Turbo Laptop With Push Button Overclocking

By Evan Ackerman

MSI GX-600

The MSI GX600, which showed up at Computex today, is supposedly the world’s first “Turbobook” with a built in overclocking button that boosts CPU speed by up to 20% when you enable it. The rest of the laptop is about average for a Santa Rosa based gaming platform, with a Core 2 Duo processor, 15.4″ WXGA, Nvidia Geforce 8600 with 512mb of ram, and up to 250 gigs of SATA HD space and up to 4 gigs of ram. It’s also got a full numeric keypad, which is a nice feature, and weighs about 6 pounds.

Although a turbo button on a computer sure sounds neat, is it really a turbo button? When I think “turbo” I think of a boost of speed that is significant enough to somehow cause physical damage if you leave it on… ‘Cause otherwise, why not just leave it on all the time? If you remember the days of the generic mid-90s off-beige tower PC, you may recall a turbo button that worked along a similar and vaguely useless principle. So from this perspective, the “turbo” button is in reality an “economy” button that lets you underclock the computer when you want to save battery life, which (in the case of the GX600) is moot since the turbo button only works when the computer is plugged in. In that respect, laptops like the Vaio which have a selectable speed/stamina button to actually underclock the chip to save battery are more practical, if less cool.

Price not yet set.

[ MSI GX600 ] VIA [ TechEBlog ]

Written by Trend Spotter on June 6, 2007  |   No Comments

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Nintendo DS To Get ‘Slide Controller’ Add-On

Nintendo DS Slide (Images courtesy Nintendo & Inter-Fab)

Famitsu Magazine via IGN is reporting that Nintendo will be bundling a new “slide controller” peripheral with an upcoming Nintendo DS game called Slide Adventure: Mag Kid. The new peripheral plugs into the GBA slot on the DS and sits underneath the system kind of like a stand. As you slide the DS around on a flat surface the peripheral detects those movements and uses them to control the main character. For example sliding the DS in the direction of an enemy onscreen will cause the Mag Kid character to ram into them.

It sounds to me like Nintendo is trying to bring some of the motion control functionality that made the Wii so popular to their handheld systems. The last time they did something like this was with Wario Ware: Twisted for the GBA and while the game didn’t break any sales records it’s still one of the best titles ever created for that system.

And the slide controller can only make you wonder what the successor to the DS will be capable of…

[ IGN: Nintendo’s New DS Controller ]

Written by Trend Spotter on June 6, 2007  |   No Comments

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X-Keys – One Button Keyboard Shortcuts

X-keys (Images courtesy P.I. Engineering)

There’s no question that keyboard shortcuts can be a real time saver particularly for apps you use on a daily basis. But what if you had a shortcut for all those keyboard shortcuts? Imagine how much time you’d save then… Unfortunately it seems I’m not the first person to have this revelation since the X-keys is a set of 16 user-programmable keys that can be used to reproduce almost any keyboard shortcut at the push of a button.

The X-keys include either Macro Works software for Windows users or iKey software for Mac users which allows you to program any combination of keystrokes or mouse commands to each of the individual buttons. These settings can either be stored on the PC or saved to the X-keys onboard memory. And if you’ve been dragging your feet on that computer upgrade you’ll be happy to know the X-keys are available in both USB and PS2 configurations.

The X-keys are currently available from the P.I. Engineering website for $99.95 each.

[ X-keys SE Stick ] VIA [ Everything USB ]

Written by Trend Spotter on June 6, 2007  |   No Comments

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Louis Vuitton’s plasma screen staircase plays technicolor tricks

louis-vuitton_48

Store designs certainly play a big role in attracting the eyes of the customers. Louis Vuitton, in its effort to use conceptual architecture to festoon each of its stores with new innovative looks, has opened a new Vuitton store on Rome?s Via Condotti lately. The front of the store touts a plasma screen staircase that plays technicolor ploys on the eye. The inimitable stairs can convert themselves into gushing water, trailing vines, or a classic Louis Vuitton trunk. Isn?t that interesting? Tourists visiting the unique store are simply mesmerized by the technicolor tricks of the plasma screen staircase. The concept for the store design has been penned down by architect Peter Marino.

Via: EternallyCool

Written by Trend Spotter on June 6, 2007  |   No Comments

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