Every so often one of our favourite hardware manufacturers sends us something really ‘stand-out excellent’ to review.  And this week, thanks to Don at Plantronics, the bar for PC gaming headsets has been reset once again.

Having suffered with a cheap headset for games and Skype over the last few months, the difference between the cheaper headset and the Plantronics GameCom 777 was absolutely mind-blowing.

While I must admit the GameCom 777 headset won’t win any awards from Vogue Magazine for styling, it looks right at home when you’re hard at work playing Halo.  Aesthetics aside, the headset is extremely comfortable with plenty of adjustment options.

The USB Dolby 7.1 adaptor adds an expansive sound-stage and the “big” feel is great for listening to those upbeat soundtracks or your MP3 collection.

While not the most inspired aesthetics, the GameCom 777 clearly demonstrates that there’s more to technology than good looks.  The grey military styling certainly matches the army feel some might be expecting from utilitarian head-gear – but it’s not everyone’s idea of cool.  But of course, the styling is where utilitarian stops and performance begins.

Just one look at the well-designed, big and well padded earcups rightly suggests that this headset is going to be comfortable to wear for extended gaming or video conferencing sessions.   A few hours in and the soft, comfortable cups and headband didn’t disappoint.

Audio from these open-air design headphones is nothing short of amazing with the Dolby function active.  It’s well suited to games, movies, and just about anything else you can throw at it.  As you’d expect for a headset with a bias towards games, there’s a mid-range focus and vocals are crisp and up-front.  Something the Dolby 7.1 dongle achieves nicely.  Skype takes a little getting used to if you’re used to a tinny little set of headphones – but you’ll soon start to enjoy conversations at a whole new level.  Actually, each Skype contact complimented the audio without me even mentioning the new headset.

Comparing the absolute Hi-Fi aspects of the headset against my studio ART reference headset, it was clear that the high-end and low-frequency sounds were a little cut-off compared to the reference – So the GameCom 777 certainly isn’t a “reference” – but it isn’t designed to be.  It’s the ultimate Gaming headset.  If you want a studio Hi-Fi headset, shelling out $1000 on an AudioTechnica ART set will certainly do the trick there – but won’t impress like the GameCom 777 for games.

The low-end bass sounds play well and don’t feel artificial – You may want to crank up the bass on the EQ if you’re looking for a real ‘bang’ though.  The headset’s open-air design means an airier feel.

The Plantronics GameCom 777 connects to your PC or Mac using regular 3.5mm jacks or the included USB Dolby dongle.   Connecting directly to the PC without the dongle made the headset sound like a regular good quality, and well-constructed headset – solid and effective with a 2m cable, utilitarian volume control on the cable, and with an impressive adjustable boom microphone that tucks into the headband when not needed - plus clear, crisp audio on the headphones and mic.

Adding the Dolby 7.1 dongle into the loop changes the whole experience.  The virtual surround sound is really something you need to experience to understand.  Despite the somewhat bulky feel of the package, the audio is simply breathtaking.   Excellent noise rejection, well-tuned frequency response tailored for games and a really expansive feel.

Congratulations to the team at Plantronics on an excellent headset.  While, I’d love to see a version with some slimmer styling and sexier colours (which of course would make it a general-purpose headset rather than a gaming headset), the Plantronics GameCom 777 is certainly the most impressive gaming headset I’ve come across.

If you are a lover of XBox 360 games then you will eventually see the dreaded situation when an xbox 360 repair will be needed.  The failure rates on these consoles are unfortunately predictably high and multipled significantly if you didn't purchase one of those optional cooling fans that plug onto the back of the console from day one. 

