GIZMODO.COM - Tired of the Xbox 360's "look-how-hard-I'm-trying-to-look-hip" aesthetics? Mod it, young man. That's what Ben Heckendorn did, transforming the Xbox 360 into a much smaller, laptop-like fun adapter. Something like that. The laptop mod incorporates a 17-inch high definition LCD along with a built-in keyboard and Wi-Fi and stuffed into a shell that's no more than 2.8-inches deep.

 

The laptop 360 is water-cooled and cools more efficiently than a regular Xbox 360. Maybe Microsoft should've put Mr. Heck on the 360's development team.

Pictures of the laptop Xbox 360's construction, along with the creator's running commentary, can be found on Heck's portion of the world wide web. – Nicholas Deleon

Xbox Laptop 360 [benheck.com via SlashGear]

NEXT-GEN.BIZ - I was editor-in-chief of the Official E3 Show Daily in 2006, and a few of those produced in the late 1990s. I attended the first E3, and the last and most of the others in between.

I'm sorry that this event has gone, to be replaced by some new thing, much smaller in scale - more 'intimate' is the euphemism of the moment. It was a great way to meet and greet friends, allies and rivals in the business. It was exciting and fun and loud. It had its faults, but it acted as a focal point for the industry, before the summer's business of preparing for the Holidays really began.

It was an opportunity to take stock of the industry as a whole - the people, the products and the trends.

Many greeted the news that E3 had gone with shock. But, in reality, its days were numbered. Here's why...

ENGADGET.COM - Well, word's in from ESA and and E3 is set to be all but castrated -- though not killed entirely. Apparently it will become a kinder, gentler, "more intimate" trade show after E3 sought counseling and found itself to suffer from severe cases of ADD, Tourette's, and harbor deep-rooted antisocial tendencies. But instead of putting the loud and raucous show on meds and calling it a day, they're rebranding it as E3Expo (which would, effectively, stand for Electronic Entertainment Expo Expo, making it E4) for 2007, and calling it a smaller, more focused event because, "It is no longer necessary or efficient to have a single industry 'mega-show.'" Whereas we may or may not agree with that statement, one thing is definitely sure: the days of E3 as we know it are officially over. So to our pals in the media and our readers who loved keeping tabs on the madness come early May each year, well, we'll always have Pari, erm, Vegas.

THEGAMERAG.COM - [We all talk about how bad G4TV is and most of that is based on a minimal amount of viewing time. Take a trip with Michael Piercey as he spends an entire day, on his butt, watching G4TV to find out just how bad it is, and if the 'bad' is actually warranted. Part one finds him explaining why he chose to do this experience.]

First off, allow me to begin by saying that the title of this piece is a bit misleading. The *censor*ing is there - the nit-picking, the insults etc. What’s misleading is I really only spent twenty-ONE hours with G4, as they run three hours of non-game related paid programming from 5am-8am, and I refused to watch any of that. Actually I asked my editor if I could trade an hour of paid programming for, say, an hour of Fastlane, but he said no, and seemed resolute, so I dropped it. With that disclaimer aside, prepare to become ensconced, as I was, by the tale of a man on his ass, for twenty-one grueling hours.

It occurs to me that some of you out there might not know exactly what G4TV is. Well sit on down and I’ll fill you in. G4TV is, as they say, Television for Gamers, that is people who spend their entire day playing video games, but don’t have the internet. I throw the internet thing in there because everything you hear or see on G4 can easily be found online, be it cheats, reviews, or dorks arguing about Star Trek. But beyond that, G4 is a cable channel that thinks they truly understand YOU, the 20-something virgin nerd (that is you, right?). Any sometimes-viewer (and I pray to every god I can think of that they’re the ONLY kind of viewer) will tell you that G4’s programming is all over the board, and they’re right. But let’s step away from that for now.

JOYSTIQ.COM - In an act of poll balance and contrary to a recent Famitsu poll, the PS3 is more popular than Wii according to a recent Amazon Japan poll. PunchJump writes: "The overseas retail division of Amazon.com has published a graph that represents customer interest in each platform, with the 60GB PS3 edging out the Wii. The 20GB PS3 was the least popular among customers."

Add the two PS3 editions together, and sales-wise, the PS3 should outsell Wii by about 33% if the Amazon Japan pollsters are correct. Does a lack of a 360 option mean that Microsoft's console isn't even on the radar anymore?

JOYSTIQ.COM - Victor De Leon III is younger than Duke Nukem Forever, but that has not stopped him from becoming a certified professional Halo player, with sponsorships and has already earned enough money to pay for his college, according to News 14 Carolina, who today did an article on his success.

Victor, known as LiL Poison, played his first tournament at age four. He was signed by MLG in February 2005, making him the youngest pro gamer in the world. Victor currently plays with Team Versus and is sponsored by 1UP (you can check out his blog here). As his website puts it: "pound for pound, Lil Poison is quite possibly the best gamer in the world." Unfortunately, no weight measurements are given.

CNN.COM - A mouse, keyboard and/or Xbox controller don't seem like the standard gear of an Olympic athlete, but Ted Owen wants to change that.

Owen, who runs the Global Gaming League (GGL), a media company focused on the lifestyle and culture of gaming, is currently talking with the Chinese government in hopes of bringing competitive video gaming to the 2008 Games as a demonstration sport.

Admittedly, it's an uphill battle. Even if you can look past the lack of physical skills necessary to play video games, the Olympics haven't had any sort of demonstration sport since 1992 - and Olympic experts say there has been no movement to bring them back.

CNET.COM - If you came to E3 this year worried that the so-called "booth babes" wouldn't be here strutting their stuff, you already know you had nothing to fear.

 

 

That's because, while the scantily clad women may be a tad less scantily clad at E3 2006 than in years past, they're still very much in evidence, and they're still showing a lot of skin.

In January, the Entertainment Software Association, which runs E3, caused a stir in the video game world by announcing that it would no longer tolerate the barely covered women--hired by game publishers to attract men to their E3 booths--unless they put on more clothes.

The booth babes had prowled the halls at the Los Angeles Convention Center, where E3 is held each year, in costumes meant to invoke various video game characters--costumes that in many cases were little more than bikinis.

 

Rather than updating articles round the clock I have started a forum thread devoted to E3 coverage where I will continually update the news to keep up to date with the announcements made this week. Today will be the biggest day for announcements since Microsoft and Nintendo are both presenting their keynotes this morning. I will post video links and articles to other sites that best cover the new information, and now would be a good time for everyone to get a bit torrent client to download some video files if you can't watch the live streams from the conferences. Another plus to getting the torrent video files is that you can watch several of the trailers released in HD without having to subscribe to any premium services. I will also attempt to upload some videos to the site and I will announce those releases in the forum thread.

DIGITALTRENDS.COM - A new survey commissioned by Sperling's BestPlaces—and, of course, curiously assisted and promoted by Microsoft—names Seattle as the top video gaming city in the United States, beating out large metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Washington D.C.

Sperling's findings are based on the number of video game systems owned per household (including Xbox, Xbox 360, Playstation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Windows-based PCs) as well as the number of games purchased and rented, combined with the frequency of online game play via Xbox Live and or Windows-based games.