DisplayLink USB monitors are starting to trickle out a little more frequently now, but USB graphics cards based on the tech are still somewhat rare — we’ve seen a couple, but VillageTronic’s ViBook box is the only one that comes with software to span an image across up to six screens at once. That’s right, the bundled VT MultiDisplay software will let you create a single giant Windows desktop out of six 1600 x 1200 22-inch displays if you buy enough of the $130 dongles — Mac users can do the same with four screens. The dongle can be outfitted with a VESA cradle that allows it to hide discreetly behind your monitor, and while we don’t know what the upper limit of graphics performance is, we do know that we’d kill for a gigantic 4800 x 3600 workspace. Weekend project, anyone?

[Thanks, Becky]

Filed under: Displays

ViBook looses DisplayLink USB-to-DVI adapter with support for six-screen spanning originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii, Rhythm

Are you ready to rock? Or, more specifically, will you be ready to rock on December 18? That’s the day (a Thursday, in fact) that Wii and PS2 owners will finally be able to call friends over for a Rock Band 2 party. That’s right - before the weekend. Crazy, huh?

RB2 for Wii supports the download (and storage on SD card) of tracks via the in-game music store only; you’ll have to add Wii Points through the Wii Shop Channel, per usual. PS2 owners … sorry, but your DLC is in another castle.

Here’s the package / pricing breakdown. Note that peripherals for the PS2 version are already on sale.

• Special Edition Bundle (Wii) - $189.99
• Standalone Software (Wii) - $49.99
• Standalone Drums (Wii) - $89.99
• Standalone Guitar (Wii) - $69.99
• Standalone Software (PS2) - $49.99

Rock Band 2 coming to Wii and PS2 on Dec. 18 originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Meta (about Joystiq)

And we think you know what it is already.

• Alexander Sliwinski is Beerfesting.
• Christopher Grant: The plan: Beat Mirror’s Edge. Beat Fable 2. Start Far Cry 2. Start Fallout 3. Play LittleBigPlanet. Go Quincying with Justin and Griffin in Home. Write a novel. Divide by zero. The reality: I’ll try to cram some Mirror’s Edge and Fable 2 in … maybe even some The World Ends With You while I’m out of the house. We’ll see how successful I am.
• Griffin McElroy: Finishing up disc 2 of Final Fantasy IX (Game of the Year 2008, confirmed). Also trying to become as enamored with Far Cry 2 as a certain southern hemisphere colleague of mine. In my spare time, Quincying.
• Kevin Kelly: I’m playing this fun new game called “Find your emails under a pile of Joyswag Holidaze contest entries.” It’s really nifty. *cry* I’m also planning on playing a little Left 4 Dead with an old friend, and some of the Rio Grande board games I just got, including Change Horses. That’s right, it’s a horse racing game. What? You know you want in on it. Then Sunday, Justin, me, and some of the other Stiqers are playing the Spike VGA drinking game. Every time makes a bad joke, you pound one.
• James Ransom-Wiley: So get this, I was playing Home earlier and totally macking this fly little breezy, and she’s all grinding up on me, and then BAM — she transforms. She like totally turns into a Quincy. Gross. (Whatever, I still invited her back to my studio … )
• Jason Dobson: As I continue to turn back my significant other’s delusions that I am a teen girl and would then be interested in reading Twilight, I’ll instead spend the weekend locked in my room restoring Prince of Persia’s fertile lands. Oh, I’ll also be playing with my G.I. Joes.
• Justin McElroy: I’m probably just going to be Quincying with Griffin, honestly.
• Ludwig Kietzmann: There will be countless shenanigans in Fable 2’s land of Albion, insidious deeds in Fallout 3 and … oh dear, I sense a fourth playthrough of Mirror’s Edge coming on.
• Randy Nelson: I’m finally going to engage in a little action with two other people … The Prince and Elika. I intend to collect 1,002 light seeds just to show Ludwig up, since I’ve come to accept that there’s no way I’m beating his time trial marks in Mirror’s Edge.
• Ross Miller: I think I’ve put in enough time with Devil May Cry 4 today. Rest of the weekend: Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts, Mirror’s Edge (hopefully), Boom Blox and whatever else I’ve missed this year. Oh, and probably Quincying.

WRUP found a great way to enjoy PS Home originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP’s TouchSmart 2 launched without a whole lot of fanfare, but what you get for $1,299 is pretty unique. The IQ504 / IQ506 all-in-one PCs are one of the first to actually encourage full-on touchscreen use in a PC, with HP urging users to touch their way to computational bliss. Of course, with an unorthodox design such as this, there will always be pundits who feel that this or that should have been done somewhat differently, and if that’s you, you’ve found your sounding board. Are you a little let down by the internals? Yearn for more expandability? Is the screen as responsive as it should be? Get heard, won’t you?

Filed under: Desktops

How would you change HP’s TouchSmart 2 all-in-one PC? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Culture, Sony PlayStation 3, Action

Why wasn’t the iconic Metal Gear Solid theme used in Metal Gear Solid 4? Because, as Gamasutra reports, EGM learned in an interview with series composer Norihiko Hibino that unnamed Russian composers claimed Konami “stole their music.”

A video posted on YouTube (viewable here) shows series creator, Hideo Kojima, being presented with a recording of Georgy Sviridov’s “Pushkin’s Garland,” a 1979 classical work which contains a similar-sounding passage. The MGS theme was first heard in the original PlayStation game, circa 1995. It was written by Konami’s Tappi “TAPPY” Iwase, and has subsequently been reworked and remixed, most notably by film composer Harry Gregson-Williams, who scored MGS2-4.

