The E3 is supposed to be all about gaming, but since you can only go so far with realistic renderings of bullets entering and exiting various body parts, Microsoft's keynote was more about expanding the Xbox ecosystem - with, among other things, Internet Explorer and SmartGlass. The latter is a service which allows you to use additional devices - tablets, smrtphones, PCs - as remote controls for your Xbox. IT goes much further than that though, while watching a TV show or a game, SmartGlass can show additional content (i.e., a map of Westeros while watching Game of Thrones), or pick up content where you left off. Pretty cool - and coming to iOS and Android as well, including the game integration. Yup, expect Office for iOS and Android to land soon.
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Member since:2007-11-11
$200 for a hard drive? What are you planning on putting in the thing, a 200gb SSD? if you get the micro minis they take 2.5in drives so you can find a good 500Gb one of those for around $70 if you want the sales, personally I prefer the slightly larger models that will take a 3.5in which you can find a 1Tb for less than $90 if you look around.
The nice thing about doing it with either is you can totally upgrade once the price of drives plummet again (man I can't wait until i can grab 2Tb drives for $70 a piece like i did right before the flood) by either sticking the new drive in an external case or simply copy the old drive to the new and use the old drive in an external. you can find nice external cases on Amazon for less than $10 that work great, its pretty much my SOP now when a customer comes in for a HDD upgrade that I put the old in an external, makes a great movie or backup drive.
But I can tell you these E350 and E450 units are great, they sip power, are easy to silently cool, the new AMD codecs give you hardware acceleration for all the major formats, and it'll even do some gaming if you are so inclined, especially great with Steam and the new Indie games. and believe me once you have a full blown HTPC connected to your widescreen you won't want to go back to consoles, they are just too restricted. With the E series units you can do anything you can do with a regular PC, no hassles, from internet TV to chat to streaming media, it does any task you want it to do VERY well, heck I've even built them for use as basic office PCs and running most office programs they do great, just a wonderful little cheap chip.
Member since:2006-11-19
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
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OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
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Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Member since:
2006-11-19
Yes that might make sense.
It seems like E350 kits are currently ~$100 at NewEgg. For a complete system I would also need some RAM ($30-60), a good HDD ($100-200), a Logitech wireless keyboard ($30), and TV tuners (I have some extra, but normally they cost ~$40 a piece).
So my total cost could be around $300 for a capable system, which is much less than my older PC (I think it cost around $800).
Still, my Xbox is cheaper (I already have it), but I might consider this as an upgrade for the future.