By Marcus Yam - Source : Tom's Hardware

Every year, QuakeCon is John Carmack’s celebration of his technology and the games that the entire id Software team creates within it. Tom’s Games had the chance to sit down with John Carmack for a brief chat regarding Rage, id Software’s upcoming game slated for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

While digital distribution is an attractive option for publishers, developers and some gamers, Rage isn’t going to be an ideal candidate for that model. “It will be harder, because this is going to be a larger distribution; we’re at least at two DVDs and on the PC we might choose to be three DVDs to match what the game will look like for the PS3,” said Carmack. “So that makes for a pretty damn big download. I wouldn’t say it’s an optimal game for digital distribution, and I don’t think it’s a high-level strategic question.”

As primarily a developer on the PC, few know the shifts in the industry as well as id Software. Constantly are doom-and-gloom reports about how the PC is falling to the wayside of consoles, some even blaming piracy. Carmack isn’t so convinced: “Well, it’s hard to second guess exactly what the reasons are. You can say piracy. You can say user migration. But the ground truth is just that the sales numbers on the PC are not what they used to be and are not what they are on the consoles.”

Never is the shift from PC to console more abundantly clear than when Carmack asserts, “We still think the PC is a market worth supporting, but we’re not making decision around the PC. It’s probably more of the junior partner in the cross-platform strategy, although obviously, our day-to-day development is predominately on the PC.”

Such comments are hard to swallow for die-hard PC gaming faithful, but some may be able to find a little comfort in id Software’s dedicated to the open platform – at least for the foreseeable future.

“We certainly expect Rage and the Doom project on the PC. We’re contractually obligated to have Rage on the PC, and I would be stunned if we did not do Doom 4 for the PC,” Carmack added. “It would just be wrong. Even if it was a marginal business case, we would still do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

Read the entire interview here at Tom’s Games.

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By Jane McEntegart - Source : Tom's Guide

At the beginning of the week, the TSA announced that a laptop containing the personal information of passengers enrolled in its fast track screening program had been stolen. However, in what appears to be a case of “Where did you have it last?” the laptop has been found in the office it was apparently stolen from.

The laptop went missing over a week ago from an office in San Francisco International Airport, however TSA officials claim they weren’t notified until Sunday. The computer contained names, addresses, birth dates and some driver’s license numbers and passport numbers for some 33,000 people enrolled in the Clear program. Clear is a system that allows passenger access to special fast-track security lines in the airport, avoiding some of the longer queues.

When the laptop was stolen a lot of people asked the same question, was the information encrypted? No, apparently it wasn’t. The information was encrypted on the server, however the laptop was protected only by a two level password system.

So, how did it get back into the office from which it was stolen? Allison Beer, Senior VP of corporate development at Clear said the laptop was stolen from a locked office. Although it turned up in the same office, it was not in the same location it was in when it went missing. Beer told the San Francisco Chronicle that if someone was returning the laptop, they would need a key to do so. So that leaves us with two options, either someone who worked there pinched it/brought it home by accident or they didn’t look hard enough when they found out it was missing.

The TSA is passing the buck to Verify Identity, the company in charge of the Clear program. The Administration says the information should have been encrypted and the program has been suspended pending an audit.

While the TSA is no doubt glad to have the machine back what most people are asking is who stole it and why there wasn’t any surveillance cameras monitoring an office that warranted being locked all of the time? Instead of breathing a sigh of relief that the unencrypted laptop has returned, they should probably be taking a look into where it went. Perhaps Homeland Security just took it for a walk?

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By Jane McEntegart - Source : Tom's Guide

Everyone’s been harping on about Lenovo’s push into the netbook industry with the announcement of the new IdeaPad. While many of Lenovo’s markets will have the option to choose between Linux and Windows, it seems the U.S. will not be one of them.

PC World reports that not only will Linux not be available to U.S. customers, but we also won’t get our hands on the IdeaPad S9, which has a smaller, 8.9-inch screen.

Lenovo is keeping quiet about why the U.S. market is to be Linux free and lugging around the clunkier 10.2 inch models and we’re stumped as to why the U.S. isn’t getting the same deal as the likes of the UK and China.

PC World noticed the omission of Linux and indeed, the even bigger omission of the 8.9 inch model in the US press release. While the Lenovo talks up the almost ubiquitous 1.6GHz Atom processor, options for 80 or 160 GB HDDs or 4 GB SSDs, WiFi connectivity, two USB slots and a 4-in-1 multicard reader, one can’t help but notice the UK release is a little more filled out.

