US$11,000 monster subwoofer

Remember the Jurassic Park T-Rex stomp that caused a puddle of water to vibrate? Now you can replicate the same heart-pumping effects at home with the JL Audio Gotham G213 subwoofer. This no-holds-barred goliath packs a pair of oversized 13.5-inch drivers powered by a meaty 3,800W amplifier. This is easily more than three times the "juice" pumped out by an average A/V receiver found in Asia.

Unadulterated brute muscle aside, this beautifully crafted, glossy-black piece also has a built-in audio equalization function. Dubbed A.R.O. or Automatic Room Optimization, it smooths out the sub's frequency response by compensating the acoustic signature of your entertainment room.

Sounds almost perfect? Well, here comes the catch. The Gotham G213 has a ticket price of US$11,000, measures almost a meter high and weighs 163kg. That’s one helluva heavy and fat arse sub even if you have the spare change to import one directly from the US.

Nintendo offers Wii Remote Jacket for free

Yes, you read it right. Nintendo has announced that it will be including a free Wii Remote Jacket in all its hardware sold from October 15 onward. The Wii Remote Jacket (as shown) is a silicone sleeve that wraps around the wireless controller for the Wii gaming console. It is often used to help protect as well as provide a more comfortable grip of the controller. While similar offerings have been offered by third-party vendors since the launch of the Wii, this latest announcement means Wii gamers need no longer buy them as an addon accessory. The best part is, existing owners can also request for the free (read: No charge) Wii Remote Jacket from its online site.

However, before you start bombarding the Nintendo site with your Wii Remote Jacket requests, it should be noted that the offer currently applies only to Wii customers in the US and Canada. A quick check with Maxsoft, the official distributor of Nintendo products in Southeast Asia, revealed that the company is considering the same offer for its users in Asia. But plans are presently tentative and Maxsoft will not comment further until after the US launch on October 15.

If you are thinking of getting silicon sleeves for your Wii, it is probably wise to hang on to that thought for a while longer. In the meantime, we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Hollywood Quality Video meets BenQ projector

For aspiring videophiles on a shoestring budget, BenQ is rolling out an affordable S$2,299 (US$1,512.50) 720p home theater projector. A double first for the company, the W500 represents the Taiwanese's pilot venture into 3LCD technology and outclasses all its current entertainment-centric offerings with an HQV engine. The latter is a highly sought-after video processor in the market for its excellent HD upscaling and deinterlacing performance.

Another noteworthy bit for this HD-ready entry is a unique joystick-driven lens shift function, this enables the light cannon to be installed off-center from the screen without dramatically compromising picture quality. Other standard flairs include an HDMI input and its proprietary Senseye picture-enhancement system. For a limited promotion, it will be bundled with a free Nintendo Wii worth S$659 (US$433.55) in Singapore. Pricing and availability for the rest of Asia were not available at press time.

Hands-on with the Wii Zapper

EA Games held a preview event recently in Manhattan, showing off the company's latest big-name games, from The Simpsons Game to Half-Life 2: Orange Box. While most of the action took place on the various screens around the room, my eyes were drawn to a large, funky-shaped piece of white plastic at the Metal of Honor Heroes 2 display. They had an actual Wii Zapper set up to demonstrate the game's on-rails shooter-style Arcade mode. I couldn't resist the chance to try Nintendo's new Wii peripheral, not scheduled to hit stores until November.

The Wii Zapper is fundamentally just a white plastic shell in which you place your Wiimote and nunchuk and hold like a machine gun. That said, it's a very nice white plastic shell in which you place your Wiimote and nunchuk and hold like a machine gun. It feels solid, and both controller parts fit snugly into the device with no noticeable wiggling. A trigger on the front of the Zapper counts as its only moving part, activating the Wiimote's B button when pressed.

I used the Zapper to play Medal of Honor Heroes 2 in its Arcade mode, a variant that feels more than a little like Time Crisis. The Wiimote picked up some interference from the numerous other Wiis and light sources in the room (a problem you probably would only experience at an event like this), but once I got the hang of it, the Zapper control worked pretty well. It felt relatively comfortable while I aimed at the screen and shot at Nazi soldiers. While Arcade mode felt well enough, I can imagine more traditional FPS gameplay feeling disorienting to get used to, with the nunchuk and its analog stick mounted on the back of the Zapper.

Like I said before, though, the Zapper is just a plastic shell and aiming with it didn't feel very much different from aiming with the Wiimote as usual. You still have to point the Wiimote at the screen and adjust your shot for wherever you put the sensor bar. It feels pretty cool and gun-like, but it doesn't really change the gaming experience.

Granted, I played with the Zapper for only a few minutes, and with only one game. Future Zapper-compatible games may take advantage of the accessory to provide some as-yet unheard-of change to gameplay. The US$20 device comes with a Zelda-themed crossbow target game, too, so it's not like you're dropping a Jackson on only a piece of plastic. Either way, I'm not ready to either condemn or worship the Nintendo Wii Zapper yet. It may be fun, or it may be a useless gimmick. We'll find out in November.

Via CNET Crave

JVC sneaks out true full-HD DynaPix TVs

We weren't exactly impressed with its first full-HD attempt, the LT-Z46ZF7 with 1080i-only HDMIs. But hey, the Japanese company is back hawking two new updated models, not only addressing this issue but also laden with extra icing. These sexy GZ78-series black beauties now sport 100/120Hz Clear Motion II motion-enhancing technology and three digital HDMI terminals. The latter are Consumer Electronics Control-ready and support 50/60Hz 1080p signals, almost perfect if we disregard the film-centric 24Hz handling omission.

Other goodies inherited from its predecessor include DynaPix HD video engine, a musical-sounding oblique cone speaker system and an in-house developed audio-processing suite. No pricing and launch details were available at press time.

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