Hot on the heels ofSharp's 100GB Blu-ray discsannouncement, Sony has come out with an

innovation of its own that could bring optical storage to a whole new level. Working in conjunction with researchers and engineers at Tohoku University in Japan, the company claims it hasdeveloped a blue-violet laserthat shoots very thin beams with a very high watt output, allowing it to write up to 20 times more data on a disc compared to existing Blu-ray technology.

Currently, Blu-ray drives hold 25GB of data, with dual-layer versions capable of storing 50GB. The new blue-violet laser would theoretically enable 1TB capacities. Sony says it has tested the new technology, and will continue to develop it to create next-generation optical storage devices, but gave no indication as to when we'll be seeing a new disc format.

Considering most folks haven't even gotten a Blu-ray player in their homes yet, it doesn't seem likely that there will be a major format change anytime soon. Regardless of this, or the future of physical media itself with Internet video streaming gaining popularity, the specs are astounding to consider. To put things into perspective, the new format could reportedly hold as many as 50 full movies, or an entire season of a TV series on a single disc.

Gateway has announced a batch of new gaming and media-friendly desktops, with systems spanning the FX (mainstream gaming), DX (mini-tower), SX (small form factor), and ZX (all-in-one) series -- all of which ship with Windows 7 Home Premium x64.

The FX line represents the traditional gaming PC, and Gateway has detailed two new configurations, one priced at $1,300 and the other at $1,700. The least expensive includes a 2.8GHz Core i7-860, 8GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM, a 1GB Radeon HD 5850, 1.5TB of storage, a DVD burner, 7.1 HD audio, and various I/O connections. An extra $400 gets you 16GB of RAM and a Blu-ray drive.

The DX series is more compact with a mini-tower chassis, but still seemingly adequate for the average game or media buff -- and it's cheaper, too. At $850, the DX4831-03 offers a 3.2GHz Core i5-650, 8GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM, a 1GB GeForce GT220, a 1TB "variable RPM" HDD, DVD and Blu-ray drives, 7.1 HD audio, and slightly less connectivity than the FX.

Scaling down further is a new entry in the small form factor SX line. Priced at $560, the SX2840-01 packs a 2.93GHz Intel Core i3-530 and GMA X4500HD, 6GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM, a 1TB "green" HDD, 5.1 HD audio, spare PCIe x16 and x1 slots, a multi-card reader, a "photo frame button", as well as nine USB 2.0, eSATA, VGA, HDMI and S/PDIF ports.

The most humble is Gateway's all-in-one ZX4800-06. Priced at $750, features include a 20-inch 1600x900 touchscreen, an Intel Pentium T4400 and GMA X4500HD, 4GB of DDR2 800MHz RAM, a 750GB 7200RPM HDD, a DVD burner, 5.1 HD audio and 5W speakers, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and similar connectivity options as the other systems.

Seagate apparently went ahead of its planned CES announcement and today officially unveiled the world's thinnest 2.5-inch hard disk drive. Measuring just 7mm tall rather than the usual 9.5mm, the Momentus Thin drive is aimed at the increasingly popular ultra-thin notebooks and will come in 160GB and 250GB capacities.


While some laptop manufacturers have opted for 1.8-inch drives to help shave a few millimeters off their products, these new storage devices from Seagate are supposedly far cheaper to produce and should enable a new breed of entry-level thin notebooks and netbooks. Besides offering a slimmer profile, the 2.5-inch disks still perform at typical notebook speeds with a SATA II interface, 5,400RPM spindle speeds and an 8MB cache.

No prices were disclosed. The company is first offering the drive to OEMs and expects to ship them in January.

Owners of the PlayStation 3 can now download the latest system update, version 3.15. The patch is optional to install, though some of the new features make it appealing.

One of the changes includes the introduction of mini games on the PS3, a small attempt by Sony to support casual gaming. These mini games were previously only available on mobile devices like the PSPgo. Anyone who already owns mini games will be able to transfer them to their PS3 via the instructions Sony has posted on the PlayStation blog.

In addition to the mini games, v3.15 brings the ability to transfer data between two PS3s via Ethernet. The update is small, but demonstrates Sony's continued efforts to improve the PS3 as a platform. While they still face some PR issues, Sony is competing well with Microsoft these days.

The folks at Collaler.com have scored some pictures of MSI's 890FX-GD70 motherboard. Shot from various angles, the images reveal a remarkable six PCI-Express x16 slots, leaving room for only one legacy PCI slot. As its name indicates, the board uses AMD's 890FX chipset which brings native SATA 6Gb/s support, and there appears to be six (white) next-generation SATA ports along with one (blue) port that is presumably SATA 3Gb/s.

MSI's new motherboard sticks with the company's often used black and blue color scheme. Other visible features include four DDR3 DIMM slots, a five-phase digital DrMOS, various on-board overclocking functions, and a NEC controller chip which, at the very least, handles a pair of USB 3.0 ports on the rear I/O panel.


