As United State President, Barack Obama debuts a lot of things: economic plans, foreign policy… likely his own library one day. This week, however, the President debut some serious hardware in the form of a brand-new presidential bus.

Codenamed “Stagecoach” when the President is aboard, the bus was built by well-known Canadian motorcoach builders Prevost, with an interior fitted by Nashville-based Hemphill Brothers Co., all to the tune of $1.1 million. The Secret Service actually bought two of these buses using a fund for transportation and armoured vehicles. The second will be used by whoever winds up being the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. The President’s protectors also claim this purchase will turn out to be both cheaper and safer than what they used to do, which is lease a bus and temporarily outfit it with the required safety equipment.

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Again, more rumors about the next iPhone. As reported earlier, the Apple rumor mill won’t stop churning out new content until the company finally reveals its new products reportedly next month. That said, the latest iPhone 5 installment to reach our ears is that the high-anticipated fruity smartphone may launch on Friday, October 7, 2011. There’s also a possibility that it may launch on October 14 as well, depending on product’s position during the final production stages later on in September.

In addition to the possible October launch, Apple will reportedly begin taking pre-orders in the final days of September, backing up reports that Jobs & Co. will reveal the product during a press event next month. So far Apple is debating between launching the pre-order program on Thursday, September 29 or Friday, September 30 – sources close to the iPhone 5 launch point to the latter date.

So far there isn’t anything new about the iPhone 5′s sidekick, the cheaper, possibly-prepaid model. Recent news indicated that this new iPhone 4 variant would be cloud-based in order to keep the storage requirements low, thus reducing its overall cost. It will also supposedly sport an all-plastic chassis – including the screen – which should also drive the cost down even further.

As for the rumored iPhone 5, it will reportedly feature Apple’s dual-core A5 processor, an 8MP camera, voice-navigation software, iOS 5, panorama photography capabilities, and possibly even a thinner form factor. Overall the product’s latest stages of pre-mass-production are reportedly moving along nicely for the moment. But as with any launch date report (hardware or software), this could change at any moment.

So when do we find out if the iPhone 5 is actually real or just a rumor? Right now there’s indication that Apple will reveal all of its 2011 magic on September 8 here in the USA. Right now it’s unclear if Apple plans to reveal the new iPhone models during its annual iPod event, or at a separate showing few weeks later.

Although AMD hasn’t provided an official announcement, Xbit Labs noticed that the company has “quietly” launched its DirectX 11-compatible AMD Radeon HD 6000A series of GPUs designed specifically for All-In-One (AIO) desktops. This new series includes the 800 MHz AMD Radeon HD 6670A, the 800 MHz 6650A, the 650 MHz 6550A and the 625 to 750 MHz 6450A.

“AMD Radeon HD 6000A Series graphics allows you to experience immersive entertainment, gives you the power you need while being energy efficient and gets you the performance you expect with the ability to accelerate the latest games and applications,” the company states on the product page.

The 6670A, 6650A and 6550A models are based on the “Turks” GPU and features 480 stream processors, 24 texture units and 8/32 color/z render operating units. The 6450A model is based on the “Caicos” GPU and features 160 stream processors, 8 texture units and 4/16 color/z render operating units. All four should provide similar performance to appropriate add-in desktop cards.

“Depending on the form-factor of the target product, ASICs are defined and qualified differently, thus the use of an A or M at the end of the series number to distinguish an All-in-One (A) or mobile (M) part from that of a desktop part,” AMD spokesman Dave Erskine told Xbit Labs. “OEMs immediately know that a part designated as AMD Radeon HD 6000A has been validated and specified for the unique needs of All-in-One designs, including thermals, power requirements, and feature support.”

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If you’re one of the lucky few who own a “Sony PlayStation Phone,” the Xperia Play, now you have something to do with it. The very first release of the Xperia Play-Xclusive Minecraft: Pocket Edition is in the Android Market now, for $6.99. Go! Build!

Actually, that’s all you can do at the moment. “Alpha 0.1″ has 36 different block types with which you can build, alone or with another local wireless player. Other features will be built into the game later, as with the main game. Also coming later is a wider Android release.

While you think about whether to try this out, here’s a miniature tragedy: That Minecraft-themed Xperia Play phone auction hasn’t ended yet, so its new owner definitely doesn’t have it in time for Minecraft’s release.

Sony has just announced in its Gamescom 2011 keynote that it will be giving its PS3 a price cut. The base PlayStation 3 models will run you just $250 in the US, €250 in Europe, and ¥24,980 in Japan.

Announced at the same show two years ago with a $300 price tag, the base PS3 Slim model includes a 160GB hard drive. A lower price will provide a nice cushion for that $299 Call of Duty: Black Ops bundle, which just hit stores earlier this summer.

Meanwhile, the 320GB model will see a $50 drop as well, with new pricing for both models kicking in immediately in the US and Europe, and August 18th in Japan.

SOURCE via Joystiq

Sony had announced that it will be releasing a new budget-priced PSP model that sports a new design and curiously ditches the WiFi capability that the PSP has had since its debut. No word of a North American release just yet, but folks in Europe will be able to pick it up this fall for €99. The cut-down PSP will be called the PSP E-1000, and it will only be available in PAL territories.