Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

Scan's Great White, as shown to the left, has won the coveted Custom PC Dream PC 2008 award, beating competition from HP and Armari. Armari's machine technically wasn't fully entered, as the magazine chose not to fully review it since the submitted computer was a prototype not available for mass production.

Custom PC has had a Dream PC competition dating back to 2004. Previous winners include SavRow in 2004 (for a water-cooled machine featuring a single core Athlon64 and GeForce 6800 Ultra, a spec that cost several thousand pounds at the time and would be outgunned by a £500 laptop today), Armari in 2005 and Vadim in 2006. Scan's back-to-back wins in 2007 and 2008 make the firm the first supplier to win twice.

Scan's beast is based around the following spec:

• Silverstone TJ07 super tower case, finished with extensive chrome plating and laser-etched Great White logo. Various sections of the case are lit with white LEDs to give it a slightly more upmarket feel.
• nVidia 790i SLI motherboard
• 1kW Corsair PSU
• 3 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1
• Extensive, custom-manufactured water cooling equipment from Aqua Computer and Alphacool
• Core 2 Quad Q9650 - overclocked to 4.4GHz from its stock 3GHz speed
• 2x2Gb Corsair Dominator DDR3
• 3 XTX GTX 280 graphics cards with 1Gb of GDDR3 RAM each, GPU clocked at 670MHz and RAM at 2500MHz
• 64Gb OCZ SSD - 2.5" device with 143MB/sec read and 93MB/sec write
• Panasonic slot-loading DVD writer
• Panasonic slot-loading Blu Ray writer as well
• X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty sound card
• KillerNIC M1 network interface card with 400Mhz processor
• Vista Ultimate 64bit
• 24" Zalman 3D monitor

How does it perform? In a word, fast. Custom PC unfortunately don't provide extensive benchmark results but they claim to have seen it perform their standard video encoding benchmark to within a couple of points of an overclocked Skulltrail rig.

Price? That's the tricky part. If you want the best, you can't compromise - and that means paying Scan a total of £11,162.49 inc VAT. Reckon you could build better for less? What would you change? Leave your comments and let us know.

The BRAVIA Theatre BDV-IT1000 is an all-in-one home cinema system with an integrated Blu-ray Disc drive. It features super-slim speakers with full-range drive units just 16mm wide, wireless rear speakers, as well as DVD upscaling to 1080p.

BDV-IT1000 at a glance

• Super-slim speakers made possible by finger-sized full-range drive units
• All-in-one home cinema system with integrated Blu-ray Disc drive
• Full HD 1080/24p picture quality with Deep Color and x.v.Colour
• Wireless rear speakers for great surround effects without cables
• BD-Live Ready: upgradable to Profile 2.0 for extra content and downloads via Ethernet port
• DVD upscaling to 1080p
• Two HDMI input terminals for connection of games consoles, HD TV decoder boxes or other sources, and one HDMI output
• Optical digital and analogue stereo inputs. Also composite/component video in
• Upconversion to HDMI for analogue sources
• Fast, perfect 'one-touch' set-up with Digital Cinema Auto Calibration
• BRAVIA Sync for integrated operation with other Sony components
• XrossMediaBar onscreen display for simple, logical operation of all functions
• Connectivity with Network WALKMAN® and iPod® players, Bluetooth devices and home Wi-Fi networks via DIGITAL MEDIA PORT, plus Portable Audio Enhancer
• 700W total power: 5x100W plus 2x100W for subwoofer, using efficient, high-quality 32-bit S-Master digital amplification

Apple's paper-thin notebook machine has received a fairly major software update, reports The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Accessed via the usual updating system within OS X, the patch addresses issues with video playback as well as - primarily - issues with heat. The CPU cores in the MacBook apparently don't idle as they should out of the box - resulting in the slimline unit running very hot with extended use.

If you're an Air user rushing out to install this, the update comes with a word of warning: if you've installed a third-party workaround like CoolBook, uninstall it before running the update.

TechRadar reports that the N79 and N85 handsets first captured in spy shots in June have finally become official.

To the left (shown bearing the N00 markings as in the original leaked photos) is the new slider design, the N85. The phone appears to be a baby brother to the new flagship handset, the N96, with a 2.6" OLED screen, GPS, FM radio and 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens. The N85 will be delivered with a free 8GB memory card.

Over on the right is the new "candybar" phone, the N79. Bundled with a 4GB memory card, the N79 packs in all the same features as the N85, and sees the return of the old Xpress-On replaceable covers that owners of the old 3210 handsets will not-so-fondly remember.

Contract-free prices are reported to be €350 for the N79 and €450 for the N85. No word yet on when these will hit the UK networks.

We have just confirmed that Mighty Gadget will be attending this years Stuff Live! Event. It is still a couple of months away but we thought we would remind everyone that it is on. While the show wont be quite as big or elaborate as the likes of CES it should still be a great show.

The follow press release has been issued from Stuff.

The World’s best selling gadget magazine Stuff, are once again bringing the UK’s premier home cinema, gadget and technology show to London. Yes that’s right, put the dates in your diary for Stuff Live 2008, in association with What Hi-Fi Sound and Vision, from 31^st October – 2^nd November 2008.

