CNet

"When Roelof Botha struggled to buy a $10 pack of virtual armor and weaponry from the casual game site Duels earlier this year, it turned out to be good fortune for the site's creator, Challenge Games.

Botha, a venture capitalist with Sequoia Capital and former CFO of PayPal, e-mailed customer support at the time to get help with his transaction, but then struck up a conversation with the site's founder, Andrew Busey, who recalled the meeting in an interview. Busey told Botha his plan to create a new class of games--free, short-form browser-based games--and Botha liked the idea.

"How often do you get VCs buying stuff on your site, before you even start talking to them," said Busey, the creator of instant messaging application iChat (now used by Apple).

On Thursday, Challenge Games will announce that Sequoia Capital has invested $4.5 million in the company, along with angel investors such as Ron Conway. Challenge Games has also launched its second game in less than a year, Baseball Boss. The new game--a cross between baseball card collecting and fantasy sports--was made possible through a multiyear licensing deal with Major League Baseball Advanced Media."

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DailyTech

"When ASUS first launched its Eee PC the term netbook was coined to describe the small, low-cost systems with roughly enough power to only surf the net. As time has gone by, ASUS and other manufacturers have introduced new models with more features and the price for a netbook has slowly began to creep up into real notebook territory. Laptop Magazine sat down with ECS vice president of sales Henry Kwan to get some information on what the ECS G10IL netbook will bring to market to set itself apart from the netbook masses. Kwan says that the G10IL will feature EDGE, HSUPA, and HSPDA mobile broadband support, but will not feature support for WiMAX.

The ECS netbook entry will be produced in 8.9-inch and 10-inch size systems, but the version most likely to hit the U.S. will be the larger 10-inch version. The ECS G10IL will hit stores in the U.S. in September with prices for basic systems lacking mobile broadband capability starting at $399. The G10IL will be available in versions running Linups Lite 9.4 Linux on an 8GB SSD -- likely to be the $399 version -- and systems will also be sold with an 80GB HDD running Windows XP. ECS says that the G10IL is the first netbook designed specifically for the business user, not the education customer.

DailyTech first reported on the specs of the ECS G10IL in March of 2008 when specifics were scant and pricing was rough. Later in March DailyTech confirmed the ECS netbook would use Intel’s Atom CPU."

Link..

The Tech Report

"The folks over at Laptop Magazine have gotten some dirt on the G10IL, ECS' upcoming low-cost subnotebook. In an interview with the site, ECS Sales VP Henry Kwan revealed that the system will arrive in the U.S. in September with prices starting at $399.

ECS apparently doesn't intend to market the G10IL as yet another Eee PC rival, though. The subnotebook will feature optional EDGE, HSUPA, and HSDPA connectivity (albeit not on the $399 flavor), and ECS will market it to businesses. Also, other notebook vendors may sell their own, re-labeled models—Kwan predicted that the laptop "will be brought to the U.S. market under a different name than ECS G10IL."

The G10IL will feature an Atom processor, 1-2GB of memory, a six-cell battery rated for five hours of operation, and a choice of 8GB solid-state or 80GB mechanical storage. The 8GB SSD will come in the Linux-based G10IL variant, while those opting for the Windows XP-based offering will receive the 80GB hard drive. Customers will also be able to pick between 8.9" and 10" display sizes, just like in the Eee PC line."

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The Tech Report

"While AMD hopped on the 55nm bandwagon last year with its Radeon HD 3000-series graphics processors, Nvidia has taken a little long to catch up. GeForce 9800 GTX+ cards with 55nm G92b GPUs have already been announced, but DigiTimes quotes a Commercial Times report that says Nvidia has more 55nm GPUs up its sleeve—and four or five of them will come out this quarter.

