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In an ironic development following months of public squabbling over digital distribution practices, Electronic Arts is now offering Valve games through its Origin service.

EA is running a buy-two-get-one-free special this weekend, and three Valve titles are included: Counter-Strike: Source, Left For Dead: Game of the Year Edition, and Left 4 Dead 2. The Valve games (each priced at .99) are boxed retail copies, and the free games available are downloadable copies of select EA titles.

The promotion is raising eyebrows after EA announced last month that its flagship shooter Battlefield 3 would not be available on Valve’s Steam platform, citing “a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to deliver patches and other downloadable content.” EA issued similar statements after removing Crysis 2 from Steam following Origin’s launch.

Without offering any concrete solutions, both sides have expressed a desire to resolve this dispute. Valve president Gabe Newell recently told Develop, “We want EA’s games on Steam and we have to show them that’s a smart thing to do.” EA’s Jens Uwe Intat told Eurogamer last week that the company isn’t planning on making its games Origin-exclusive. “Competition and choice go hand in hand,” he said. “So the fact we will only distribute our own games on our own platform, I don't see that.”

Neither company has issued a statement regarding the promotion. EA does hold the distribution rights to retail copies of some Valve titles, so this may be less of a sign that the two companies are newly cooperating and more of a message from EA saying they’d like to cooperate.

Source: Origin via Joystiq

COMPUTER MAKER HP has announced that its Touchpad tablet with HP’s own WebOS operating system will be available from 1 July.

Before you get too excited the availability date for the tablet only applies to the United States, France and Germany. HP annoyingly has not mentioned a date for the UK, saying instead, “The Wi-Fi version of HP Touchpad will be available in the UK from mid-July.”

There will be two versions of the WiFi only Touchpad, one with 16GB of internal storage and one with 32GB. They will cost £399 and £479, respectively, and will be available directly from HP as well as other retailers.

We’ve not heard much from HP, which has been vague about the date for UK availability. The only date we can find online for the device is on Amazon.com, which states that the device will be released on 17 July.

You might say that HP is a bit late in joining the tablet market, which is already full of various devices of different sizes running various operating systems. What HP has that is unique is its own operating system, WebOS, for which HP has released an SDK free of charge.

It hopes that this will provide an alternative to the other tablets on the market, which often have the same software. Android 3.0 Honeycomb springs to mind.

Jon Rubinstein, SVP of the Palm global business unit at HP said, “The platform’s unmatched features and flexibility will continue to differentiate HP products from the rest of the market for both personal and professional use.” µ

MOBILE PHONE RETAILER The Carphone Warehouse has confirmed that it will stock the Blackberry Playbook a day early at selected stores.

The Playbook will be available at a few Carphone Warehouse stores in the UK a day earlier than in its online shop and at other retailers on 15 June. If you’re desperate to get the tablet 24 hours earlier then you can head to Selfridges store on Oxford Street, Westfield shopping centre, Manchester Trafford Centre, Bluewater and Bristol Cribbs.

The maker of the Playbook, Research in Motion (RIM) today said that it will launch the device in 16 more countries including the UK over the next 30 days. The list includes India, France, Germany and Hong Kong along with 12 other nations.

The Playbook is RIM’s first tablet and it comes with its own Blackberry Tablet operating system and a 1GHz dual-core processor. The Carphone Warehouse has the Playbook priced at £399 for the 16GB model. Double the storage to 32GB and you’ll have to pay £479, and the price for the top of the range 64GB version is £559.

It is unclear how well the Playbook will sell in the UK after initial reports that it’s been struggling in the US and Canada.

Our first impressions of the tablet were good, so we think it’s got a chance, with a special appeal to Blackberry phone owners because of the tethering features. µ

MOBILE PHONE RETAILER The Carphone Warehouse has confirmed that it will stock the Blackberry Playbook a day early at selected stores.

The Playbook will be available at a few Carphone Warehouse stores in the UK a day earlier than in its online shop and at other retailers on 15 June. If you’re desperate to get the tablet 24 hours earlier then you can head to Selfridges store on Oxford Street, Westfield shopping centre, Manchester Trafford Centre, Bluewater and Bristol Cribbs.

The maker of the Playbook, Research in Motion (RIM) today said that it will launch the device in 16 more countries including the UK over the next 30 days. The list includes India, France, Germany and Hong Kong along with 12 other nations.

The Playbook is RIM’s first tablet and it comes with its own Blackberry Tablet operating system and a 1GHz dual-core processor. The Carphone Warehouse has the Playbook priced at £399 for the 16GB model. Double the storage to 32GB and you’ll have to pay £479, and the price for the top of the range 64GB version is £559.

It is unclear how well the Playbook will sell in the UK after initial reports that it’s been struggling in the US and Canada.