The 890FX-GD70 is based on AMD's upcoming high-end Leo platform, which will be headlined by the company's six-core Thuban processor and consist of an 890FX or 890GX northbridge with SB850 southbridge, and Radeon HD 5000-series graphics. An exact release date for the 890FX chipset is not available, but the Thuban chips are expected to arrive in the second quarter of next year. More details will likely emerge during next month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

According to a CVG tipster, Logitech is developing a UMD drive add-on for Sony's PSP Go. The accessory would attach to the PSP Go allowing users to play UMD games on the device. This would add a bit of bulk to the otherwise sleek handheld, but it could be worthwhile if you have a large UMD collection -- and it certainly beats juggling two PSPs.

Seeking confirmation, CVG contacted Logitech's UK office who denied knowledge of the add-on. "We're not aware of it, so it may be something the US office is working on." CVG has also contacted the US division as well as Sony. Neither have responded, but the site will surely post an update if they hear back.


The PSP Go debuted in October and relies on internal memory along with Sony's digitally distributed content rather than physical media. While there were talks of a "good-will" program to swap UMD games -- which previous PSP models used -- for digital copies, Sony scrapped the plan because of "legal" and "technical" reasons.

Ubisoft Montreal's Kevin Shortt has confirmed this week what many already suspected: development on the third installment of the Far Cry series is underway. He didn't offer much of anything in the way of details, only that so far things look

Ubisoft Montreal's Kevin Shortt has confirmed this week what many already suspected: development on the third installment of the Far Cry series is underway. He didn't offer much of anything in the way of details, only that so far things look "pretty exciting."

Last year narrative designer Patrick Redding mentioned that a sequel would likely retain an African setting, but apparently that concept it is being tossed out the window. Antarctica has also been referred to as a possibility. It's also probable the game will be based around an improved version of the Dunia engine, a heavily modified version of the CryEngine specifically built to handle complex real-world physics within a sandbox environment.

So… to sum up we have no solid details regarding the setting, plot, game engine, or platforms, but it's still good to have confirmation for a new installment of Crytek's groundbreaking original. If you haven't played the series yet, Steam is selling the first two episodes for less than $30 -- or less than $20 if you act quickly and get in on their holiday sale

Despite a bit of controversy in Russia, Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 has taken the video game world by storm, and now it is breaking sales records across the entire entertainment industry. The title reportedly generated $550 million in sales during the first five days available, beating all other video game launches and raking in more cash than any movie in the same timeframe.

By comparison, the current worldwide box-office record-holder is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which earned $394 million in its first five days. The Dark Knight holds the US box-office record with $203.8 million. The title has even successfully trounced Grand Theft Auto IV, which pulled in $500 million over the first five days of sales.


If the scale of Modern Warfare 2's launch has yet to set in, here are a few more numbers. According to Activision Blizzard (MW2's publisher), the game logged more than 5.2 million multiplayer hours via Xbox Live on the first day alone. In fact, on November 10, 2.2 million unique gamers played on Xbox Live, setting a new one-day record for the platform -- and 995,462 of those people were playing MW2.

As we discussed in our preliminary Radeon 5870 review, on ATI's horizon ATI was a follow-up to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, code-named "Hemlock XT", which in essence would put together a pair of Radeon HD 5870 GPUs on a single PCB.

Today AMD is officially unveiling the Hemlock as the new ATI Radeon HD 5970, hoping to expand its current dominance in single-GPU performance with the fastest single-slot graphics card on the market -- a title that until today was reserved for Nvidia's dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295.


The Radeon HD 5970 looks to be well suited for the job. The GPUs used in this card use exactly the same configuration found on the Radeon HD 5870, while core and memory frequencies match those of the Radeon HD 5850. This provides the HD 5970 with an unmatched memory bandwidth of 256GB/s.

AMD officially lifted the curtain today on its much-anticipated Radeon HD 5970, a dual-GPU solution which as of today has become the world's fastest graphics card on the market. Packed with some pretty impressive specs, the new card out****s the competition in every benchmark thrown at it with ease, and puts AMD at the head of the high-end graphics segment for the first time in a long while.


Not one to just sit on the sidelines and let its rival get all the glory, Nvidia is hoping to build some anticipation for its upcoming DirectX 11 lineup by showing a picture of what appears to be the first working sample of a 40nm, GF100 desktop card based on the Fermi architecture. Posted on the company's Facebook account, the picture shows a black GeForce-branded card installed on an ASUS Rampage II Extreme LGA 1366 motherboard, running Uningine's Heaven DirectX 11 benchmark on a Dell 24-inch monitor.

Details are scarce, as even the corner showing framerates has been cut off, but from what little we can see the card covers two slots and packs an 8-pin plus 6-pin PCI Express connector, meaning it can suck up to 300W and will likely provide healthy overclocking headroom. Expectations are running quite high for Nvidia's answer to the Radeon HD 5800 series, although clock and overall performance numbers remain unknown.