Speaking at the Xbox Summit 2005 in Japan, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates revealed plans for the Xbox 360, the new Microsoft gaming console to include HD-DVD drives.

Considering that such a decision would postpone the launching date, initial Xbox 360 models will ship with standard DVD drives, once HD-DVD systems are go, the Xbox will incorporate them reports Softpedia.

Xbox 360 incorporating HD-DVD is nice push for its creator Toshiba in battle for next generation DVD. Sony's Play Station 3 will incorporate the Blu-Ray standard.

Gates also said that the Microsoft-Toshiba alliance is not a unilateral partnership and that many of the equipments manufactured by the Japanese company, such as the Tablet PCs will be based on Longhorn, Microsoft's future operating system.

Computer hackers angered by Cisco's attempts to hide news of a flaw that could allow an attacker to take control of the Cisco Systems routers that direct traffic across much of the Internet are working hard to discover and map out the vulnerability reports Reuters.

The hackers apparently have no intention of hijacking e-commerce payments, reading private e-mail, or launching any of the other malicious attacks that could be possible by exploiting the flaw. They want to illustrate the need for Cisco customers to update their software to defend against such possibilities. Many Cisco customers have postponed the difficult process because it could require them to unplug entirely from the Internet.

Cisco's routers direct traffic across at least 60 percent of the Internet.

Security researcher Michael Lynn first described the flaw on Wednesday at the Black Hat conference over the objections of Cisco and his former employer, Internet Security Systems Inc.

According to retail sources speaking to Spong.com Sony is planning to cut the price of the skinny PlayStation 2 to 60 Euro, in an effort to undermine the launch of the Microsoft Xbox 360.

The price reduction will probably be worldwide, with the console priced at $100 in the US Nintendo may also cut the price cut of the GameCube in an effort to take some buzz of the Microsoft Xbox 360

"You can expect significant reductions in the price of everything this Christmas, but most noticeable will be the PlayStation 2," our well-placed source told SPOnG. "We've been briefed to expect a price as low as 60 Euro beginning at the start of December. Sony's probably looking at a global price cut - around $100 in the States and a serious Platinum range announcement too."

At this weeks Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation Meeting in Tokyo, company president Ken Kutaragi said the PlayStation 3 will not be a cheap console, even going so far as to say that "...the PS3 can't be offered at a price that's targeted towards households."

ummm that is outrageous. What Ken considers a household remains a mystery.

Answers says " A domestic unit consisting of the members of a family who live together along with nonrelatives such as servants."

So there you have it people, time to get a second job, funny thing is , I want it more now.

In other news Sony is planning a lifecycle of ten years for the PS3, Sony hopes to maintain this long life-cycle by investing now in those expensive pieces of kit, saying "We're looking at a life cycle of 10 years with the PlayStation 3. We're currently shifting from standard TVs to HDTVs.

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An image purporting to be from Espanol Xbox 360 presentation is making the rounds. As shown on the shot above, the Xbox 360 controller has a QWERTY keypad. The keypad would be attached to controller so you could send text messages or chat during the game
.via Engadget

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is betting on the Xbox 360's early lead to propel Microsoft's next generation console into super-stardom. At a meeting with money folk on Thursday Gates said

"Our view is basically we've got a Ferrari, they've got a Ferrari,"

"Our Ferrari is leaving the starting line substantially before their Ferrari is, and in most races that's a very nice thing."

That's way deep

Microsoft's Xbox 360 is due to go on sale this holiday season in the United States, Europe and Japan. Sony's PlayStation 3 is slated to arrive next spring.

via CNET

Vodafone Japan has announced two new stylish handset to match the summer heat, the 3G Sharp 703SH , a 1.3 megapixel cameraphone with a QVGA, 320 x 240 pixel LCD screen and Bluetooth ; and the Sharp 903SH, a 3.2 megapixel cameraphone with a 2x optical zoom lens, autofocus, 3D Surround Stereo Side Speakers, and swiveling 2.4-inch LCD screen.

