Superstar Online, the first online videoke game launched by X-Play Online Games, has partnered with Coca Cola to search for the next great online singing sensation. Yes, playing this online game can get you a chance to super stardom and be a part of an album and concert with Pop Princess Sarah Geronimo.

Superstar’s Online Singing Star Search is expected to reach more potential singers with the combined efforts of Coca Cola. The talent search is going to launch with the goal to reach 2.5 million youth. This will be done through a series of mall tours for the auditions in 23 SM Malls nationwide. The activities planned for the rest of the year will cover 326 barangays and 4,000 internet cafes around the metro, including online reinforcement through 20 internet cafe forums.

Superstar is an online game akin to the vocals part of Rockband or Guitar Hero using your PC’s mic or headset. It’s not only about timing your singing with the lyrics but having the correct pitch at all times as well to get a high score. Through the online scoreboard, X-Play will ask the high-scorers to audition at Superstar’s nationwide mall shows.

“With the rising popularity of Internet sensations, Superstar has perfectly timed this talent search. The internet is the new platform for superstardom, and we are glad to have Coke on board as a familiar presence to help solidify that fact,” says George Royeca, Chief Operating Officer, X-Play.

X-Play Online Games Inc. is the casual games division of publicly listed online gaming company IP E-Game Ventures Inc. They are the local publisher of popular casual games such as Audition Dance Battle, Operation 7, Band Master and Supertar.

To learn more about Superstar, visit www.superstar.ph.

ASUS announced today the availability of the multimedia notebook that would rule all notebooks. The new 18.4” ASUS NX90 was crafted with input from renowned designer David Lewis and technology co-development with Bang & Olufsen ICEpower®.

Award-winning designer, David Lewis, is known to design buffs and audiophiles the world over as one of the main forces behind the hallmark Bang & Olufsen look.

“What we were going for was a piece of design and art that people could place in the center of their home and take great joy in its appearance. To me, it’s not just a machine, the objective was to create a style to challenge the way people regard notebooks”, said David Lewis when speaking of the NX90.

NX90 marks a departure from conventional notebooks, bringing PCs to the side of interior design. The polished aluminum body reflects room ambience, adding to the atmosphere of any environment and therefore fitting in unobtrusively. Not only that, the large size and unique looks spruce up any location, something the spectacular audio quality takes even further.

By placing speakers outside the chassis and alongside the screen, designers have ensured sound wraps around users and their surroundings. Meanwhile, the interface itself has been refreshed, with dual touchpads that enable true two-handed usability, creating a virtual mouse through the addition of a second touch surface. The oversized palm rests provide ample room for comfort even during prolonged sessions, one of the perks of a true multimedia desktop replacement portable PC.

The new SonicMaster sound standard stands as one of the key attractions of the NX90. Developed by the ASUS Golden Ear team through significant cooperation with Bang & Olufsen ICEpower®, SonicMaster represents a new milestone in PC audio by which all sound performance on computers can be judged. It guarantees the best quality audio available to users, bringing PCs to the level of dedicated high fidelity surround systems.

The ASUS NX90 is already available locally on order basis at ASUS’ concept stores for Php129,995.

Specs:

• 18.4″ display @ FUll HD 1080p (1920×1080 pixels)
• Intel Core i7 740QM (6M cache, 1.73 GHz, 4 cores, 8 threads)
• Turbo Boost to 2.93 GHz
• nVidia GeForce GT 335M 1GB DDR3
• 6GB DDR3 RAM
• 2 x 500GB HDD (1TB)
• Bluray/DVD+RW combo
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 6-cell battery
• SRP: Php129,995

Its been a long while since I got hold of a full-sized laptop to play with. Ever since netbooks and the ultra-portable series were introduced, I did not entertain full-sized laptops anymore. I really go for portability and long battery life when it comes to laptops. Moving on, last week, we got the 14-inch Sony VAIO E laptop to review.

Image by Techshout.com

First Impressions

So let  me make my first impressions first. It is a full-sized laptop and I could immediately say that this would make a decent desktop machine replacement. You won’t like carrying this on your daily meetings because it’s big and heavy at 2.35 kg as opposed to my Acer Aspire 1810TZ which weighs only 1.40 kg. But of course it has its purpose – gaming, viewing up to 1080P videos and movies and using graphics applications like Photoshop.  

It comes in five different colors, but what we got is the glossy blue transparent finish overlaying some sort of dotted pattern.

Overview and Quickie Tests

Let’s take a look at the stock config. The Sony VAIO E is armed with a Core i5-520M processor at 2.4Ghz with Intel’s Turbo Boost technology, HD LED screen, 4GB DDR3 (upgradable to 8G) and a 500GB HDD SATA 5400 rpm. External ports include HDMI and eSata ports, VGA out and LAN ports which are located on the left side, 3x USB 2.0 ports alongside with the internal DVD drive on the ride side. I wonder why they put the 3 USB ports all together in one side.

The Sony-proprietary card reader and SD card slot which they labeled as MagicGate is located at the left side just below your left palmrest together with a dedicated Wi-Fi switch. Keyboard is your typical Sony island-type and there are three small buttons on the upper right side for the ASSIST, WEB and VAIO quick buttons.

Battery life for the VAIO E only lasts for two (2) hours so never forget your AC adapter when you go out. Typical for big and powerful laptops.

It has an impressive Windows Index Experience for a 14-incher with 5.7 being the lowest attributing it to the Gaming graphics category.

I tried playing HD video clips and movies and it did the job flawlessly without choking. But when I tried a multitasking test like opening a movie file, while converting RAW photos to JPG, with TweetDeck open and Google Chrome running in the background, I was surprised that it slowed down a bit. Abe Olandres told me that if I want to achieve all those that I did, I should switch to High Performance mode too. I guess I’m used to setting my netbook into Power Saving mode most of the time, lol!

