Nintendo Wii: The most reliable console in the gaming sector?

As most of you may already know, in the PC market, Asus is regarded as the most reliable brand, but if you are curious to know which game console has the highest reliability rank, then you may be interested on an analysis study that was conducted on high-end game consoles. SquareTrade, a warranty provider for Consumer Electronics has published details summarizing game consoles’ failure rate these last two years. It was found that the most reliable gaming console is the Nintendo Wii, then Sony’s PS3 which left the Xbox 360 last.

The report claimed that the fallout rate for the Nintendo Wii is only 2.7 percent, while Sony’s PS3 had a 10 percent fallout rate and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 had a huge fallout rate of 23.7 percent for the first 2 years. Even though there was a high failure rate, SquareTrade still claimed that the Xbox 360 fallout numbers were actually under-stated. This was due to other failures being reported by consumers to Microsoft directly. Out of the statistics, almost half of the failures were contributed by RROD (Red Ring of Death), while the rest pointed to disc read and display concerns.

It was also found that high failure rates had something in common with console usage in the first two years especially. The Xbox 360 was claimed to be consumed for an average of 1191 minutes per month, followed by the PS3 at 1053 minutes and Nintendo’s Wii at 516 minutes per month, based on averages. But on the bright side, the Xbox failure rate is expected to decline particularly since the Jasper chipset update is supposed to fix the RROD issue.

Other factors that might make the Xbox and PS3 more prone to failure are that they use a higher-end technology than the Wii. For example either in design, manufacturing or other mechanical spinning parts such as a hard disk drive or optical drive that has a tendency to be not as reliable over time.

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Get a FREE Windows 7 DVD shipped to you, as long as you have friends

Firstly you must ask yourself these questions. Do you have a computer at home that can run Windows 7? If you are not sure, you can use the free Upgrade Advisor Utility in order to determine if your current Windows XP or Vista machine meets the minimum system requirements for Windows 7. Next you need to have 9 or more friends, we don’t know why but hey, who doesn’t have 9 friends?

Do you live in any of these following countries? US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Hong Kong or India? Hopefully if you could answer yes to all of those questions, then here is a great occasion to grasp a free copy of a Windows 7 Ultimate DVD shipped to you, without any charge. You heard correctly, for free, zilch, absolutely nothing.

Since Microsoft will be doing a public launch of Windows 7 on October 22, in order to generate more of a buzz for this event, they are inviting Windows fanatics from all over the world to throw up small parties at their own homes and show off the new Windows 7 OS to their friends and family members.

To become a party host, you can apply at www.houseparty.com/windows7 and if you are selected, you’ll collect a totally free special Signature Edition of Windows 7 Ultimate edition in your mailbox. You can sign-up to become a host using your existing Windows Live ID or Facebook account. You should receive an email from Microsoft sometime in the second week of September to notify you if you have made it through.

What are you waiting for? Getting your hands on Windows 7 now couldn’t have become any easier than this!

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Got a great idea for a PC? You Dream It. ASUS Builds It. Intel Inside®

Ever wanted to share your ideas or create your own dream PC? ASUS and Intel run a website called WePC.com that is a place where you can deposit all of your laptop or computer related ideas for the engineers to take advantage of. As long as you’re willing to let go of your idea, it is pretty handy since one day you may see your idea turn into a reality.

Here is what WePC.com has to say on their website, “Want to type underwater? Control your music without opening your laptop? Put your ideas out there and let the community decide which ones are best. We're taking the strongest and most popular ideas and creating the first community-designed laptop”

So quickly scuttle over to their website, sign up, and get chatting. If you tell them your ideas and what you think, you have many chances to win a FREE PC! You can vote and discuss amazing ideas for a dream PC. There are 2 ways to win, the first way is by answering a question with a qualifying comment, and then your name will be entered into a random bi-monthly drawing to win a free PC. The second way to win is by providing the most insightful and substantial feedback. They will review all responses at the end of the contest and give away more PCs to community members.

Get your brain thinking and when you’re ready, sign up and give them your greatest ideas you can think of. Hopefully, the whole world will be thanking you when they all have the computer that was inspired by you!

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Exploding and overheating iPhones are not Apple’s fault

According to a report that was published on Friday, Apple states that it is not the one to blame for a sequence of exploding iPhones and iPods. The company has been really feeling the heat for devices that have been overheating and shattering across the UK and Europe. This doesn’t make it look any better for those people who were thinking of buying an iPod or iPhone.

An exploding iPhone investigation has began, and to describe the seriousness of the situation, the European Union actually launched a formal inquiry last week due to a teen in France saying his girlfriends iPhone screen blew up without any warning. Just for a little more info, a piece of glass flew into his eye too. Witnesses informed a local paper that the iPhone even began to "crackle and pop like a deep-fryer”. We wonder if it had the nice smell of deep-fried hot chips, you never know!

You may be thinking that this might have only been a one off situation, but just keep reading below and you’ll see it wasn’t. There were a handful of other complaints in the UK and Europe. One case included a man claiming that Apple tried to keep him from talking by offering him a full refund for a simple signature on a gag order, which he declined. He brought this situation even further to the U.K.'s Times newspaper.

