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Source: DigitalWorld

In what is a hell of a turnaround even by Sony’s standards, the beleaguered Tokyo giant has announced that it really is going to bestow the PlayStation 3 upon the peoples of Hong Kong and Taiwan on November 17 after all. It had previously stated that those countries would have to bide their time alongside our European brethren until March 2007.

The increasingly confused Alzheimer’s sufferer went on to mumble something about letting the rest of Asia have their PS3 fun a week after its pals in Japan, yet still on the same day US nerds get to stand in lines for hours. Shortly after, Ken Kutaragi was seeing looking for his reading glasses underneath the cat

Microsoft officially announced it will launch its long-awaited and overdue Vista operating system on November 30, but for corporate customers only. The rest of us heathen consumers will have to wait until the rumored January 30, 2007 date before we can get our paws on the final code. A Microsoft spokesperson also confirmed that Microsoft Office would also be released on November 30.

The big launch event will be held on November 30 at the NASDAQ Stock Market in midtown Manhattan and the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will reportedly be there, and it was unconfirmed whether he would be jumping up and down wildly, screaming and yelling.

Since we all love XP so much, this Vista thing is bound to be even better. Spread the love, spread the love.

Here

KishKish, makers of SAM (Simple Answering Machine) for Skype, have now added a lie detector feature to the mix, claiming to detect stress in the voice of your Skype caller, alerting you to any bending of the truth.

It’s your $49.95 a year, but we’re thinking it’ll be another decade or two before voice stress analysis can absolutely detect if someone is lying to you. This thing could cause more problems than it solves. There’s good reason why this technology is not admissible in court. The video on the company’s website is quite entertaining, though, catching old Slick Willie in a lie about Monica Lewinsky.

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Gateway is showing gamers some love by not only ramming the Core 2 Duo inside their new FX530XL, but also overclocking it for you. The FX530XL comes with a 2.93GHz Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor that can be factory overclocked to 4.2GHz. The system will also support Intel’s quad CPUs when they start making their appearance. We especially like that Gateway is backing their overclocked CPUs with a full warranty and will replace them should anything go wrong. For $4,999, they better.

Gateway News

Sony’s smashed the 2-pound barrier with its Sony Vaio G1, a 1.98-pound carbon fiber laptop that the company calls “the lightest fully usable notebook ever produced.” Despite that feather weight, it still has a 12.1-inch display, 1.5GB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive.

Unfortunately, its 1.2GHz Intel Core Solo processor isn’t going to set any speed records, but we’ll forgive this slim little jewel for that, which still is just 2.46 pounds light even with its DVD-RW drive inserted and a double-capacity 12 hour battery inside. Available in Japan in the first week of December at around $2000, you can pre-order it now for US delivery from cool-tech importer Dynamism.

This one stirs our techno-lust, especially since we find a 12.1-inch screen particularly useful for airborne computing while crammed into munchkin-sized airplane seats.

Source: Dynamism

This is one hell of a deal from Office Depot. They are offering the Hanns-G GW191D 19-inch widescreen LCD monitor for $160 out-the-door. No rebates, no BS, just the LCD for cheap.

The GW191D has a 1440 x 900 native resolution, 5ms response time, 300 cd/m2 brightness, 700:1 contrast ratio, DVI inputs, integrated speakers and a three-year warranty. The product webpage says that the monitor is currently on “Low Availability,” so it may be hit or miss, depends on where you live. If there is no luck online be sure and check the actual store to see if they have any in stock. This is too good of a deal to pass up

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Remember that super-small iPod Shuffle v2.0 from the Showtime event well over a month ago? The good news is that this player is finally shipping. Way too long after it was announced, in my opinion. Nevertheless, it is still a nifty little MP3 player, and it is made by Apple, so we can’t hate on it for too long. Go pick it up from an Apple Store or order it online—just in time for the holidays.

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We’re eagerly waiting for the day the Wii hits store shelves, but till then, we have to satisfy our craving with news like this. The UK’s EDGE magazine has lifted the curtain on Nintendo’s plans to release a premium Wii with DVD movie playback. The Premium Wii will only be available in Japan and it won’t be of the Blu-ray or HD DVD variety, but having the ability to play regular DVDs on the Wii is an add-on we wouldn’t mind having.

Source: Manworkdesign

The Saint B is an MP3 player concept out of Russia. The unit hangs around your neck where OLED beauty glistens through a flexible black plastic cover. The player charges/syncs via USB. But what we like most about the Saint B is the sinful bang for your buck:

Sin 1: Bastardization/misuse of the cross
Sin 2: Cross is jet black (the color of sin, along with red and hot pink)
Sin 3: The Mariah Carey album you still listen to on it

Plus, the Saint B is completely protected from those pesky vampire muggers who like the iPod so much.

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Although marred by the $80 mail-in-rebate, this deal still gets you a 14-inch widescreen laptop with a 1.46GHz Intel M 410 processor for $399.99. The Westinghouse laptop has 802.11b/g wireless, ATI Xpress 200M Graphics card, a 60 GB hard drive and 512MB of DDR2 RAM.

Good for a throwaway notebook that you won’t be afraid of losing if you’re heading overseas or to a conference