Filed under: Home Entertainment

It’s not all gifts for cable giant Comcast this holiday season, as the FCC is considering a new cap on cable ownership. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and two of the Commissioners are set to support the cap plan, which would affect any company that controls over thirty percent of cable subscribers nationwide, while the remaining pair have not made their intentions public. The FCC has conducted additional market research to bolster their argument for limiting ownership, as a previous plan was rejected in 2004 by a federal judge. While the cable industry is sure to sue if the plan moves forward, perhaps Comcast should shore up any complaints on that pesky packet spoofing issue before this gets any uglier.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Like we needed any more confirmation, but Creative has finally put an end to any remaining incredulity on our part by posting a press release with all the sordid details of its new 32GB Zen. We’re not really used to “world firsts” from Creative in the DAP space, but the doubling in capacity over competing flash-based players certainly qualifies as one — though Sansa seems to be hot on Creative’s heels. The Zen is otherwise the same as its 4GB, 8GB and 16GB siblings, including that SD card slot for expansion should 32GB prove limiting for you. The new player will be available mid-December in Singapore for S$549.00 (about $380 US), and there’s no word on release dates for Europe or the States. Get ready to import!

Update: Friendly tipster Justin R. pointed out that you can indeed pre-order the 32GB Zen from Creative’s US store for a mere $329.

[Thanks, Rene]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

When you’re trying to find someone online, Google’s not the only game in town. In the last two years, a handful of new people search engines have come onto the scene which offer better ways to pinpoint people info by name, handle, location, or place of employment.

Filed under: Portable Audio

Both Wal-Mart and Amazon have already made their positions on DRM pretty well known, but it looks like each are now taking some further steps to ratchet up the pressure on the remaining hold-out record labels. For its part, Wal-Mart has reportedly told the record labels point blank that they must offer DRM-free MP3 versions of all their music, a matter that Sony BMG is apparently still the biggest hold out on. Amazon, on the other hand, is looking to give its download service (and, in turn, DRM-free downloads) a boost by giving away up to a billion free downloads in a promotion with Pepsi that’s its set to launch during the Super Bowl in February. You’ll need to guzzle quite a bit a Pepsi if you want to get your quota of those MP3s, however, as you’ll apparently need to collect five bottle caps for each download. According to Billboard, Amazon has approached all the major record labels about participating in the promotion, but some are apparently balking at the 40 cents per track Amazon is willing to give ’em, which is a sizable cut from the 65 to 70 cents they currently receive.

[Via Gadget Lab]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

As go the real guitars, so go Guitar Hero controllers, and hot on the heels of that axe with integrated visualizer we just saw, Cyberpyrot over at the AcidMods forums has managed to stuff a seven-inch LCD with touchpanel overlay into a GHIII controller. The LCD shows a mirror of the game itself, but its location means that the strummer had to be replaced with a magnetic switch controlled by a metal “pick.” The touch overlay allows players to activate the whammy simply by sweeping across the screen, and Cyberpyrot says the next step is to add optics so the guitar can play itself. That ought to add some fuel to the real-guitar-vs-Guitar-Hero debate, we think. Check a vid of the guitar in action after the jump.

Continue reading Guitar Hero controller mod integrates a 7-inch touchscreen LCD

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!