Cell Processor EOL'd

Do you remember the early days of the Playstation 3 hype? Central to that hype was IBM's new "Cell procesor" - a radical new design in CPUs which IBM and Sony promised would provide significantly higher performance than any normal design and would soon be the standard. Fast-forward to 2009, and Sony's Playstation 3 still has not shown a significant advantage to the XBox 360's more classical design, and the Cell processor is used in few applications other than the PS3. Finally, IBM is admitting the inevitable and has announced the end of the Cell processor.

It remains to be seen what CPU will drive the Playstation 4 (or whatever it is called in 2011).

DO NOT buy a Blu-Ray player yet

I know a lot of our Mod-Blog readers personally, and know that now now HD-DVD is "officially" dead I suspect a lot of us are looking for the excuse to upgrade to Blu-Ray now. But Gizmondo notes that now is NOT a good time to make the jump.

The place to be is spec 2.0, referred to as "full profile." Suddenly, it's Sony who is looking the best here, with not only the amazingly upgradeable PS3 but two new players announced this week, the BDP-S350 and S550. For $400 and $500 respectively, they are set to deliver all of the features promised in the Blu-ray palette, including both picture-in-picture and BD-Live internet connectivity (with USB storage for downloaded content). Nobody else, with the possible exception of Daewoo, has even muttered about a 2.0 spec player.

The only player that makes sense to buy now is the Playstation 3, because Sony is already committed to make it fully software-upgradeable to the new Spec 2.0 Otherwise, any player you buy today may be incompatible with disks released 6 months from now.

Playstation 3 destroys Xbox 360 in real life

No, this is not another reviews comparison. A video games columnist learned about the comparative cooling systems of the two units when his sons accidentally turned on both inside of a tightly-packed, closed entertainment center. As the two systems ran, the heat built up inside the unfortunate piece of furniture and fans audibly kicked in for both systems. The children who caused the battle were blissfully unaware until suddenly... the XBox 260 showed up the "red ring of death" which indicates it needs to go back to the shop for repairs. The PS3 remained functional and relatively happy.

Lesson learned? Apparently, Sony is prepared for Global Warming with their new console, while Microsoft is depending on air conditioning to sustain their units.