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Colossal 3000-man battle rocks EVE Online
What started out as a few EVE Online alliances forming up PvP fleets last night rapidly evolved into one of the largest PvP battles in the game's history. Reports indicate that a total of over 3,000 players may have been involved in the colossal battle in the lowsec system of Asakai in the early hours of this morning, with hundreds of corporations taking sides in the conflict. The battle officially centred around a Liandri Covenant staging starbase in the Caldari faction warfare system of Asakai, but things rapidly got out of control as practically every major alliance with a capital fleet threw its own forces into the mix for a bit of fun and the chance to kill a titan or two. The system peaked at around 2,800 players fighting simultaneously, just 300 short of beating 2010's world record battle in LXQ2-T. Lag set in with around 700 players in the system, but EVE's Time Dilation feature kept the server running amicably up into the thousands of players. At the peak of the battle, the system was running at just 10% normal speed and people were experiencing several-minute delays on module activations. Dozens of valuable capital ships and supercapitals were destroyed, in addition to several titans worth several thousand dollars each. A few players filmed parts of the action and have shared footage of the slow-motion battle on YouTube. [Thanks to BobFromMarketing for the tip!]
Microsoft Arc Mouse unfolds into view along with the Wireless Mobile Mouse 3000
It's not all BlueTrack hysteria for Microsoft today -- the company's hardware division also took the wraps off that Arc Mouse we spotted back in July and the new Wireless Mobile Mouse 3000. The two-part wireless Arc Mouse isn't just pure fashion -- the folding design allows it to flip closed for easy storage and portability, and unfolds to full size when in use. Sadly, it doesn't get the hot new BlueTrack tech, but uses a traditional optical sensor instead -- but the 2.4GHz connection provides a 30-foot range. The Wireless Mobile Mouse 3000 is your basic travel optical mouse, but it'll get six months out of one AA battery. Both of these should be out this month -- the Arc Mouse will come in black and red for $60, while the Mobile Mouse 3000 will come in black and white for $30 -- there'll be some colorful special editions in Target as well. Check the Mobile Mouse 3000 after the break.
Lenovo kills off 3000 line, folds Y Series into IdeaPad family, K Series into IdeaCentre
This probably won't be ruining anybody's day, but if you were hoping to buy a Lenovo laptop with 3000 scrawled somewhere on it, you're pretty much out of luck. Lenovo has apparently killed off the entirety of its budget-friendly 3000 lineups, both laptop and desktop. The Y Series 3000 laptops are now gone in place Y710 and 7510 Series IdeaPads, and the fugly old 3000 K100 desktops gone, with only K210 IdeaCentre desktops available in their place. Not earth-shattering, but the IdeaPad and IdeaCentre brands are already off to a strong start, with much better design than the 3000 series, but similarly low prices. And besides, we suppose they needed all those excess 0's for the Olympics. You know, for the rings. No? You always hate our jokes. Die in a fire.[Thanks, Ian]
Lenovo's Y410: their first consumer laptop hits the big box
US netizens can now call dibs on Lenovo's 3000 Y410 laptop for the home. That's right, a consumer laptop -- their first for the US market. Released without fanfare, the new 14.1-inch glossy 1,280 x 800 model starts at about $700 depending upon the configuration you track down at your local big box -- another first for Lenovo. That gets you a 1.46GHz Pentium Dual Core T2310 proc, 1GB of memory, 160GB 5400rpm disk, dual-layer DVD writer, 6-in-1 media card reader, 802.11a/b/g WiFi, ExpressCard, and Intel X3100 graphics with 1.3 megapixel camera, Dolby Home Theater speakers with sub-woofer running atop a Vista Home Premium OS. The 1.02-1.45-inch thick / 5.5-pound sled doesn't look half bad either... for Lenovo. Now we're just wondering if the build quality and support matches that of their ThinkPad lineup. If so, then Lenovo's got themselves a winner here.[Via c|net news]
Lenovo 3000 J200 and J205: major Olympics fans
Following up on its Olympics-themed laptops, Lenovo has just announced a new series of desktops which will sport a tiny, barely visible Olympics logo in support of the upcoming Bejing games. The 3000-series J200 and J205 desktops both look the same on the outside (drab, gigantic, PC-ish), but pack ever-so-slight differences on the inside. The J200 is an Intel Celeron based model, with 512MB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, and an integrated graphics chipset, while the J205 will feature an AMD CPU and... nope, that's all. The Olympic-lovers will be on sale in August for $399 and $449, respectively.
