AMD cheaper than what they paid initially for ATI

AMD reached its lowest share price for more than four years last week and, as a result, its market value dropped to around US$5 billion – that’s $400 million less than it paid for ATI in July 2006. Intel, AMD’s major competitor in the CPU business, has been on a roll for the past 18 months and is now worth around US$162 billion, which makes the chip giant more than 32 times the size of AMD in monetary terms. Even worse for AMD is that its partner-cum-archrival, Nvidia, has a market cap of around $19 billion, which makes it almost four times as valuable as the struggling platform company.

It’s fair to say things haven’t been going well for AMD since the middle of last year, as its two major rivals launched products that remain largely uncontested even today. Neither the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 nor the GeForce 8800 GTX have been truly surpassed in terms of performance yet and it’s not going to happen until next year. There are no two ways about it: the Phenom launch was a disappointment. This was largely down to the fact that the company found an erratum in the L3 cache Translation Lookup Buffer, which could cause serious system instabilities in certain scenarios and it prevented the company from launching a 2.4GHz Phenom CPU at the eleventh. Intel is currently the one who’s on roll…

Source: Bit-tech

PS3 skin !

Here is a hot skin for the PS3 gamers worried abt dust collection or scratches :D http://www.consoleshop.com/product.php?productid=17782

Dec10 - Xbox360 Modchip scene

1) Source: LordRahl @ cumberland-mods
What does a modded Xbox 360 do for me?

I get this question asked a lot. Many people are under the impression that a modded Xbox 360 is just like a modded Xbox 1. That is just not the case. With the 360 Microsoft (MS) has done their homework and learned a valuable lesson from their failures with the Xbox 1. The 360 was built from the ground up with Fort Knox type of security and as of yet cannot be compromised (unless you have an old launch 360 that has never had an update)  forget about that for now because it is of no use to anybody yet. So getting back to the subject at hand just plain and simple forget everything you know about the Xbox 1 and we can start from there.

So what can you do with a modded Xbox 360?
Well you can play proper stealth backups of your retail games burnt to a DVD-DL disk. I have a tutorial on how to create your own backups at a link below. That is it. No homebrew, no XBMC, no backup games to the hard drive, none of that at all. How is this possible with this tight security within the 360? Well since nothing can be done to get around the 360 security itself hackers had to get through from the DVD rom itself. As it turns out MS did not expect someone to be able to extract the drives firmware and hack it (thanks to Commodore4Eva) and re flash it to the drives firmware. So with the latest hacked firmware and a proper stealth backup the 360 can’t tell if the game that is inserted is a retail disk or a backup. It all looks the same to the console.


What about Xbox Live?
Well this is a touchy subject. Nobody knows what MS will do in the future to try to detect a backup being played on Live. But it really comes down to the Xbox Live Terms of Service that you agreed to when you signed up for Live. So if you go on Live with a game backup you are liable to a Live Ban and should expect it if you do so. For this reason we do not recommend and support any backup game use on Live and our official advice is not to do it. And since you should only be playing backup games that you created from your own bought and paid for games you should have no problem inserting the retail game disk when you want to play on Live.

What about downloaded games?
This is piracy and illegal plain and simple. If you plan to use this service to pirate games then I suggest you take your business somewhere else. This service is intended only for those that wish to make and play backups the legally own.


2) NMEv2.0 pre-installed modchip being sold with 2-yr warranty - better than 1 yr of the orig xbox360 :D
Features: Chip can be shut-off for Online Gaming! Plays your backups and comes with the latest NME v2.0 available for Xbox 360. Forget crazy dual mods with 30+ wires or even bricking your DVD drive by flashing corrupt/wrong firmware files. Your original firmware stays untouched and intact at any time when using the NME-360. There is no need for any firmware reading or flashing.
http://www.konsolenprofis.com/shop/products/fr/Xbox360/Pre-Modified-Xbox360-Consoles/Xbox360-PRO-HDMI-Console-with-NME-20-Modchip.html


