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Social networking and a bit of amateur sleuthing have reunited a Canadian firefighter with the camera he accidentally dropped to the bottom of the sea during a family vacation more than a year ago.

Stephen Wood was sure he'd said a final goodbye to his Canon EOS Rebel when it slipped from his hands into the Deep Bay off the east coast of Vancouver Island last summer.

"We figured the camera and the pictures were gone. We didn't even bother trying to retrieve it," Wood told CNET today. "It was on when it went in the water, and [it was] salt water, and at high tide, I think it's roughly about 60 feet deep there. It was also like 9 o'clock at night so it was dark." Not to mention that Wood and his wife had a baby in tow.

Conditions, in other words, were hardly ideal for a gadget-retrieval operation, so Wood accepted that he'd seen the last of the cam he'd received as a wedding gift from his firefighter pals. … Read more

Blizzard Entertainment announced in a brief press release this morning that its long-awaited PC role playing game, Diablo III, will not launch in the fourth quarter of 2011 as expected. Instead, Blizzard has pushed back the release of the game until early 2012.

This news will surely disappoint gamers who have had to wait more than a decade for a follow -up to 2000's Diablo II. Blizzard also spurred fans' hopes for an imminent release with the release of a closed Diablo III beta test, which was opened to the press earlier this week.

"We pulled together people from all of the teams involved with the game to decide whether we felt it would be ready before the end of December, and we grudgingly came to the conclusion that it would not," said Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime in a blog post. "The upside of today's announcement is that we will be running the beta test longer than we initially planned, which will allow us to invite more of you who have opted in."

Expanded beta access may sate some fans, but Blizzard's Diablo III forum is already alight with comments from gamers having difficulty with the extended wait for the final product.… Read more

Blizzard Entertainment opened its Diablo III beta trial to the press yesterday, giving us and many other outlets the chance to try out its forthcoming action role playing game. After taking a monk character through the beta content in single-player mode on normal difficulty, we have an overall positive impression of Blizzard's new take on its long-running franchise.

The Diablo series is known for fast, click-based combat, complex character development decisions, and a near-constant stream of monsters, gold, and loot thrown in your character's path. Diablo games also have a reputation for replayability because of randomized dungeon layouts and the number of possible character classes and skills. The series is also notorious for its ability to hook gamers into playing long into the night.

If the beta is any indication of the final product, Blizzard has successfully captured that "Diablo-ness" in Diablo III, while introducing some streamlined new game elements that make the experience more accessible than earlier titles. We need to play through the final product game before we decide whether that accessibility comes at the expense of depth, but we'll be interested to see how the more hard-core players adapt to some of Blizzard's new design decisions.… Read more

Minecraft maker Markus "Notch" Persson wrote on his personal blog August 5 that Bethesda, makers of the Elder Scrolls game series, is suing his company, Mojang, over the similarities between the name of its role playing games and Mojang's forthcoming Scrolls card game. Today, Persson updated his blog with the novel offer to settle the dispute with Bethesda through combat, specifically via multiplayer deathmatch in id Software's first person shooter, Quake III.

Three of our best warriors against three of your best warriors. We select one level, you select the other, we randomize the order. 20 minute matches, highest total frag count per team across both levels wins. If we win, you drop the lawsuit. If you win, we will change the name of Scrolls to something you're fine with.

We've contacted Bethesda for comment, and will update upon its response.… Read more

Bose is one of the most polarizing brands in home audio, especially on the Internet. Some home theater enthusiasts are quick to dismiss Bose products as overpriced and overhyped, but user reviews for Bose's products are often overwhelmingly positive. That makes it tough for buyers to separate truth from fiction.

Whatever your opinion on Bose may be, there's no denying that the company's products are expensive, which is why we couldn't include a Bose system in our recent roundup of 5.1 speaker packages for under $500. The Bose Acoustimass 6 Series III ($700 street price) … Read more

I've long been a fan of the well-arranged portrait keyboard. MetroPCS' Samsung Freeform III possesses one of these QWERTYs on its candy bar feature phone. It also has a 1.3-megapixel camera and a microSD card slot that takes up to 32GB external memory.

Features-wise, the Freeform III keeps it simple with text, Bluetooth, voice commands, and a music player. MetroPCS' additional apps round out the feature set on what is otherwise an unremarkable but mostly adequate phone.

Call quality was the real surprise. The phone impressed us with its robust volume and nearly pristine clarity. Even speakerphone calls … Read more

The Pantech Breeze III made an appearance on AT&T's online store today, and it looks to be a slight update over the Pantech Breeze II.

Improvements include more-advanced voice recognition, better sound quality thanks to a new background noise suppression technology, a pill reminder feature, and more. The overall design looks to be the same, however, with that same flip-phone design and the three speed-dial keys underneath the main display.

The Breeze series of phones has typically targeted senior citizens or those who might have trouble using more complicated cell phones. It has both an easy and advanced mode, and has big keys, a bright display, and large fonts.

A few extras include 3G speeds, a camera, a microSD card slot, and even a music player. The Breeze III is available for $49 after a two-year agreement and a $50 mail-in rebate.… Read more

MetroPCS quietly made two new phones available on its Web site, the Android-running Huawei M835 and the Samsung Freeform III, a QWERTY messaging phone. Both phones will officially launch on Monday, a MetroPCS representative told CNET.

The Huawei M835 is a compact Android 2.2 Froyo smartphone. It has a rather small 2.8-inch QVGA display and stands just 4 inches high. There's a 3.2-megapixel camera/camcorder onboard, plus Wi-Fi, GPS, stereo Bluetooth, 3G, and support for up to 32GB external storage. There's also DTS Envelo software for virtual surround sound. The handset costs $129 retail, but … Read more

In a blog posting by Mac-centric sales outfit Other World Computing (OWC), the company mentions that the latest firmware update for the new 2011 iMacs has unlocked SATA III capabilities in the systems, allowing for up to 6Gb/sec data throughput on the internal hard drive bays. The past iMac and MacBook Pro models have shipped with SATA II drive controllers that handle up to 3Gb/sec throughput, but the new systems apparently use updated controllers.

Apple's iMac technical specifications Web page for the new systems just states the hard drives use "Serial ATA" connections, but does … Read more