In a leaked memo from Mercury News, it has been revealed that Dean Takahashi can confirm the existence of an HDMI Xbox 360, with a whopping 120GB HDD included! Since the accidental leaking of the memo, it has been removed, as has the post on Team Xbox with a link to the article. How long will it be before Gizmodo are forced to remove it? How long before I have to remove it? According to Gizmodo, “Dean also talks about the use of the Xbox 360 as an IPTV set-top-box. The leak says Microsoft’s IPTV services will have instant channel change, multiple picture-in-picture, broadcast shows, video on demand, and DVR functionality—gotta use those 120GB for more than just trailers.”

So now we’re looking at IPTV capale, fully equipped 120GB, HD-DVD wielding HDMI beasts? Wow… Microsoft did screw early adopters like myself. This kind of sucks… And stinks.

It just goes to show that CES is full of surprises. Despite the fact it’s not even begun! This year some rather mad things could come up. In the other nights conference call with Gadgetell, we had a little joke over a Sony Car. Interesting to see if anything that different will in deed come up. Rumours are flying thick and fast. The photo you see above could very well have been a quickly snapped photoshop job though, for all we know. If The Xbox 360 v2 does indeed hit the shelves, I’ll be expecting Microsoft to, at the very least, offer me a $200 off coupon.

I’m proud to announce a new guest blogger, here at Techzi. It’s a face that many of you from the wonderful world of programming may know. Either that or you’ve noticed he’s been featured on Robert Scoble’s blog multiple times.

Who am I talking about? Yuvi Panda of course! He’s an Indian blogger, who’s an amazing programmer. He’s the world’s youngest MSP, and is an exceptionally talented blogger. It’s a privelidge to have him here with us. I’ll let him introduce himself in a later post, but for now, I’d like to present my product review of ChipIn. It’s been written for Profy.com and is currently in moderation. Let me know what you guys think, okay? Here goes…

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Did Windows Vista’s new “Ready Boost” technology make a difference to it’s startup speed? Oh yeah… Check this out! When I grab my copy of Vista Ultimate along with my new PC next year, I’ll be buying myself 4 different 2GB Mimoco USB drives so I can fully enjoy these speedy benefits. Still don’t know what I’m talking about? Check it out for yourself…

And whilst I’m here, I’d like to apologize for not posting these past two days, and I’d love to wish you a very happy new year! May the year 2007 be prosperous for all of us. I know that this last year has been one of the best of my life. Let’s see if ‘07 can match up shall we?

Best of luck,
David Wilkinson (aka. Delta Taph)

Okay… I admit it. If it hadn’t have been for the shiny press release that arrived on my doorstep today, I might have actually completely forgotten that today was that day. The day that Vista gets launched and Microsoft realizes they just shipped an operating system which will cost their patching team goodness knows how many million dollars. Nevertheless, there is hope in Vista, the flagship operating system that Microsoft is banking on to take the world forward into the most critical part of computing history yet. The coming years will be not only a test of fate, wit and courage for the Redmond based company, but will also no doubt decide the future face for Microsoft.

Today, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, rang the NASDAQ opening bell along with NASDAQ president and CEO, Robert Greifeld. Supposedly the start of a new era, November 30 has come and gone as quickly as any other day in my memory. Not even a ten page advert in the Metro. A pity really. Microsoft thought that Windows Live Search deserved a quadruple page spread the other day, over the front page, the second page the back page and the second to back page. Hopes obviously aren’t riding high at Vista. As usual though, Microsoft are banking on the businesses to lead the way, suggesting that all business will see their productivity soar with the new operating system in place. If only it were that simple.

Joining Ballmer at NASDAQ MarketSite was Michael Wolf, president and chief oprating officer of MTV Networks. “In the highly competitive and fast-moving media and entertainment industry, our advantage comes from our people,” Wolf said. “These new products provide rich collaboration tools and powerful information-discovery capabilities that will help our employees be more productive and more creative. This will strengthen our competitive edge, and that’s why we’ll deploy the new products to 3,000 desktops in the coming six months.”

