Japanese monitor maker Iiyama just blessed the market with a new pair of panels sporting a 1920 x 1080 resolution, 8ms response and a special ECO mode that reduces power consumption by up to 60-percent. The 24-inch XB2472HD-B and 27-inch X2775HDS-B both rely on an LED-backlit VA display (better than your bargain LCD, but not quite as nice as an IPS display) and have your standard trio of HDMI, DVI and VGA inputs. The primary difference between the two screens is the 24-incher’s slightly higher brightness (300cd/m2 versus 250cd/m2) and the 27-inch model’s 4-port USB hub and integrated speakers. The XB2472HD-B should start shipping by the end of the month for ¥24,800 ($323) with the X2775HDS-B to follow in September for around ¥34,800 ($453).

SOURCE via Akihabaranews

The October 2011 edition of the Official Xbox Magazine reports that Gearbox Software plans to “reboot” the Duke Nukem franchise once Aliens: Colonial Marines is complete and out the door. The series, which began back in 1991 with the original Duke Nukem PC game developed by Apogee Software, will relaunch “with the long-discussed Duke Begins” on an unspecified date.

Believe it or not, there have been around 18 Duke Nukem-themed titles released on a whole, spanning the PC (MS-DOS), the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo DS, iOS, to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC with the recent release of Duke Nukem Forever. Many fans will agree that 1996′s Duke Nukem 3D was the most memorable of the bunch, and has since found its way onto more than nine platforms including Google’s own Android OS (unofficially).

Gearbox Software was revealed as the developer of Duke Begins, the Duke Nukem prequel project, over two years ago. At the time, Gearbox was brought on to develop the prequel following a 2007 agreement between 3D Realms and Take-Two Interactive in which 3D Realms relinquished its rights to develop the prequel in exchange for an additional $2.5 million to dump into Duke Nukem Forever’s ongoing development.

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A four hundred dollar discount has HP TouchPads flying off shelves. Is that HP’s original idea on how to kill the iPad?

Late last week, HP announced that it was nuking its tablet and smartphone lines and putting WebOS on hold. All well and good for HP, but retailers still had tons of unsold stock taking up shelf space. HP’s solution to that problem was a fire sale: The 16GB TouchPad was dropped from $400 to just $99, while the 32GB TouchPad fell to $149 from $500. This is in addition to the price drop that saw the sticker price for the two devices fall from $500 and $600, respectively. HP sent out the memo to its affiliates to drop the price starting August 20, but BestBuy.ca and Future Shop made the cut late on Friday night, leading to frenzied anticipation for U.S. retailers to drop their prices, too.

Of course, once they did, it didn’t take long for online stores like BestBuy.com to run out of stock completely. HP’s own website had trouble keeping up, suffering database errors on Saturday and 404′ing on Sunday. According to ZDNet, the company’s call center also had some serious problems on Saturday; the reps simply couldn’t handle the number of calls coming in from customers. In store, people queued for hours to get their hands on the limited numbers of TouchPads available and many left disappointed.

Did you manage to snag a TouchPad over the weekend? What made you buy it? Have you always wanted one, or were you, like us, sucked in by the extremely low price? Let us know in the comments below!

Blizzard senior game designer Jonny Ebbert has been talking to Eurogamer about the current state of Blizzard’s version of DotA. It’s being developed as a StarCraft 2 mod, but has been changed drastically since its showing at last year’s Blizzcon. “We’ve completely flattened it since then,” said Ebbert, “and completely rebooted it because we just thought, there’s more we can question on this.”

“Getting it right and just meeting the Blizzard quality bar, and questioning a lot of the assumptions behind the genre, which is what we do at Blizzard,” he adds.

Blizzard didn’t reveal any of the specific alterations they’ve made to the original formula, but Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce suggested that it’s been changed to be less daunting to newcomers.

“One of the game development philosophies we have at Blizzard is, easy to learn and difficult to master. That mod for Warcraft 3 doesn’t really fit that description.

“DOTA’s a very addictive game that chases the vast majority of people off because their team mates are screaming at them. We’ve always felt DOTA has a very accessible, easy to approach fun game deep down inside that’s just waiting to come out.

“We’ve just been basically carving around that and trying to knock off all the rough edges and really make it more user-friendly.”

Blizzard’s DOTA is set to be launched alongside StarCraft 2′s first expansion pack, Heart of the Swarm in 2012.

For the first time in over a decade, Apple sales surpassed Lenovo in revenue within greater China. Lenovo’s China sales – which doesn’t include Hong Kong and Taiwan – rose 23.4-percent from a year ago to $2.8 billion whereas Apple’s same quarter – which does include Hong Long and Taiwan – jumped sixfold compared to this time last year, ending at $3.8 billion. Analysts suggest that Lenovo needs to beef up sales in Hong Kong and Taiwan in order to catch up with Apple.

But Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanquing dismissed the fruity “achievement” by saying that the two revenues can’t be compared, that it’s not apples to apples because the Cupertino, CA-based company’s numbers also include iPhone sales – Lenovo’s phone business isn’t all that great even in China, as its primary focus is on the PC sector.

“If you compare the PC business we still have a lead far ahead of any of our competitors,” Yang told Financial Times.

But seemingly like all other tablet makers, Lenovo plans to tip the scales against Apple by launching its own line of Android and Windows-based tablets that will hopefully put an end to Apple’s domination of the tablet sector.

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HP has cancelled plans to sell its webOS-based Pre 3 in North America. Meanwhile, the phone is now selling in the UK and France for a meager $75. Earlier today, webOS chief Stephen DeWitt said that the unlocked Pre 3 smartphone is being launched in very select areas, and he wasn’t exaggerating. The phone already landed on European store shelves just one day prior to HP shutting down its webOS-based smartphone and tablet plans. But now there’s confirmation that HP has no plans to bring the third Pre device to the United States whatsoever.

Still, there’s a glimmer of hope for North American Pre owners wanting to upgrade: the device will work to some extent on AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s network. According to PC Magazine, it can access both carriers’ 2.5G EDGE networks, but for the 3G bands, the hardware only supports 900, 1900 and 2100 MHz. AT&T users will need both the 850 and 1900 MHz bands for full coverage, so 3G will be limited. Unfortunately, T-mobile users will simply be stuck with EDGE.

Like the TouchPad, HP has decided to drastically reduce the price of its Pre 3 smartphone: down to a mere $75. The phone already sold out in Germany, but consumers in the UK and France will be able to snag the device for the “fire sale” cost now until supplies last. That said, determined AT&T and T-Mobile customers here in the States may be able to order the $75 gadget overseas and have it shipped straight to their doorstep.

Originally launched alongside the TouchPad, HP’s Pre 3 smartphone features a 3.6-inch, 480 x 800 display, a 5MP camera with image stabilization, autofocus and an LED flash, 720p HD video capture, a 0.3MP front-facing camera, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 512 MB of RAM and a single-core 1.4 GHz Qualcomm processor.

SOURCE via PC Mag

Proving once again that making something less expensive prompts more people to buy said thing, MCV is reporting that UK sales of the PlayStation 3 have spiked in the wake of its recent price drop. MCV doesn’t offer specific numbers, though a source claimed that sales of the console have risen sixty-five percent in the last week.

With the game industry’s holiday season set to kick into gear over the next two months, it seems likely that sales will continue to grow. Oh, and a quick note for all the new PS3 owners out there.

SOURCE via MCV UK