But the company says that it isn’t the one to blame, instead saying that improper handling lead to the series of explosions. A London-based spokesperson told Bloomberg that "in all cases, the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone." On the contrary, the teen from France who quoted by the AP as saying that his girlfriends iPhone "was not dropped and experienced no unusual shock” before the outburst had occurred.

Anyway, the investigation seems to be far from over as Apple representatives met with French government officials to discuss the complaints that have been received and “possible measures” that can be taken. Further tests are said to be conducted by independent experts from the US.

Do you really think that it is Apple’s fault, or should we be pointing the finger at the careless users out their not taking enough care for their iPhones? You can decide on this one.

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Sony launches the Amazon Challenger

A wireless e-reader launched by Sony will allow users to download e-books whilst on the go. Being priced at $399, the touch screen device can store up to 1,000 books over high speed mobile networks. Books can also be borrowed from local libraries for up to 21 days using an application.

Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research in her blog said, "By going open, Sony helps compensate for its biggest weakness: its lacklustre eBookstore, which pales in comparison with Amazon.com.”

Boasting a 7inch touch screen interface, books can be read in either portrait or landscape mode for different user preferences. The Japanese firm has signed a deal with AT&T which will allow users to download books wirelessly.

As mentioned above, books can be borrowed from local libraries for up to 21 days and at the end of the lending period, the e-books simply expire with absolutely no late fees. Sony also announced earlier this month that it would stop using a proprietary standard for e-books in favor of the ePub open format.

Sarah Rotman Epps also added that "enabling consumers to access free eBooks via the public library network and Google's public domain collection (which now tops 1 million volumes) - and letting consumers buy ePub books from other sources and read them on Sony's devices -greatly expands the value proposition of its devices."

This device is set to be available in the US in December, Sony also adding that it would negotiate deals with newspapers later this year.

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SuperSpeed USB 3.0 is your new best friend!

Forget the ever so slow USB 2.0 devices, behold a new era is here. USB 3.0, aka SuperSpeed USB, is the next amendment of the Universal Serial Bus originally made in 1996 by an association led by Intel.

USB 3.0 promises high transfer rates up to a whopping 4.8Gbps (compared to 2.0 with 480Mbps), increased device current draw to better handle power-sucking devices, increased maximum bus power, support for new transfer types, and new power management features. They also tell us that it will come with new cables and connectors that will allow for high speed data transfers, including backwards compatibility with USB 2.0 computers and devices.

Did you think that USB 2.0 was fast? Think again! Because there are ever increasing demands in data transfers with the increase in high-definition video, terabytes of storage and huge megapixel count digital cameras, when it comes down to a measly 480Mbps, it really isn’t that fast.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 isn’t only about huge data transfer rates, but is also perfect for improving the interaction between the host computer and device. It can be utilized to use more power when needed and less power when it isn’t needed. Pretty nifty huh? More juice sucking devices could be bus powered, while devices that were battery powered that formerly used bus power, could literally charge quicker. And when only a small amount of power is needed, the device or host computer will turn idle, the power saving state.

USB 3.0 has been intended right from the start to work with USB 2.0. Even though USB 3.0 has different physical connections including cables to take benefit of the lightning fast ability, the actual shape of the connector itself remains the same, the usual rectangle with the same four USB 2.0 contacts in the same location.

Devices such as external hard drives, external Blu-Ray drives, digital video cameras, video display solutions and High Definition cameras and Webcams will all have eased pressure when used with USB 3.0. All these including the high end flash drives have pushed the 2.0 limits quite hard so luckily 3.0 will come and give us more leg room.

Good news but when will it actually hit the market, you may ask? USB hubs and controllers are anticipated to be obtainable near the later year of 2009. On a mass scale, host controllers, devices and products that support SuperSpeed are expected to be available not before 2010.

USB 2.0 might be slowly done away with, similarly with USB 1.1, but until manufacturers start to equip motherboards with USB 3.0 ports, USB 2.0 will continue to live on for a short while longer. Get set to experience USB data transfers like you have never seen before!

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Find out How Long Your Computer Was On

Ever wondered how long your computer was on for? Or has your mum told you to get off the computer because she thinks you have been on for the whole day and want to prove her wrong? The really simple guide below will show you how to do just that!

Below is outlined how it is done using the Windows Vista OS. If you have Windows XP refer to the steps after this.

Firstly open up Windows Task Manager by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. Then click the ‘Performance’ tab. Have a look where it says ‘System’. Then below that you will see it say ‘Up Time’ you will see the amount of time your computer has been on, in the order of Hours:Minutes:Seconds.

For the Windows XP users, it is just a tad more complicated.
Hit the Start menu, then click on ‘Run’ and then type in ‘cmd’ which will open up Command Prompt.


Then simply type in ‘systeminfo’ without quotation marks as always. It will show the amount of time your computer has been on under ‘System Up Time’.


Last but not least for all you Mac Lovers out there that still don’t know how to go about doing this, navigate to Applications>Utilities>Terminal then type in ‘uptime’ and hit the enter key.

Now when your parents tell you to get off your computer because you have been on for the whole day, you can retaliate by showing them pure proof of how long you really have been on for!

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