Managing Your Desktop With Desktoptopia

I enjoy changing out my desktop on my computers periodically. I’ll usually set it to my favorite pictures or something that looks relaxing or interesting. When I want to take a break from all that manual labor, there’s Desktoptopia. It’s a desktop background manager that automatically loads and displays desktop images on your computer.

It definitely has an artistic flair, and it constantly rotates eye-catching pictures on my desktop without my having to think about changing them out all the time. The folks at Desktoptopia make this possible by working with multiple designers to offer the latest designs. While you’ll always find beautiful backgrounds there, you’ll still be able to see all the stuff on your desktop with Desktoptopia’s designs.


You can set how often your backgrounds rotate, from seconds to weeks. I have mine set to change every five minutes, and I find it refreshing to see something new at that interval. From your menubar you can instantly rate the desktop that’s up on your screen, from none to five stars. Additionally, Desktoptopia will automatically detect your resolution and give you the most appropriately-sized desktop so it looks its best on your display.


If you’re an upcoming artist looking to have your work noticed, Desktoptopia provides you an excellent opportunity. Whether it’s for fun or to be discovered, you’ll need to sign up to start uploading your own desktops. There are also backgrounds available for your iPhone. Unfortunately for you PC users, this is only available on the Mac platform (Mac OS X 10.1.1 or higher).

You can download Desktoptopia at www.desktop-topia.com. Try it for free for 10 days, but if you want it on your computer permanently it will cost you a one-time charge of $20 ($48 family three-pack or $140 for a 10-pack).

Using Air As A Mouse Pad

Last month my friends at Logitech came out with the most innovative mouse I’ve ever seen - the MX Air Rechargeable Cordless Air Mouse. The wizards at Logitech have removed the necessity of a desktop, flat surface or mouse pad that most of us are accustomed to.

MX Air uses a new technology called “Freespace motion control,” which is a patented system based on a combination of MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) sensors, DSP (digital signal processing) and RF (radio frequency). These combined traits allow you to hold the mouse in any orientation and point it in any direction while you enjoy intuitive cursor control.

Freespace provides you fast, accurate and consistent responses regardless of your mouse’s position relative to your computer. Whether you’re sitting directly in front of your computer or far away from it while you’re lounging on the couch, you can navigate through your computer while holding the mouse in midair. Or, flat back down on your desk, its polished black look gives you an eye-catching “regular” laser mouse to use for your everyday work and e-mails.


“The MX Air mouse offers a radically new way for people to control their PC entertainment,” says Rory Dooley, Logitech senior vice president and general manager of the Control Devices business unit. “It’s for anyone who has listened to music on their PC and been frustrated by having to return to the desk to change songs or volume. It’s for people who want to share vacation photos with friends and family without being tied to the desk. It’s for any of the millions of people using the Internet to browse and watch videos on sites such as YouTube or Grouper. And it’s for people with a living-room computer or media PC who want to navigate their media content on their terms.”

The MX Air uses 2.4 Ghz wireless, giving you a range of 30 feet. It has a builtin lithium-ion rechargeable battery, which you can recharge in its small recharging dock. Additionally, instead of scrolling through things with a typical scroll wheel, it has a touch-sensitive scroll panel. At first it threw me a little off because you hear it clicking as your finger swipes over it, and the clicking keeps going. But you become used to it as the mouse adjusts according to how fast your finger swipes across the surface.



Media functions such as Play/Pause, Volume/Mute, Back and Select are easily accessed by pushing the large, orange back-lit buttons with your thumb. With the MX Air, gesture-based commands are a whole new ball of wax - you hold the volume button down as you gesture to the right to increase it or to the left to decrease it. For music, a small circular motion to the right is the skip track command, or a circle to the left repeats the song. This really reminds me of how the Nintendo Wii’s controllers work.

The documentation says that the mouse is compatible with Windows XP and Vista, but it also works fine with my MacBook. Heck it even works with my PlayStation 3, and I can point it at my TV, click through the menus and surf the Internet. I adapted to the Freespace motion control right away, but I say give it at least a day to become fully used to it.

Logitech’s MX Air Mouse is a tad bit expensive with its $149.99 price tag, but keep in mind for what it can do, it’s worth every penny, especially if you’re on your computer often. You can’t find it at many places yet, but it is available at Amazon.com. To read up on it more, check out www.logitech.com.