The American release contains no mention of the S9 at all and states, “The IdeaPad S10 netbook comes equipped with Microsoft Windows XP,” whereas the UK version says, “IdeaPad netbooks come equipped with either Microsoft Windows XP or Linux.”

We’re not sure why, but on a girlier note, the British are also getting the option of Deep Blue or Pastel Pink along with Ruby Red Black and White. U.S. customers will have the option of Ruby Red, Black or White.

Related Links

PC World
Lenovo Release (UK) Lenovo Release (US)

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By Jane McEntegart - Source : Tom's Guide

In a move that’s likely to have MobileMe users breathing a little easier, Apple Chief, Steve Jobs has been shuffling his deck of executive cards and appointed a new leader to preside over all matters MobileMe.

In the same email seen by Ars Technica, CEO Steve told his team what they already knew. The MobileMe wasn’t up to scratch and Apple could and would do better in future.

Among admitting that perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to launch the whole thing at once (along with the iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store) and that the company could have benefited from a month by month roll-out of the features, Jobs announced that the MobileMe team as of last Monday began reporting to Eddy Cue, who leads all of Apple’s internet services.

Prior to his new role, Eddy Cue served as VP of Applications and Internet Services and was in charge of Apple’s iLife applications, including iTunes, the iTunes Store, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD, as well as .Mac and the Apple’s online store. Eddy will add MobileMe to the mix in his new role as Vice President of Internet Services.

Not only that but while everyone is reporting to Eddy, Eddy is reporting directly to Jobs himself. The announcement comes after the helpfully regular updates on the MobileMe blog. Before last week, Apple seemed to be keeping pretty quiet about the whole users-locked-out-of-accounts mess. Not only were they not responding to requests for comment from us, but users were having little or no luck getting any information about the glitch from Apple support. However regular updates from an employee named David G. acting on instructions from Steve to update “every other day” cleared things up for users in the space of just a few days.

Let’s hope the Jobs intervention works out as well this time.

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By Jane McEntegart - Source : Tom's Guide

America Movil, the largest network provider in Latin America is to bring the 3G iPhone to 10 more countries this month.

The deal was signed in May and as of 22 August, America Movil will be peddling the JesusPhone in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

The company is already hawking the iPhone in Mexico, which saw the launch of the 3G phone at the same time as numerous other countries on July 11. At the time of the Mexico announcement, both Apple and America Movil dropped hints that the telecommunications company would be offering the handset in a number of other countries in the coming months.

Apple mentioned Argentina, Brazil, Central America, Chile, Colombia and the Dominican Republic in the release but remained vague on the launch date, maintaining it would be “later this year.”

“We’re excited to be working with América Móvil, the wireless leader in Latin America," said Tim Cook, Apple’s COO. “iPhone 3G is an amazing product and we think mobile users across Latin America will love it as much as we do.”

América Móvil’s COO, Carlos Cárdenas said the company was entering an exciting communication phase with the launch of iPhone 3G and believed the move to offer the 3G handset in Latin America would offer a better network experience for it’s customers.

The network provider’s main competitor, Spanish Telefonica SA, is also planning to distribute the iPHone later this month. Pricing for the handset or details of data plans are not available from either company as of yet.

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By Nino Marchetti - Source : Tom's Guide

Chicago (IL) - The idea of robots taking over more and more security operations may send chills down the spines of some, but for law enforcement officials and others it can take some of the risk involved in their lines of work and lessen it. iRobot, a company known for developing robotics to handle these types of tasks, is introducing its new Negotiator model to handle basic reconnaissance needs.

iRobot says this new Negotiator will fit the reconnaissance needs of public safety professionals whoare on more of a budget. This particular robot is designed to climb stairs and be highly mobile. It can also be outfitted with a "civil response kit" and accessories to do things like spy on dangerous situations with an infrared low light camera, provide flood lights and detect chemicals like gas.

The Negotiator, from the way it is described, is a very basic model of robot. It is no where near the lines of complexity of, say, the Flame or BigDog robots. One could add some level of complexity to it though, perhaps outfitting it with Tasers.

The company says the first of this particular model of robot will be available by the end of the year. It currently has other robots on the lines, so to speak, including 1,600 "PackBots" which handle more difficult and dangerous actions.