XBox 360 users will generally suffer from a range of heat-related crashes and relaibility issues before the big day - but most consoles suffer one or more of the known CPU / GPU cooling problems. These problems are simply due to an overheating console causing the system to freeze up. If things get really serious, for example and overheating dusty console, you'll wind up seeing the well known xbox 360 red ring of death.  Calling the service line, you'll be met with someone who will have told you that you would need to send your console back to the service agent (assuming it's less than 3 years old of course) for a costly repair.  If you've made it three years so far and the console has gone on the fritz, you'll be politely told to file the console under "R" and attend your favourite games store to buy a replacement.  But when you have help online, you can often avoid a trip to service-centre-land.

So.. If you have the tools, some patience and a strong cup of caffeine - and don't want to take a 3 week game-free holiday, take a look at services like THIS - download the instructions from their web site.

Learning to repair your xbox 360

So - if you need to  repair your xbox 360 console in a quick and efficient manner, it's surprisingly easy with some helpful instructions and a few standard tools - the repair guides certainly provide assistance to anyone wishing to DIY the repair rather than sending their consoles to the factory .

Forget about having your console lost in transit and calling around looking for a repair ETA... Most XBox 360 repairs are apparently an hours work..

Give them a go - and let us know how you go with a comment below.

Looking to optimise your PC's performance? GadgetAccess recommends 1-Click-Fix

Digital Gadget Gift Ideas For Big Kids

When most parents think gadgets for kids, they tend to think like a little kid... which means video games. While it's true that younger children (age range 5 to 12 years) will be impressed by video games, older kids entering their 'tween and teen years expect something more. For one thing, social networking becomes very important to them!

Today's teenager is unbelievably plugged into the web. They share photos, videos, podcasts, text messages, and they usually have a social network profile, email address, chat name, Twitter profile, MySpace page... the list goes on and on. You have to realize that whether or not you, as a parent, approve of some of these networks (there are some raunchy MySpace pages out there, after all!), your teen's future social life may depend on them. Teach them Internet safety and precautions, and cross your fingers.

Anyway, young 'tweens and teens will appreciate a text messaging system most of all. Text has a nice balance between being fast and convenient, and being quiet, so you don't have to yell your business all over the cafeteria (and so you can do it quietly in class!). The next most important feature is a camera.

The camera is for both taking still images and videos. In this day, teens are likely to socialize over YouTube. Check the site out and browse around - you'll find many user videos are simply little video-blog posts, and then you'll notice other records responding to them... it's like a cross between video chat and a message board!

When picking a camera, you'll want the highest quality one you can find. This is because nothing's more embarrassing than having to post a discolored, fuzzy, pixelated photo of yourself on your online profile.

After that, your best bet is a mobile phone, pocket PC, PDA, or palmtop. Today's teen has little patience for big, bulky devices - they prefer something that fits in a pocket or purse, but does all the functions they need. Of course, the higher-quality the better, because mobile devices are also a status item among teens.

Games are a final consideration, but basically by this time most teens either aren't interested in games, or want the bigger, more elaborate experience that comes with a fully-3D-capable desktop. Of course, anybody appreciates a small casual game of a Tetris-type puzzle while idling away a dull moment, but that's about all they'll usually expect.

Things You Can Do With Bluetooth Sunglasses

Let us not be shy about it: When you use Bluetooth-enabled sunglasses and eyewear devices, you are officially living in the science fiction era. It's no joke, you really have joined the era of *Star Trek*. We're only a holodeck and transporter away from exploring the galaxy and talking to Vulcans and Klingons now.

Most of the functions of Bluetooth sunglasses involve features that have nothing to do with protecting your eyes from the sun. Instead, they have built-in digital capabilities which take advantage of the fact that eyewear touches both your eyes and ears.

One such device is the built-in MP3 player and speakers. Now the glasses are a headset of sorts, with USB storage onboard and speakers built right into the parts by the ear. Now you have musical sunglasses. Some of these store up to a gigabyte of music, and can talk to any other Bluetooth-enabled device, so your computer at home can download and store your music, and you can upload your playlist and MP3 to your sunglasses. Is this amazing or what?