via Engadget

Vodafone K.K. will introduce the V302SH by Sharp to UK customers in early September. "The special V302SH Ferrari Edition model customized with the Ferrari logo is a compact and stylish handset . The handset is both simple and sophisticated, with features like Mobile ASV LCD for wide-angle viewing, Simple Mode for easy operation by beginners and the elderly, and customization options to change menu screens and icons to one's preference."

via gizmonews

PlayStation 3 or PS3 Tech Specs

CPU

Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

Fujitsu's FR-V, is a new VoIP telephone focused on video conferencing. It features a FR461 (400Mhz) CPU, 128Mb of RAM and 64Mb of ROM, WiFi b, a CF and SD port, Mpeg 4 video compression and a Linux OS based on the Red Hat Linux 2.4 kernel. via

Impress Watch is reporting that AAC files created with iTunes can be played on the PSP. PSP VAULT give a how to.

You'll need to change the extension of the AAC files to .MP4. After that the files can be played without any issues. Though the track names are recognized by the PSP, the album and artist names are not.

Sony recently released Fireware 2.0 for the Sony PSP in Japan, excited by all the new features, including a real browser, North American users started to install the fireware. Sony is asking those first adopters to stop. WHY? umm , it is anyone's guess

This update is only for customers who obtained PSP (PlayStationPortable) for Japan which model number is PSP-1000 or PSP-1000 K. Upon completion of preparing, we will announce update information for the other countries/areas customers via SCE Group Web Site or other channels . For theses customers who obtained PSP in the other countries/areas, please DO NOT update PSP through this web site.

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According to davesipaq if you have Sony PlayStation Portable and a Wifi connection you could totally download Podcasts to your PSP. cool

Apple's Mac Mini now comes with 512MB of memory with prices starting at $499. The $599 version adds built-in wireless networking via Apple's Airport Extreme and Bluetooth modules, and for $699 you can add DVD burning capabilities with a SuperDrive reports Mobile Mag

Mac Minis are now pre-installed with Mac OS X verion 10.4 Tiger which

includes desktop search technology called "Spotlight". Spotlight lets users instantly search anything stored on the hard drive including documents, emails, contacts and images.

Fujifilm has announced the FinePix S9000, E900 and S5200 cameras featuring Fujifilm's Real Photo Technology reports Mobile Mag.

The Fujifilm FinePix S9000 features a 9.0 megapixel Super CCD HR sensor, a 10.7x optical zoom lens capable of 28-300mm wide-angle equivalency with an f2.8 to f11 aperture and a large tilting LCD screen for shooting from various angles.

The Fujifilm FinePix E900 features a 9.0 megapixel sensor, 4x optical zoom, two-inch LCD screen .

The Fujifilm FinePix S5200 features 5.0 megapixel sensor in an SLR-like body. 10x Optical zoom , manual shooting mode, continuous shooting, continuous auto-focus, shutter priority AE and aperture priority AE.

Availability for the FinePix S9000 is expected this September for US $700. The E900 and S5200 will be available later in October at US $500 and US $400 respectively.

Canon USA has announced two new MiniDV models, the Optura 600 and Optura S1.

The Optura S1 features a 1/3.9-in. 2.2 megapixel CCD and a 10x optical zoom with a 2.5" LCD screen. Canon is including their RGB primary color filter and their DIGIC DV image processor in the S1. The Optura S1 can takes stills at a resolution of 1632 x 1224 pixels.

Optura 600 features a 1/2.8-in. 4.3 megapixel CCD. Stills can be recorded at a resolution of 2304 x 1728 pixels. The Optura S1 will be available in mid-September for $799. The Optura 600 will be available in September as well for $1,099.

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Repliee Q1, the realistic 'female' android has been making the press rounds, thanks to a recent BBC article, Repliee Q1 is becoming a huge star.

She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner.

She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe.

Vuegear is offering a laptop travel harness to suspend your laptop between the two front seats so you could umm entertain passengers in the rear seat. Cute idea, but knowing my friends I would need to explain why I didn't just get a LCD panel that fits into car seat.