Our first impressions of the tablet were good, so we think it’s got a chance, with a special appeal to Blackberry phone owners because of the tethering features. µ

TAIWANESE SMARTPHONE MAKER HTC’s Facebook focused phones, the Salsa and Chacha, are available for pre-order starting at £249.

Announced back in February, the cheaper of the two is the Chacha, which you can pre-order now for £249 SIM free from Amazon.co.uk and Play.com. Play will get it to you two days sooner on 24 June, whilst Clove.co.uk has the phone for £252 with no exact date in June.

The second of the social networking branded phones is the more expensive Salsa, which will set you back £319 SIM free, again from Amazon.co.uk and Play.com. Both retailers have the same date of 26 June. Clove.co.uk only says it is “expected in June” and has a higher price tag of £342.

We don’t quite know why the handsets are named after dances, but what we do know is they have very similar specifications. Both have dedicated Facebook buttons, the Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, a 600MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 512MB of internal storage, a 5MP camera and a front facing VGA camera.

The difference between them is that the Salsa has a 3.4in touchscreen while the Chacha has a 2.6in touchscreen accompanied by a Qwerty keyboard.

Along with the Facebook button on the front, the two handsets will come with Facebook themed widgets like a clock that integrates your Facebook news stream. HTC wants you to “Facebook your entire phone”. µ

ONLINE BOOKSELLER Amazon’s Kindle e-reader can now be purchased from the 400 Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy stores in the UK rather than via the Brazilian themed etailer’s website.

A basic WiFi-only model can be had for £111 and a model with both WiFi and 3G is available for £152. At Best Buy and The Carphone Warehouse stores, the WiFi-only Kindle is free with selected handsets on a 24 month contract from £15 per month to both new and upgrading customers. Kindle 3G is available on the same handsets and tariffs for an additional £15 one-off charge.

The WiFi-only Kindle and Kindle 3G both have a Pearl E-Ink display that is said by Amazon to “read like real paper” and can store up to 3,500 books. Amazon has over 550,000 titles to choose from at its Kindle Store. Amazon claims the Kindle’s battery life is up to one month.

The Kindle also has a feature called Whispersync that syncs your last place read, bookmarks, and notes across devices, so you can pick up where you left off and always have your reading with you. There are also Kindle apps for the Ipad, Ipod Touch, Iphone, Mac, PC, Windows Phone and Android-based devices. The apps allow you to read your Kindle books on those devices. µ

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Share this: del.icio.us Digg Facebook Linkedin reddit! StumbleUpon Twitter Share Related articles The global semiconductor market rallied this year Intel is almost into its third decade of dominance Thursday, 9 December 2010, 14:25 PM Read more Microsoft releases Office for Mac 2011 No autotune though Monday, 13 September 2010, 14:30 PM Read more Bad docs blamed for flaky RHEL 5 reviews Red Hat says guides not good enough Friday, 20 October 2006, 12:33 PM Read more Clustering let down by hardware Beowulf co-founder says it can’t get better Tuesday, 29 August 2006, 16:04 PM Read more AV companies admit huge errors Symantec, Norton, McAfee AV flawed Thursday, 22 December 2005, 08:22 AM Read more Microsoft releases critical patches Sasser type fear Wednesday, 12 October 2005, 07:46 AM Read more < Previous article| Comments So the bit on Amazon.co.uk

That says "Free 3G Wireless – No monthly payments, no annual contracts" is lying? Or if you’re prepared to be mugged and spend £15/month on a 3G data contract that you can get for £5 on a 1 month rolling basis (so an extra £240 over 24 months) then you get something extra?

posted by : Steve T, 15 March 2011 Complain about this comment I think the Amazon deal is different

I got a Kindle 3G from Amazon and they haven’t been charging me for data.

Since even PC World don’t charge for data on the Kindle 3G I wonder if this story is getting confused about Carphone Warehouse offering kindles as freebie with some 24 month contract phones and thinking the contract is for the 3G kindle ?

posted by : Matchstick, 15 March 2011 Complain about this comment What?

What is this nonsense? The 3G on the kindle 3 is free. There is no contract whatsoever!

posted by : moisty, 15 March 2011 Complain about this comment Can’t you guys read?

"the WiFi-only Kindle is free with selected handsets on a 24 month contract from £15 per month to both new and upgrading customers."

In other words: get a phone with contract, and get a free kindle.

My local bank is giving away kindles with a new account if you have minimum direct deposit, minimum opening balance, pay a montly fee, etc etc. Apparently the kindle is the new toaster.

posted by : mike, 16 March 2011 Complain about this comment I can read fine thank you…

And what I read before is not what you can read now. Someone has done a sneaky edit to hide their shoddy workmanship.

posted by : moisty, 16 March 2011 Complain about this comment Most read Most commented Most watched Kindle is available at Best Buy, Carphone Warehouse stores Opera boobs with user image Seagate extends its range of storage products Nvidia launches the GTX550 Ti BBC radiation warning text is a fake Apple slaps a 0 premium on its Ipad 2 32GB Apple’s Ipad 2 rivals will fail, says analyst firm Apple Ipad 2 sells a million over the weekend Android is outselling Iphones says Tesco Ubuntu 11.04 will be multi platform LG Optimus Pad tablet video demo

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Apple finally starts selling its shiny toys in white

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MOBILE OPERATOR Three has announced that it will offer Apple’s shiny new Ipad 2 on its network in the coming weeks.