How about built-in phone capability? It makes sense to combine a headset phone and sunglasses. You can build the headset bit into your sunglasses bit, and then you can walk around talking hands-free without looking like the Borg got you (we'll be keeping the *Star Trek* jokes at a constant rate here, get used to them).

How about capabilities involving the video instead of the audio? They also make so-called "spy" sunglasses with hidden camera and video recorder, so you can record a you-eye view of whatever you're looking at. This helps if you're on the away team and need the science officer on deck to analyze the alien you're looking at (we told you!). However, should you hit the beach in your video-camera shades and find yourself walking behind a bikini-clad sweetie, well, we didn't mean to put ideas into your head.

Furthermore, each of the above capabilities can be built into the same unit. And with head-up displays and video-aided visual displays, common in industrial use, you could have an image projected onto the glasses as well.

You can wait for your Borg implant or you can get these today. What can you be with them? Could you start your own superhero persona? We don't see any reason why not.

Christmas Shopper Poll - The Favorite Gadgets...

In our latest popularity poll, we didn't ask what the most useful gadgets were. Or the highest quality, or the most expensive, or the cheapest. No, our sole metric was "How much do you just love the crazy thing?" And in our informal office poll, this is what we came up with:

1. Music players. Number one with a bullet, out way ahead of number two. Apparently the whole human race was waiting to have a device the size of a pack of mints that stored gigabytes of MP3s, so it could get out and boogie in the street. 80-year-old grandmas and 5-year-old kids love it! Even the dog loves it! And it's so much more convenient than the 10,000 other methods of portable music that came before it. After all, if you remember the 1980s when people carried refrigerator-sized boom-boxes around just to have music with them, you realize just how important music is to people.

2. Handheld video games. These, too, have been popular since we first came out with the concept. Electronic handheld games also go back to the 1980s. (Where's Merlin now?) (And where's that Nintendo GameBoy?) Now that handheld video games have taken several leaps in graphics and sound quality as well as game depth, they're more indispensable than ever.

3. GPS. We'll all be telling our grandkids that in the old days we had to use actual paper maps to find our way around. And you'd have to follow a grid system from an index of streets on the back, and read a legend where a purple line meant a bike path and a dotted yellow line meant a road they haven't built yet! And you'd have to unfold these things and spread them out all over the car... You might as well try to make them believe that you navigated the ocean with an astrolabe and compass.

4. Speakers. Along with music players, it was widely agreed that the highest quality speaker or headphone contributed greatly to the pleasure. Bad, low-quality speakers with tinny sounds and scratchy static are, however, the most hated device.

5. Texters. Strangely, text messaging is beating out mobile phones for popularity. It seems that phone shave been around for so long, that everybody just takes them for granted. Texters, on the other hand, keep our thumbs busy ticking out dozens of little telegrams daily. It's never too noisy to read a text message, you don't worry as much about reception, and you're not as tempted to use one while driving. United States president Barrack Obama said it best when he said he'd never part with his Blackberry, so the White House would just have to change the telecommunications infrastructure to accommodate him. Except we're sure his exact quote was "I H4V 2 UZ BLKBRY! U F1T 1T N2 YR SYSTM!"

Will DOS Always Be With Us? 

Kind of like the COBOL programming language, DOS is in a state of perpetually being declared dead, while still seeing moderate, if unenthusiastic, usage. There are very good reasons for this, but they lie in the murky depths of computing history.

To deal with COBOL first, the COmmon Business-Oriented Language came along at the right place and time in history: right when industry world-wide was adopting the mainframe computer. As a result, businesses today are still content to keep running these mainframe systems, and are obliged to keep hiring from an increasingly smaller pool of COBOL programmers to maintain them. The logic here is that there's no reason to buy a newer car if your old one just keeps taking you to the store and back!

With DOS, it, too, came along at the right place and time, but for different reasons. DOS, or Disk Operating System, happened along at the exact time of the desktop computer revolution, when almost overnight, every home seemingly had to have a computer. The Internet itself soon became the must-have reason to own a computer. So during this time, the computer market exploded, and with it, the software market.

