ASUS‘ ARES line of gaming PCs has been kicking for a few years now, but regardless of how many iterations we see, we’re still a wee bit terrified when approaching a chassis this gargantuan. Just after the outfit’s press conference in Taipei, we daintily hurried over to the newest member of the family in order to snag a few shots and get the low-down on what users could expect when it ships between now and next century. Aesthetically, we’re told that the CG8490 was inspired by “ancient and modern armor of both Eastern and Western cultures,” likely a politically correct statement with no actual meaning. Regardless, this monster can overclock itself by as much as 20 percent without boiling over, and the six-core Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition CPU is suited for slicing up even the most complex of tasks. There’s also 12GB of DDR3 memory, 2TB of hard drive space, a standard DVD burner and a pair of overclocked ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPUs to handle DirectX 11 and Eyefinity duties. Mum’s the word on a price or release date, but we’re going with “too much” and “not soon enough.”

Oh, and be sure to peek the limited edition ARES GPU as well as the company’s Rampage III Extreme motherboard in the gallery below.

Continue reading ASUS showcases ROG CG8490 gaming desktop: Core i7-980X, dual OC’d Radeon HD 5870s

ASUS showcases ROG CG8490 gaming desktop: Core i7-980X, dual OC’d Radeon HD 5870s originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 19:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news / bad news, folks. First with the smiles: PlayStation 3’s first 3D-enabling updates are due out on June 10th for downloadable titles Super Stardust HD, WipEout HD, and Pain. The first two games get the added dimension for gratis, but Pain lovers (who should be accustomed by now to its abundant premium add-ons) will need to fork over ¥300 (approximately $3.28) for the benefit. The other stickler is that these updates are so far only announced for Japan — and by merit of a Bravia promotion, Europe as well. So what’s a North American gamer with a penchant for wearing special glasses to do? Keep waiting, true believers.

PlayStation 3’s first 3D title updates coming June 10th to Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 18:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For the price, there’s nothing truly terrible about the SMiT MID-560A touchscreen tablet. If you’ve never held an Android device, you might even be pleasantly surprised with the functionality on offer. But if you have — or if you bought yours from a company called Enso and became embroiled in a vaporware scandal as a result — the zenPad is quite the letdown. Hear why after the break.

Continue reading Enso zenPad unboxing and hands-on: one disappointment after another

Enso zenPad unboxing and hands-on: one disappointment after another originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 17:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Commodore USA unveiling Eee Keyboard rival? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 16:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to show that electric cars can be practical in day-to-day living? Take one on an impossibly long trip and show the world. That’s the plan for the Racing Green Endurance team, centered at Imperial College London, which will be taking its SRZero electric car along 26,000km (16,000 miles) of the Pan-American Highway, starting in northern Alaska and driving all the way down to Tierra del Fuego on the southern tip of South America. Their car is a repurposed Radical SR8, once a back-breakingly quick two-seat prototype with a curb weight of just 1,433lbs and a rollicking 363 V8 in the back. That lump has been displaced by a pair of Axial Flux electric motors, producing a combined peak of 386hp, though their batteries conspire to nearly double the car’s initial weight to 2,600lbs. Still, a 248 mile range is predicted on the EPA cycle, and since you can eke out 300 in a Tesla Roadster (224 mile EPA-rated range), 350 might just be possible here. We’ll find out in July, when the trip begins. Early video after the break, filmed by Claudio von Planta of Long Way Round fame, and we threw in footage of the SR8 setting the Nurburgring production car record just for kicks.

Continue reading Racing Green Endurance SRZero electric car to make 16,000 mile trip, 250 at a time

Racing Green Endurance SRZero electric car to make 16,000 mile trip, 250 at a time originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 14:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A 3D digital photo frame may seem a bit excessive for even the most all-compassing technology bandwagon, but the folks from Newsight have managed to put a somewhat unique spin on the idea with this frame recently on display at SID 2010. Like some of the company’s other displays, this 3D LCD is auto-stereoscopic — meaning you don’t need any pesky glasses — but it also takes things one step further by supporting what’s known as “motion parallax,” which effectively means you can “see around” an image. As you might expect, that involves a bit of trickery, but Newsight says its image processing software can take any traditional 3D (or even 2D) image and create five separate images out of it that let you see the same image from different angles. Unfortunately, that image processing must first be done on a PC with the current model, but Newsight promises that the next model will have built-in processing, and it’s already talking about a third version that will let two frames send images to each other.

Newsight 3D photo frame promises to let you ’see around’ images without glasses originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 13:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS didn’t make much of a fuss over it, but its ASUS-branded App Store for netbooks did launch today. Not much to get excited about unless you’re already pumped by Intel’s AppUp store at the heart of ASUS’ offering. The best part might be the announced MeeGo support, whenever the Intel / Nokia OS mashup is ready. Just what the world needs: an EeeMee, right Mr. Anderson?

ASUS launches netbook App Store eying a MeeGo future originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 13:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know that this next bit of information will most likely shock and upset you, but it has to be told: the current Engadget editor doesn’t own an iPod dock. In fact, he doesn’t even own an alarm clock. Of course, it would be nice to listen to Pandora or the BBC’s Desert Island Disks without switching on the computer during those rare times when we weren’t working — but it was never a priority. Not a priority, that is, until we laid eyes on that cute Alarm Clock app (or, at least, a cardboard simulation thereof) at CES. Now that we have had the iLuv App Station in our hot little hands (and on our bedside table) for a week, the jury is in. Is iLuv’s App Station all that it’s cracked up to be? Read on, dear readers, to find out.

Continue reading iLuv App Station Review

iLuv App Station Review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 12:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chinese website Zol — which is owned by CBS Interactive — is reporting that Apple may be moving toward a model of paying Foxconn employees direct subsidies, in the form of small percentages of of the profits from whatever product line they work on. It’s also interesting to note that the report claims that Apple has looked into the situation, and found that the general unhappiness of the workers and the recent spate of suicides could be attributed to low wages. The report says that Apple — which apparently pays Foxconn 2.3 percent of the final retail price for a given product — will pay an additional amount directly to the workers, which would give a significant boost to the roughly $132 they’re currently pulling in per month. The actual payout numbers we’re hearing — around 1 to 2 percent of a retail price of the products manufactured — don’t exactly make sense so we’re hoping to get clarification as to the breakdown if the rumor turns out to be true. The report also states that the iPad production line will be the first to benefit from the scheme. We have asked Apple for comment and will update if and when we hear back.

Apple rumored to begin paying Foxconn employees direct wages originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 12:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You one of those unlucky folks who found out about the iPad’s dislike of low-powered USB ports on standard PCs after you’d already pulled the trigger? Well, you can stop crying yourself to sleep nights and finally do something about it: Gigabyte, MSI, and ASUS have all come out with software that hops up their respective, fairly interchangeable motherboards and delivers extra juice to an iPad-plugged USB port. Of course, they built these softwares for their own hardware, but there’s a video after the break of a reckless user putting the ASUS software to work on a myriad of non-ASUS (mostly Sony) machines. Your mileage may vary, but if you wanna play it safe we’d say look into who built your motherboard before installing: we’re not scientists, but we hear extra electricity “does stuff.”

[Thanks, Jeff F.]

Continue reading Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI deliver driver software to allow iPad charging from the PC

Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI deliver driver software to allow iPad charging from the PC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 11:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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