electronics

Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli says the company's vision for Crysis has always been to create the most stunning, immersive first-person-shooter experience ever. And from our early looks at the game, it appears Crysis will be just that. However, we also assumed that to play the game in its full glory you'd need a super high-end PC. How high-end? Well, The Escapist is reporting that Crytek and Electronic Arts, the publisher of the game, have announced the minimum and recommend system requirements for the game, which hits stores November 16.

According to The Escapist, the minimum system requirements are: … Read more

When I covered the Grand Finals of the 2004 World Cyber Games, I had no idea what to expect.

But I recall that it was tons of fun: gamers from all over the world, all happy to be part of this international event and representing their countries as they went up against the best of the best in their particular game.

My favorite memory was watching a match of Electronic Arts' FIFA Soccer, which was being broadcast on a huge screen on the wall. Meanwhile, two announcers were doing play-by-play, and if you hadn't known it was a video … Read more

Like so many die-hard audiophiles I love tube amplifiers. They sound, well, tubey, that is, warmer, richer, and in many ways, more lifelike than transistor based designs. But the other thing about tubes is they look cooler than transistor based amps. Take a gander at these beauties from Emille Labs. Their stunning industrial design, gorgeous machined metal chassis, and solid build quality is altogether lacking in mass market audio components. If you enjoy living well, and like owning well-made products, by all means, check out what high-end audio companies are offering these days.

Glitches in touch-screen electronic voting machines without paper trails tend to rack up the most attention these days. But an irregularity over ballots marked by hand and scanned by a computer like standardized tests--known as the "optical-scan" approach--is poised to create a snafu in upcoming mayoral elections in San Francisco.

According to a San Francisco Chronicle report on Wednesday, there's concern among state officials that "less-sensitive" scanning machines at polling places across the California city won't be able to pick up ballots marked with anything other than a No. 2 pencil or a special … Read more

Dell is offering a new service to recycle tired electronics for small businesses. The program, which will wipe sensitive data from hard drives in the process, will cost $25 each of up to 10 pieces of hardware. Dell also offers companies the option to resell old equipment that remains valuable.

The company began its free curbside recycling pickup for consumers last September. Greenpeace and other environmental groups have given the company high marks for its takeback program. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition lists Dell as one of the nation's "responsible recyclers" that does not send e-waste to … Read more

A collaboration between military R&D and industrial designers is bringing state-of-the-art PDA technology to Joe Snuffy out on the battlefield.

The Soldier Flex PDA (SFPDA) introduced by Inhand Electronics features flexible display technology with input from industrial design firm Artisent, display technology firm E-Ink and the U.S. Army Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University.

The PDA offers InHand's PXA270-based Fingertip4 CPU board, along with Ethernet, USB, Bluetooth and keypad interfaces all in a "ruggedized" glass-free package that weighs less than a pound. Best of all, the unique low-power characteristics of electronic paper displays … Read more

Nickelodeon parent Viacom is as ever-optimistic as SpongeBob himself. The company is releasing a new line of higher-end consumer electronics branded with ubiquitous characters such as Dora and SpongeBob.

This isn't Nick's first foray into electronics, but apparently it's the first time the company isn't slapping the images onto schlock, according to an article in The New York Times.

One of the least expensive items in the new lineup is $29 SpongeBob alarm clock. I must say, it could be awfully satisfying to thump SpongeBob on the head in order to catch a few more minutes … Read more

The results of a fifteen-month study accessing the time to patch software associated with electronic health record (EHR) systems were published today by the eHealth Vulnerability Reporting Program. The program is a collaboration of health care industry organizations, technology companies and security professionals that is attempting to establish best practices within the emerging field of electronic health records in the adoption and reliance of eHealth systems, including electronic medical records (EMR), picture archiving and communication system (PACS), and medical devices. The 39-page report found much room for improvement.

It's one thing to have your credit card information compromised--that can … Read more

Perhaps we should have seen this coming. As The Times reports, Electronic Arts has announced that it's going to start giving its games away...for free. What's the catch? It turns out that people spend more on the accoutrements of gaming, given the chance, than on the game itself.

Astute readers will immediately have seen the link to open-source software.

Back to the announcement:… Read more