If you didn’t get the idea from the graphic, I plan to build a (somewhat) reasonably priced system that will run with the best of them. I plan to upgrade this box into a top-of-the-line system for less than $1,500. Part 1 is a Rundown of my old system (so we can see what we need to upgrade):

Case: Chieftec Dragon Case
 

Description: This case is roomy, sturdy, and has lasted 10 years.

Upgrade? No

Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-650TX 650-Watt TX Series 80 Plus Certified Power Supply

Description: This PSU isn’t even breaking a sweat on my current setup.

Upgrade? No

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 630 95W AM3 2MB 2800MHz
 

Description: I bought this CPU nearly two years ago. It was my first quad-core and has served me well. However, As AMD adds more cores to their CPUs Intel continues to increase performance using only four. I’m going to definitely be looking into building my first intel system this go-around.

Upgrade? Yes

Memory: Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 Desktop Memory

Description: DDR2 ram has served me well, but DDR3 is faster and a heck of a lot cheaper. I live in constant fear of DDR3 prices rising!

Upgrade? YES

Motherboard: MSI 790XT-G45

Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 5770 1 GB Ram

Description: for 100 bucks this card is amazing, but we are definitely going to be upgrading this bad boy.

Engadget just posted about a new HDMI dongle being developed by Always Innovating.  This little peripheral is the size of a USB thumb drive and contains all the Oomph needed to run a full Android OS, 3D games and decode 1080p video.  It uses a radio frequency remote and has bluetooth and wifi all within that tiny space.  It uses a USB cable for getting power since most HDTV accept USB drives for photos etc.  The cable is rather short but usb extension cables and usb to AC adapters are very cheap.  The dongle is expected to retail for $79 dollars and I must say it has my attention.  Its small enough to be unseen and left connected to your HDTV at all times.  I would buy one of these for every HDMI capable display in my home and keep one with me for travel.  Google TV ain’t dead yet.

From Wikipedia: “Network neutrality is a principle that advocates no restrictions by Internet service providers (ISPs) or governments on consumers’ access to networks that participate in the Internet. Specifically, network neutrality would prevent restrictions on content, sites, platforms, types of equipment that may be attached, and modes of communication.”

Internet Neutrality is an initiative that puts the internet in the customers’ hands restriction free. The idea theoretically protects the consumer and keeps the internet pure. The net neutrality discussion is a deep one that has many different sides and applications. For the most part, America has remained net–neutral, other countries are not as lucky. To put the concept in a nutshell, a bit is a bit and no bit is more important than any other bit. Under this idea, anyone paying for internet service regardless of ISP would have access to the whole internet without restrictions.

Many different parties have their reasons for opposing this, and some ISPs have gone as far as placing restrictions that bump against net neutrality’s core ideas. C-Spire (formally Cellular South) just rolled out an odd pricing structure for their data plans that to its core flies in the face of the idea as a whole. What they are offering is a series of “Choice” branded plans that offer “infinite” data. However, beginning next year, these infinite data plans will begin charging a separate tiered fee for streamed data. The tiers are as follows.

30 Day Data Streaming Pass
30 Minutes Free
2 hrs $5
5 hours $10
Infinite $30
Tethering 1GB $20

So, in the wise words of one Clarence Brown, C Spire will be “sifting bits” and charging their customers separately based on the types of bits. Clearly C Spire has abandoned the idea of Net Neutrality and if they were a bigger company, I’m sure they would be taking a lot of heat for it. Their customers that previously had truly unlimited data will now either have to stop streaming or fork up an extra $30 a month on top of the data plan they already have (Unless they are grandfathered in…the C Spire website help is vague about those details).

Let’s take it a step farther and put this in 20th century terms. If C Spire were a water company they would be charging you more for taking showers because showers use too much water. Why is that a big deal? Streaming is a rapidly growing chunk of internet traffic. Programs like Pandora, Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, Justin.tv, etc. rely of streaming to disseminate their services.

How this hurts the ISPs is that streaming takes a lot of bandwidth and typically Service Providers don’t want the network strain that comes with it. Other carriers like AT&T, Verizon and Alltel have less intrusive ways to manage data use. Whether it is through data capping or throttling, none of the big 4 restrict specific data types (outside of tethering).

This brings up many consumer affecting questions. Some of the questions are contract related, some of them are grandfather clause related, but the most important question is: is C Spire going to educate their customers on what streaming is and give a list of apps that would fall into this category? To the tech savvy person this isn’t an issue, we can spot streaming internet immediately. To the layman or soccer-mom that is addicted to Pandora, this could really create a huge problem.