DigiTimes mentions G94b, G96b, and G98b models, which it says will all launch after August. The G94b should be a die-shrink of the G94 that powers GeForce 9600 GT cards, while the G96b and G98b may supplant GPUs that haven't materialized just yet. The rumor mill first churned out news of the G96 back in March, and it said the GPU was destined for a GeForce 9500 GT. DigiTimes hints the G96 will come out "by the end of this month," first in its 65nm iteration then as the 55nm G96b.

Last, but not least, the rumor mill revealed in late May that Nvidia had taped out a 55nm shrink of the new GT200 GPU from its new GeForce GTX 200 series. DigiTimes doesn't directly mention this shrink, but word back in May was that this "GT200b" would appear in the late summer or early fall."

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With DirectX 10 games needing a pretty powerful computer, I wonder what type of computer will be needed, aswell as the quality of the graphics!

The Tech Report

"What will Microsoft's next DirectX application programming interface bring to game developers? A unified hardware physics API? Some new and exotic rendering systems? Microsoft hasn't revealed anything yet, but Fudzilla reports that the company will start talking later this month.

Quoting anonymous sources, Fudzilla says Microsoft officially announce DirectX 11 at the Gamefest 2008 event, which will take place in Seattle from July 22 to July 23. Interested parties can sign up for the event through the official website for a hefty $550 (or $650 for registrations after July 18). Those who miss the event might be able to catch up at the Nvision conference in late August, where Nvidia will supposedly discuss DirectX 11, as well.

Fudzilla says DirectX 11's bag of tricks will include features like tessellation/displacement, multi-threaded rendering, and compute shaders. The site adds that the new API may not have support for real-time ray tracing."

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A friend of ours are now starting to sell a new form of energy drink ... it's a "Natural Energy Drink"

Aqua-PCs

"The attention grabbing energy drink that is taking the world by storm is actually produced using 100% natural ingredients and a blend of the world finest super-herbs. 

Pussy is more than a luxury energy drink, it’s a must have. This playful experience indulges the senses in more way than one.  Pussy is at the forefront of dance, fashion, style, music, and now LANS! always supporting the very best in the industry. Like fashion, Pussy is a statement. This is why you will always find Pussy at the finest events; drunk by the stars and leading the way in underground VIP parties."

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Microsoft will be announcing DirectX 11 the 22-23th July at the Gamefest 2008 in Seattle. New features (known of) are Tessellation/Displacement, Multi-threaded Rendering, Compute Shaders and Shader model 5.0.

NVidia will therefore skip DirectX10.1 and go directly to DirectX11 with it's next generation of cards. They'll be talking about it at their NVision event in late August.

FUDZILLA

"Microsoft will start talking about DirectX 11 in less than two weeks. Sources have confirmed that Microsoft game technology conference, previously known as Meltdown and now renamed to Gamefest 2008, will be the place where Microsoft plans to officially announce DirectX 11.
...
Nvidia will also talk about DirectX 11 at its Nvision event / conference in late August 2008."

LINK

"The eternal question whether Nvidia will go for DirectX 10.1 with its next generation of chips is answered. It won’t and it never will. Nvidia will skip ATI’s DirectX 10.1 and plans to move to DirectX 11.
...
Naturally next generation ATI, lets call it R8x0 will also support DirectX 11 as this is the way to go in 2009, pre Windows 7 times."

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Excellent news for buyers ... we have a price cut on all Asus EeePC 900 series coming REAL soon.

Dailytech

Digitimes

PSC is expected to take a thin slice of the Acer holdings, which will nevertheless make it the biggest shareholder of Apacer with an almost 25% stake, the sources said. Apacer's management team will increase its stake to 20% to become the second largest shareholder, followed by A-Data, who will have 5-10%, the sources said.

PSC and A-Data declined to comment, but Apacer said its management team is taking over most of the shares released by the parent company in order to demonstrate its confidence in Apacer.

Acer has been reducing its stake in Apacer for some time. Last year, it recruited PSC's investment in Apacer in an attempt to strengthen integration of the upstream and downstream industries."

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The INQ