Hardware

Oh brother . . . will this never end? The team at Phantom Entertainment, the makers of the long awaited (and long delayed) Phantom Lapboard PC gaming oriented keyboard have run into trouble, this time with the US Securites and Exchange Commission. They have halted the trading of stocks in Phantom Entertainment " because they have not filed certain periodic reports with the Commission."

All of this sounds like a repeat of what happened when the company was called Infinium Labs and its now former CEO was accused by the SEC of running an illegal "pump and dump" scheme to boost the price of the company's stock. The company's current CEO John Landino states on the company's blog site, "We are not the company of 2002 – We could have easily taken the easy way out and just shut our doors and quit, but we stayed to push through the bias of the media and Shorters out there to prove that we can be a new company to launch our product, and grow from there." He claims the first shipment of the Phantom Lapboard will happen sometime this month but at this point we will believe it when we see it. And so the drama continues . . .

[Via Blue's News]

Dave Perry has been hyping his streaming game service Gaikai for the past few months. We were supposed to see it in action at E3 last month but at the last minute Perry pulled out of showing the service to the press due to "patent filing" delays. Today, however, Perry decided to go public with a 10 minute + video showing off how the Gaikai service supposedly works.

You can see the video above with narration by Perry as he plays games like Spore, World of Warcraft and EVE Online with only a few seconds of load time via a Firefox browser. He even had a full version of Photoshop running near the end of the video, showing that the service can be used for more than just games. Perry claims that the video demo was being run via a streaming server 800 miles from his location and that the bandwidth for the demo was "mostly sub 1 megabit across all games" meaning that the requirements for playing these games will be fairly low. Perry took a couple of shots against rival streaming PC service OnLive (without mentioning them by name) saying, "We don't claim to have 5,000 pages of patents, we didn't take 7 years, and we do not claim to have invented 1 millisecond encryption and custom chips. As you can see, we don't need them, and so our costs will be much less. ;)"

There's still no word on when this service will launch but Perry states he will be talking more about the business model for Gaikai at game development conferences later this summer.

It's time for another system specs reveal for an upcoming PC game. Are you excited as we are? Well, let's get to it, shall we?. The game in question is (drum roll) Wolfenstein, the upcoming latest entry in the series that started the first person shooter genre. The game from developers Raven Software and id Software and publisher Activision is due out August 4 but you can find out if your PC rig can run the game right now, courtesy of a post on the game's official message boards:

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP or Windows Vista(R) (Windows 95/98/ME/2000 are unsupported)
Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0c (included & required for Windows XP & Vista)

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 3.2 GHz or AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3400+ processor
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA(R) Geforce(R) 6800 GT or ATI Radeon(TM) X800
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
HDD Space: 8GB (Plus an additional 800MB for Windows swap file)
Media: 100% Microsoft Windows compatible DVD-ROM drive
Internet: Broadband connection and service required for multiplay

As Microsoft gets ready for the launch of Windows 7 on October 22 they have revealed more info on both the pricing of the various versions of the PC OS as well as the packaging of the retail version. As we reported several days ago, today is the first day of the Windows 7 upgrade program for new PCs. If you purchase a new PC from participating retailers and PC makers that has Windows Vista installed, you can get an upgrade to Windows 7 for little to no cost when it ships.

As far as Windows 7 pricing, here are the numbers for the upgrade version:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99

If you want the full version of Windows 7 here are the prices:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99

In addition beginning today for a limited time you can purchase the upgrade version of Windows 7 Home Premium for just $49.99 and the upgrade version of Windows 7 Professional for just $99.99. Finally Microsoft talked about the retail packaging for Windows 7, saying it is 37 percent lighter than the packaging for Windows Vista.

Our Say2Play and Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA2 Giveaway contest concludes Sunday, so this is your last chance enter in for a chance to arm yourself with the power of voice using a rocking headset. With Say2Play, game tasks can be assigned to voice commands, so you don't have to memorize a long list of key commands to get straight into the game. We're giving 25 keys to celebrate the recently released new version. To go along with it, five grand prize winners will win a Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA2 headset, so they can game using quality hardware. Click on the link below or image above and leave a comment on the contest page to enter into the random drawing. Contest ends on June 28th.