Speaking to EGM, Hibino flatly denies that the MGS theme was “stolen,” but admits that “Konami was too sensitive about the situation and just decided not to use that music in the game.”

Metal Gear Solid theme unused in MGS4 due to plagiarism claims originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

In a commercial featuring 30 Rock actress and producer Tina Fey and director Martin Scorsese, the former Saturday Night Live head writer uses her credit card to gain entrance to an airline lounge. The notion of a faceless slice serving as an access pass would also apply to Novatel Wireless’s MiFi, the simply named 3G personal hotspot that will support up to five users simultaneously connecting to a 3G network when it is offered through operators next year.

MiFi is not the first product to enable a small group to bridge WiFi products to the wireless WAN. One early entrant, Junxion, was acquired by Novatel Wireless competitor Sierra Wireless. And Cradlepoint has created a battery-powered device sold at Best Buy that, like the Junxion device, relies on a laptop card to create its WAN connection.

That’s not true, though, of the MiFi, which integrates an HSPA or EVDO radio along with the battery that can provide over four hours of Internet access to devices such as a PC, iPod touch, Zune, Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. In fact, without apologies to Right Said Fred, the MiFi may be “too sexy for my LAN” — particularly for a product that can work silently in a backpack as it serves its nodes. A thicker frame could provide all-day access, but perhaps such lengthy sessions will generally take place where there is access to an outlet; the device continues to perform normally if it is drawing juice from a PC’s USB port. But the MiFi is not simply a dumb dispenser of digits.

Continue reading Switched On: MiFi pushes 3G past the router limits

Filed under: Wireless

Switched On: MiFi pushes 3G past the router limits originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, First Person Shooters

Still holding out for new Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare maps and playlists? We’re sorry to be the ones to tell you this, but there aren’t anymore maps or playlists. None. Go home, kid. Over at the official Xbox forums, Infinity Ward community manager Robert “fourzerotwo” Bowling rather strongly suggested that the development team has moved on from COD4 and is gearing up for its next project, whatever that may be.

Bowling also discussed the issue of balance, perception and DLC. In his words, “If you include [the maps] out of box (shipped with game for no extra cost) then it’s just ignored and people demand more. If you instead, decide to get the game out and then worry about beefing up the map selection via DLC, people say … ‘this should have been included in the shipped game.’”

We hear ya buddy, now how about six more COD4 map packs?

[Via Gamer Limit]

COD4 seemingly complete, Infinity Ward focused on future originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: RTS, Empire: Total War

Earlier this week we reported that Empire: Total War, the highly anticipated PC RTS game from The Creative Assembly and Sega, would have a slight delay in its previous February 2 release date. The new date is now for sometime in early March. However a new development in the game has been revealed and it’s indirectly because of the game’s delay.

On the official Total War message boards, Creative Assembly team member Mark O’Connell announced, “Significantly the additional time will also allow us to implement the underlying technology for a much desired feature (thanks to your feedback!); a multiplayer campaign mode. An opportunity to participate in the 1 versus 1 multiplayer campaign mode beta will be made available to all Empire Total War buyers post release.” This will be the first time in the Total War series that a game will have any kind of multiplayer campaign mode. No other info on this new feature has been announced.

[Via Shacknews]

Empire: Total War to add multiplayer campaign mode after release originally appeared on Big Download Blog on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Motorsports, Videos, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari

The 2008 F1 Drivers World Championship was one of the most exciting in years. Over the course of its 18 races, several drivers and teams had noteworthy performances, with the championship ultimately being decided in the final corner of the final lap of the final race. Those who watched that the race in Brazil will undoubtedly remember the heartbreak of Felipe Massa’s family and the jubilation of Lewis Hamilton’s girlfriend. While some were quick to blame Timo Glock for his amazing reduction in pace into that final turn, others rightly know that a championship is about the whole season and not just one race. And what a season it was.

For some it was the realization of the promise that Lewis Hamilton showed in his rookie season before his inexplicable late-season collapse last year. For others it was pure devastation at seeing Felipe Massa rise to his own prominence at Ferrari only to see mid-season mistakes rob him of crucial points and ultimately the championship. We just came across a video clip called “Down to the Final Corner.” It was compiled by Pistola and it lets you relive the season in about eight minutes. It’s a collection of the highs and lows with some of the razzle and dazzle of F1 thrown in for flavor. We’ve posted it after the jump to remember the season that was. With all of the changes coming to Formula 1 for 2009, we might not see anything like it for a long time to come.

[Source: Vimeo]

Continue reading VIDEO: Relive the 2008 F1 championship in 8 minutes

VIDEO: Relive the 2008 F1 championship in 8 minutes originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Convertibles, Euro

Given the chance to take the KTM X-Bow into any environment, a wintery wonderland wouldn’t be one of them. But KTM wants to allow its mid-engine track tool to weather all the seasons - and peddle a few more of its PowerParts and PowerWear accessories to its drivers. X-Bow owners can choose from either central-locking or five-bolt wheels wrapped in Pirelli Sottozero snow tires, along with an optional set of chains. And even though a fixed roof is planned for future models, the current generation X-Bow’s occupants will have to deal with the climes clothed in Schöffel jacket and pants, and matching Schuberth helmet. The full line of winter wear will set you back 950 euros, and when you arrive at your chilly destination, you can wrap the X-Bow in either an indoor cover (380 euro) or an outdoor cloak for 325 euro. We think we’ll pass and wait for spring.

Continue reading For Why? KTM offers winter wear for your X-Bow

For Why? KTM offers winter wear for your X-Bow originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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