I can already see C Spire’s marketing jargon behind the decision. By breaking out the streaming aspect of the internet, C Spire is allowing the customer’s that don’t use streaming extensively to maintain a seamless internet experience while still having the affordable price structure to which former Cellular South customers have grown accustom. Obviously, offering truly infinite internet to all their data plan customers was hurting C Spire in some way, otherwise the change wouldn’t have been needed.

With C Spire clearly making a play for expansion in the past few months, how will this be seen on a nationwide stage? Will it be seen as innovation or will it be a shunned by the industry? If C Spire sees growth, what’s to stop other carriers from adopting such anti-net neutral pricing structures? What are your thoughts on the changes and net neutrality as a whole?

The Sennheiser  MX 365′s, which launched earlier this year, is Sennheiser’s latest entry into that everyday low-end consumer market. Looking to offer “a dynamic sound experience”, “a good price-performance ratio”, and “colorful self expression”. And while the whole, “colorful self expression” thing may be a great marketing ploy, the real nuts and bolts of the matter is if the sound warrants the price.

At a suggest retail price of $34.95, purchasing this item is not breaking the bank, but that being said, it’s probably a bit more than the average user is willing to pay for a pair of in-ear earphones. So the real question is, can the performance possibly be worth the price?

The Sennheiser MX 365’s offers a decent range of highs and lows, but nothing ground-breaking. Let me clarify. The bass performance and highs are good for a pair of in-ear earphones, but no where near the quality of sound you can get from a pair of “ear-canal” earphones, or their “over-the-ear” counterparts. I’ve owed many sets of more affordable in-ear earphones over the years, and the difference in performance was only marginal at best.

While the Sennheiser MX’s do offer a slightly fuller sound, I don’t believe it’s enough to overcome the huge difference in the suggested retail price with direct competition.  And while the “added colorful expression” may rope some consumers in, there are plenty of cheaper alternatives on the market that arguably provide a better aesthetic.

If your willing to shell out a bit more for only slightly better sound, go for it.

Product Features

• Comfortable, non-intrusive ear-bud fit
• Exceptional bass response and detail without added batteries or bulk
• Symmetrical cable with 1/8″ (3.5mm) headphone jack that works any audio source including iPhone, iPad series and Android devices (listen-only)
• Built-tough with a global 2 year warranty

Technical Details

• Brand Name: Sennheiser
• Model: MX 365
• Item Weight: 0.1 pounds

Although being a gadget geek I have followed a rather consistent path of Smartphone ownership.  As mentioned above, I first owned a Motorola Q. A rather thin(for its time) candy bar style phone with solid enough specs to emulate the 16 bit era of gaming and through a proprietary device driver and a little Dial-Up Networking finagling, also a pretty solid high speed (again for its time) internet modem. Next I went through a line of HTC devices, including the Touch Pro, Pro 2, and the Imagio. All Windows Mobile 6.X devices. Buggy as hell but still solid Smart-phones, though back then touch screen devices were called Pocket PCs, smartphone was relegated to the soft-key only devices sans touch screen. Later, thanks to a little fun experiment of hacking Android onto the HTC Imagio peaking my interest, I decided to switch my wife and I to the Motorola Droid 2 Global.

Except for the HTC Imagio my history with smartphones has always included a physical qwerty keyboard. Having what I call Man-Hands, (have to special order my gloves) touch screens whether resistive or capacitive do not work all to well for me. I just prefer slider phones. Having that distinct separation of the buttons just feels right to me. I can thumb it blindfolded. I experience too many errors using touch screens for typing. I know many of you will say that auto-correction and predictive text have come a long way and I agree. They work well correcting my errors on the physical keyboard but when the tip of your thumb is nearly four keys wide the predictive text has no idea what you are trying to spell.

This brings me to the main point of my rant. Verizon recently released the Motorola Droid 3 and on October 13th will release the Samsung Stratosphere. Being a physical keyboard nut and having missed that dedicated numbers row I was very tempted to renew my contract for the Droid 3. However there was one big glaring omission from the specs sheet for this device. This was a 3G only phone. Why would they not make their flagship device LTE capable? Saving some specs for the Droid 4(G) maybe like Apple saving specs for the IPhone 5? After using the Droid Global for nearly a year as a wireless modem, I greatly desired an LTE device with a five row qwerty board and specs up to par with the current line up of smart devices. I feel Verizon screwed the pooch on this one, so I decided I would just wait and hope, just maybe the device of my dreams was only around the bend.

