Less than two weeks ago, Kodak announced its new 50MP medium-format sensor, and only a few days ago Hasselblad announced its H3DII-50 camera based on it. The Hasselblad H3DII-50 became the highest resolution digital camera back, but it didn't last long; it was a short stay at the top. » Read the rest of the entry..

The ever watchful eye of Crave spied Acer's Aspire One Netbook on a few online resellers last week (while our British brethren got their hands on one last month), and today Acer makes it official by announcing the U.S. availability of its 8.9-inch Netbook. The company outlines three models, which range in price from a very low $379 to $449. By comparison, the latest Asus Eee PC 901 comes in at $599, while the MSI Wind is priced at $479.

All three Aspire One models use the 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor (which is what we saw in both the Eee PC 901 and the MSI Wind) and an 8.9-inch, LED-backlit display with a 1,024x600 resolution and a Webcam above it. You also get three USB 2.0 ports, two media card slots, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and 10/100 Ethernet. » Read the rest of the entry..

If you just can't decide whether you want a laptop for business or personal use, point your viewing spheres towards Sony's new Vaio SR Series: the entry-level VGN-SR19XN and the top-end VGN-SR19VN.

The SR Series is set to be a stonking all-rounder from what we saw, regardless of whether you're out on business or making musical photo slideshows at home (have you noticed that's all PC manufacturers seem to think people want to do on a computer?). » Read the rest of the entry..

It's not just the business end of the market getting all of Vaio's attention. A slinky new consumer model showed its face this week in the form of the Vaio FW Series: the entry-level VGN-FW11E, the VGN-FW11M, the VGN-FW11S and the VGN-FW11ZU rocking at the top.

Sony's 16.4-inch silver-backed FW Series is geared for entertainment, enjoying Blu-ray drives in all but the entry-level configuration. A true 16:9 LCD display will let you enjoy those HD movies when it's not convenient to output their 1080p picture via the built-in HDMI socket. » Read the rest of the entry..

Out here in Berlin, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty fugly, Sony has been treating us to a plethora of pleasures. It unveiled to Europe its four latest lines of Vaio laptops -- two aimed at business users, one aimed at families and one aimed at business users with families (no, really). The most exciting was the Vaio Z Series, led by the top-end VGN-Z11VN/B. This powerful little Intel Centrino 2-powered midget of a laptop comes with a 2.53GHz CPU, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, 320GB hard disk, Nvidia GeForce 9300M GS graphics, Bluetooth, 802.11 a/b/g and Draft-N Wi-Fi, plus an embedded SIM slot for truly mobile broadband, supporting HSDPA up to 7.2Mbps. » Read the rest of the entry..

Personally, I thought "NV" worked as well as anything for the branding of Samsung's top-of-the-line ultracompact point-and-shoot cameras; nevertheless, for Fall 2008 the new leaders of Samsung's snapshot pack will be dubbed "TL". The two models announced today may have less interesting names, but do offer some novel attributes.

The flagship model, the TL34HD, introduces a 14.7-megapixel sensor--until the camera ships, one can only imagine how ungodly noisy those photos must be--and a fairly cool, if somewhat iPhone-envious, 3-inch hybrid touchscreen with a gesture-based UI. As is beginning to look like a trend for ultracompacts (the Casio EX-Z150 beat it by a couple days), its 3.6x optically stabilized zoom lens starts at a relatively wide angle 35mm-equivalent focal length of 28mm. » Read the rest of the entry..

Summer is the season for sequels, and Intel's hoping to match the blockbuster success of Centrino Duo with the latest iteration of its mobile platform, Centrino 2. Essentially a marketing term, Centrino 2 (code-named Montevina) is used to describe a raft of new technologies from Intel, including a handful of new Core 2 Duo processors; a new chipset with a faster front-side bus; a new graphics solution with support for high-definition content and switchable graphics; and updated wireless and wired connectivity. » Read the rest of the entry..

The Star Wars movie series is over, but the brand name lives on, thanks to spin-offs like toys, novels, and, of course, video games. The dozens of Star Wars video games released over the past 20 years have gotten something of a bum rap -- after all, the source material inspires such loyalty that a video game made with minimal involvement form George Lucas can't possibly live up to fans' expectations (and yes, a lot of those Star Wars games were pretty mediocre, too).

Aiming to remedy this, and update their product line for a generation used to slick action-packed experiences such as Gears of War and Halo 3, Lucasarts has created a game designed to appeal to adrenaline junkies and Star Wars fans alike. By "unleashed," the game's title indicates that the mystical Force powers used so sparingly in previous Star Wars games are the main star here -- and using them to toss enemies around, rip open giant metal doors, and zap lightning bolts from your fingertips is very fulfilling experience, judging from our hands-on time with the game. » Read the rest of the entry..

Even after driving the 2008 BMW X6 for a week, we're still not sure what to make of it. BMW's marketing campaign calls it the coupe's evil twin, but with the 3-liter twin-turbo inline six-cylinder in our xDrive35i model, it doesn't feel particularly diabolical. It seems more like the coupe's fatter twin, although it might refer to itself as merely big-boned. But it does handle like a BMW, which is to say, excellently, and certainly doesn't look like an SUV, so you don't have to live with that stigma. The front seats are particularly nice, but the rear seats have compromised headroom, and it doesn't offer as much cargo area as the BMW X5. » Read the rest of the entry..

There are a very small handful of brand-name personalities in the video game industry that deserve Hollywood-style, above-the-title billing on the games they design, such as Sid Meier and Shigeru Miyamoto. Arguably, one of the the only other figures who come close to that is Will Wright, the creator of the best-selling Sims series of games (and Sim City before that).

With his latest project, which shares many of the sandbox elements of the Sims and Sim City games, EA is betting big on another hit from Wright. Spore is easily the most anticipated PC game this year, not that there's all that much competition. Spore is best described as The Sims on a cosmic level, where you create an organism from the single-cell stage, watch it evolve, and after millions of years, develop the technology to leave its home world and colonize other planets. » Read the rest of the entry..