Skip to Content

Listen to the Joystiq Podcast (because your ears can't read)
AOL Tech

scan posts

Scan's 3XS Great White gaming rig is extreme, not quite 11,000 extreme

British computer maker Scan is mighty, mighty proud of its 3X Great White. Aside from blasting a Silverstone TJ07B case with an astonishingly corny logo, the outfit is also charging a staggering £11,171.18 ($20,225) for the soon-to-be-outdated rig. Granted, it does pack an impressive amount of cutting-edge hardware -- three 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 HDDs (alongside two 64GB OCZ SSDs), a 4.4GHz overclocked Core 2 Quad Q9650 CPU, 2GB of Corsair DDR3 RAM, three 1GB NVIDIA GTX 280 GPUs and enough LEDs to light up a small basement (among other things) -- but we still can't justify trading out a good portion of your kid's college education for a machine very capable of dominating Crysis. But if you can, the buy link is just a few clicks away. Just don't tell the wife, nor anyone that we told you not to tell the wife.

[Via WebCrunchDeals]

iPhone details uncovered in Sales Training Workbook


Here's some dirt that's sure to heat up the iPhone debates over the next 20 days. According to alleged scans from the "iPhone Sales Training Workbook," we're seeing a vast array of features that we were already fully aware of, but here's the skinny on what you may have not known until now:
  • No one-touch dialing (two touches at a minimum)
  • Vibrate mode is included
  • Voice dialing is not mentioned as a feature, though it's not specifically excluded either
  • Users can have a voice conversation whilst browsing the web "when WiFi access is available"
  • iPhone users will not be able to conduct IM conversations with instant messaging users
  • Emailing videos and pictures are a go, MMS is not supported
  • MEdia Mail won't be used for ringtone and answertone downloads
  • MEdia Net, MobiTV, and Cellular Video are (unsurprisingly) not available for the iPhone
  • iTunes will sync iPhone with the Address Book on Macs or Outlook/Outlook Expess on PCs
  • No GPS or TeleNav support, sorry Google hopefuls
Of note, it seems that AT&T and / or Apple has conjured up a few canned, customer responses that point out the obvious shortcomings of Apple's handset, so do click on to see what you're up against.

Update: It's worth pointing out that only 15 of at least 33 pages have been published so far.

Alaska Department of Revenue vaporizes $38 billion account

The Last Frontier is no stranger to computer failure on a noteworthy scale, but the latest mishap far exceeds the severity of yet another e-voting failure. A quick-fingered technician at the Alaska Department of Revenue reformatted a hard drive while handling "routine maintenance work" that contained an account worth $38 billion -- yeah, with a B. To make matters exponentially worse, he / she also deleted the backup drive for reasons unbeknownst to mere men, and we can probably assume that at least a few individuals in the department suffered a near-heart attack when they found the backup tapes completely unreadable. The only remaining proof of the oil-funded account was in 300 boxes of paperwork, which had to be digitized yet again by staff members working incredibly long hours completing work that had just been done a few months earlier. Incredibly, no one was reportedly punished for the incident, and while the recovery efforts were actually finished in just six painstaking weeks, the damage inflicted by a few careless keystrokes totaled $220,700 in excess labor costs. Ouch.

[Via Fark]

Amsterdam Arena to bar troublemakers via fingerprint scans

It looks like those crazed individuals who somehow managed to escape from the nation's video game addict rehab center won't be sneaking into major football events to stir up trouble anymore, as Amsterdam Arena has launched a trial program to scan the fingerprints of football fans before letting them enter as they try to better "exclude known troublemakers" from making it to the stands. While European soccer football matches are known to elicit tremendous passion from both parties, oftentimes resulting in violent behavior, the biometric scanners will hopefully curb the conflicts as it better enforces bans to precious offenders. Reportedly, the system will initially be at home games of Ajax, Feyenoord and Vitesse, and if it seems to go over well (read: enraged fans chill out), it could be rolled out in a few more locales later this year.

[Via BBC, thanks Stewart D.]

Samsung announces US release of CLX-3160FN and SCX-4725FN laser printers

Continuing to maintain their reputation for launching a truckload of new products at CES, Samsung has announced the US launch of two previously Asia-only laser printers. First up is the CLX-3160FN, a Multifunction Color Laser Printer and Fax that is apparently the smallest and lightest "in the world": at 45.19-pounds, that says a lot about the state of miniaturisation in the multifunction fax / printer business. Other features include print speeds at up to 17 ppm in black and white, and 4 ppm in color, standard USB connectivity, PictBridge support for instant photo printing, and compatibility with Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. One of the less welcome "features" includes yet another newly designed toner cartridge design, which means all your older carts won't work. The second printer that Samsung is unveiling today is the monochrome SCX-4725FN Four-in-one laser printer which combines print, copy, scan, and fax capabilities into one. The SCX-4725FN can print at up to 24 ppm, and outputs at up to 1200 dpi resolution. It also features optical character recognition for scanned text, a mysterious "ID Card Copy" function, and a toner-saving function that apparently reduced consumption by up to 30 percent. Currently Samsung hasn't revealed when either of these printers will ship, and has only given us the price for the CLX-3160FN at $599.
    Follow us on Twitter
    Engadget Video


    AOL News

    Joystiq

    Download Squad

    TUAW

    BloggingStocks

    Asylum

    Autoblog

    Switched.com

    FanHouse

    Autoblog Green