Exhibit A is Microsoft. The first version of Windows to see widespread sales was 3.1, and it ran as a shell on top of DOS. Subsequent versions of Windows ran on DOS as well, but slowly phased out the need to have a command line shell supporting them. In fact, Microsoft's latest Windows version do still use a command shell, but only as a side offering. they keep the command-line interface mostly hidden from the end user.

Anyway, DOS was the dominant system for home computing, and so all of the software written at this time ran on DOS. The tech industry just kept growing... To this day, more software exists for the DOS platform than any other!

This leads to a kind of snap-back effect. Unlike COBOL, DOS systems quickly became outdated and home consumers have apparently decided that they need a new computer every three to five years. But one thing they hate to do is switch software! So now we have this legacy of old software that still needs DOS to run. You can see where this is going.

Today, the most prominent substitutes for DOS are the Free and Open Source product DOSBox, or the commercially-produced FreeDOS. Both of them run on modern systems, and run as an embedded program to emulate a DOS environment for legacy DOS-based programs.

DOS is also an extremely light system. The only comparable system to it is the oldest versions of the Linux operating system. You have to go to Linux 2.0 kernel to get as much "bang for buck" in the same space. More recent versions of Linux have become more featured while bloating up in space, and DOS... well, it stopped right there! It is very feature-bare, but it runs! So now DOS has also become a common system on very small digital devices.

These two effects have served to create a continuing life for DOS when, by all logic, it should have died off long ago. Linux, the free interpretation of Unix, has been pressing hard to replace it, since Linux can be customized for any task and the bloat can be stripped out to fit it into small spaces. But for now, DOS still has a twilight existence.

There needs to be a Gadget for everything? Right?

Well given that cardboard is so 1980's and every item of clothing will soon need to have a battery to make it "do something" - the MingleStick fills an age-old niche. The business card replacement.

While I can't see companies handing out MingleSticks instead of business cards to get the trend going, BUT if it takes off, it's sure to be a great wave. We've all been talking about Open Social and about just using a unified Card-Exchange on your Windows Mobile, Symbian or iPhone PDA - but is anyone listening?  New Gadgets are just more fun!  And I guess the simple answer is that pulling out that special iPhone application is just "too complex" for many. The Mingle Stick is extremely simple and surprisingly effective.  I look forward to seeing it at an upcoming trade-show even for business card exchange.

Here's the MingleStick home page if you want it "from the horse's mouth".

So how does it actually work?? Simple...

Step 1: Press a button

Two users point their MingleSticks at each other and press a button. The red flashing light turns solid green to indicate a successful connection. The connection is made within a split second! Just point and click! It’s that easy!

Step 2: Plug into a computer

Plug your MingleStick into a computer that is connected to the Internet. Your MingleStick connections are then uploaded to our website. You will then be asked to login to your online account with a secure username and password.

Step 3: Review your connections

View the people you connected with using your MingleStick. Check out their profile pictures and contact information within your online address book. You can also visit their social profiles found of popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. Mingle360 turns your real-world conversations into online connections!

In Action!

Now that you have a basic understanding of how the MingleStick works, watch the
following video to see the MingleStick in action!

On occasion, I give presentations both in my office and traveling. I had considered buying a projector to use with my laptop, but put it off because most of the ones I had seen were bulky and expensive. I was thrilled when I came across the Pocket Projector for only $399. It is simple to use, fits in my laptop case, and works great.

Setup was quick and easy, from start to finish, about two minutes. All you need is to plug in the video from the laptop, plug in the power, switch the laptop from screen to output, and you’re in business.

Here is my favorite part. Since it is so portable and has a variety of inputs, I can carry it home, plug in my composite video cable from my entertainment system, and basically have my own home movie theatre. I have looked at these home projectors in the past, but never found a good one for less than $1000.