Though Three is still in talks with Apple about the deal, Three told The INQUIRER that the shiny ipad 2 WiFi and 3G models will be available from it on or soon after the launch date, which is 25 March in the UK.

No details are available for the “dedicated data plans” but Three told The INQUIRER to expect something similar to its existing plans. So for an idea of what to expect, Three is currently offering the 16GB model of the first Ipad for a one off payment of £99 on a 24 month £20 per month contract allowing 15GB of Internet usage per month.

Rival companies and partners T-Mobile and Orange both announced earlier this month that they will offer the Ipad2 and Orange currently has advertisements on its online store for the Ipad 2, but again provided no details of availability or prices. Only time will reveal which will come out with a better deal, with still no visible efforts coming from Vodaphone or O2. µ

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Apple finally starts selling its shiny toys in white

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© Incisive Media Investments Limited 2011, Published by Incisive Financial Publishing Limited, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, are companies registered in England and Wales with company registration numbers 04252091 & 04252093

SEARCH : Site Credentials: About us Terms & Conditions Privacy policy About Incisive Media Sitemap Follow us: Youtube Twitter Facebook Linkedin Business & Technology websites: Technology Reseller Channel IT News Information Science Search Engines Online Marketing Trading Technology Technology for the Sell Side Buy Side Technology Find Chartered Accountants Business research resources: B2B Web Seminars Business Technology Video Whitepapers Products: Software Reviews Hardware Reviews Download Reviews Investment Market IT websites: Investment Technology Trader IT Financial IT Intelligence Find out what you are worth: IT Salary Calculator Salary Calculator Search for a job: IT Jobs IT Job Search Engine Computer Hardware Jobs Job Search Engine Recruitment Agency A-Z Directory: All | ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Accreditations: Digital Publisher of the Year 2010

When we looked at NVIDIA's 480M with its 100W TDP, we were curious how long it would take for notebook manufacturers to deal with the power requirements that two such GPUs would place on a laptop. Three months later and Clevo has now revamped their flagship desktop replacement to support 480M SLI with desktop Core i7 processors—including support for hex-core options up to the i7-980X! Make no mistake about it: this is a beast of a notebook designed for a certain clientele, with pricing higher than most are willing to pay. But if you want the fastest DTR system on the planet (at least for now), the X7200 is the new king of the hill.

When Fermi first launched on the desktop, we wondered how long it would take to trickle down to the lower end markets—and the mobile team also wondered if we'd ever see Fermi make it into notebooks. NVIDIA managed the latter with the GTX 480M, a lower clocked chip harvested from the full GF100. Now they're ready to launch the rest of their mobile lineup, with product schedule to start shipping later this month. Want to see what NVIDIA's brining to the table? We've got the official specs, though we do have to note that there are a few areas NVIDIA isn't discussing just yet. Regardless, we'll see plenty more Optimus Technology laptops and notebooks, and mobile GPUs may actually get the kick in the shorts we've been longing for!

Consider this one big step for SSD-kind: Intel just sent along a note letting us know that its X25-M and X25-V SSDs are now available at Best Buy. The drives appear to be priced competitively if you look at Best Buy's online listings. An 80GB X25-M G2 will set you back 0 + tax while Newegg sells the drive for 0. Only the 40GB and 80GB drives are available in stores, the rest are online only.

Best Buy's website has carried SSDs before but this is the first time Best Buy will carry an SSD on its store shelves. The drives should be available in 800 Best Buy stores across the nation. Given Western Digital's command of shelf space in Best Buy it's amazing that the SiliconEdge Blue SSDs haven't been given a similar treatment. Perhaps WD and Seagate are waiting for more competitive product before taking it direct to consumers like that.

If you get the impression that this might have something to do with Intel trying to take SSDs more mainstream, it does. With the switch over to 25nm NAND, Intel hopes to bring SSDs down to even more mainstream price points. Today you can get a 40GB X25-V for around 0. By early next year I'd expect that price to give you 80GB of storage instead.

It's not all about pricing though. Intel believes it will have the performance crown back again with its new 3rd generation SSD controller due out in Q4. I believe the days of one company dominating all SSD recommendations are over and we'll instead see a series of leapfrogging. Today SandForce is doing quite well and I'm working on the Crucial drives with updated firmware. By Q4 we'll get to hit a giant reset button with new offerings from Indilinx, Intel, SandForce and Toshiba among others.