Kicking Off Football Season With Madden 08

It’s that time of year again ... football season! In just a few days our beloved UH football team will kick off its season. You may remember that it kind of started already for me about a month ago when I began fiddling with Electronic Arts’ (EA) NCAA 08 Football. To add to the hype, the much-anticipated EA title Madden NFL 08 just hit the store shelves last week.

One of the coolest things you can do with this new Madden is build up your college player in NCAA 08, then turn him into a pro by importing him into Madden 08. As with NCAA, you can view ESPN’s real-life latest headlines streaming in at the bottom of the main menu page, and hear an ESPN announcer as well.

Other new features of the game include a new read and react system, a Front Office Mode, Your Ring of a Champion and Madden Unmatched. The all-new read and react system uses player skill icons that appear at the foot of a player to give you a quick look at what they’re capable of. These icons appear on both your team’s and the opposing team’s players, making it easier for you to quickly react and use your strengths and exploit the other team’s weaknesses.

The icons are easy to see and extremely easy to follow. Some examples: Shoe with wings for speed - these players are the fastest in the league; hands for a weapon counter - these players are great pass rushers; or two hands with a football in the middle for the possession receiver - these guys are good at catching in traffic and rarely drop the ball.


The Front Office Mode gives you the power to take control of every aspect of an NFL franchise. You build your own stadium, set the concession prices, hire a coaching staff, draft players and just manage the operation from the top down. For Your Ring of a Champion, you can increase your Madden Gamer Level to help create and customize your own in-game championship ring. The Madden Unmatched feature gives you all-new player moves, including auto-motion, backward passes and low-hitting tackles.You can control receivers and make perfect catches or key possession receptions, or roam the secondary and strip your opposing team of the ball with a tackle.

Another interesting aspect of the game is the Superstar mode. It’s not new from previous Maddens, but it was the first time I tried it. You select a rookie from the 2007 draft class and take him through his first training camp and throughout a season, then hopefully to his first Super Bowl victory. It can be a bit frustrating since you only have control over that one player and not the entire team. You’ll see him lose many games, and you can’t pick the team he’ll be on since he is drafted.

As you play, the commentary is pretty good, but I noticed the yardage from your plays is sometimes off. As with previous Madden games, you can do the “Ask Madden"for a suggestion, and you’ll hear John Madden’s real voice give you the answers. Some of the phrases said back to you seem recycled from previous games, and occasionally his answers are incorrect to what you’re asking.

I tested this on the PlayStation 3 (PS3), but some of the buzzings I heard say that Madden 08 runs faster on the Xbox 360 than the PS3. That’s a minor issue, and I didn’t notice any “slowness” in the PS3’s gameplay. Overall, I thought the game has excellent graphics, and the new icons/weapons feature is a nice addition. This is definitely the most complete Madden to come out so far on any platform.

Madden 08 is rated E For Everyone and available for the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2/3, PlayStation Portable (PSP) and Xbox/Xbox 360. To purchase, visit your nearest Best Buy (www.bestbuy.com), CompUSA (www.compusa.com), or GameStop (www.gamestop.com). Prices range from $39.99 to $59.99. For more information on the game itself, visit www.easports.com.

Banking With Your Cell Phone

I remember the old days at the bank when you had to stand in line just to deposit your paycheck or make a withdrawal. I’m talking about before ATM machines were around or the capability to do direct deposits. Back then I was happy when phone banking was invented. What an innovation that was. You could check your account balance without the long line! Following that, just a few years ago, it seems, online banking came into play. Personally, that significantly changed my banking habits.

With all that in mind, last week Bank of Hawaii announced Hawaii’s first wireless mobile banking service, e-Bankoh Mobile. What makes this different from regular Internet banking on your computer is that this is optimized to use directly on your phone.

Al Landon, Bank of Hawaii chairman and chief executive officer, said, “As a leader in banking technology, we’re dedicated to bringing the best in convenience and service to our customers. Bank of Hawaii was the first to offer online banking in Hawaii, and now we’re pleased to be the first in the state to introduce mobile banking for our customers.”


With the online banking feature, e-Bankoh Mobile allows you to see account summaries, account transaction history, make transfers, pay bills and view/cancel bill payments. As a concerned consumer, I know this service fully incorporates the use security protocols and encryption. A secure Sign On process ensures no unauthorized access to your account, and a built-in session time-out after five minutes provides additional security.