The CradleVue laptop computer travel harness installs in about one minute and is fully adjustable to accommodate nearly any size or make of notebook computer in sport utility vehicles (SUVs), mini vans, cars, and trucks with integrated or adjustable headrests. The product is made of nylon webbing, tent-quality bungee-like shock cord, hook and loop fastening, and is sewn to rigid quality standards.Laptop harness holds any laptop in perfect position to entertain passengers in the rear seat

Allergic to fruits, vegetables and all forms of exercise, Furgles feast solely on CDs and DVDs. This whimsical Belly Case line features three goofy and gullible monsters that store 24 discs inside their bellies.

via Shiny

Earlier today Creative's new portable media player, the Zen Vision, appeared on the Creative Site. The Creative Zen Vision will feature a 3.7-inch screen with a resolution of 640x480 pixels and 262k colors and a 30GB hard drive.

Other features include ablity to play Video (Video codecs will include; AVI, MPEG 1/2/4-SP, WMV, DivX 4 and 5, XviD, and motion JPEG) and Audio files (OOG; MP3, WMA, and WMA w/ digital rights management support) with the extra added ability to view your digital photos and Compact Flash card slot (I & II).

The Zen Vision measures 124.2 x 74.4 x 20.1mm. Battery life 4.5 hours in video mode and 13 hours audio

Via DAP

Australia's Government Office of Film and Literature Classification has banned Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in the wake of the "Hot Coffee" scandal reports GameSpot.

At the Xbox Summit 2005, Microsoft showed off its first mock-up of the Xbox 360's retail packaging: a simple white and green box that matched the console's color scheme reports Game Spot

According to the Xbox 360 packaging, Microsoft will ship a hard drive, wireless controller, Xbox Live, headset, and Ethernet cable with the Xbox 360

Sharp Corporation, Japan has announced the "Auvi SD-MX1," a new DVD/CD/MD component system that features a 5.6MHz 1-bit digital amplifier.

The component system consists of a main unit that contains DVD/CD, MD, and an FM/AM tuner, as well as 2ch front speakers, and a subwoofer with a 2.1ch 1-bit amplifier. The amplifier uses a 1-bit digital amp that operates at a frequency of 5.6MHz, with a maximum output of 25W x 2ch for the front speakers, and 50W for the subwoofer.

Release set for August 26th. Estimates suggest it should cost around 65,000 yen.

via Tech Japan

The PSP firmware v2.0 update has been released. Currently it's only available on the Japanese PSP site.

The FineDrive F400 is a new car GPS system that displays 3D cards, but also has an SD slot, 320Mb of internal memory, a 4" color screen, MP3 player functions and can receive video from any kind of source. via

VITZE (Korea), has announced the LV-40V5MP, a new hybrid TV model that couples normal TV and IPTV. This LCD TV is available in 40 and 46", it has a WXGA resolution and is HDMI, PIP/ POP/ DW (simultaneous display of two channels) compatible, a Photo Album function stores 13000 photos in its memory and a incorporated an Internet browser

via

Mobility has announced three new devices: the Motorola A910, A728 and A732.

Motorola A910
The Motorola A910 device delivers the freedom of WiFi connectivity plus a flexible Linux software platform for top technology performance.

A rich, intuitive feature set is packed into the Motorola A910 clam-shell design including:

* UMA technology allowing seamless access to GSM and GPRS features over WLAN
* MotoSync connection capabilities for a home or office desktop experience on-the-go
* Integrated Bluetooth wireless technology for hands-free communication around the office and on the road; compatible with Motorola's world-class Bluetooth-enabled accessories, including the new RAZRWIRE eyewear

Motorola A728
The Motorola A728 Linux-based handset offers a multitude of communication features and mobile office necessities including intelligent handwriting, PIM and email capability**, SyncML support, speech recognition dialing, hands-free connections, "Power Word" dictionary and Yahoo! Messenger.

Motorola A732
Enabled with intuitive finger-writing recognition, the Motorola A732 simplifies communications. Use your finger to write characters (Chinese and Roman) on the sliding keypad and send what you wrote as a text message!* This intelligent device also utilizes a predictive text engine to learn each user's writing style and supports basic gesture commands for editing and switching between languages – all in a stylish slider form-factor.

via

RoboCup is an international research and education initiative. Its goal is to foster artificial intelligence and robotics research by providing a standard problem where a wide range of technologies can be examined and integrated. Thats all great but the really cool thing about Robocup is watching Robots play Soccer.