Enter the Samsung Stratosphere. When I first saw that phone, it reminded me of how close I was to switching carriers just for a phone. The Stratosphere is identical in every way(besides branding) to the Sprint Epic 4G. Astonishing four inch Super AMOLED screen, five row keyboard, and the kicker, full LTE capable. I have found my phone. Then I read the rest of the specs. This phone is literally identical to the Epic, even down to its hardware. It has the same single core 1GHZ Hummingbird processor, half gig of RAM, and mediocre cameras. Now I understand why it’s only $150 with contract. This would equate to if the Iphone 4 was selling on Sprint for the same price as an Iphone 4S 16GB. Verizon is repackaging last years phone as if it was new. I know this wasn’t personally done to spite me but Verizon, “Why wont you give me what I want!” If it wasn’t for my grandfathered contract of unlimited data I would jump ship, but even I know Verizon has the best coverage, and now are reaching the highest US LTE penetration.

I really do not want to renew my contract for a phone I do not truly want. In these days of $100 plus cellphone bills, it is rather silly to settle for a phone because its free or cheap. If you are even considering a smartphone, you might as well get the best since you are required to get a minimum $80/month service plan contract. Do not settle, either get the best phone on the market or a phone that matches all your requirements. I now have two phones that I may consider on the number one carrier. Neither device is entirely what I want, but do I have the patience and does my Droid Global have the life to make it to the launch of either the Droid 4 or the rumored Droid Nexus Prime Slider? I gotta have my qwerty board.

Features

The Yapster Blaster universal headset features a full dynamic range driver, a nicely padded headband and over-the-ear cups, a detachable high-gain amplifier powered by XJacKer technology, an ultra high-sensitivity microphone with a flexible boom, in-line controls, standard 3.5mm audio jacks, and multiple adapters for various platforms. It supports stereo sound and chat compatibility on the PC as well as the XBOX 360, while only providing stereo sound on the PS3 and Wii.

The Good

Sound testing on this device rendered great results. On the 360, we tested Assassin’s Creed II, as well as Halo Reach –and was more than impressed. Basses were deep and highs were clear. As someone who does not have a sophisticated surround sound setup,  you can easily forget about the amount of hard work game developers put into audio design. The Yapster Blaster brings that hard work to light in brilliant form. If you don’t have the means for a surround sound setup, this is the next best thing.

Highs, mids, and lows were all distinct, and even the most nuance of sounds came to life. This in part due to the XJacker technology that is used to amplify sound coming into the headset. The USB powered XJacker amplifier boasts a frequency response of 20 Hz to 50,000 Hz, and a total harmonic distortion of 0.2%, and while these numbers won’t mean much to the laymen, the end result is a very rich sound. Don’t get me wrong, this ain’t no BOISE, but for the every day Joe, these results are more than enough.

On the PC I actually used the Yapster Blaster for a podcast recording via Skype. The microphone performed exceptionally well, in addition to delivering the audio output you would expect. Setup was as easy as plugging into the headphone and microphone ports –breakout amplifier not needed. And while setting the device on the PC was pretty much standard fair, I have to say getting things running on the XBOX 360 felt like a pain. Let me explain.

The Bad

The XJacker amplifier plugs into your consoles’ USB port, you in turn plug your headphones into the amplifier. Now the tricky part. The diagram that comes with the device shows them hooking up your amplifier adapter to the audio out of the XBOX 360. Well, since I was using HDMI (which I’m sure is the case for most people these days) I had to find a way to get audio out of my TV. This resulted in me digging up a component audio cable to get things going. Also with this setup, you have to dig through your TV setting to disable your TV speakers while keeping the outputs channels active. Not a deal-breaker, but a pain.

Also, the resulting mass of cables and the confinements of their length, just felt weird. We’ve become spoiled by the cable-less lifestyle in gaming today, so being restricted in where I could sit to play just felt outdated. And the resulting wad of cables were an eye-soar. Still, not a deal-breaker, but things definitely need to be streamlined.

Let me iterate that this may be standard fair with headsets on consoles, but having never used a console stereo headset before, it just seems like a problem.

In Conclusion

Despite my few misgivings, I have to say I would definitely recommend this product. For the late night gamer with a wife and kids or the college student who doesn’t want to disturb his roommate, the quality of the audio of the Yapster Blaster, along with its price-point, solidify’s its value for the budget gamer. All the features are definitely here, which makes this device more than worth it’s value in suggested retail price –$29.99.

Via TekNmotion, Amazon

street fight!

Every now and then you hear indie music that down right surprises you by doing something innovative and different –the music from Man Factory is no exception. So far they are two rounds (albums) in, on a three round compilation for the Street Fighter inspired rock-opera, aptly named, street fight! May not be every one’s cup of tea, but is sure to put a smile on the face of any Street Fighter fan!