I just ran across a very, very interesting video on Metacafe. Check it out! If Flash doesn’t work for you, open up Notepad, type ‘Bush hid the facts’ and save the file. Has Microsoft got something going on with the US government? Open up the file and see for yourself. Slightly… How should I put it? Corrupted? Yes, that will do.

Now if that’s not political filtering, I don’t know what is. The ‘glitch’ only happens in Windows XP reportedly. If you can, check the video below. Redmond has some serious questions to answer for.

If you love your Xbox 360, but just can’t face not having your trusty mouse and keyboard at hand, incase things go real bad, then the XFPS360 is for you. Fusing PC gaming with the best of the Xbox 360, XCM is “bringing old school PC gaming to your living room”. Simply plug-in the dinky adapter into one of your Xbox 360’s USB ports, and it’ll let you connect either more USB devices or a PS/2 gadget. Of course hardcore gamers will much prefer a keypad and pointer to a heavenly, ergonomically shaped controller, but then again, who’s to stop them? There’s a hell of alot of pictures for you to drool over in the mean-time. Enjoy! Thanks to Team Xbox for tipping me off.

I wrote this piece a while back, but never got round to publishing it. Hope you guys like it!

This is the day. The demise of Microsoft. The day of reckoning has come at last. Friday 23rd November 2006. Google had seen it’s profits soar massively. Microsoft on the other hand have had an awful year. Low profits, internal scandals, a lowered reputation and a lowered customer satisfaction rate have left the company in tatters. After the rather unsuccessful launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft had been forced to focus and emphasise more upon the Internet sector. It was clear that Google’s freely distributed operating system had taken over Microsoft’s share of the market. Businesses, home users and government departments alike had taken to Google’s easy switch-over and increased user friendliness.

Microsoft’s third quarter had plummeted, sending the company into debt. Thousands of staff based in the USA had been layed off and things were looking increasingly worse for the company. Google on the other hand, were now making their way into global domination. It was estimated that 80% of blogs were powered by Google. That 50% of e-mails were processed, scanned and monitored by Google (a figure ever increasing), and that the company’s operating system was now the first choice for over 40% of the country (another figure, growing at an average rate of 34% a month). Firefox, the free browser, created by Mozilla, was also doing great, with a now estimated use of 52%, putting it for the first time, as the market leader. Google had purchased Wikipedia and Internet domination was becoming ever more likely. YouTube was going strong as ever and Google.com had climbed to the No. 1 Alexa spot.

In the mean-time, Google had started offering their free broadband initiative and now had news stations broadcasting world wide. Though all of this was great, there were constantly Web 3.0 services striving to push further into Google’s dominating grasp and markets. The Internet was becoming an expanding factor in day-to-day lives. As were the people behind it.

WOW! Gears Of War, widely acclaimed as the best ever game since Halo, has done it again for Microsoft! They do love their spiffy, good selling, money making games don’t they? Now there are three Gears of War games to accompany the Halo series in the hall of fame! Read on…

According to Microsoft VP of lots of words Jeff Bell, Gears of War is the first title in a planned Gears trilogy. In a recent interview he accidentally slipped up on his wording and let the trilogy out of the bag. That’s some of the best news I’ve heard in a long while — I can’t get enough of the game! Gears of War has become one of the best titles to come out in a long while and probably the best game on the entire 360 console. Since yesterday, it overtook Halo 2 as the most played game on the Xbox Live and continues to grow rapidly. With all the success that is coming from the game, there was no doubt that there was going to be a sequel, as Cliffyb said before. Here’s what Jeff Bell said:

Gamers today demand an excellent story in their games; they need to know what’s at stake, and why they should care. Excitement tops the list of desired emotions, but they want to be scared, too. They want the rush that comes from being scared by an enemy or trapped in a dark room and escaping with their lives. The goal of this ad is to establish Marcus Fenix as the hero of the Gears of War trilogy. The intention is to create emotional connection with him that is lacking in typical third-person action title marketing, by communicating a sense of desperation, loneliness, overwhelming odds, and the ultimate futility of the situation he faces.” via YourNEWB.