For more information, check out C1 Pro920 Pocket Projector

No matter where you are in the world, it seems that technology and courts don't mix very well. The legal profession seems to be particularly challenged at keeping up with the rapidly changing field of computing. And in turn, coders, developers, and geeks of every stripe seem to unanimously shy away from legal matters. It makes their brain fuzzy. Javascript makes sense, it follows rules. Lawyers seem free to make up whatever Alice-in-Wonderland rules they want. Here, out of recent news, are the six cases of legal warfare on the tech front that left us scratching our heads the most:

SCO vs Novell

You'd almost have to be living in a cavern to miss this one. The SCO Group has been laboriously suing Novell, along with IBM, claiming sole ownership of Unix. But neither of these companies is actually going to war over Unix, but instead Linux - which only vaguely resembles Unix. So SCO's claim is that the Linux source code reproduces code from the original Unix. Since this claim is easily disproved merely by downloading Linux's open source code and reading it, you would think this case would have been over in one day.

Notable for: Being the ultimate zombie lawsuit. They just keep killing it, and it just keeps coming back, like Freddy Kruger. Every decision gets appealed, every trial gets extended, and SCO has lost so many battles in the fight that it's impossible to see where even SCO still believes it has a case any more. SCO filed for bankruptcy in 2007; at that point you'd think that would have killed it, but no, it didn't even slow them down. Groklaw.net has the full story, having been the site which was made famous by its coverage of just this case.

Stacie Somers vs Apple

The claim is that because Apple's iTunes music service and iPod music player don't support Microsoft Windows Media Format, Apple monopolizes digital music. That's it. Here's the story.

Notable for: Not making a lick of sense. While the article at Business Week makes a case that music from the iPod platform can be re-used on other platforms, even that's beside the point. Does Microsoft monopolize the Internet because Internet Explorer only runs on Windows? Does Nintendo monopolize video games because Mario games only play on Nintendo devices? Does Toyota monopolize engines because you can't put a Camry engine into a Hummer and expect it to run?

Eros vs Robert Leatherwood:

To tell this as straight as we can, within the world of the online virtual reality game Second Life there is a cottage industry for creating custom objects. Some of those objects can be of an erotic nature, but of course only for the avatar inhabitants. So Eros makes these objects called "SexGen beds", and sells them in Second Life. And Robert Leatherwood copied their design and started selling his own SexGen beds. The resulting lawsuit has been settled in Eros' favor.

Notable for: What would it have been like to explain all that to a judge? With a straight face? It's a plot straight out of a Neil Stephenson novel.

Microsoft vs DHL:

Just recently, Engadget broke the story of Microsoft's lawsuit against DHL, the package delivery service. DHL was delivering a shipment of XBox gaming consoles by rail, which got destroyed in a train wreck. So it's a pretty straightforward claim; Microsoft is suing for damages, end of story.

Notable for: The sheer schadenfreude of the situation. While the XBox is hugely popular (and Portal is the sweetest game still alive), Microsoft has famously been selling them at a loss. They've only been making money after-market on the games. So they keep making more consoles, and in the middle of a global economic recession, they lose a whole shipment. Not to mention that this is the only tech lawsuit we've ever heard of that involves a literal train wreck.

Dylan Stephen Jayne vs. Google:

Dylan Stephen Jayne has a problem. When you take his social security number and flip it upside down and rearrange the digits, some of it sort of resembles the letters in Google. So, uh, Google owes him money. But don't pass this by without checking out the awesome scribbled hand-written filing. The only thing it's missing is the word "REDRUM" etched in the margin.

Notable for: Well, being barking mad, for starters. And the next time you have a pocket calculator handy, punch in the number 316006 and flip it upside down and look at it. It also works with 379009 for upper-case G's and L. So basically anyone in the world with any kind of ID number containing the digits 0, (1 or 7), 3, and (6 or 9) has exactly the same claim. Since that's over half of the available digits, the odds are high that you, too, have a number lying around somewhere that will allow you to join in Dylan Stephen Jayne's cash bonanza. Check everything - credit card numbers, billing account numbers, passwords...