Logging in with your phone gives you online access to the mobile-enhanced Bank of Hawaii website. It allows you to easily view branch and ATM locations, interest rates and services. You can also request “on-demand” bank text messages for account balances and your three most recent transactions. You don’t actually need an Internet-enabled device for this.

Bank of Hawaii’s new service is possible because of its partnership with MShift Inc., a provider of mobile banking solutions. MShift chief executive officer Awele Ndili, Ph.D., stated, “We are proud to partner with

Bank of Hawaii, and thrilled to be the first to deploy in Hawaii. Bank of Hawaii demonstrates its innovation and leadership in deploying this state-of-art mobile banking service to its customers,” he added.

You can use e-Bankoh Mobile with your iPhone, Blackberry, Palm or Pocket-PC PDA. For more information, check out www.boh.com/mobile. If you’re a Bank of Hawaii customer, take advantage of the free eBankoh Mobile service from your mobile device directly at mobile.boh.com.

Motorola's New RAZR2 Is On The Way

Now that the hype of Apple’s iPhone is kind of dying down, Motorola just threw its highly anticipated RAZR2 into the mobile phone world mix. Three phones are included in this family -the V8, V9 and V9m. Each is designed to work specifically with its designated network.

All three feature a 2.2-inch external touch-screen and a 2.0-inch internal display big enough for full HTML web browsing. The external screen enables you to view media, music and messaging without flipping your phone open. The phone’s Bluetooth 1.2 capability allows you to listen to your music wirelessly (with a Bluetooth headset), and the CrystalTalk feature innovatively adjusts the audio to help ensure you have clear calls even in a noisy environment. Your caller ID will put a face to your callers, and as your phone is ringing, it can tell you who is calling. It can also read your text messages to you or your menu items out loud - perfect if you’re multi-tasking or driving (um, not that you should be using your phone while you’re driving).

“The Motorola RAZR2 delivers the sharpest mobile experiences available - and customers of every national carrier in the U.S. can now own one,” said Stu Reed, executive vice president, Motorola Inc. and president, Mobile Devices Business. “With smart features available such as blazing-fast 3G wireless broadband, and modern style that’s slimmer and stronger than the original, the Motorola RAZR2 is the ultimate iconic feature phone.”

Here’s a look at the three new Vs:


* V8: This is the GSM version and will work with T-Mobile. It has 2GB of built-in memory, and the integrated camera gives you a resolution of 2.0 megapixels with a 8x zoom, and MPEG4 video capture and playback. The browser gives you full HTML capability, and you can sync your e-mail, phonebook and calendar over the air with MotoSync. You’ll receive about 500 minutes of talk time or 280 hours standby time.

* V9: You’ll find this with AT&T since it’s the 3G HSDPA (3rd Generation High-Speed Downlink Packet Access), giving you 3.6 Mbps wireless broadband connection. As with the V8, it has the same-sized internal and external screens, along with the same camera capability. It comes with 2GB of built-in memory with an optional microSD card to expand it an additional 2GB.


* V9m: This the CDMA version, usable on the Sprint and Verizon networks. As with the V9, you can have up to 2GB additional storage space with a microSD card, and the same 2.0 megapixel camera, but with only a 4x digital zoom. The video capability supports MPEG4, H.263 and H.264.

These phones may not be iPhones, but they’re very thin and compact with some touch-screen capability. Not bad for a little guy. It seems the average price for one of these RAZR2s will be between $250 and $300, depending on the wireless provider. These have not officially hit the market yet, but check with your carrier within the next couple of weeks for availability.

In the meantime, visit www.motorola.com/2 for more information on the phones and enter to win a 300 MOTOROKR S9 Bluetooth headset to listen to all your favorite tunes on your future RAZR2.

The Latest Releases From Apple

Many of you have been asking me about when Apple is going to release a new iPod. I don’t know, but I can tell you that Apple just unveiled a bunch of new things - a new iMac, iLife ‘08, iWork ‘08 and the enhanced .Mac service.

The new all-in-one iMacs feature nice, big 20- and 24-inch widescreen displays. The entire line has the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors and a nice-looking, ultra-thin aluminum enclosure and keyboard. As with the previous iMac, it comes with a built-in iSight video camera to conveniently do video conferencing. Prices start at $1,199 for the 20-inch ($300 less than the previous model) and $1,799 for the 24-inch model ($200 less than the previous).