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By Theo Valich - Source : Tom's Hardware

Reykjavik (Iceland) - Considering the big news coming out of Intel this week (Larrabee) and the expected big News from Nvidia within the next two weeks (x86 CUDA), AMD is under pressure to match its rivals: AMD is making substantial changes to its GPGPU software strategy and announced at its GPG CTO Technology Day that it will ditch its Close-To-Metal platform in switch to OpenCL.

In his speech GPG CTO Technology Day held in Iceland’s capital, Raja Koduri, CTO of AMD GPG (ex-ATI), announced that AMD believes that the time for proprietary software solutions such as AMD’s own Close-to-Metal and Nvidia’s CUDA has passed.

As a result, AMD will throw its efforts behind DirectX 11 Computational Shaders and the OpenCL GPGPU language and will focus on standardized solutions only. Koduri highlighted the GPGPU advances made by companies such as CyberLink, PeakStream (which was acquired by Google), RapidMind, RogueWave, CAPS, ImageScan, Telenetics, Neurda and many others. It is apparent that many companies are bringing GPGPU-accelerated products to market, but AMD’s is going a somewhat different way as the company’s stream products will be aligned with DirectX 11 and OpenCL.
Koduri noted that a first product showcasing this strategy will be available in the first quarter of next year. Also, AMD is working on APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) at full speed, which is scheduled for debut in first half of next year.

The decision to go with OpenCL could be a critical step for AMD to compete with Nvidia and Intel’s GPGPU and cGPU products that are capturing the headlines today. AMD’s low-level programming approach was one of the main reasons why developers preferred Nvidia’s (high-level) CUDA version over the company’s stream processor cards. OpenCL is widely considered to be a possible solution of GPGPU programming that could bridge Nvidia, Intel, AMD and other products and we are hearing more and more developers requesting support for OpenCL.

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By Christian Zibreg - Source : Tom's Guide

Chicago (IL) - Speculations about Microsoft’s iPhone beater are about as old as the iPhone itself. Rumors that both Microsoft and Nokia are worried about Apple’s advances aren’t dying down and if we believe the latest wave of speculations then both companies could be working together to prevent Apple from repeating even a fraction of the success the company had with the iPod. Microsoft’s effort to integrate Zune Marketplace content with Windows Mobile and Nokia handsets is seen as part of this effort.

Microsoft remained conspicuously mum on the possibility of a Zune phone, neither confirming nor denying Zune phone speculations. Whenever media presses Microsoft executives on the matter, the same answer is given: Microsoft is more than happy with its position in the mobile phone space. In addition a Zune phone may make no sense at all, given Microsoft’s less than impressive Zune music player and the general consensus that Microsoft might remove the device from the market soon. There could be room for a new Zune device, but the brand name needs to be cleaned up.

A Zune phone remains only a rumor at this point but there are signs that Microsoft will at least leverage the Zune brand and Zune Marketplace content to slow down the iPhone.

According to a report published by UK tech site Electric Pig, the software giant is now teaming up with Nokia to launch an "all out assault" on Apple, while there is still time. The report cites an unverified "well placed source within Microsoft" that revealed details behind Microsoft-Nokia partnership to the Zunescene web site. The Zune team is reportedly working with Nokia to integrate the Zune Marketplace with Nokia smartphones. This should not come as a surprise as most industry watchers have been repeatedly calling Microsoft to expand the Zune Marketplace content (music, movies, TV series, etc.) to Windows Mobile platform, PCs, Xbox, etc. It is unknown at this time if the Nokia Music Store and the Zune Marketplace will merge or will coexist.

The non-exclusive deal appears to be limited to content delivery only at this point. However, a Zune phone would be a conclusive move. Yes, we are speculating but you must admit that such a device may make sense. Microsoft already knows how not to create a MP3 player, how not to create a Zune cellphone (see Motorola Rokr) and how a successful Zune cellphone could look like (iPhone). The software giant first partnered with Nokia two years ago to bring its online services to Nokia handsets (such as Windows Live search, Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail.) It was a limited collaboration and it never reached the operating system realm.

Microsoft and Nokia have the same rival to battle. Other handset vendors have failed to crank out iPhone killers or have delayed potential competitors. However, the combined resources of Microsoft and Nokia present an interesting opportunity to challenge Apple in a highly profitable market segment.