Honorable Mention - Jack Thompson's whole career:

Anyone with even a passing interest in video games knows that U.S. attorney Jack Thompson made a career out of suing video game makers for violent content in video games (and in music), alleging that they contribute to violence in the streets. By the way, that's now "FORMER U.S. attorney Jack Thompson" - he was finally disbarred in May of 2008. Meaning that he may no longer practice law. Not because of his message, but because of his methods.

Notable for: Handing a form to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno which quizzed her on her sexual preferences, then suing for battery when she touched his shoulder. Campaigning against social services group Switchboard of Miami for placing "homosexual-education tapes" in public schools. Pasting a picture of Batman over his own on his driver's license. Comparing the content of "Banned in the USA" by hip-hop group 2 Live Crew to "a sociopath's discharging his AK-47 into a crowded schoolyard". Calling video games "murder simulators". Demanding that one judge hearing one of his cases disqualify himself. Attempting his own sting of the store Best Buy by sending his 10-year-old son to buy a copy of "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" while he videotaped the sale. Sending a personal letter to the mother of a another lawyer, admonishing her to be ashamed for her son's actions, whom he called a "Hitler Youth". Welshing on a pledge to donate $10,000 to the designer of a game according to his own specifications. Receiving flower bouquets which he forwarded to enemies with instructions to grind them up and smoke them. Including pornographic images of gay male sex in one of his court filings.

And this is all barely the tip of the iceberg! Two pages of excerpts from one of his court filings here and here, surprisingly safe-for-work viewing. Jack, we're gonna miss you!

The generation of adults today cut their milk teeth on these classic platforms, and today they'll be all too ready to shake their cane at you and tell you about how it was in the good old days. Their memories of their first BASIC program or first addictive game are tied in with their first love and first beer. Amiga, Apple ][, Commodore, and the Sinclair ZX still have their cult following going strong today. But it is the Sinclair ZX Spectrum that is particularly remarkable.

For instance, there's that keyboard. So smooshy and rubbery, you have to wonder if they intended it to be a bath toy. While every other PC platform went for solid, muted colors, the Spectrum had that splashy rainbow on the right edge, for a defiant little dash of sass.

As the Commodore 64 was the premiere computer in the US, the Sinclair was in the UK. Both machines, in their respective territories, were the first home computers for a generation of what would become computer enthusiasts, gamers, programmers, and digital artists. The two stacked up pretty comparably. The Spectrum was cheaper than the Commodore, ran at 3.5 Mhz to the C64's 1.0 Mhz, and had a more integrated BASIC interpreter, with graphics commands built-in. The C64 boasted higher-quality graphics complete with hardware scrolling and sprites, far superior sound, and the possibility of being used as a business machine as well. In the end, it was almost a tie between the two.

But the Commodore devoured the United States market in one gulp. Go ahead, try to find a native US resident who ever even saw a Spectrum! Meanwhile, the Spectrum in the UK had to compete with the Commodore, though it beat them to the market. The Spectrum, let's face it, ended up with all the love. It was affectionately nicknamed the Speccy, and a number of magazines devoted to it sprang up. If you were typing in BASIC programs from an issue of CRASH in 1984, you were in the scene.

Another place where the Spectrum beat Commodore was staying power. While the Commodore came and faded in a couple of years, (we're NOT talking about the Amiga!), the ZX Spectrum still had games being made for it well into the 1990s. It is credited with birthing the IT industry in the UK, and earned its creator, Clive Sinclair, a knighting. It also found a place in the demo scene.

Sinclair ZX Spectrums and peripherals for it are still being sold today by select digital device retailers. And fan clubs are still to be found all around the net. While we hear so much about the other platforms with a cult following, we thought we'd give the spotlight to the Speccy for a change.