“This new iMac is the most incredible desktop computer we’ve ever made,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “Our new design features the innovative use of materials, including professional-grade aluminum and glass that are highly recyclable.”

Personally, I’m impressed with how much power these thin little guys pack. The base hard drives are 250GB and upgradeable up to one whole TERABYTE on the 24-inch iMac. Can you imagine the things you can do with a terabyte?! The processors start at 2.0 GHz and are customizable to 2.8 GHz with the 24-inch. All iMacs feature ATI’s next generation of graphics with either the Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB of GDDR3 memory, or the ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB of GDDR3 memory.

All new iMacs come with iLife 08, the most significant upgrade to an iLife pack. It features a new version of iPhoto, a reinvented iMovie, iWeb ‘08, .Mac Web Gallery for .Mac users and GarageBand ‘08. Of all these, iMovie definitely gives you the biggest change with its increased ease of use. Instead of making a movie in hours it will take you minutes. You can import video from the latest AVCHD, HDV and DV camcorders, as well as digital cameras, and display your entire video library whether it’s stored on your internal or external drive. Easily add-in sound-tracks from iTunes, and click, click, click ... enjoy your homemade movies on your iPod, iPhone, AppleTV or an easy upload to YouTube.



Other than the new iMovie, I’ll probably make good use of iWeb too. I’m looking forward to seeing the new templates, and checking out how adding-in Internet video is. You can do that to any webpage now of course, but iWeb puts it all in an easy package for the more technically-challenged folks. If you don’t happen to buy yourself a new Mac anytime soon, iLife ‘08 will cost you $79.

For you .Mac subscribers, our storage space just went from 1GB to 10GB, or 2GB to 20GB for the family pack customers. The prices will remain the same at $99 for an individual year-long subscription, or $179.95 for the family pack. Using iPhoto you can create an easy .Mac Web Galleries to share your photos, and have your family/friends contribute photos too. The .Mac Web Gallery is designed to work seam-lessly with the iPhone - just snap a picture and upload it to your .Mac Web Gallery right from your iPhone.

The last in Apple’s announcements is iWork ‘08. This is Apple’s productivity software that features new versions of Pages, Keynote and Numbers. Pages is a word processor, Numbers is a spreadsheet maker, and Keynote is for presentations. I honestly have not used Pages or Numbers for anything before, but Keynote is nice. To me Keynote ‘08 is the absolute best alternative over Microsoft PowerPoint.

One of my pet peeves is ugly PowerPoint presentations, especially those with horrificly cheesy clip art graphics dancing all over the screen - oh my gosh! Anyway, if you can use Keynote ‘08, you’re better off impressing your audience with this $79 software. Note that you can import any Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint file into iWork ‘08, and I’m sad this won’t work on a PC for my other job.

For more information on these products, or to make a purchase, visit your nearest Apple Store or log onto www.apple.com.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

If you are a huge fan of games made by Blizzard-the Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo franchises-you may have already heard about the second BlizzCon gaming festival that took place last week in California. About 8,000 people attended this second-time event,and it’s especially famous in World of Warcraft (WoW) circles. This time around, the biggest announcement was World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, WoW’s second expansion.

“This expansion will add some of the most infamous characters and settings from the Warcraft universe to World of Warcraft,” said Mike Morhaime,president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “In addition to new story content, Wrath of the Lich King will introduce a number of features specifically requested by players over the past couple of years.We’re looking forward to sharing further details with everyone as development progresses.”

Building on the foundation WoW and The Burning Crusade expansion, this second expansion will include a few different new features,the biggest probably being the Death Knight Hero Class. This is the game’s first hero class, likely fulfilling a demand. The Death Knight will start tentatively at a high 60 or 70 level so you don’t have to play your way back up the chain again.

The continent of Northrend will be opened up. It was last visited in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, when Arthas Menethil fused with the spirit of Nerzhul to become the Lich King, one of the most powerful beings in the Warcraft universe. He will now brood atop the Frozen Throne deep in Icecrown Citadel, clutching the rune blade Frostmourne and marshaling the undead armies of the Scourge. In Wrath of the Lich King, the forces of the Alliance and the Horde will venture into battle against the Scourge amid Northrend’s howling winds and fields of jagged ice.