Visit Say2Play and Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA2 Giveaway Contest Page
Download Say2Play trial version

It took much longer than previously announced but today Valve revealed that they have added support via Steam for the Novint Falcon PC game controller to all of the games in Valve's Orange Box collection. That includes Half-Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2 along with Portal and Team Fortress 2 (the original Half-Life 2 already supports the Falcon controller via a patch from Novint).

The controller allows gamers to "feel" effects like weapon fire recoil, the weight of holding objects like barrels and even feel textures in the game world. Valve has promised that they will add Falcon support to their other games including Left 4 Dead.

Don't forget to enter into our Say2Play and Turtle Beach Ear Force 2 Giveaway contest. With Say2Play, game tasks can be assigned to voice commands, so you don't have to memorize a long list of key commands to get straight into the game. We're giving 25 keys to celebrate the recently released new version. To go along with it, five grand prize winners will win a Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA2 headset, so they can game using quality hardware. Visit the link below and leave a comment on the contest page to enter into the random drawing. Contest ends on June 28th.

Visit Say2Play and Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA2 Giveaway Contest Page
Download Say2Play trial version

YouTube can bring us some rather odd and disturbing scenes but it's also a source of wonderment as well. Witness the 'Game Gun Guy" who has created a mod using a plastic toy gun, a small LCD screen and a Gyration PC mouse to create a a fully motion tracked controller that's perfect for playing first person shooters like F.E.A.R. (on the high difficulty level no less)

Ah but that's not all. This same guy has gone ahead and created a wireless version of the same gun (well at least it's not connected to the PC anymore; that's a rather long wire for a "wireless" device) which you can check out in another video after the jump. It looks like he's playing Far Cry or one of the Crysis games (we don't know for certain) but that's not the point.The point is that why isn't a professional controller maker creating something like this?

[Via Engadget]

The troubles at technology media company Ziff Davis are apparently still continuing. This week it was revealed that the company is shutting down its popular ExtremeTech.com web site. The PC hardware site had quite a bit of PC gaming coverage and had a solid list of writer-editors including Loyd Case, Jason Cross, Joel Durham, and others. According to a message post by Case at QuartertoThree.com all of those writers will soon be out of work as of June 26 as Ziff Davis will turn the site into a blog under their PCMag.com site. We know that the talented crew behind the site will land on its feet.

This is just the latest in the many cost-cutting efforts by the struggling Ziff Davis who sold off its 1Up.com gaming web network to UGO and sold off the FileFront.com site to its original creators. It also shut down its Electronic Gaming Monthly print magazine but its original owner recently announced plans to revive EGM in some capacity.

At Big Download, we know how critical multitasking is for PC gaming. So, to give players an edge over other players, we're giving away 25 keys for the full version of Say2Play, software that allows players to control their games by just using their voices. Say2Play has been updated to a brand new version, which includes 210 built-in game templates and the ability to bind mouse buttons to voice commands. Of course, you'll also want a great headset to go along with Say2Play Ear Force HPA2 Headsets to 5 lucky grand prize winners, which offers 5.1 surround sound. Contest ends on June 28th.

Players can download the Say2Play trial version right now to try out. Winners will be able to unlock it using the retail key. Visit the Say2Play and Turtle Beach websites for more information about these prizes.

Download Say2Play

Entering the giveaway contests is simple:

• To enter, post a comment on this contest page.
• The comment must be left before 11:59 pm Eastern Time on June 28.
• You may enter only once.
• 25 winners, including 5 grand prize winners, will be selected in a random drawing.
• Each winner will be sent a code to download a free unlock key for Say2Play (valued at $29.95 each). Five grand prize winners will receive a free Turtle Beach HPA2 headset (valued at $99.95)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules. You must be a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec) who is 18 years or older to enter this contest.

