avant-garde
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World-first Val'anyr formed by Avant Garde
If you're a raiding healer, you almost certainly know this already: Ulduar-25 contains a legendary healer mace, called Val'anyr. To craft it, you have to gather 30 Fragments of Val'anyr, which drop from both normal and hard-mode 25-man Ulduar fights (though they always drop on hard-mode, and only have a chance to drop on normal). You then have to throw the combined collection of fragments at Yogg'Saron while fighting him when he uses the "Deafening Roar" ability, which he only uses on hard mode. After that, defeat Yogg, and Val'anyr is yours. Well, someone has now completed all of the above steps: Snuggleme, a resto druid of Avant Garde on Kil'jaeden. Congratulations on what appears to be the world-first Val'anyr! We know exactly what it does already, but I'm still curious what it feels like to use it in a real raid - hopefully Snuggleme can give us some insight in weeks to come. Also congratulations to Impervious of Stormreaver, who collected their 30th Fragment last week on a hard-mode Yogg-Saron kill, and will be forming the hammer this week.
Sony offering up Swarovski crystal-clad E010 DAPs
Just in case you've been out of the loop for some time, this DAP certainly won't go down as the first to come glazed in Swarovski crystals, but Sony has nevertheless teamed up with Abiste Corporation to craft the limited edition Walkman E010 lineup. The players will be available in pink, violet, black, blue, or gold colors, have removable caps adorned with Swarovski glass crystals, and won't arrive to your domicile for two solid months after you initially place an order. 'Course, those even remotely interested in one of these beauties should know that it won't come sans a premium, and while you can snag the lowly 1GB flavor for "just" ¥15,800 ($134), the 2GB rendition will run you ¥18,800 ($160) while the 4GB unit demands ¥24,800 ($210) -- while supplies last, mind you.[Via Luxist]
Samsung 'restructuring' handset division, hints at Armani partnership
In the wake of increased competition from Motorola and Nokia in particular, Samsung is reportedly "restructuring its handset division," which will aim to find "new sources of revenue, realigning businesses, and cut costs." As expected, the move will also involve a number of "personnel reshuffles," but a Samsung spokesman was quoted as saying that there won't be any "forceful" job cuts. Interestingly, we're hearing further details that the firm is indeed courting the idea of partnering with "luxury name brands such as Italian fashion house Armani to develop premium brand phones," and considering just how hot avant-garde mobiles have been of late, we certainly don't think that's a bad idea.[Via JustAMP]
Vertu's avant-garde handsets to hit Japan in 2008
Being that the economy seems to be doing quite well over in Japan these days, it follows logic that Vertu would offer up its pricey wares for the affluent on that side of the world, too. Apparently, Vertu is working with Nokia to develop a W-CDMA handset for use in Japan, but details beyond that are few and far between. Thankfully, we do know not to get our hopes up before the fall of 2008, but hopefully we'll find out exactly what phone(s) will be headed to the Land of the Rising Sun -- along with the lofty pricetags that will surely accompany them -- a few months prior to launch.[Via Slashphone]
Nearly $6 million in Vertu phones stolen from van
Stealing £3 million ($5.94 million) worth of mobile phones sure sounds like a risky way to may a buck, but if you're going to jack mobile handsets, you might as well swipe the ones that depreciate the least, eh? A crew of four men in Europe apparently agreed with that mantra, as they got up the nerve to run a Vertu van off the road with their Subaru and reportedly swiped a fair amount of handsets before darting off. There was no word on just how many phones were actually stolen, but we're sure the boys in blue found a fully stocked trunk after it located the crashed vehicle in Slough, Banks. Two of the four masked bandits were later captured and arrested for their part in the heist, but the other duo is probably trying to figure out how in the world they would unload hordes of these highly sought after mobiles without garnering suspicion in the first place.[Via BGR]
Lenovo's ThinkPad Reserve Edition gets a teaser site
Nearly a month after Lenovo teased us with its Olympic-inspired laptop, and just days after loosing a bevy of Santa Rosa machines on the world, Lenovo is catching our eyes once more with an admittedly lacking teaser site for a Reserve Edition ThinkPad. The very non-interactive website sports an annoying background track, a cheesy selection of closeup leathermaking shots, and absolutely zero information about an actual computer. Of course, one could theorize that the firm has a leather-clad lappie in the pipeline for the affluent set, but it's not like you can't get that already. Nevertheless, this certainly isn't the first nor the last time we'll see such tease acts in order to hype up a currently unreleased product, but hopefully the deets on this one will end up surfacing as quickly as those on the Beijing machine did.[Via LenovoBlogs, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
