Rock Band available in Singapore from September 25

For those of you who have been waiting for the Rock Band to officially debut in Asia, you now have a date to look forward to.

According to Electronic Arts, the music video game will hit store shelves first in Singapore come September 25, followed by the rest of Asia after.

The game will be available for the Sony PS3 and Xbox 360. The instrument pack does not include the software and will cost S$269 on both platforms. Standalone drums and guitars will cost S$179 and S$149, respectively. The actual game disc will retail for S$71.90 for the PS3 and S$60.90 for the Xbox 360.

LED-backlit LCDs battle for "best" title

Now that we've published our review of the LED-backlit Samsung LN46A950, we're already receiving emails from readers, apparently with money to burn, who're anxious to find out whether it's better than the Sony XBR8 series, another LED-backlit contender that will hit shore shelves in October.

Sony and Samsung will also be joined by LG in the backlit-LCD race, despite apparent lack of reader interest in that company's LG 47LG90. Since we haven't reviewed either of those two models yet we don't know how they compare with one another or with the Samsung, but that won't stop us from "speculating" with the only information we do have: Spec sheets, rumors, and brief eye-time.

First off, it's worth noting that each of the three sets use a technology colloquially called "local dimming", where the individual LEDs behind the screen can be dimmed or turned off as needed. It's this technology that adds some weight to each company's claim of a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio (a nice round number, no?) When part of the screen goes dark and another is bright, standard fluorescent LCD backlights must rely on the LCD panel itself to block out the light and create dark areas. The result is the less-than-stellar black-level performance for which many LCDs have been noted.


Read more »

Unboxing Rock Band 2

Mock rockers around the country will be warming up their fingers this week for Rock Band 2, the sequel to last year's hit music game. Both Rock Band and rival game Guitar Hero are banking on high-power holiday entries, with competing set lists of classic and new rock, from The Who to Bob Dylan to Jimi Hendrix to Metallica.

We got our hands on the new Rock Band 2 game disc and hardware, and gave the setup a quick run-through (purely in the name of journalism, of course).

It's worth noting that in fact, it's the Guitar Hero franchise that gets the biggest upgrade this year, with Guitar Hero: World Tour (expected in October) adding drums and a microphone for the first time, while Rock Band 2 is mostly content to make some general improvements to its existing peripherals.

The new drum kit looks almost exactly like last year's, but has a wireless connection (removing the need for a separate USB hub) and the drum pads each have a thick rubber cover. The original Rock Band drum kit had hard plastic pads, which made a fairly annoying clacking sound when hit with a drum stick. As a result, many users either bought after-market rubber dampening pads or even glued cut-up mouse pads on top of the drum surfaces. The new wireless drum kit also has a reinforced kick pedal with a metal plate on top. The original one was known to snap in two occasionally under the heavy feet of overenthusiastic gamers.
Read more »

Pocket projector gets an early screening

It looks like 3M is trying to bring back the good old-fashioned vacation slideshow.

The company is reportedly close to rolling out a miniature, portable digital video projector, the likes of which could be used to project digital photos, PowerPoint presentations, or cat-on-a-treadmill videos wherever you see fit.

The lucky ducks over at Popular Science got an early look at the MPro110 and report that after plugging it into a DVD player, they were able to project a movie up to 11 inches wide on various pieces of furniture, walls, and co-workers' body parts. The picture fared much better (and bigger) in a dark room.

Apparently, 3M had planned to officially announce the projector in a few weeks, but an overly enthusiastic German division of the company let the cat out of the bag a little early with a press release.
Read more »

Next-gen full-HD beamers announced

There was a hive of activity during the recent US CEDIA Expo with a few announcements in the home theater projector space. These include the latest flagship full-HD entries from Epson, Panasonic and JVC. The former two models are based on the Epson's 3LCD engine, while the third is a derivative of LCoS or JVC's D-ILA.


Aside from their high native 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution, these movie-tuned light canons also offer the following capabilities.

	Epson PowerLite Pro Cinema 7500UB	Panasonic PT-AE3000	JVC DLA-H750
Contrast	75,000:1 (dynamic)	60,000:1 (dynamic)	30,000:1 (native)
Video processor	HQV Reon-VX	No information	HQV Reon-VX
Lens zoom	No information	2x	2x
Special features	a. FineFrame motion-enhancement technology b. Imaging Sound Foundation-certified	Frame Creation motion-enhancement technology	a. THX-certified b. THX movie mode
HDMI inputs	2 x version 1.3a	3 x version 1.3	2 x version 1.3
US pricing	Sub US$4,500	US$3,499	Sub US$8,000

We've already received confirmation from Epson that the EMP-TW5000 (Asia equivalent of above) will not launched in Singapore anytime soon. Details for the rest of the Asian countries and information regarding the Panasonic PT-AE3000 and JVC DLA-H750 were not available at press time.

Click for larger images:



Via Akihabara news | Photo credit: Akihabara news

Crave is...

The name says it all. Crave is our blog about cool gadgets and other crushworthy stuff.

Drop us an email if you have tips or suggestions.

Crave for...

» Mobile Phones (2237)

» Digital Cameras (988)

» Notebooks (1238)

» PC & Peripherals (1312)

» Handhelds (585)

» Printers (83)

» Home AV (1147)

» Music & Play (895)

» Gadgets (1487)

» Future Tech (396)

» Green Tech (172)

» Lifestyle (157)

» Luxury (22)

» Home Appliances (58)

» Cars (99)

» Games and Gear (248)

» Software (96)

» Web (118)

Previously...

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

Hot Topics

Subscribe to
Crave

What's Hot

apple apple inc. apple iphone apple ipod asia battery camera game google inc. iphone microsoft corp. microsoft windows mobile phone photograph singapore smart phone software sony corp. video

Today on CNET |  Reviews |  Crave |  Blogs |  CNET TV |  Digital Living |  Downloads