Seen at Gizmodo

According to Nintendo of Japan, the Game Boy Micro will launch on September 13th. Games available on launch will include Mario Tennis Advance, Dr. Mario, Panel De Pon, and the 20th Anniversary Edition of Super Mario Bros. About a dozen different faceplates will be available from the launch of the unit, including white. via

Napster Inc. and XM Satellite Radio said late on Tuesday they would launch an online service that enables XM's 4.4 million subscribers to buy music they hear on the paid XM radio service.

The two plan to jointly launch "XM + Napster," in the fourth quarter of 2005 in conjunction with the availability of new XM/MP3 players that let users bookmark songs they hear while listening to the radio for future purchases online reports Yahoo News

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Korea has formed a strategic alliance with XM Satellite Radio to develop MP3 players that will also work as satellite radios reports Yahoo News.

Samsung will begin selling by year-end two miniature flash memory players which will come with a kit allowing them to receive XM satellite radio stations.

The folks at Engadget spent some time with the new Motorola Q smartphone, set for launch in Q1 2006. The highly stylized smartphone measures 4.6 x 2.5 x 0.45 inches , features include a 240 x 320 widescreen display, full QWERTY keyboard, D-Pad , keys required for Smartphone navigation, a thumbwheel to ease one-handed operation and EL backlighting like the RAZR, a 1.3 MP camera and LED flash, Mini SD slot and Bluetooth. The Q will run Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone version.

Sony President Ken Kutaragi believes the PlayStation 3 price tag (rumored between $399- $469 ranges will be justified when the next generation console is released

"We're looking at a life cycle of 10 years with the PlayStation 3," Sony president Ken Kutaragi said. "We're currently shifting from standard TVs to HD TVs.

"But in the next couple of years, most flat-panel TVs will be full HD.

"We're releasing the PS3 with full HD features from the start so that consumers won't have to buy another version of the console in the future.

"For the same reason, we're using Blu-ray as the PS3's disc format."

At the Xbox Summit 2005 event in Japan, Software Giant Microsoft gave a first look at the additional accessories which Microsoft will be shipping alongside Xbox 360 - including wired joypads, memory units, and additional hard drives.

Accessories such as additional wireless controllers, additional headsets, faceplates for the unit and a selection of audio-visual cables (including a VGA cable for high definition PC monitors) will be made available.

Microsoft will offer additional hard drives, a USB wireless adapter, and wired controllers for the console.

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In an interview with GameSpy, Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto talked about the evolution of videogame controllers and his desire for the Nintendo Revolution Controller to be simple

"The idea that somebody might look at the Revolution controller and think, 'Oh, this is too much for me' is something that I would really regret. That is something I would love to avoid if I can," says Miyamoto.

"What we really want to do is create something that's not frightening to the user that is usable for a Zelda-type game. We're going to have to figure out a way to marry both those ideas."

Sony Electronics has announced the 32" KLV-S32A10 and the 26" KLV-S26A10 flat panel LCD HDTVs. The KLV-S32A10 and KLV-S26A10 models round out Sony's "S" series. Features include a panel resolution of 1366 x 768, one-chip video processor, Sony's Dynamic Picture processor circuitry, CineMotion Reverse 3:2 Pulldown technology to insure a bright, crisp, high contrast image, a digital amplifier, along with SRS WOW and the SRS TruSurround audio effect, which deliver high quality sound through two 10-watt speakers.

The new models also feature Sony's WEGA GATE graphic user interface for easy menu operation.

The new KLV-S32A10 and KLV-S26A10 HDTVs are available now for about $2,000 and $1,500, respectively. via

Motorola has officially announced the Q smartphone, the long rumored RAZRberry. The Q smartphone measures ; 4.6 x 2.5 x 0.45 inches , features a 240 x 320 widescreen display, full QWERTY keyboard, D-Pad , keys required for Smartphone navigation as well as a thumbwheel to ease one-handed operation and EL backlighting like the RAZR. The Q will be one of the first Windows Mobile 5.0 devices, and will be running the Smartphone version. Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone features Windows Media Player 10, advanced synchronization with Exchange, photo caller ID and speaker independent voice recognition.

