Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Peripherals

No, it's not another scandalous display from Andres Serrano, this is a 24-carat gold HP Laserjet p2015. On display at the GITEX show somewhere in Japan, this working prototype is up for auction with a starting price of US$299 or about a Benjamin less than the printer costs without all that gold. Why did they choose a middling LaserJet and not an HP-35 or other HP product more worthy of such opulence? Hell, we have no idea, but we'll get some private investigators to check their phone records and get back to you. What? 
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

You all know how a storm works: at first there's the sudden onslaught of wind and rain, and then a big lull follows, right when we think the storm has passed, the harsh weather resumes. The "big lull" means we're passing through the eye of the storm and that the worst is about to come. With all next-gen consoles now launched, it feels like there's a pretentious calm surrounding the gaming industry. Nintendo and Sony are not talking any specifics.

Now, you can just imagine Sony Corporate Communications Senior Director Dave Karraker's guts who came out of hiding today and announced the first rough numbers regarding the PS3. Not only that, Karraker claims that the figures are reflective of the PS2's and PSP's performance as well, hinting the next-gen consoles jump-start sales. The figures are as follows:
Biggest selling game: Resistance: Fall of Man, followed by Madden '07The US 599 60GB model was the top selling SKU (over the U.S. 499 20GB model)PSP week-over-week sales i...

Stuck with a measly 20GB hard drive on your shiny new PS3? It's easy to replace that with a hefty 120GB, or even 160GB drive. The guys at GamersReports show us exactly how it's done, a process whose most complicated operation is the selection of the drive itself.
If you get yourself a 2.5-inch notebook SATA hard drive ($94-$160, depending on capacity), preferably one which runs at 5400RPM, the mini-guide shows you how to remove the PS3's original drive and replace it with a new one. Don't be fooled by the article's reference to a "2.5mm" drive—methinks that would be a wee bit small.
The final (and incredibly easiest) step, after the jump.


After that, it's a simple matter of formatting the drive, and except for game saves, everything you need to run the PS3 will be placed on your voluminous new drive. Now if you could turn that PS3 into a 1080p personal video recorder, you might actually need all that extra disk space. – Charlie White...

Even before the release of next-gen consoles Wii and PS3, it is no secret that both of their controllers would be using motion sensing technology. In Sony's case, the tilt can be used to control dragon mounts in the game Lair while Nintendo's need no further explanation as they have been big on the Wiimote ever since day one.

Given such advance gaming features, the technology behind it has actually been around for a while now. It's just that the advancements we've had the past few years brought down its price and size paving the way for its mass production. Prior to it being adapted to games, the motion sensing chip otherwise known as accelerometer had been used for military and navigational purposes.

"Accelerometers have been used to guide missiles and aircraft. We had a $25,000 inertial system that was probably comparable to the one in the Sony controller," explains SCEA Special Projects Head Richard Marks, who used to work on an underwater robot. Before acceler...

How does the PLAYSTATION 3’s SIXAXIS controller do it’s sensing? Tiny springs, that’s how. Same thing goes for the Nintendo’s motion-sensing controller. When you wave around the new Nintendo controller, two tiny, flat pieces of silicon inside it, each weighing about a millionth of a gram, flex against silicon springs that hold them in place. The movements [...]

Give a little, take a little. We've already seen what the brighter side of gaming has to offer, with groups like ScrewAttack and Penny Arcade taking up the challenge of giving back to the community with their recently concluded PS3 auction, the proceedings of which went to the Child's Play program.  And this time, we're looking at gaming charity on a larger scale, as GameTap, Pledgeplay and Buy.com announce their Thanks4Giving program to kick the holidays off on the right track.

Started this November 21 and ending December 24, the program is hosted at the pledgeplay.com web site, and any anybody who's interested in helping out can just drop over to make a minimum $20 donation. Donors will receive four free weeks of GamTap's entertainment network services, with $50 to $100 donations receiving either a free video game or accessory over at Buy.com - you get to choose.

Charities that visiting gamers can offer donations to include the CaringBridge an...

High-security launch parties, days-on-end campouts, eBay spamfests, SmashmyPS3 people, and Wiimote invasions...last week was one of the freakier chapters in a typical Sony fan's life, and even as we're finally going home to carve up that big, fat, juicy turkey for Thanksgiving, Sony's thrown in their own juicy treat.

They recently sent out a media advisory stating that North America will be getting PS3's by this Black Friday. As the media advisory states:
At this point, we are focused on getting as many new PS3s to the North American market as possible for the holidays, including airlifting systems to the territory on a constant basis. With PS3 manufacturing now running smoothly and product being aired in weekly, we're focused on our goal of shipping a million units to retail by the end of the calendar year. Due to the immediate nature of these shipments, we will not be providing weekly updates on North American supplies.
As the advisory says, Sony's expecting a total ...

Amazon-using gamers will not be pleased with this latest development. QJ reader Ted tells us of his recent experience in trying to order a PlayStation 3, and apparently, it wasn't a particularly positive thing.

The highlights in displeasing PS3 fans are as follows:

Step 1: Open up a 20GB PlayStation 3 sale for 30 minutes, causing quite a number of people to order.
Step 2: Upon ordering, link to anything remotely resembling unavailability, yet send a confirmation notice to the person ordering.
Step 3: Wait three days.
Step 4: Send an email after the above-mentioned three days saying the item isn't actually available.
Step 5: Make sure your sincere apologies have a postscript at the bottom of the email indicating that it's an automatic email that can't be replied to.

The customer discussions on the ordering page are currently very agitated with the matter. This information, while saddening to read, is unfortunately not surprising as Amazon also ...

We've all had to deal with some pretty horrible audio in online games. Listening to people sing Numa Numa during a raid on Onyxia's Lair is plain annoying. Messing up your team's battle plan in Halo because you misunderstood "Hide in the valley" as "Firing a volley" is just devastating.

It's a good thing someone's planning to make sure orders get heard in an FPS at least.

Sony recently called on the expertise of VoiceAge Corporation to upgrade the online audio of their PS3 shooter, Insomniac Games' Resistance: Fall of Man. As Laurent Amar, head of VoiceAge, mused about the company's arrangement with Sony,

VoiceAge is proud to contribute to the impressive realism of playing Resistance: Fall of Man on the PS3 online with many other players - with this added capability Insomniac Games and Sony Computer Entertainment America are poised to deliver an unmatched game-playing experience.
One of the PS3's best-selling launch games, Resistance was rated rather h...

Filed under: Gaming, Wearables
While neither can match the simple geek elegance of street artist Invader's Space Invader-themed kicks, Nintendo and Sony fanboys now have some sneakers of their own to covet, although both look to be harder to get your hands on than a Wii or PS3. Sony's the only one of the two to get official with its sneaks, partnering with Nike for some PlayStation 3-themed footwear (at least that's what they're sayin' -- from the looks of it, Nike may have just taken the opportunity to unload some rejected designs.) Only 24 pairs of the PS3 sneaks were made, with most no doubt spoken for by now. You won't fare any better with the Nintendo shoes, however; these stylish but apparently non-functional kicks being strictly one of a kind, created by an talented sneaker artist for a recent Sneakerpimps event in Baltimore.

Read - Sole Collector, "First Look at PlayStation 3 Kicks" [Via Hypebeast]
Read - Format Magazine, "Sneake...