Lenovo's 3000 N200 inspected, benchmarked
Those looking to snag a new lappie while not breaking the bank may not be inclined to look Lenovo's way, but the budget-minded 3000 N200 just may provide the rigidity and oomph you need for just over a grand. Making sure your hard-earned dollars don't go to waste is TrustedReviews, who has taken the time to break down this newfangled machine and even post benchmarks for your analyzing pleasure. Initial impressions seemed to harp on the relatively modest innards, a keyboard that was deemed just "sufficient," and the trackpad buttons that were actually compared to "putting your fingers in jelly." Nevertheless, the N200's display was dubbed the best they'd seen on a lappie of this caliber, and it was said to be a satisfactory choice for those needing a basic business-oriented machine on the (somewhat) cheap. For those still hangin' in there, be sure to visit the final page of the writeup for the benchmarking results.
Lenovo 3000 V200 ultraportable gets a taste of Santa Rosa
While most of the Lenovo attention of late has centered around the mysterious Reserve Edition and Olympic-trained lappies, the firm hasn't forgot about the budget set in the meantime. The 3000 series is seeing the new V200 machine get a jolt with Santa Rosa, and aside from the 1.8GHz T7100 Intel Core 2 Duo processor, this 12.1-incher now boosts a 160GB SATA drive, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, a WXGA VibrantView display, built-in 1.3-megapixel camera, and up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM. Furthermore, you'll find Intel's X3100 integrated graphics set, a dual-layer DVD writer, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, a three-cell Li-ion battery, and a weight of just around four pounds. A few extra touches include one-touch system recovery, a fingerprint scanner, Windows Vista, a trio of USB 2.0 ports, 5-in-1 multicard reader, audio in / out, stereo speakers, 4-pin FireWire, an ExpressCard slot, VGA output, and a 56k modem for fetching internet the old fashioned way. The V200 looks to be shipping in "one to two weeks," and the while the base configuration will run you $1,199, those oh-so-necessary upgrades will elevate that figure quite a bit.[Thanks, Naveed]
Finally confirmed: SimCity DS to America
Proving once and for all that virgin sacrifices to a multitude of shadowy deities does in fact yield results, a rather confused EA finally announced a stateside version of SimCity DS (based off of SimCity 3000), that lovable juego de ciudad from our long-forgotten youths.Some extra features that you may or may not have known about? It turns out you can put out fires by blowing into the mic of the DS (hardly a substitute for proper fire fighters, we think). You can "sign off" on various deeds and proclaimations with a whip of the stylus, and there will apparently be some form of wireless data exchange. Our guess is that players will able to "neighborize", by which one another's cities will become adjacent in the game's geography.City-snatching UFOs, here we come![Thanks, Tom!]
Vizio's 60-inch Maximvs VM60P plasma: $2,999, shipping February
Vizio is back at it again, this time promising a new 60-inch plasma HDTV with an MSRP of only $2,999. Of course, for a 60-inch plasma under $3k, you can't have everything, and this set features a native 720p (1366x768) resolution instead of the newer 1080p, but still compares well in terms of price to other sets in its class. The Panasonic TH-58PX60U, and Pioneer Pro-1540HD are a similar size and resolution, but carry MSRPs of $5,499 and $8,000, respectively. Vizio's Maximvs VM60P set pleases with four HDMI inputs, two component inputs, VGA jack and ATSC / QAM / NTSC tuners integrated into the set itself. The included Genesis Faroudja DCDi scaler can accept any signal from 480i to 1080p to display on the 7,000:1 contrast ratio screen with its 1,200 cd/m2 brightness. Like its popular Black Friday 42-inch plasma and 1080p 47-inch LCD, the company aims to bring HDTVs with attractive features at mass market prices. Comparing the price tags, it looks great next to the competition, but we'll see how the picture quality holds up when they start shipping next month.[Via Cnet]
Lenovo takes their 3000 N100 to Core 2 Duo
While we wait for Apple to get their MacBook act together, a few more Core 2 Duo stragglers are wandering in, and this time it's Lenovo's N100 from their 3000 series getting the Merom boost. Beyond the processor goodies, which seem to encompass most of the Intel's offerings, the N100 boasts of an 802.11n MIMO WiFi option, your choice of a 14.1 or 15.4-inch widescreen LCD, and an option with the 15-inchers for an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 card running 64 or 128MB of memory. The 15-inch models also seem to have an option for a built-in webcam, but we're low on deets. Since Lenovo isn't telling us any different, we're guessing the screen res options match up with the previous offerings, along with the rest of the specs. We should be seeing these for sale any day now -- they're listed at the Lenovo site now, but one of the links is broken and some of the specs don't match -- and prices should start around $800.