The Q also has a 1.3 MP camera and LED flash, Mini SD slot and Bluetooth. It is expected in Q1 of 2006.

Engadget - PhoneScoop

PR: The new Q from Motorola. Smart, powerful, and devastatingly good-looking, the Moto Q is the ultimate power player. The world's thinnest, lightest QWERTY phone is a seamless fusion of QWERTY and phone - delivering a fully-loaded package of email, voice, and entertainment in one amazingly rich but thin device. Like its cousin the RAZR, the Q's superior voice quality makes it a stand out from the competition.

Engadget is Blogging Live from the Motonow event. The iTunes phone is expected to be unveiled tonight. So far the guys snapped this picture of what could be the iTunes phone, the image is a little dark but it looks nice so far.

Update: It's the Motorola ROKR family and CEO Ed Zander says the iTunes launch is not today.

Some guy, over at the Gaming Age forum claims to have seen the Nintendo Revolution Controller - according to the guy the Nintendo Revolution Controller 'looks Like a Wavebird'.

I got a chance to take a quick look at the current Nintendo Revolution controller prototype today--but unfortunately, no chance to take pictures. At first, I thought it was a WaveBird.

That's because it looks just like a WaveBird, except that the GameCube face button scheme with the big A, small B, and X & Y kidney shaped buttons has been switched out for four small round buttons in a cross configuration, i.e. the traditional SNES/PlayStation/Xbox setup. I believe the button colour scheme used on the Revolution prototype is as follows: X (top) button = indigo, Y button = yellow, A button = green, B button = red.

Instead of the "Nintendo GameCube" logo in the across the centre of the controller, it said "Nintendo Revolution," using the same GameCube font. The analogue sticks were placed in the same locations as on a GameCube pad, as were the shoulder triggers. Keep in mind I only got a brief look at an image of the controller (5-10 seconds) and it was a top-down view so I couldn't see what was going on on the bottom side of the pad.

I was told that it'll evidently be wireless by default and no highly rumoured special functions like gyroscopic technology or touchscreen pads were currently implemented or had even been hinted at by Nintendo. Also, "this is just a prototype, sometimes they change a lot before system launch, or sometimes, like in the case of the N64, the prototype was nearly the same as the final controller."

I realize this is pretty anticlimactic since the Revolution controller is being hyped as the super-secret linchpin of Nintendo's radically different next console, and here is it looking like a WaveBird with a different button configuration. Just remember, it's possible that Nintendo could still be holding back a lot of functions from the developers until later in order to preserve the shock & awe...

At least this should at least put to rest all those bogus rumours about prototypes people have seen at developers' offices with touchscreens, gyroscopes, hologram interaction, etc. As it stands, this is all developers have access to.

NOTE ** the above image does not apply to this story, that controller is fake, first time I have seen it , so I added to accompany the volume of text

UPDATE 11.04

THE REAL NINTENDO REVOLUTION CONTROLLER

Today at the Xbox Summit 2005 in Tokyo, more than 50 of Japan's game publishers pledged their support for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system. The games announced today span a full range of genres and include titles previously exclusive to other video game systems. These next-generation games, including major titles such as "Resident Evil" and "Ridge Racer," showcase the incredible experiences enabled through Xbox 360. Xbox 360 Game Titles Shown at Xbox Summit 2005

AMD will upgrade its Athlon 64 X2 and 64-FX processor lines early next year. The FX-59, clocked to 3GHz, will ship in Q1 2006. So will a 2.6GHz dual-core Athlon X2, possibly with a 5000+ rating, according to AMD roadmaps seen by AnandTech. The two chips are derived from AMD's 'San Diego' and 'Toledo' cores, respectively reports the Register.

The roadmap points to Athlon 64s clocked at 2.2 and 2.4GHz, with either 512KB or 1MB of on-board L2 cache, yielding model numbers 3500+, 3800+ and 4000+. That suggests AMD will simply replace today's Athlon 64 processors with the new, DDR 2-supporting version.