Netflix inks deal with DreamWorks, meanwhile Amazon gets FOX

Netflix clearly has an uphill battle. The recent funk they have been going through will not be easily forgotten. To alleviate the pain Neflix has released their best news in quite some time. More content. Or at least in 2013. According to the New York Times, DreamWorks animation has made a deal with Netflix that is worth an estimated 30 million per film. Dreamworks chose Netflix, in lieu of a deal it once had with HBO, that was less lucrative. Thanks Netflix, we need more of the same.

Meanwhile, Amazon Prime’s Instant Video Service signs a deal with FOX, that will add an additional 11,000 movies and TV shows to the ever-growing service that is shaping up to be Netflix’s best competitor yet. Just in time for the Amazon “Kindle Fire” tablet?

Star Wars: The Old Republic dated

This is a few days old, but finally, Star Wars: The Old Republic has an official launch date. Many believed this game would not see a 2011 release, but despite speculation of even further push-backs, it will be available on December 22, 2011 in North America. So, get those wallets ready and PCs primed, should be fun (if you can get over paying the $14.99/month subscription).

Casey Jones The Movie

I’m not be biggest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan around, but leave it up the our resident turtles expert, Sergio,  to find anything cool and interesting turtles related. Enter Casey Jones The Movie. The movie does more than enough to make Casey Jones the bad-a hockey wielding street fighter that we all want him to be. Hit-up Sergio’s full review for the low-down.

According to Autopia, GM is taking the core technology in the Chevy Volt, and putting it in production as the Cadillac ELR, which was a hit at the 2009 Detroit auto show as a concept car. This bold move further underlines General Motors commitment to new technology.

The Chevy Volt is considered be the future of General Motors, and since its inception has received rave reviews, currently holding the title as the most fuel efficient compact car on the market in the United States.

The core technology the Volt is lending to the Cadillac, allows the Volt to have an electric range of 25 – 50 miles and a total range of 379 miles. In all electric mode it is estimated that the Volt gets a 93 miles per gallon gasoline equivalent, while in all gasoline mode, the vehicle gets 35 miles per gallon. And while we are not entirely sure if the new incarnation will have the same mileage, something very close is expected.

Even the most avid skeptic would be hard pressed not to consider this an achievement, considering GM was on the chopping block in the midst of the economic downturn. General Motors is pushing their way back to forefront of the automobile industry, and seemingly future proofing the company by innovating and adopting technologies that are industry-leading.

Like the Chevy Volt, the new Cadillac incarnation will come at a premium, even more so since Cadillac is GM’s luxury line of vehicles.

Suffice it to say, everyday guys like you and I won’t be getting our hands on one of these anytime soon, unless GM makes drastic inroads in reducing cost to the masses. But one can still dream!

Bungie Turns Twenty

Our beloved makers of the Halo franchise have turned twenty, and have release a video documenting their journey to greatness. A great watch for any Halo fan, or any fan of the industry for that matter. Here’s to another twenty Bungie!

To cap off Bungie’s 20th Anniversary festivities, the team has assembled a near hour long documentary covering the studio’s past, present, and future. Featuring insight from the team — including their ever illusive Creative Director, Jason Jones — and interviews from key industry veterans and luminaries, “O Brave New World” is both a celebration of Bungie’s legacy and a love letter to the community of gamers who have embraced Bungie’s games for two incredible decades.

Source: AllThingsD

The Netflixification of Gamefly

Yep, you knew this would be coming sooner or later. Looks like Gamefly plans to introduce an all you can eat array of titles that could make it the Netflix of the gaming industry. These guys have been doing the disk-to-mail thing for a while, and this seems to be a natural transition. But wait, anybody remember GameTap? Didn’t it do the same thing? While GameTap was a little ahead of its time, and focused mostly on retro titles, hopefully this new service from GameFly will have more modern, up-to-date titles that people will actually feel comfortable shelling out a monthly fee to play. Yes, it all comes down to the library. This is my biggest problem with onLive . Build a good library, and we will come.

Source: Joystiq

Google+ Launches Games!

Facebook beware, there is another flourishing social network platform with games now! Google+ is slowly rolling out their gaming platform to the masses of “beta” users with titles you would expect *cough, angry birds*. Games are presented as an additional section within the Google+ interface, which makes things clean and concise. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but seems like I would be more inclined to partake in the Google+ gaming platform verses Facebook. I’ll keep you posted.

Source: PC Magazine