But this year the organizers have decided to shake things up, with an impressive new venue at the ExCeL centre, in London’s Docklands, following the show’s substantial growth and success over the last few years.

This year’s show will host the Exclusive, first ever, UK Live competition of Guitar Hero’s amazing new game ‘World Tour’.

Guitar Hero will be hosting the first ever UK competitions throughout each day on their exclusive Guitar Hero Stage.  There will be great prizes for the winners so ROCK IT TO WIN IT! So come and show off your skills in front of a live audience at the UK's leading technology show!

Other incredible features include; the Gibson Robot SG & Les Paul Limited Edition Guitars. The Kef Muon Series, six-foot, four-way, eight-speaker solid aluminum speaker set-up, worth £70,000. This new range of Muon speakers, are one of 100 existing sets, designed by Ross Lovegrove designer of the walkman and the iMac.

The show will also feature a Chill-Out Lounge where the Games Room Company will be providing the best and most luxurious games equipment you can buy.  Challenge your friends at Pool, Air Hockey, Pinball, 'old Skool' Arcade games and much more in a specially tailored Chill-Out Zone.

There will also be the world’s first hovering chair worth £5,000, and the world’s first electric superbike worth £40,000 and product showcases from the likes of Canon, Sonos, Tom Tom, Tvonics, LG, Jolida, Asus, Archos, Pure Digital and many more.

In addition to all of this, other highlights include the Stuff Stage, home cinema demonstrations, game screenings, Goal striker penalty shootout, and Stuff magazine’s ‘Show Us Your Stuff’ competition, Live final, which will see five finalists battle it out to become Stuff.tv’s next online Vidcast Presenter www.stuff.tv/showus.

The winners of the What Hi-Fi Sound and Vision annual awards and the Stuff magazine 2008 Awards will also be exhibited at the show. The winners are announced at an annual awards ceremony in London, this October.

If that wasn’t enough, there is also a revamped our image creating a new-look for the show with a stylish new logo and fully interactive website.

The new website, www.stufflive.co.uk now live, and packed with more information on exhibitors, activities, competitions and show information than ever before. Highlighting the very best products on show this year, from hi-fi and home cinema entertainment packages, digital cameras to robots, as well as providing advice and tips on new product launches, and what to see and do at this year’s show.

With a wealth of exhibitors we guarantee there will be plenty to tickle your fancy.

Ticket sales

Tickets, which cost £20 for adults, and £10 for children under 16 years of age plus a £1 booking fee, on sale the website now www.stufflive.co.uk.

Further information can be obtained by calling 0870 040 0383. Or visit http://www.stufflive.co.uk

For a full list of exhibitors, see http://www.stufflive.co.uk

Telefónica plans to start testing a 3D IPTV service in São Paulo this year, according to local reports, using a TV supplied by Philips which does not require special glasses to view the 3D image.

Telefónica will offer the service to residents of the region of Jardins in São Paulo, as these clients are connected to a fibre optical network which has the transmission capacity to deliver 3D IPTV. The biggest challenge for the service is that it is currently only possible with the specially developed Philips television the WOWvx-powered 1080p 52-inch Philips 3D HDTV, which currently costs around €18,000. However Philips believes that the television will be much cheaper in the near future: "Today the technology is aimed more at corporate applications," said Renato Secco, Director of the company's Brazilian subsidiary. "Inside three or four years it will be much more accessible to the consumer."

The HTC Touch Pro has finally gone on sale in the UK. Unfortunately not subsidised by a carrier as of yet, so you will have to fork out a massive £514.99 via the distributor Devicewire.

This is a mighty good looking device from HTC (in my eyes at least), however after my experience with my TyTn I am not entirely sure if Windows Mobile is for me. Yes it is brilliant functionality wise, however it was glitchy as hell. This included my experience with Windows Mobile 6.

I am currently using a Nokia E90, while it is a great phone it is huge so I would be very very interested in trying this new phone out (and WM6.1) if anyone fancies sending me one for review?

Key HTC Touch Pro Specifications

• Size: 102 x 51 x 18.05mm
• Weight: 165 g
• Connectivity: WCDMA / HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
• Operating system: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
• Display: 2.8-inch VGA touch screen
• Camera: 3.2MP, with the second VGA camera for video calling
• Internal memory: 512 MB flash, 288 MB RAM
• Expansion Slot: microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Keyboard: Slide-out 5 row QWERTY keyboard
• Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
• Wireless: WiFi 802.11b/g
• GPS: GPS/AGPS (11-pin mini-USB 2.0,
• Interface: HTC ExtUSB audio jack, and TV out in one)
• Battery: 1340 mAh
• Talk time: GSM: up to 8 hours
• Standby time: GSM: up to two-weeks MSM
• Chipset: Qualcomm 528MHz 7201A

NVIDIA have finally enabled PhysX support via a free GeForce Power Pack download that contains a free full copy of Warmonger, three PhysX-enabled Unreal Tournament 3 maps, demos of Metal Knight Zero and the Nurien UT3-based social networking service, and a couple tech demos.

As you may know Nvidia bought Ageia and the PhysX engine in February 2008 effectively rendering the PhysX add-in card redundant. PhysX is currently the only available solution for physics hardware acceleration.

Download the GeForce Power Pack