired -- photo texting, copy and paste, working Flash, browser crash fixes, Wi-Fi iTunes syncs, landscape view for emails, clicking anywhere to take a photo, and the ability to hide unwanted icons.

With Sony Europe's developer relations manager George Bain announcing that it's no longer necessary for developers to submit upcoming titles to Sony for content approval, don't expect the PS2 to die off anytime soon. The platform is now open, and this action will certain spur on a spate of low-cost titles. Bain cited territories like Russia and India that are now able to "create low-development cost titles and release them in their market�. Dev kits are still an necessity, but there are no longer PS2 licensing fees. "This has never been done before," notes Bain. "This is something we're actively promoting."

Though SCEA is still "looking into the problem," Sony's Japanese headquarters (SCEI) has released a statement describing the PSP-3000 (a.k.a. PSP Brite) scanline issues as being part and parcel of the new hardware. "PSP-3000 has a new LCD device with vastly improved picture quality, achieving a more natural and vivid picture than older models," said the statement (via Engadget Japan). "By improving LCD response time to reduce ghosting, the horizontal-line phenomenon becomes more visible."

Turns out, phenomenon means "no fix in sight." According to Sony, "Since this phenomenon is caused by hardware characteristics, there is no plan to fix it with system software update." We'll be interested to see if Sony of America (SCEA) has anything different to say.

As part of the London Games Fringe (an indie adjunct to the full-blown London Games Festival), female gamers will be able to compete head-to-head in the first Grl Gmr Tournament.

Taking place on October 25th at the Rocket on Holloway Road, the tournament will consist of Wii Tennis, Tekken, Unreal Tournament, Kuri Kuri Mix and Mario Kart competitions. Five individual winners will be named, with one overall winner being crowned Champion.

Nintendo plans to launch a new version of its popular DS portable gaming device with a camera and music player function, according to a report in the Sunday edition of The Nikkei Business Daily.

The new version will have better wireless capability for connecting to the Internet and will cost under ¥20,000 (US$189), the report said. It will be offered first in Japan, it said.

Nintendo was not immediately available for comment.

This allegedly leaked photo of new Nintendo DS screens has played a game of Google Translate telephone before making its way to Giz wearing red sox and green hair, but from what we can make from the source, the big difference in the updated display is a shift in screen size from 3 inches to 3.25 inches. It's still not a widescreen system like many of us would prefer, but then again, the alteration shouldn't mess with the aspect ratio of existing DS titles, either.

After a week or so of teaser ads Canon has finally unveiled the successor to the venerable EOS 5D, the world's first 'compact' full frame digital SLR. The EOS 5D Mark II boasts a new 21MP CMOS sensor, an expanded ISO range of 50-25,600 and a wealth of improvements and new features including full 1080p HD movie recording, live view, 3.0" 920k dot LCD, DIGIC IV processor, increased battery capacity and sensor dust reduction.

A New York City school teacher that went missing almost two weeks ago was recently spotted at the 5th Ave Apple Store. Looks like 23-year-old Hannah Upp was just as obsessed over the Let's Rock event as we were—only instead of pulling a disappearing act three days before the start of the school year, we channeled our anxiety into non-stop Apple blogging and reviewing.

Upp's friends and family have informed all major New York publications (and Facebook) of her disappearance. According to her roommates, she had left her apartment on Sunday and then never came back. When she didn't return, they entered her room and found her keys, her phone, her wallet and ID still there. Random Apple store appearance aside, she's still nowhere to be found.

Dean Takahashi, one of the most respected tech journos around, spent years putting together this mind-blowing expose that reveals the truly epic scale of the problems that lead to millions of dead Xbox 360s. It really is one of the most stunning flustercucks in gaming history. According to his account, Microsoft willfully ignored deep, systemic problems in the console's production that reached from chipmakers—initially, only 16 out of every 100 of its IBM-made processors worked—to production lines, where just before launch, an unbelievable 68 percent of consoles made were clunkers.

...

Most of the problems pointed to as the cause of the epidemic of Red Rings of Death showed up way before launch, naturally.

Nintendo doesn't exactly advertise it, but the remotes for the Wii gaming console—including the balance board that comes with Wii Fit—have Bluetooth capabilities. That means you can connect your Wii peripherals to your computer to operate the media center hooked up to your TV, play emulated games with a Nunchuk, Classic Controller, or even a Balance Board, and pretty much have them do anything you can do with a keyboard. Let's walk through linking up your Wii peripherals and putting them in control of your Mac, PC, or Linux box.

To give you an idea of what you can do with a Wii/PC hook-up, here's a look at one neat example: Controlling Windows Media Center from a distance, without having to shell out for a separate remote control.

Even though Nvidia’s Nvision tradeshow did not achieve its goal of 10,000 visitors, more than a thousand gathered at the Center for Performing Arts to witness the ending of the event. The duo behind the popular Mythbusters showed the results of six months of work, demonstrating the difference between a CPU and a GPU, following the conventional wisdom of parallel computing.

Dubbed Smiley and Mona Lisa, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman presented two robots that represented the difference between a CPU and a GPU. Smiley was given a task to draw a smiley using conventional CPU techniques, doing one thing at a time. Smiley was a relatively simple robot, while Mona Lisa consisted out of "1100 massively parallel barrel processors", dwarfing the 240 shaders offered by a GeForce GTX 280 chip.