The metro. Distributed free on trains and busses throughout England. As my daily source of offline information, I picked up my copy, as per usual and sat down to read it. Low and behold, not quite as I usually do. After turning the first page, I noticed a large, spiffy advert for Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Fine. It was an Xbox 360 advert for the game. As are all the rest I’m about to mention. I flip the page. BAM! Tony Hawks Project 8. Flip again. BAM! An ad which stretches for the best part of two pages at the bottom. Gears Of War. Flip. BAM! Full double page spread devoted to Gears Of War. Flip. BAM, BAM, BAM! Dead Or Alive: Extreme 2, Open Season, Need For Speed: Carbon. Flip. BAM, BAM, BAM! A Giant hand made up of box art from different 360 games. Saints Row. Xbox 360 General Advert. Flip. BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM! WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2007. Phantasy Star Universe. Cars. Dead Rising. Flip. BAM, BAM! Xbox 360 Live Vision Camera. And again, opposite, a large Live Vision Cam. Flip. BAM, BAM, BAM! Test Drive Unlimited, Table Tennis, Xbox 360 Classics. Flip. BAM, BAM! General Ad and Xbox 360 High Def gaming ad. Flip. A very bright BAM! Viva Pinata. Great advert! Flip. Odd shaped BAM! King Kong sat on a big green tower. Green planes flying at him. It’s an Xbox 360 HD-DVD advert. Flip. BAM, BAM! Another Gears Of War advert. This one revolving around a red traffic light with the Gears Of War logo on. Call Of Duty 3 advert. ‘Get Closer Than Ever’. (I thought Call Of Duty 2 was, ‘As close as you’d ever want to get’? Admittedly, yes, they’ve gone further!) Flip. GOOD GRIEF! It’s a free calendar! A whole double page spread. It’s a 2007, Dead Or Alive: Extreme 2 calendar. Sweet! I have two copies with me now. Flip. BAM, BAM! Lost Planet ‘Exteme Condition’. Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. Flip. BAM! Ninety-nine nights advert. Flip. Also, on right-hand page, there’s a little red smudge. Flip. BAM, BAM! A big, long-winded technical analysis of the 360. Also, red smudge has got bigger. Opposite page, red smudge even bigger! Sonic The Hedgehog ‘Enter The Sonic Age’ advert too. Flip. BAM, BAM! Yet another red smudge. BT/MS Xbox 360 Wireless Xbox Live advert. Opposite, red smudge even bigger, starts to take a form. Marvel: The Ultimate Alliance advert. Flip. BAM, BAM, BAM! Smudge gets still clearer. Xbox 360 ‘Fly away’ advert. Pics of Wireless Controllers and Wireless steering wheel. Opposite, woah! A fully made out, bloody, Gears Of War logo! Microsoft are loving it. Metro competition. ‘Win an Xbox 360!’ and a Samsung R7 TV plus Q100 home theater system. Flip. HALLELUJAH!I t’s the classifieds. Flip a couple more through the ads and… Xbox Live Arcade advert! It’s World Series Of Poker! Fun, fun, fun! Flip. BAM, BAM! Another Xbox Live Arcade advert. I like the writing style on this one more. Opposite, ‘This Is The Season 2007. This is Fifa 2007.’ Flip. Pro Evo 6 advert. Opposite, a scarf with the words ‘Next Generation…’ on. Flip. Scarf continues to read, ‘Football only on…’ and opposite, ‘Xbox 360.’ Flip. A big green advert at the bottom of the backpage.’Merry Xbox!’ Not Christmas, not Xmas, but XBOX? These guys are losing it. How many adverts was that? I dread to think. How much did it cost Microsoft? More than I care to speculate. Madness!

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Well, Bill Gates has learnt a new word. ‘Uber’, and is using it like there’s no tomorrow. Next thing we know, it’ll be ‘Uber Messages’, not ‘Error Messages’ and there’ll be a bunch of hippies storming NATO. In other news, Microsoft reckons that Vista is the best and most secure operating system ever. Rather funny that, I’d have to disagree with ‘uber’ Bill on that one. Check the PressKit article here.

Also, if you’ve watched the video above, you’ll have learnt that ‘uber’ takes on a whole new meaning. ;D