Additional features include new level cap to be set at 80, instead of the current level 70. This will allow your characters to gain potent new talents and additional abilities.Adding to that, the new Inscription profession will let you customize individual spells and abilities in your spell book permanently.

You can take your battles to another level with the new player-vs.-player (PVP) mechanics and battlefields to wage your wars on. Taking advantage of this with the siege weapons and destructible buildings; there will be at least 10 new zones to give you this capability. And, last but not least, with the new character customization you can change how your characters look and express themselves with different hair-styles and dance animations.

What is just amazing, though, is that since its launch in November 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) with more than 9 million subscribers/players. The game’s first expansion,The Burning Crusade, broke PC game sales records by selling nearly 2.4 million in the first 24 hours, and 3.5 million in the first month. With WoW’s popularity, the Lich King expansion is sure to be all the rage.

A launch date and price are yet to be announced for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, but it will be available for both Mac and PC platforms. Keep checking www.worldofwarcraft.com for more information and progress updates.

Combining All Your Phone Numbers

Sometimes I feel I could almost write a book with how many phone numbers I have to give out when filling out applications, etc. Wouldn’t life be much simpler with just one phone number? That is possible with Google’s latest acquisition, GrandCentral.

It has actually been around since late last year, but Google just bought GrandCentral last month, shortly after it was awarded one of the “Webware 100” awards for Communications by CNET Webware.

GrandCentral is an innovative service that integrates all of your existing phone numbers and voicemail boxes into one account that you can access from the web. Most you probably have at least two phone numbers (home/cell and work), perhaps more. Mainly this service gives you one phone number that you can set to ring all, some or none of your phones, based on who is calling. This way your phone number is tied to you and not your location. You can even switch a call from your cell phone to your desk phone and back again. You’ll have one central voice mailbox so you can listen to your messages online or from any phone, and forward them to anybody.


There are too many other features to list, but here are a few highlights:

Call Screening: This is an especially a big concern for me and receiving tele-marketing calls.

Use this to totally block them or other people you don’t want to talk to. You can even submit the number into a phone spam filter to completely block out the number as you would an e-mail. Also use the ListenIn feature to listen to a voicemail as it’s being recorded, and push the * key if you want to pick up the call during the message.

Greetings: Have different greetings for individuals or certain groups of people (i.e. friends, work, family, etc.). That way you can have a more professional sounding message for work and a laid back one for your friends/family.

Call Record: This lets you save all or parts of a call. Useful for phone my interviews and saving those classic moments between your friends on audio (with proper consent of course).

WebCall Button: Allow strangers to call you from your website/blog, such as e-Bay, while keeping your number private. This provides you an option to meet potential new people, for business or personal, without actually giving out your number.

Notifications: Choose to receive an e-mail or SMS message, or both, to be notified of a new voicemail message in your box.

For us in Hawaii, unfortunately no 808-numbers are available yet, but if you don’t mind having a mainland area code for the moment, this is an excellent service to take advantage of.

Check out grandcentral.com to sign up for a number. At the moment it’s a private beta service, as things are being moved to Google’s network, but you’ll be notified as soon as it’s publicly available. Additionally, current GrandCentral customers fortunately have had no break in service.

Back-To-School Discounts

Summer is quickly coming to an end. Most schools have gone back in to session, and that means congested roads and spending money on school supplies - not only pencils, pens and paper, but computers and software too. These days computers are a vital part of your keiki’s education. Some of you may not know it, but you can often receive discounts that will save you some money.

I’ve seen some people try to redeem an education discount just because they’re college-age-looking, but failed because they did not have a student ID. Usually age does not matter, but keep in mind that you need to provide proof of eligibility - your student ID card or possibly your enrollment papers and report card.

If you’re a college student, you should start at the campus bookstore. I do know for a fact that the UH Bookstore offers fairly decent discounts on computers.

Otherwise, here are a few companies that will offer you an academic discount:

* Apple (www.apple.com): Special for college students - buy a Mac before Sept. 16 and receive a free iPod nano via mail-in rebate.

* Dell (www.dell.com)

* Sony (www.sonystyle.com/campus)

* HP (www.hp.com)

* Adobe (www.adobe.com/education/purchasing)

* Microsoft (www.microsoft.com/education/studentselect.mspx)

* Various Discounts - Campus Tech (www.campustech.com)

All the companies mentioned above have multiple options whether you’re a student, faculty member or a part of a school’s administration staff. The discounts vary greatly depending on what you’re buying.

