27th March 2007 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site. Or try the full archive of all our sister sites.

Nintendo acts against Wii modchips?

Console internals rejigged

Nintendo is reportedly tweaking the Wii's internal workings to prevent the use of console modification chips. According to Taiwanese retailers cited by local newssite DigiTimes, the latest Wiis sport a modified motherboard intended to make it harder if not impossible to add existing modchips - at least not without damaging …

Consoles 27 Mar 2007, 09:38
HTC unveils Windows Vista handheld

Vendor Shifts up a gear

Mobile device maker HTC has shifted up a gear and announced a handheld based not on Windows Mobile but Windows Vista. Dubbed Shift, the sub sub-notebook boasts the full array of wireless connectivity, including 3G HSPDA. Shift is essentially a step up from the X7500 Advantage HTC unveiled in February this year. The new …

Phones 27 Mar 2007, 09:59
Sony Ericsson reveals its first 'super 3G' phone

Sony Ericsson this week took the wraps off not only its latest Walkman-branded slimline slider phone but also its first handset capable of accepting high-speed HSDPA downloads. The W580 is a 1.4cm-thick device with quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity. It sports a 2in, 240 x 320, 262,144-colour display and a two-megapixel …

Phones 27 Mar 2007, 10:42
AMD 690G integrated chipset

Review The best integrated graphics money can buy?

AMD's new 690 chipset comes in two varieties. There's the vanilla 690V with an integrated ATI Radeon X1200 graphics core that only supports a VGA connection, but the one that interests us is the 690G with Radeon X1250 graphics. This core supports both analogue and digital connections, and that gives the motherboard manufacturers …

Bits 'n' Chips 27 Mar 2007, 11:02
Samsung doubles solid-state drive capacity

Now at a whopping 64GB

Samsung has upped the capacity of its Flash-based SSD line to 64GB, offering the unit in the media player- and notebook-friendly 1.8in form factor. The 64GB drive is faster than its predecessor too, with maximum read and write speeds of 64MBps and 45MBps, respectively - 4.3 and 6.4 times greater than a typical 80GB hard disk …

Bits 'n' Chips 27 Mar 2007, 11:10
De-scratch your DVDs for $250, firm offers

Stuck with a stack of CDs and DVDs that no longer play properly because they've been scratched? US company VenMill claims to have the answer: a disc repair system that does away with the disc-denuding abrasives of old. And that's especially important now we're entering the era of high-def optical media - all inherently more …

Gadgets and Gizmos 27 Mar 2007, 13:05
HP looks to teach Acer about Texas Justice

Fires off PC patent suit

Hewlett-Packard has sued Taiwan-based PC maker Acer for alleged infringement of five U.S. patents related to PC technology. HP hopes to block Acer from selling products stateside allegedly using HP's technology, including notebooks, desktops and media center systems. The five patents involve processor tweaks, power- …

PCs 27 Mar 2007, 23:44