Cheaper Nintendo Wii at $199 in September 27?

Last week, we got a peek at an alleged Walmart ad that indicated an official price drop for the Wii. Then, it appears that retailer Toys R Us may have heard the same thing. And now, folks at Nintendojo were apparently on a retailer conference call where Nintendo "confirmed" the new $199 Wii price, which will supposedly go into effect Sunday next week September 27. If they really say that it's officially confirmed, then we have to take Nintendojo's word for it -- not that we have any reason not to, but for now we'll have to just wait until the "unconfirmed confirmation" gets officially confirmed by Nintendo themselves or at least until we really see from the retailer's shelf -- before we go into an all-out celebration mode.

Sony S and E Series Walkman Players Start Playing Tunes Next Month

We've been spotting Sony's S Series Walkman around since July, and Sony finally feels it's about time to make it official, also Coming along is the slightly lower-rent E Series. Specs on the S Series are are promising, including a 2.4-inch QVGA LCD, FM tuning and recording, along with support for a variety of formats including MP3, protected WMA, AAC, H.264, and WMV. It offers battery life of 42 hour hours when playing music through headphones and 6.5 hours of video, but when you're playing it out boom box style through the integrated speakers that drops the playing time to 17 hours and five hours respectively.



Colorful options of black, pink, violet, and red will be available, with an 8GB model going for $110 and 16GB for $130. If that's a bit too steep for you there's the 2-inch E Series, sporting a slightly smaller chassis, slightly lower battery life (30 hours music and 4 hours video), and a slightly lower price of $80 for 8GB and $100 for 16. Both Sony S and E series are shipping sometime next month.

BrainPort Device Offers Blind a Chance to See With Their Tongue

This could be the coolest gadget ever for disabled people especially the blind. BrainPort is a device that was first introduced in 2006 and would allow users to regain some vision by means of a camera and electrical impulses sent to their tongue.



The BrainPort works by decoding signals that are sent from a camera that’s mounted on your head and transforming them into electrical impulses to your tongue. These impulses are then experienced as spatial awareness and even an ability to read text.

The device is currently pending FDA approval, but if all goes well, the BrainPort should be available early next year. However, pricing doesn't come cheap and is expected to fall in the $10,000 range.

Source: Scientific American

Leaked Apple Tablet Videos: Fake or Not?

The new Apple Tablet videos circulating have stirred much argument and debate today. A lot of opinions are leaning towards the probability that these well done and neatly-executed videos are fake.

But fake or not these video clips demonstrate various applications being run concurrently on the same device, together with boot-up and what’s said to be the development platform. It’s like having multiple iPhones on the same giant touch screen. There are also various arguments that suggest how Apple might manage the transition to a larger-screen device: simply inflating the iPod touch.

But regardless of whatever this is or isn’t, let's admit, we all want this.

Netflix Officially Exclusive Only to Xbox 360 Consoles

Sorry PS3 and Wii fans. The Netflix Watch Instantly integration is now an "exclusive partnership" between Microsoft and Netflix. Microsoft is also going so far saying that the Xbox 360 will be the only console to offer Netflix movie-watching experience. It will be available to Xbox Live Gold Members who are also Netflix unlimited plan subscribers. Full excerpt quoted below.

Netflix Partnership

This exclusive partnership offers you the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to the television via Xbox 360. Xbox 360 will be the only game console to offer this movie-watching experience, available to Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix unlimited plan subscribers**, at no additional cost.

From the Netflix Web site, simply add movies and TV episodes to your instant Queue, which will appear automatically on the TV screen via Xbox 360. Once selected, movies will begin playing in as little as 30 seconds. In addition to instantly streaming Netflix movies to the TV, Xbox LIVE Gold members can browse and rate movies, fast-forward, pause and rewind, all using either their Xbox 360 Controller or Universal remote.