Best Buy has an Xbox 360 HD DVD deal coming up next week that lets you get the HD DVD addon as well as a free Heroes Season 1 HD DVD box set for just $179. The ad says the Heroes pack is a $99.99 value, but you can pick it up online for just $69. It’s still a good deal, but slightly less incredible. Plus, you can still get five free HD DVD movies with purchase as well. [Cheapassgamer via Xbox 360 Fanboy]
newVideoPlayer("vanhalen_clamfest.flv", 475, 376); And now for a Friday musical interlude, we bring you Van Halen caught on its comeback tour, except there was one big problem and it involved gadgets. What happens when you play back a prerecorded synthesizer track at 48K instead of the intended 44.1K? The whole track plays back a little bit faster and at a slightly higher pitch, that’s what. A dissonant musical mess ensues, trapping the guitarist and bassist in an on-stage musical hell with nowhere to go.
See Eddie Van Halen launch into his famous solo on “Jump,” trying in vain to somehow transpose to this otherworldly key that is nowhere to be found. This travesty of a performance happened earlier this month (in my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina), and the funny thing is, the crowd was delighted with it. I shutter to think that no one realised something was terribly amiss, but those hometown folks always were overly polite. [RW370, via BoingBoing](Thanks, Joel Johnson!)
Despite record sales and boosted revenues compared with last quarter, thanks to the debt-loaded ATI acquisition and the bloody price war with Intel, AMD’s finishing Q3 $396 million in the red. [Ars]
We’re jealous. The guys at the Brit division of Crave got their greasy paws on that gorgeous Sagem Porsche P’9521 phone we showed you the other day. Making us feel even worse is the fact that they liked it a lot, writing in their dignified-sounding British way, “it’s not just a piece of rubbish with a Porsche logo on it—it is in fact a rather nifty clamshell handset.”
One of the pics showed us something we didn’t realise before—you know that highly visible Porsche Design logo on the lid? The numerals on its outside screen are displayed in a similar typeface. That’s a cool detail. Our major complaint about the phone is its outrageous $1634 price. [Crave UK]
Although the Meizu M8 Phone may rip off the iPhone with its music UI (and every other UI), it could be a good thing. First, take a look at the photos in the gallery and see just how similar they are to the iPhone.
Keeping our PS3 controller charged is such a pain that we always have to plug it in whenever we’re watching Blu-ray movies. Pelican’s Charge and Store eliminates lazy charging syndrome by providing both a charger and a stand, so you can keep your gaming area organized at the same time. The retail price is $29, which isn’t too bad since it juices two controllers at the same time—and seeing how short the included PS3 charge cable is, it’ll save you a number of treks across the living room as well. [Pelican via IGN]
Apple’s just posted an OS X Leopard walk-through video that’s in the same vein as those iPhone and iPod Touch walkthrough videos you’ve seen before. A guy narrates and describes new features while he shows them to you on the monitor—except in this case, he’s less robotic (iPhone guy) or goofy (iPod touch guy). In fact, we think we’ve seen him before. Does he work in the SF Apple store? [Apple]
Toshiba insiders report that Microsoft’s developing a new Xbox 360 with a “new” HD DVD drive (unclear if it’s on-board) and a larger hard drive, possibly for any IPTV or DVR efforts coming soon. Also, there’s been features thrown around that are unlikely to make it into the final product, such as dual HDTV tuners (OMG), a docking port for MP3 players (probably the Zune), and much quieter drives and fans. The reason for bundling an HD DVD drive? Market penetration for the format. Blu-ray was able to sneak millions of players into homes via the PS3, and now with the HD DVD format losing in terms of total players, Toshiba wants to do the same thing. [SmartHouse via Kotaku]
Attach this magnetic sextet of colorful 1.5-inch shot glasses to their included stainless steel tray, and the conical vessels stay put even if you hold the tray upside down. At first we thought there was some magical way to hold the contained liquid in place while the glasses were held upside down, too, but what do you want for $24.99? [Home WetBar, via 7 Gadgets]
Developed by both Steelcase, a furniture manufacturer, and James Levine from the Mayo clinic, this treadmill desk allows you to game, work or just look at salacious pictures on the internet and “work out” at the same time. The functions should be pretty obvious from the picture. As silly as it sounds, if we could buy one of these for our offices we probably would—sitting in front of a computer for 18 hours of the day doesn’t promote any sort of fitness regime anyone but the fat ladies on The View would recommend. [Time]
