Video game consoles left running round-the-clock can send your annual electricity bill soaring. That's probably no surprise for most gamers. But the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based conservation group, has conducted a study of gaming machine energy use to raise awareness among gamers and pressure manufacturers into making more energy-efficient machines.
The NRDC's study found that Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii machines in the U.S. use about as much electricity in a year as every home in San Diego combined. Much of the energy comes from machines that are left on, but not in use, the NRDC said.
Of the three consoles, Sony's PS3 was the biggest energy hog, followed by Microsoft's Xbox 360. Nintendo's Wii is by far the most energy efficient-and even uses less electricity than its predecessor, GameCube.
To quote: With more efficient devices and by utilizing existing power-saving features, consumers ... More »
The new version of YDL was released. I think the most important new feature is that you can now use the memory of the RSX-GPU as a swap partition.
You should notice a great increase of speed while using linux.
The free version can be downloaded in four weeks. For now only owners of YDL.net Enhanced Accounts can access YDL 6.1.
Press Release: AUSTIN, Texas - 19 November 2008 - From the show floor of SuperComputing 2008, booth #1915, Fixstars today released Yellow Dog Linux v6.1 for Apple G4/G5, Sony PLAYSTATION3, PowerStation, and IBM Power Systems. Built upon the CentOS foundation, a derivative of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, YDL v6.1 offers several end-user and development tool improvements over the previous v6.0.
"This marks the final release of Yellow Dog Linux by Terra Soft and the first by Fixstars," states Owen Stampflee, Fixstars Solutions' Director of Engineering, "In my five years with Terra Soft we have made incremental impro... More »
2K Boston Assistant Producer Keith Shetler shared the following via PS Blog today:
Hey there! What’s that you say? You love challenging gameplay... and failed underwater utopias?
Then prepare to experience the world of Rapture like never before with the BioShock PS3 Challenge Rooms Add-On Content pack available tomorrow, November 20, for $9.99 only on the PlayStation Network.
I’m Keith Shetler, Assistant Producer at 2K Boston, and I’m very excited to introduce two new play modes with this DLC pack: New Game Plus and Challenge Rooms. Both add new twists to the game millions already love!
New Game Plus allows you to start a new supercharged playthrough of BioShock. Ready for this? You begin the game with any weapons, abilities, and inventory that you collected during a previous playthrough. Always wish you could obliterate Dr. Steinman with your uber grenade launcher? Now you can!
The US space agency NASA said it successfuly conducted a first test of a deep space communications network modeled on the Internet.
"This is the first step in creating a totally new space communications capability, an interplanetary Internet," Adrian Hooke, NASA's manager of space-networking architecture, technology and standards, said in a statement.
The US space agency said Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA spacecraft some 20 million miles (32.4 million kilometers) from Earth.
NASA said the software protocol, which must be able to withstand delays, disruptions and disconnections in space, was designed in partnership with Vint Cerf, a vice president at Internet search giant Google.
DTN sends information using a method that differs from the normal Internet's Transmission-Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP... More »
Sony's Director of Hardware Marketing John Koller posted a special second birthday wish for the PlayStation 3 via the PS Blog today as follows:
November 17 is a special date for us at SCEA because, as many of you fans know, it’s when we launched PLAYSTATION 3.
Two years ago today, we delivered our next-generation console, providing consumers with a gaming and home entertainment system unlike anything in the market – the power of the Cell Broadband Engine, out-of-the-box HDMI support for 1080p resolution, and a Blu-ray drive for high-definition movies and expansive games.
The PS3’s launch was also when the Resistance franchise was born, and the original title’s success has spawned a blockbuster sequel with Resistance 2 and a unique PSP installment with the upcoming Resistance: Retribution.
But that’s just what we started with, and PS3 has come a long way since November 17, 2006. If you stood in line the night before ... More »
This is about as close to Banjo Kazooie as PS3 owners will get, so enjoy it!
Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts Theme:
• 5 Backgrounds custom made with a lithograph font, modified Web site background image, screen capture of the main page of the Web site and various photos from the official Fan Site Kit.
• 5 custom sounds straight from the game
• 2.5+ compatible Icons
Before even receiving a set release date, GTA: Chinatown Wars, the upcoming GTA installment for the Nintendo DS, has joined the ranks of GTA IV PC and Xbox 360 downloadable content as delayed.
At a press conference today, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick confirmed GTA IV DLC’s delay rumors stating that it may arrive as late as Spring 2009.
Zelnick also stated that Chinatown Wars isn’t scheduled to be released in the first quarter of the 2009 fiscal year (January 2009) as initially expected, but will arrive within Q2 2009, which ends in April.