At the moment, Microsoft seems to be content with expanding the Zune brand and the Zune Marketplace content into the Windows Mobile space and Nokia mobile phones. Most analysts do not believe that Microsoft will make a Zune mobile phone at this time. "The business model of Windows Mobile is totally different than Zune," Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg wrote in his blog. "Zune worked to some extent since the technology Microsoft was licensing wasn’t getting them anywhere. As it was, hardware partners were taken aback by Microsoft’s actions but were still comfortable licensing."

According to the analyst, Microsoft now has 20 million Windows Mobile licenses out there and is "gaining traction." It also has "a great stream of partners" that make more and more Windows Mobile-powered phones for business and personal use, so Microsoft’s entrance into the handset hardware business would potentially affect this scenario in a negative way. "Windows Mobile is a core platform and OS. No one has ever been successful licensing technology platforms to others and then competing with a device of their own. Apple failed (twice), Palm and Nokia all tried it and it just can’t be done," Gartenberg wrote.

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By Nino Marchetti - Source : Tom's Guide

Logitech, that maker of all things computer accessories, is betting Mac users might like to have a dedicated keyboard from it. The company is responding to this desire, real or not, by unveiling its new diNovo Edge Mac Edition keyboard, priced at around $160.

The diNovo Edge Mac Edition is really designed to work with any Mac computer, including the iMac and MacBook Pro. It is fairly thin in design, measuring around half-an-inch, and sports some nice looks like orange backlighting. It is also wireless, using Bluetooth to connect up to 30 feet away.

Logitech has built some special "Mac keys" into this keyboard to offer quick access to Mail, Safari and iTunes, among other applications. You’ll also find one-touch power control and what Logitech describes as a "TouchDisc" - a touch pad which lets you scroll and navigate from the keyboard.

Battery life on this diNovo Mac keyboard is said to be around a month with normal use. It should be available for Mac lovers this month.

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By Wolfgang Gruener - Source : Tom's Guide

Ann Arbor (MI) - How often have you heard the word "cloud" this week? We tend to believe that you should hear this word at least once a day, if you consider yourself an informed computer user. Following cloud computing devices, legal questions, various cloud computing projects of industry giants, we are also hearing more and more about possible services - services that may offer value and convince users to subscribe to cloud services. One of most convincing services we have seen so far is CloudAV, a project developed at the University of Michigan.

Farnam Jahanian, professor of computer science and engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, believes that cloud computing could make antivirus software much more efficient than your average antivirus software subscription is today.

Jahanian’s approach still uses conventional commercial antivirus software to check files for threats. However, the technology moves the actual antivirus software off a user’s computer into a network cloud. This allowed Jahanian’s group to run multiple antivirus software applications in parallel, each in a dedicated virtual machine. The 12 evaluated antivirus programs included Avast, AVG, BitDefender, ClamAV, CWSandbox, F-Prot, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, Norman Sandbox, Symantec and Trend Micro.

Common sense suggests that two malware detection engines work better than just one and ten will be better than just two. But how much better? If the results published by Jahanian’s group hold up in the real world, then the improvement should be enough to make you switch to such a service once it becomes available (provided the price is right.)

According to the research group, the detection rates of any of evaluated antivirus packages ranged between 40% and 78.5% (average: 59.6%) after one week of discovery and between 62.7% and 89.2% (average 73.9%) after 3 months. Adding a second engine increased the average detection rate after one week to 77.6% and to 87.7% after 3 months. Five engines resulted in 90.5% (1 week) and 94.8% (3 months) and ten engines achieved 94.4% (1 week) and 96.7% (3 months).

The research results suggest that malware detection run in parallel are especially effective right after a new malware is expected. Every added engine can dramatically improve the detection rate. After three months, that effect levels off. Already three engines achieve a rate of 92%, which is better than the best engine out there today, according to the research group. The research results suggest that the advantages of more than five detection engines are rather marginal for viruses that have been in the wild for at least 3 months - and the cost may not scale favorably with the practical benefit.

We have to say that we are truly impressed with the results of this relatively simple idea (why didn’t we think of this?) and there may be a very interesting service in the works that will appeal especially to larger corporations. It would be interesting for the home user as well, but at this time we doubt that the capabilities of five or ten antivirus engines could be offered for a reasonable price.

But think about it: No more hassle updating your antivirus software and improved malware detection rates. Nice.