Our huge thanks to Say2Play and Turtle Beach for the donation of the prizes. Good luck!

Ahh, the data center's heart and brain, the server room. Dim, cavernous, off-limits to most of our coworkers, and bathed in the soothing dual ambiences of CPU fans and high-powered air-conditioning, they're the perfect place to take a moment to cool off after a tough call or a sprint across a plague-wracked parking lot. All those boxen, miles of Cat6 just the way we want it, chilled to a component-friendly sixty-something degrees.

Well, so much for that particular workplace fantasy. We've spoken previously about the positive aspects of greener, more energy-efficient computing, but now they've gone too far. Folks have finally noticed that facilities cooling is one of the biggest costs for server rooms and data centers, and the thermostat is being kicked up to save money. Way up.

Windows 7 is now set for release on October 22 and with that release come DirectX11, the next version of Microsoft's 3D graphics API. So it's not a shock to learn that AMD (via their ATI brand) and Nvidia are prepping to launch their next major PC graphics cards this fall that will support DirectX11 features.

VentureBeat reports that AMD's director of software developer relations Neal Robison stated that AMD will be ready this fall with DirectX11 supported graphics chips. However, rumors that Nvidia's team are behind in their next-gen graphics tech are dismissed by anaylst Jon Peddie who believes the company will also have DirectX11 chips ready by this fall. Nvidia itself won't comment on their future plans. Intel is also developing their own high end graphics chips under the code name Larabee but it's now expected that it won't be ready for launch until next year.

Windows Vista was pretty much of a train wreck of an OS when it was released 2 1/2 years ago. There were tons of performance problems and driver support was poor. However it looks like Microsoft's next OS release Windows 7 will be a much better product (it's due out on October 22) and Stardock CEO Brad Wardell feels game developers need to get on the Windows 7 bandwagon now.

Chatting with Gamasutra, Wardell feels that one of the big features of Windows 7 is Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP) which will allow a PC's CPU to handle some DirectX graphical features even if the PC has a poor gaphics card or no dedicated graphics card installed. Wardell feels that feature will allow lots of games to be played on low end machines: "We want the game to look incredible on high-end systems, but I want people to be able to play this on their three-year-old laptop on the airplane."

Ah, StarForce. PC gamers around the world learned to hate that name as the Russian-based copy protection company found that its software not only angered gamers but may have even damaged PCs which had the software installed.

After some really bad customer and public relations a few years ago, StarForce became persona non grata among US publishers who feared that using the software would cause their sales to drop. Now the company is coming back with a new version of its software that it hopes will be used by more companies.

But has the damage of previous years been too much for StarForce to make a comeback? In a new chat at Gamasutra, the company's deputy marketing director Dmitry Guseff states, "We do not intend to repeat our past mistakes." Their new version allows the consumer to actually select to use either disk protection or online activation for their PC game. And what about people who think any DRM set-up is bad? Guseff states, " . . . choosing the right scheme for specific games and proper copy protection implementation does nothing to breach gamers' rights and could be an additional and very effective tool against piracy." Okay . . .

While should companies like Microsoft and other PC hardware groups have all the fun. More and more, it appears that phone companies with their already existing infrastructure want to enter the PC gaming business, at least in a behind-the scenes fashion. IndustryGamers has a new chat with AT&T's Executive Director of Gaming Glenn Broderick about their plans.

AT&T already hosts severs and networks for such companies as Blizzard and they have plans to revamp their gaming section of their AT&T.net web site. They also plan to sell downloadable games via a web-based service. Broderick also says the current cloud computing trend for games "will take off in the next 5-10 years" and AT&T wants in on that kind of streaming game service similar to what OnLive is trying to do. AT&T won't comment on how much money they are putting into their gaming services but Broderick stated, "It's more than a million and less than a billion."

In related news, Verizon announced today plans to offer their FIOS and regular Internext customers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York a way to download and play over 1,000 PC games for a $9.99 monthly fee (similar to the GameTap service).