Addicted To E-mail

With the iPhone hype still fresh in my mind, I came across the results of an interesting survey recently conducted by AOL. It stated that the majority of us Americans admit to checking our e-mail wherever we are, whether it’s lying in bed falling asleep or at church. I know that’s true for me. As long as my phone is with me I’m constantly checking e-mail. Since I usually receive a minimum of 200 e-mails a day, it’s very efficient for me to check with my phone during my down time, such as when I’m at the gym or on my boat ferry commuting to and from work. Plus, I’m a multitasker, so I’ll habitually try to do at least two things at once. The data was collected from 20 U.S. cities, and the participants were 13 years or older. From this it was determined that the average e-mail user checks his/her e-mail at least five times a day, and 59 percent of portable device users check every time a new message arrives. Of all the cities that were surveyed, Washington, D.C., is the most e-mail addicted, where almost 82 percent of the residents have multiple e-mail accounts.

So, if you think you’re an e-mail addict, you’re not alone. It’s apparently very normal. As for myself, between my workplaces and home I have eight e-mail accounts! That’s probably more than the average person, but it sure keeps me busy.

Sony's New PSP

If you’re an avid gamer, you may have heard that the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was held a couple weeks ago. Its format was changed dramatically this year to a more exclusive business-oriented environment. This is the first year I did not attend because of that, and actually, some say it will be the death of E3. I tend to agree, based on reports from attendees.

But despite that, there were a few decent highlights. One of them is Sony Computer Entertainment’s (SCEA) new slim-mer, lighter PlayStation Portable (PSP) to hit store shelves soon.

The new PSP is a sleeker, streamlined version of the original PSP I know and love. It’s 33 percent lighter and 19 percent slimmer than the current version, and weighs less than half a pound and is about 3/4-inch thick. The PSPwill have a more efficient battery, much slimmer, yet still gives you the usual five hours of power. You can still use your old PSP battery to double your usage time, but you won’t be able to cover it with the battery cover. Sony will eventually offer a high-capacity power kit that will come with its own PSP cover to cover your old, larger battery. Before your batteries completely drain, you can now conveniently recharge via the USB connector.

The built-in system memory has doubled from 32MB to 64MB, and your game load times will likely increase with the UMD data being stored in the temporary memory. The 4.3-inch display is the same as before, but now you have the added ability to output your game-play, movies or photos to your TV! That can make things interesting.

The standard newly designed PSP will come in a “Piano Black” color, and there also are two limited editions. First is the Daxter PSP Entertainment Pack, featuring a PSP in “Ice Silver” along with the award-winning game, Daxter, “Family Guy - The Freakin’ Sweet Collection” on UMD, and a 1GB Memory Stick PRO Duo. Secondly, the Star Wars Battlefront PSP Entertainment Pack has a “Ceramic White” PSP with a silk-screened image of Darth Vader on the back of the unit. It includes Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, the next chapter of the best-selling Star Wars Battlefront series from LucasArts.

We are very pleased to be taking part in the global roll out of the newly designed PSP, while providing something unique for users in North America,” said Jack Tretton, President and CEO, SCEA. “In response to consumer interest, we’re offering additional colors as part of this enhanced design to match users’ personal styles and interests. The Star Wars Battlefront bundle in particular is a great opportunity for consumers to get on board with a collector’s edition ‘Ceramic White’ PSP. Also, the new video-out port, which gives consumers the option to enjoy PSP content on the big screen, brings a whole new dimension to the PSPexperience.”

Something interesting to think about is since the initial PSP launch in 2005, there have been a total of 250 games and 450 feature films, TV programs and videos from major studios released for it. On top of that, SCEA plans to make more than 140 PSP software titles available this fiscal year, including the E3 award-winning God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PSP. Other key featured titles include Jeanne D’Arc, NBA’08, Parappa the Rapper, Pursuit Force, Extreme Justice, SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Tactical Strike and Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow.

I’m not sure how good this new PSP really is, but you’ll be able to find it soon on the market. The PSP Core Pack will be $169.99 and the Daxter PSPEntertainment Pack $199.99, both available in September, and the Star Wars Battlefront Entertainment Pack will hit the shelves Oct. 9 for $199.99. Check out www.us.playstation.com.