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By Reuters - Source : Tom's Guide US

Yahoo’s board confirmed billionaire investor Carl Icahn as a director, while board member Robert Kotick tendered his resignation as part of a previously announced deal, the company said on Wednesday. In a filing with U.S. securities regulators, the Internet company said Kotick had resigned following the company’s August 1 annual shareholder meeting and confirmed that Icahn had been named under a settlement deal that averted a proxy battle with a rival slate of board candidates led by Icahn.

Read the complete story here.

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By Humphrey Cheung - Source : Tom's Guide US

Las Vegas (NV) - For the next week, the brightest computer security minds are meeting in Las Vegas to drum up new ways of breaking into and protecting networks. The annual pilgrimage can be described as a temporary truce between the forces of good and evil as federal agents and corporate security officers try to learn the most from their black hat cousins. Of course, like in previous years, TG Daily will be covering the event.

Black Hat started today in Ceaser’s Palace and runs until tomorrow while Defcon goes from Friday to Sunday at the Riviera Hotel and Casino. In our initial walkthrough at Black Hat, we’re impressed by how much the event has grown since being bought by CMP a few years back. There are more vendor booths than ever before and some companies are even employing booth babes to lure hackers in. You know you’ve hit the big time when the booth babes start showing up.

The infamous "Wall of Sheep", previously seen at the Defcon conventions, is now also at Black Hat. The Wall of Sheep is loose group of volunteers that scan the computer networks for usernames and passwords and then publish the results on a projector screen. While this sounds scary, it’s done in good spirits and shows why people should always be careful access their emails, webmail and any other information on untrusted networks. Why you would be checking your email unencrypted at Black Hat or Defcon is beyond me, but people still do it! We’ll try to interview the Wall of Sheep guys later to find out their latest techniques for grabbing passwords from the air.

We’ve already sat in a few interesting talks with Dan Kaminsky’s DNS Internet Armageddon (our words, not his) bug being the best. We’ll have a more complete write-up later. There will also be talks about vulnerabilities in online games, making money from your hacking and pushing malware through Windows Update.

It’s going to be a busy and grueling week, but there’s one thing I don’t have to worry about - the Internet bandwidth. Check out our connection in the press room.

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By Tuan Nguyen - Source : Tom's Hardware

A new study released by NPD Group today says that the average price for Macs are twice as expensive as those for the "average PC." According to NPD’s study the average price for a Windows laptop has dropped from $877 to just $700 today. Although at this point, NPD Group did not reveal what laptops it was referring to.

NPD Group’s study also mentioned that the cost of the average Apple system remains above $1500 and has only dropped a measly $59 in the last two years of sales. NPD also mentions that the average price for a Mac is roughly $1000 more than the "common Windows desktop," which NPD says sells for $550. No configuration for the $550 desktop was revealed.

There’s definitely a large margin in prices for Windows PCs and Mac desktops. The issue with Apple is that while prices may be more competitive now than they use to be, there’s no major option in the mid-range for those interested. For example, while the iMac is well balanced and great for many, the higher-end Mac Pro is heavy weighted in processing power but very limp in terms of graphics and system memory.

Rumors over the last several months indicate that Apple may be introducing a tower desktop similar to the Mac Pro, with the balanced system components like the iMac, at a more affordable price than the baseline Mac Pro. Possibly called just "Mac" without the "Pro," the new system would offer users better affordability, more avenues for expansion, and no lock-down in the display category. The major drawback with the iMac systems is that customers are stuck with the display.

While Apple is quickly gaining market share, it’s total cut of the industry pie still lags far behind Windows desktops. Apple’s net gains on margins remain very high because of its pricing, and caters to the premium market. We contacted NPD Group for a clue-in on what system configuration it used for the $550 average Windows desktop it used in its study, but no comment was returned to us as of this writing.

We priced together the current Precision T7400 (the direct competitor to the Mac Pro) with similar specs as the base Mac Pro:

2 x Quad Core Intel Xeon Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333)
Genuine Windows Vista Business Bonus-Windows XP Professional loaded
3 Year Limited Hardware Warranty with Next Business Day On-Site Service
256MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro FX570, Dual Monitor DVI Capable
2GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS)
16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD and Roxio Creator Dell Ed
C1 All SATA drives, Non-RAID, 1 drive total configuration
250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cache
Dell 19 inch UltraSharp 1908FP Flat Panel, adjustable stand, VGA/DVI

Dell’s selling price for this system is $3948 ($4492 regular with discount). Dell however, includes a 19-inch Dell UltraSharp 1908FP display, which sells for $289 on its online store. We were unable to remove the display from the configuration as Dell indicated that the UltraSharp 1908FP was included in the system build. However, without the display, the purchase price would have been reduced to $3659 — for the targeted workstation space, Apple’s offering comes out cheaper. These two builds are based on current offerings from Apple and Dell. With both systems being offered with such closely related specifications, it’s clear that the systems are not for end-users and more for people doing business.

