It looks like Microsoft's trying to increase the must-have factor for the pricey Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 suite, because the XNA Team has just come up with a VS 2008-only rendition of XNA Game Studio - upgraded to version 3.0 But there's a lot of catches, and they aren't pretty for the average, budget-conscious, and possibly still studying,  indie dev. Prepare to be blown away (the wrong way, probably) at the full story.

 

Something new - and cheap - just came out from Mini-box, the VoomPC-2 car pc. It does what a normal PC would and it uses less than your parking lights. We're not sure whether the design was meant to look like a car amplifier though.

Features include an anti-battery drain system that automatically shuts the PC off whenever battery power dips below 11.2 volts. The VoomPC-2 has also been tested in harsh temperatures (-40 to 55 degrees celsius) so you don't have to worry about the circuits frying in summer or freezing in winter.

Additional specs:

• Mini-ITX motherboard
• Jetway 1.5GhZ X86 VIA C7 processor
• I/O for VGA, S-Video, USB2.0, Firewire, Ethernet
• PCMCIA type I and type II CardBus interface for GPRS/WIFI/ and smart 5+1 channels audio
• Slim Cd-ROM to 2.5" IDE Adapter
• M1-ATX car PC PSU
  

The VoomPC-2 is now available from Mini-box and the car PC barebones version will cost you US$ 395.

Depending on your set-top box, you may be able to 'hack' it to turn it into a DVR. Although this isn't really a hack and is more of a simple plugging in of a hard drive, this guide shows you exactly how to turn your traditional AT&T set top box into a fully featured DVR with a hard drive. When U-verse first became available to the general public, every set top box was a DVR. AT&T quickly changed this policy and began only giving new customers one DVR plus 2-3 other set top boxes.

When AT&T started to only allow one DVR per household, it appears they were a little lazy. When UverseUsers opened up their box from the U-verse service, they found out that AT&T had started to allow only one DVR per household, instead of designing a new box or removing all DVR hardware and software, they simply kept the same hardware and just unplugged the hard drives in the non-DVR boxes. Here's how to turn your ordinary AT&T set top box into a fully-working DVR in 3 easy steps!

Step 1 : Get the necessary tools

All you need is a #2 Phillips Head screw driver. Once you get the screw driver, completely unplug your STB from the power and television set.

Step 2 : Remove the case

Simply unscrew the six screws indicated in the photo using your phillips screwdriver, two on each side, and two on the back. Then take off the cover.

Step 3 : Connect the hard drive!

Find the hard drive power cable shown in the picture above and plug it in to the right side of the hard drive.

Plug in the IDE ribbon cable. Be careful to line it up correctly and make sure that the tab on the top of the plug lines up with the groove on the hard drive.

All done! The box automatically detects the presence of the hard drive and enable all of the recording features you have on your existing DVR. You don't have to do anything else! Serves AT&T right for being sloppy!

Sony is rolling out its Internal Blu-ray Disc Rewritable Drive known as BWU-100A. The BWU-100A is an internal drive with an IDE (ATA/ATAPI) interface and supports recording both 50GB and 25GB BD-R (write once) and BD-RE (rewritable) discs, as well as 4.7 GB DVD+R/+RW/RAM, 8.5GB DVD+R Double/Dual Layer, and CD-R/-RW discs.

It can store up to 4 hours of 1080 HD video on a single dual layer 50G BD disc making it ideal for storing HD videos and data as well as a computer backup.  It is expected to ship on or around August 18, 2006 but you can place your pre-order now. It retails for $749.90.

(Alright, you caught us with the price typo - we just wanted to discourage everyone from buying it so we could have them all for ourselves!)

This is a must for all those out there who either haven't got enough bay spaces, or need to temporarily connect an HDD or optical drive to their PC or laptop via USB 2.0. Working on a Windows 98/Me/2000/XP platform, it allows you to connect 2.5/3.5" SATA/IDE drives via a compatible USB 2.0 port.

The unit has a power indication light, and runs off a 12v AC adaptor. There is also a built-in on/off button. The unit measures 72.5 x 56 x 14mm and the AC Adaptor measures 115 x 57.5 x 32 mm. When released it will retail for 2,980 Yen / $25.

Another possible use for this could be on a more permanent basis. Rather than buying yourself an HDD enclosure, you can simply connect this to your laptop and have a cheaper version of an external drive. Seeing as a lot of large capacity HDDs are less than half the price of their external counterparts with faster read/write speeds too, this actually provides an advantage.