RadioShack's Online Trade-In Program will swap your old gadgets for gift cards. You search their database for your gadget and offer the best quality assessment that you can, and they provide a mail-in sticker that you print.
If all goes well, they'll send you a gift card 10-14 days after the unit is received. So assuming worst case scenario, what are your totally broken gadgets worth?
• 3G iPod (10GB) - $3.23
• 1st Gen Zune - $5.81
• Palm Treo 650 - $3.69
• Xbox 360 Premium - $9.65
• DS Lite - $4.25
• Wii - $15.85
• PlayStation 3 (60GB) - $23.48
Needless to say, if you've trashed all of your electronics, you may be able to unload them and score a few bucks in the process.
At PDC today, Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 7. Until now, the company has been uncharacteristically secretive about its new OS; over the past few months, Microsoft has let on that the taskbar will undergo a number of changes, and that many bundled applications would be unbundled and shipped with Windows Live instead.
There have also been occasional screenshots of some of the new applets like Calculator and Paint. Now that the covers are finally off, the scale of the new OS becomes clear. The user interface has undergone the most radical overhaul and update since the introduction of Windows 95 thirteen years ago.
First, however, it's important to note what Windows 7 isn't. Windows 7 will not contain anything like the kind of far-reaching architectural modifications that Microsoft made with Windows Vista. Vista brought a new display layer and vastly improved security, but that came at a cost: a significant number of (badly-written) a... More »
1ra2 of PS3Gen (linked above) has discovered something quite interesting with the new PS3 Firmware 2.50. In the new firmware, a "hidden" Restore Menu has been added.
To access it, while the PS3 is in standby, hold the power button like you are doing a reset, but keep holding it down until there are two beeps, and you then can access it.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm always a fan of any hidden menu, be it in a TV, a PS3, or even a washing machine. However this is more for the technically inept. A video of it is below:
Lets go over the options available. For those who can not read French, from top to bottom:
1. Restart System
2. Restore Default Settings
3. Restore File System
4. Rebuild Database
5. Restore PS3 System
6. System Update
Restart System and System update are quite self explanatory, you can restart the system or upgrade the PS3's f... More »
For Xbox 360 users, the so-called red ring of death is a worst-case scenario that can cause nightmares about total system failure and the inability to play any more Halo 3.
Since the introduction of the console, in late 2005, some users have suffered through a well-documented series of quality control problems and some have endured system failures on machine after machine after machine.
Microsoft has attempted to handle the problems--and last year extended the warranty for the machine, leading some to feel that, at the very least, they would be covered if they got the three red rings around their console's power button that indicate total hardware crash.
All along, the problem has been blamed on the Xbox's original motherboard, a poorly designed piece of electronics that in many cases simply wasn't up to the rigors that users put the machine through. But there had been indications that help was on the way in the form of an all-new motherboard, ... More »
Update: Konami also registered “Existence” alone, without a link back to Metal Gear Solid in the USPTO on August 11. “Guns of the Patriots”, Metal Gear Solid 4’s subtitle, was also registered separately.
Siliconera reports: Solid Snake's story is finished, but that doesn't mean Konami is going to seal the Metal Gear Solid franchise in an early grave.
The first sign of a new Metal Gear Solid game comes from the Japanese Trademark database where Konami registered Metal Gear Existence with the boring image on the right. It's made to be used with video games so it's likely, very likely, the name of a future Metal Gear Solid game. Going by the title alone it sounds like we're going to visit the existence - or origins of the Metal Gear Solid franchise.
So, will this be another game starring Big Boss? Let the wild pre-Tokyo Game Show speculation begin!
Recently xorloser has released a PS3 NID Attack Tool for other PS3 Devs. To quote:
NidAttack was a tool created to work out PRX export/import names by dictionary attack. A PRX file is a DLL file for Playstation consoles; (Playstation Relocatable eXecutable ... maybe)
NidAttack was initially created by others to work out PSP export/import names and I have just altered it slightly to also calculate PS3 names.
Included is an xml database of all exports from PRX files found in the PS3 v2.30 system flash. Also present is a file with NIDs for just the unknown names, so these are the ones to use NidAttack on.
The PC market is in disarray, sure it's not dying but a lot can be done to help it out against it's console foes. We go though some of the most important ways we feels the PC gaming market could be saved, from automatic driver downloads to new styles of gaming.
A Standard download system for online game transfers. We all know and use Steam but more funds need to be put into Steam and more publishers need to join the program to make it the only choice gamers will need. The steam system should open up an API to provide 3rd party application developers to be able to create custom interfaces for the software. For Digital Downloads to survive however users must be able to edit and mod the games provided and DRM should be as little interference as humanly possible.
The download service should enable as much of the action to be done without using a lot of CPU resources, at current the steam service is doing this to an acceptable degree, but more optimization will be... More »
Details on items that have been fixed with the second patch for Madden 09 are the topic of a brand new blog posted by producer Ian Cummings on the Madden 09 Web site.
Included are the disconnects that have been plaguing online, franchise progression, fixed exploits including the WR Direct Snap and Deep Ball glitches, field degradation, and gameplay improvements. Most of the gripes consumers have had with the game look as though they’ll be addressed in the coming patch. Not sure there is much more you can ask for out of this.
The work on the patch has been completed and is being submitted to MS and Sony on Tuesday. This puts the time frame to expect it to arrive still at least a few weeks out. Continue on to read the full list of issues and workarounds.
1. Kicking play disconnect: If two opponents play a game with two different camera angles, in any situation where a game winning or tying kick was to be made, a disconnect could occur. “... More »
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