Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming

Sorry Gizmondo, your dreams of a resurrected user generated gaming platform were just usurped by Nokia. Straight outta Espoo comes Nokia’s Yamake (a mashup for “you make the game”) for their N-Gage platform. With it, Nokia says players can “create their own games” from a range of “mini games” by adding user generated text, pictures, sound clips and movies. Games can then be shared via the N-Gage Arena and via MMS between N-Gage compatible S60 devices. The press release specifically mentions the creation of mini games “such as” pictures puzzles and quizzes — so no, we’re not looking at user generated, 3D first person shooters upon initial release. In fact, without any images or video to accompany the press release, Yamake sounds more like a user customization platform than game creation platform. Still, we’ll cut them some slack on this initial release. One thing seems pretty clear though, this ain’t your mama’s sidetalkin‘ N-Gage; Nokia is playing for keeps this time around.

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Filed under: Cellphones

So it looks like Pieter Knook, SVP of Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business, is out, according to the WSJ. We’re not entirely sure why he’s retiring (when we met him last year he seemed sprightly enough), but he’ll be replaced by Andrew Lees, VP of Server & Tools Marketing and Solutions Group, a man that’s spent the last decade on MSDN and TechNet stuff. So, you know, the guy clearly knows the mobile space inside and out. The move comes just in time, too — what Windows Mobile really needs right now is somebody to come in and make it more business-centric.

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Filed under: Laptops, Storage

Sharp just introduced their latest, itty bitty blue laser. While maintaining the same 3.3-mm diameter of their previous package, Sharp’s new GH04P25A4G semiconductor laser manages to boost the power to 250mW. That little trick should make 6x recording speeds to dual-layer BD media in laptops a reality. They’ve also announced a similarly speced 5.6-mm (GH04P25A2G) jobbie for desktops. Both are shipping now in ¥50,000 sample quantities with mass production set to begin in April. That translates to about 462 US dollars — not that the US manufactures CE equipment anymore.

[Via Impress]

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Filed under: Laptops

Although laptop batteries aren’t getting catching fire nearly as frequently lately, every now and again one still seems to spark off — but LG wants you to know that its batteries are safe. The Korean mega-conglomerate said that it’s wrapped up an investigation into reports that surfaced last month about an LG-sourced battery exploding in a reporter’s laptop, and that it was apparently a freak accident. According to LG, “Under normal conditions, it is not possible for a notebook PC battery to combust.” Uh, sure it’s not, guys — you keep telling yourselves that, and we’ll keep blogging in these goggles and red Nomex capes. Deal?

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Hold the front page! Apple has finally dropped what it calls Apple TV Take 2, otherwise know as their second attempt at collaring the streamer market.

The new edition ties in with iTunes Movie Rentals, something that us UK film lovers won’t be getting our hands on until later this year.

If you’ve got one of Cupertino’s silver boxes under your telly, you can get the free update right now, downloading it via your gogglebox.

The system’s been given a complete makeover, with a whole new interface, full YouTube access and the chance to look at all the vids stashed on your Mac, as well as rental goodies.

The box still costs £199 for the 40GB version, £269 for the weightier 160GB model.

Now all we need is Apple to give us a launch date for rental movies and up its frankly weak offering of US tellies on iTunes here in Blighty. Come on guys, we’re desperate.