In the desktop space, we take a look at Dell’s Inspiron 518 desktop, which is comparable to Apple’s iMac offerings. In its best configuration, the Inspiron 518 comes configured as:

Intel® Core 2 Quad processor Q6600 (8MB L2, 2.4GHz, 1333FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Service Pack 1
Dell E198WFP 19-inch Wide Flat Panel
3GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz (4 DIMM)
500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Dell Entry Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse

Meanwhile, Apple’s baseline iMac comes with only 1 GB of memory, a 250 GB hard drive but a slightly better ATI Radeon 2400 XT for $1199 — The Inspiron 518? $749. Apple’s iMac however comes with a 20-inch LCD. Adding a E207WFP 20-inch for $234 brings the Inspiron 518’s price up to $983 — still cheaper than the cheapest iMac by more than $200 and customers are not stuck with a screen for the rest of the computer’s life.

NPD Group indicated that the drops in PC desktop and laptop prices will start to flatten out and unlikely drop further in the near future. The study indicated that competition in the Windows systems space is fierce and margin between systems remains extremely low. Apple’s margins however, remain relatively high.

With increased pressure from consumers and the industry overall, it will make sense for Apple to introduce systems in between its current offerings, which at this point leave a big gap between the low end and the high end. From the comments on Tom’s Hardware alone the biggest complaint is that people can source systems not necessarily from IBM, HP or Dell, that cost much less than the awkwardly configured Mac Pro — especially from the stand point of heavy gaming needs. For business needs, Apple’s pricing may make sense, but as many Tom’s Hardware readers pointed out, none of Apple’s offerings make any sense for them. Apple has indicated on several occasions that it would be more serious about gaming. While increased developer support in the form of dual platform releases (simultaneous Windows and OS X releases) indicate this to be true, its hardware configurations do not currently match the company’s promise. While the iMacs and Mac Minis may cater well to more casual or business users, serious gamers have clearly voiced their disgust at Apple’s pricier offerings.

Competitive Windows PC manufacturers continue to bulk up their systems with better specs to differentiate themselves instead of continuing to cut cost, have become very attractive to would-be Mac/PC decision makers. Apple on the other hand, has done little in comparison, to bulk up its specifications. Minor CPU upgrades over the last six months are disappointing to many who are interested in giving OS X Leopard a try, but are steered away from Apple’s up front costs.

My suggestion to Apple: Create several options that allow expansion, with a more balanced system spec instead of being heavy in the CPU department and lacking everywhere else. Offer a few more graphics card options and work with third party manufacturers to offer more compatible add-in cards and Apple may swing more favorable impressions from loyal Windows PC users.

While Apple may be competitive in the workstation market, its sparse desktop offerings and lack of upgrade options for the desktop leave many concerned. Apple’s prices for upgrades are also considerably more expensive than what Windows users are able to get.

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By Marcus Yam - Source : Tom's Guide

Rockstar Games announced today that Grand Theft Auto IV will be arriving on the PC later this year in North America and Europe.

The Grand Theft Auto series started life on the PC, but with the rise of the PlayStation 2, the crime-filled franchise found a larger audience on consoles.

All the modern Grand Theft Auto games have first graced console gamers first, leaving PC gamers to either pick up a controller to play on the couch or to wait it out for the inevitable port. For those who were patient enough to wait to play one of the best games this year with a mouse and keyboard, the PC version will hit November 18 in North America and November 21 and Europe.

"We are very excited to be releasing the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. "The whole team is dedicated to bringing an amazing gaming experience to the PC. The game looks and plays beautifully on PC and we can’t wait for people to play it."

It’s unknown what enhancements, if any, will ship with the PC version other than the option to play at higher resolutions with better anti-aliasing and greater texture detail. The Xbox 360-exclusive DLC that is slated for this fall may also hit around the time of the PC game’s release, though Rockstar has not revealed any DLC plans for the other platforms.

According to Rockstar, more than 11 million units of Grand Theft Auto IV shipped for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in its first month on the market.

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