3) http://www.modchip.com/xbox360/

XPSOne teasing ;-) leaked, revealed, unclothed and paraded

Dell's 20-inch XPS ONE is finally available to the masses. Up now on company's webstore are four pre-configured systems, with the high-ender rocking a Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, Bluetooth 2.0, an 8-in-1 multicard reader, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO graphics set, and a 500GB 7,200 RPM SATA hard drive. Additionally, you can snag a built-in Blu-ray burner and a hybrid analog / digital TV tuner to keep the TV / film buffs happy, but expect to throw down between $1,499 and $2,399 depending on options.

PS3 firmware update for Bluray 1.1 coming

Sony is said to have yet another PlayStation 3 firmware update ready for download before Christmas, with the gift for movie-loving gamers being Profile 1.1 compatibility for Blu-ray Discs. Competing format HD DVD has had support for Profile 1.1 features such as picture-in-picture, secondary audio, and local storage since its inception, while in the Blu-ray spec they were optional. There aren't any Profile 1.1 Blu-ray titles on the market yet, and only a single 1.1-compatible player for sale from Panasonic, so this is really about having one more bullet point on a box for fanboys to argue about. The only major HD DVD feature that becomes required in Profile 2.0 is Internet connectivity, so downloadable content will still be optional for some 1.1-compatible BD players -- but not the PS3 with its built-in Ethernet jack. Considering the PS3 is still one of the cheapest and most widely-owned Blu-ray players, and Sony continues to improve its capabilities via firmware updates, PS3 fans and Blu-ray Disc aficionados have that much more ammo to use in the never-ending format war.

Astrogaming.com A40 gaming audio headset

Gamers always seem to get the hottest gear, and the A40 gaming headphone system from Astro is no exception. Sold as a complete kit with a headset and matching mixer, the $249 package lets you mix 5.1 game audio and communications audio independently to your liking, all without waking up your roommates or parents. The daisy-chainable Dolby Digital processor / mixer also enables some other interesting features, like private comm channels for in-person Xbox 360 teams, and outboard surround processing from a PC. The headset itself features an adjustable boom mic and interchangable faceplates. Each is also available separately: the A40 headset is $199, while the mixer is $129, and it's all available on the Dec 17th - Christmas sales !

Google's Page weds on private isle now

(Source CNET)

Larry Page, Google's billionaire co-founder, is set to marry his girlfriend, Lucy Southworth, on a tiny Caribbean island this weekend. The couple will hold the ceremony on an island enclave owned by Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of Virgin Group.

Page, 34, co-founded the famous search company in 1998 with Stanford University classmate Sergey Brin. The two are now co-presidents. Page and Brin were co-ranked at No. 5 this year in Forbes' 400 list of U.S. billionaires. Each is estimated to have a net worth of $18.5 billion. In May, Brin married his longtime girlfriend, Anne Wojcicki, on a sandbar in the Bahamas.

Since Google went public in 2004, its stock has skyrocketed to nearly $750 a share and it has become one of the world's most highly valued companies. 2 ladies additionally now 2 drive the world's most viewed search engine ? Lets see how the stock prices do ;-)

GTA IV HD trailer - Move Up, Ladies !

Download: http://media.rockstargames.com/06ladies12/trialer3/1280x720.zip

GTA IV is expected to be released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 between February and the end of April 2008 having been pushed back from its original release date in late October 2007.

The Legend - - - - ary Halo collector pack

Feast your eyes on the absolute last word in hotness from the Halo 3 universe...a Legendary Edition of Halo 3 will be released which will consist of the Master Chief's helmet containing the following: game disc, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Halo 3, a high resolution collection of all the cinematics from Halo 1 and 2 and a disc with machinima features based on the Halo universe. Dead cool, I'm sure you'll agree. This 4 disc special edition will come packaged in the replica MJOLNIR Mark VI helmet.