This week at Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation Meeting, company president Ken Kutaragi talked about the current status of the PlayStation 3, and gave a glimpse of some new games in development reports GameSpot.

Kutaragi started out by reconfirming that the PS3 will be backward-compatible with PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games and will support high-definition TVs. "We're looking at a life cycle of 10 years with the PlayStation 3. We're currently shifting from standard TVs to HDTVs," said Kutaragi. "But in the next couple of years, most flat-panel TVs will be full HD. We're releasing the PS3 with full HD features from the start so that consumers won't have to buy another version of the console in the future. For the same reason, we're using Blu-ray as the PS3's disc format."

Microsoft Corp, the world's largest software maker revealed on Monday that 45 game titles available for Japanese users of the Xbox 360 game console are scheduled to go on sale in time for the year-end holiday shopping season reports CNN.

"I've always said that Japan is a vitally important market for the Xbox platform," Peter Moore, Microsoft's vice president in charge of Xbox marketing, said at an event to introduce upcoming games for the console.

"I know that the success in this country is the ultimate tribute to the compelling power of our new platform," he said.

38 publishers, including Square Enix Co. Ltd., Electronic Arts Inc., and Namco Ltd., are developing 45 game titles. More than 100 other titles are being worked on.

Samsung, Korea has announced the SCH-B200/SPH-B2000, a new DMB (digital TV) phone. The SCH-B200/SPH-B2000 will allow you to view 3 hours of digital Tv on your telephone's screen. via

Yahoo Inc. said on Monday it bought Pixoria, a company that provides small, downloadable programs that let computer users quickly get up-to-the-minute information, such as stock quotes and weather reports without using a Web browser.

So now according to Yahoo, you could bring life to your desktop with fun Konfabulator Widgets. These little guys hang out on your screen and give you quick, easy access to favorite content. You can even change their style to match yours.

Get Widgets

Motorola, Inc. and Oakley, Inc. today announced the expected availability of RAZRWIRE Bluetooth eyewear in early August at select Cingular Wireless retail stores. RAZRWIRE is the world's first eyewear to combine patented Oakley optics with Bluetooth wireless technology. $249

RAZRWIRE is armed with Motorola's third generation Bluetooth technology and supports Bluetooth RF protocol 1.1 and 1.2 ensuring compatibility with most Bluetooth-enabled cellular phones and other Bluetooth devices. Esthetically, the Bluetooth module is designed to complement the overall look of the sunglasses, creating truly wearable technology.

More

LG, has announced the LG-LP3900, a new slider cellphone. The LG-LP3900 slides up to reveal a keypad and down to reveal a camera lens.

Model - LG-LP3900
Color - Silver
Dimension - 110.3x50.5x24.6 mm
Weight - 135g
Battery - 1200mAh 2EA
LCD - 2.0" 260K TFT-LCD
Camera - 1.3 Mega Pixel Flash
Memory - 256MB (MP3 Only)

via engadget

Sony Japan has announced the CFD-E100TV, a new CD and tape player. The CFD-E100TV features a radio tuner and receives Japanese terrestrial TV channels 1-12 (audio only).

via

SEGA representative Simon Jeffrey told Nintendo Power magazine this week, that the Nintendo Revolution console is very much in publisher Sega's future plans

Jeffrey also confirmed that SEGA is in talks about the potential of the Revolution. According to Jeffery some of Sega's classic 'IP' (Intellectual Property') could be heading to the new machine. "The Nintendo fan, I think, is very similar to the SEGA fan of old," the man from SEGA stated. "I think SEGA and Nintendo have similar software philosophies. A product like Sonic is very family oriented. It's all about entertainment rather than trying to be controversial or anything like that. It's pure, good old-fashioned entertainment."

Havok last week signed a new deal with Sony to have the gaming software, known as a physics engine, included in the development kit for PlayStation 3. Developers will now be able to use Havok tools when building games for the new console, which is due to be launched next year.

Sony is promising movie-standard graphics in PlayStation 3 gaming, and Havok's selection is a big endorsement of its technology.

Havok's computer software has also been used in films such as Troy and The Matrix Reloaded.