Just when I was about to open my pocket book and buy a new Sony Vaio TZ notebook, I hear this craptacular news: “The company’s Vaio TZ-series may have irregularly positioned wires and/or a dislodged screw near the computer’s hinge that can cause a short circuit.” Great….Sony now has to recall almost 500,000 laptops. The recall effects 19 Vaio TZ models manufactured between May 2007 and July 2008. In the U.S. the flawed models include the Vaio VGN-TZ100 series, VGN-TZ200 series, VGN-TZ300 series, and VGN-TZ2000 series.

Details after the break:
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I recently “upgrade” my Dell XPS 1530 to Windows Vista x64 and the drivers where a pain to find. Dell never offered a Vista x64 version of this laptop so if you go to their site, you have a hard time finding the drivers you need. I did however find a great source for the drivers. Below is the list that I found:

Intel Mobile Chipset
Description: Intel Mobile PM965 Express Chipset
Ver:9.0.0.1008 Date:6/2/2008 Size:2231 KB
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Just because you’re a two-year-old with an Elmo guitar doesn’t mean you can’t rock out on Guitar Hero with the big boys. Thanks to modder Nextonex’s efforts, his daughter will be able to do just that with her improved Elmo guitar which boasts playback compatibility with Guitar Hero on the PlayStation. The Elmo guitar had all the right ingredients: a strum bar, a whammy bar, and four neck buttons to make this awesome mod possible. With the innards of a PSOne controller (apparently this won’t work easily with a PS2 controller), some soldering skills and some elbow grease, Nextonex was able to convert a child’s toy into a lethal musical weapon. I’ll be keeping my eyes out for that lucky little girl to become a Guitar Hero legend one day.

If King Kong ever wanted to play Super Nintendo, he’d probably stop by SCAD Inc’s place to check out their supersized replica of the classic SNES controller that is accurate right down to the font and words and even L and R side buttons. And to make the Kong’s trip all the worthwhile, it uses the original controller’s internals with some insane wiring so that it actually works. Read more »

Mythbusters at NVISION 08 Full Version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa3OGgBkRiQ&feature=related

And might I add how seamless it is too! The power LED that used to be red is replaced with the Wii’s blue. The controller ports have been converted to GameCube controller ports as well. The cartridge cover opens up to reveal the Wii DVD drive. The power and reset buttons are also functional too though I’ve no clue what they are for. The amazing thing is, the Wii can be pulled out intact if ever necessary. Full details available at Wii Hacks.

New Limited Edition Madden PSP Hackable! (Atleast ours was) - Purchased 8/12/08

The folks at Game Retard let us borrow their new Madden Blue PSP to find out more details about it. There are rumors about newer PSP’s being not hackable, and as of now the TA-88 v3 motherboard still seems to be causing some problems. We wanted to find out what version the Madden PSP’s where running.

Stock Madden PSP that we got came with firmware version 3.95. We used our trusty how to hack the psp guild and brought it back to CFW 3.90m33 with no problems. BOO YAH!

The “The Cordless Keyboard for Wii” as it’s officially called is also officially licensed by Nintendo and rightly so, with such sleek design that matches very well with Nintendo’s Wii white themed hardware. The keyboard isn’t just any regular keyboard as it’s got Nintendo specific functions for zooming in and out, forward and back for browsing, and quit and OK to make surfing the web on the Wii Internet Channel as natural as possible. The full-sized Logitech keyboard weighs only 1.5lb and is fully wireless, utilizing a 2.4GHz frequency USB receiver attached on the Wii’s end. Expect the keyboard to hit store shelves next month for $50.

Image/Logitech

The Dash/Excalibur is a nice little smart phone that runs on Windows Mobile. If you use it a lot you will notice that it inherantly has a few problems with it from the get go. For example, there seems to be a memory leak and the alarm feature is messed up. If you bought one a long time ago and hoped that Windows Mobile 6.1 would fix it, sorry but you are out of luck. Don’t fret though, the guys at xda developers have solved most if not all the Dash’s problems!

This ROM update fixes most if not all the bugs on the phone, and adds new features.

Summary of Key features:

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If you use your iPod, iPhone, or notebook in temperatures higher than 95° F (or 35° C), you may permanently damage your battery’s capacity. That is, your battery won’t power your device as long on any given charge. You may damage it even more if you charge the device in these temperatures. Even storing a battery in a hot environment can damage it irreversibly.