Though sales of the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable are strong, there are many who use the devices exclusively for homebrew applications. While some of these homebrew devices or homebrew-enabling schemes are looked upon less than favorably by the big manufacturers, such as the infamous R4 flash cart for the DS, there are some companies who see the value in releasing devices capable of homebrew software. Enter the Wiz, a new open-source handheld gaming unit from GamePark Holdings.

Homebrew and open-source applications often offer utility unrivaled by the more mainstream units, and that's something GPH is hoping to take advantage of with this new handheld. The Linux-powered device (running its own GP2X distribution) sports an Arm9 533MHz processor with a 3D accelerator, 64MB of RAM, 1GB of built-in NAND flash memory, an external SD card slot, and a single USB 2.0 connection. The display is a 2.8" OLED touch screen panel with a resolution of 320 by 240 (QVGA). The unit is powered by a 2000mAh Lithium-Ion battery that nets an advertised five hours of play time.

Official commercial games, launching alongside the unit, are a strong focal point. While previous devices in the line have been host to for-pay games, the Wiz will debut with a full suite of official games from third-party developers. Launch titles Asura Cross Wired, a fighting game, and Her Knights, a side-scrolling action game, will come alongside the release of the handheld and future titles that are slated for release through 2009, including puzzlers, rhythm games, shooters, and even RPGs.

TouchArcade has found evidence of two upcoming iPhone control pads that add, at the very least, an SNES amount of buttons to the iPhone. iControl pad is the first, and has four face buttons, a D pad, Start/Select and an LED to show when it's in use. It may be ugly now, but it's just a prototype.

Another game pad design (below) was received anonymously and looks like a patent application. It has an analog stick instead of a D pad, and places the Start/Select buttons over on the left. Both seem incredibly useful for games that require precise control—something the tilt sensor is not good for.

Undeterred by their loss in a magazine's comic-strip contest, they'd set up their Web site for their strip, which survived on PayPal donations from readers. Then they made a big jump to advertising on the site, but their paying clients barely covered food.

Today, their sarcastically fun gaming webcomic, "Penny Arcade," is hardly struggling. The comic's Web site collects more than 70 million hits a month. And "Penny Arcade" has grown far beyond a comic strip, morphing into a video-game convention back in 2004. Friday, Krahulik and Holkins will kick off the fifth PAX, or Penny Arcade Expo, a three-day festival about all kinds of gaming. More than 50,000 gamers, from as far as Australia and Japan, are expected to come.

Nicknamed the "Woodstock for gamers," PAX attracted 3,000 participants its first year. It's now grown into the largest conference focusing on video-gaming, rivaling others like E3, an industry-driven convention about electronic entertainment.

AMD held a press event designed primarily to promote the graphics capabilities of its 780G chipset this week, aimed mainly at the mainstream lifestyle media.

HEXUS managed to barge its way in regardless and, as well as interviewing VP of product and platform marketing Leslie Sobon, which we will bring to you shortly, we also spotted this unexpected peripheral.

It's based on an AMD technology codenamed ‘Lasso', and is essentially an external graphics card. AMD wasn't able to give us any details on it as this is a Fujitsu-Siemens (FSC) product, but we first spotted Lasso in early 2007, when we observed it had the capability to house multiple graphics cards.

It should be noted that these "surround sound" headphones are really transposing a 5.1 channel signal into two stereo speakers, but the results are excellent all the same. In Call of Duty 4, I could track a helicopter's proximity to me perfectly (with exception of just behind my head). And in Project Gotham Racing 4, cars whizzed by ears with aggressive speed.

As for the chatting, it's a complete pleasure in the X4s. Not only do both sides of the conversation benefit from improved audio clarity, but you hear your own voice mixed in with the game audio. This audio loop is to help keep you from shouting, and I think it works in practice. Plus, the mic's wire is supported by a pliable but durable metal skin—it feels 100x better than the stock 360 headset mic, like production-level gear.

Lenovo has posted an order page for the IdeaPad S10 mini-notebook. For $429 you can get a laptop with a 10.2 inch display, 512MB of RAM, an 80GB HDD, a 3 cell battery, and a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU. And as one Engadget reader points out, you can apparently knock 15% off the price with the coupon code USPIDEAPAD15.

While you can add software and hardware (like a wireless router) to your order, there does not seem to be an option to upgrade the RAM, get a 6 cell battery, or change the hard drive to an SSD. Perhaps these options will be available later. Oh, and if you want a red or white unit, you’ll have to pay an extra $10. The $429 price only applies to the black model.

At this time, it is unknown whether HP will be using the Nano processors for upcoming notebooks or netbooks. However, regarding the recent rumors of a second version of HP's small-sized netbooks, the Nano CPUs, provided by VIA could actually land in one of HP's upcoming Mini Note PC models.
...
According to VIA's comments, a first-tier notebook vendor is expected to roll out a new Nano-powered portable computer system sometime in October this year. Regarding the C7-M processor that is featured on HP's 2133 Mini-Note PC, it looks like a total of 500.000 have already been shipped from VIA to the American system vendor. This is an indication of HP's expectations for this year as far as its netbook business goes.