For size comparison purposes, we put the VAIO E side by side with two different-sized netbooks so that you will have an idea how it looks like if you will end up buying this one.

Here it is alongside the 11-inch Acer Aspire 1810TZ.

Sony VAIO E and Acer Aspire 1810z

We also compared it with the HP Mini 110, a 10.1″ netbook by HP.

Sony VAIO E and HP Mini 110

And, finally here are two other netbooks to for size comparison with the VAIO E.

Sony VAIO E, HP Mini 110, and Lenovo S10

DigitalSpidey has more product photos of the Sony VAIO E that you may want to check out.

Conclusion

With the Sony VAIO E, you’re paying premium for its specs, style, large screen and performance. It’s a pretty powerful laptop that you can already throw away your desktop which may consume more electricity than this one.

If you are a non-Apple graphics artist that does regular graphics layouts, and you would like to watch HD movies or HD YouTube videos from time to time or play some resource-hungry games; then by all means get the Sony VAIO E. However if you are just like me, a regular Facebook guy who sometimes transfer RAW images from my SLR and convert them to JPG for publishing, this one might already be an overkill.

Bottomline is, Sony’s not a cheap brand but you will surely get your money’s worth when buying their products. The Sony VAIO E is available in the local market for the price of Php76,999.00.

Specs

• Intel^® Core^™ i5-520M Processor 2.40 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.93 GHz
• Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• 14″ wide (WXGA:1366 x 768) VAIO Display, LED backlight
• ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5650 Graphics
• 4GB DDR3 (upgradeable to 8GB)
• 500GB SATA HDD
• Instant web browsing: Quick Web Access button
• Bundled media player “Media Gallery” & creation software “PMB VAIO Edition”
• SRP: Php76,999

Local laptop brand, NEO, announced today its very own 3D laptop, the Elan L4300-3D. NEO is known for its affordability while keeping up with the latest technology to compete with other brands.

So how much do you think a 3D laptop from NEO will go for? First the specs.

The Elan L4300-3D is probably NEO’s most powerful laptop to date that’s why they decided to make it “made-to-order”. This 15-inch laptop is powered by Intel’s quad-core processor Core i7-740QM and nVidia’s fastest mobile GPU, GeForce GTX 285M. It also comes with a BluRay drive and USB 3.0 ports so you don’t have to worry about future-proofing.

The 3D feature is powered by nVidia 3D Vision technology, which is a combination of an advanced GPU, 3D shutter glasses (better than the polarized kind they say), software, and a certified display.

I was able to try viewing a 3D video from the Elan L4300-3D and was pretty satisfied with it. I’m not sure if that’s the same case when playing a 2D converted to a 3D game though. Too bad it couldn’t output 3D content to a 3D TV for a larger view but a NEO rep said that you can downgrade the GPU to a lower model that supports 3D output.

Anyway, aside from 3D entertainment, the Elan L4300-3D is a mobile beast for gaming or video production so don’t think of it just a novelty 3D laptop.

The NEO Elan L4300-3D is already available but since it’s highly configurable in a made-to-order basis, allow NEO 2 to 4 weeks to get yours ready. The basic setup will cost you a whopping Php99,990.

Specs:

• Intel Core i7-740QM (quad-core, 6MB Intel Smart Cache, 1.73GHz)
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit)
• 15.6” HD 3D Panel (1366 x 768 with 120Hz Refresh Rate which is required for 3D)
• 4GB DDR3 (expandable up to 8GB)
• nVidia GeForce GTX 285M (1 GB DDR3)
• 500GB SATA HDD
• BluRay Combo Drive
• USB 3.0
• nVidia 3D Vision Kit
• SRP: Php99,990

If you think you have to shell out over Php15,000 for a GeForce GTX 470 to play StarCraft II as it should be played then you might be happy to know that a sub-10k GPU will do.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 is a Fermi-based GPU that is aimed towards the mainstream gamer. It is a sweet spot I might say if you’re looking for a nicely-priced card without sacrificing performance at all.

Check out some performance values of the GeForce GTX 460 video card compared to others.

This shows how clearly it separates itself from older models.

Here’s how it fares against the competition when running DX11 games:

If you’re a PC gamer on a budget, do consider aiming for the GeForce GTX 460. And if you want to, you can overclock it from 675MHz up to 800MHz.

GeForce GTX 460 Specs

• 1GB / 256-bit GDDR5 or 768MB / 192-bit GDDR5
• 336 CUDA cores
• Gfx/Proc/Mem Clock: 675/1350/1800 MHz
• Power: 160W (1GB), 150W (768MB)
• 2-way SLI
• 8.25 in.
• Dual Slot Fansink
• 2x DL-DVI, mini-HDMI output
• $199 (768MB), $229 (1GB)

I was at the Imagine Cup Press briefing the other day at Microsoft Philippines office. They were excited to present these group of college students who just went home from Poland bringing home USD25,000.00 which translates to roughly around Php1.12 million!

But wait, there’s more to be proud of as Pinoys! The 4-man team (called By Implication) plus their mentor came from different Universities in the Philippines. Philip Cheang, Wilhansen Li & Rodrick Tan are from the Ateneo de Manila, while Levi Tan-Ong is from the University of the Philippines and their mentor Kenneth Yu is from De La Salle University! Talk about school unity.

It turned out that these young developers are high school friends but took different courses when they entered college, but their passion to be innovative and their friendship remained tight and productive. Something that we Pinoys must be proud of including the universities that they represented.

The Imagine Cup is the world’s premiere student technology competition which gathers the best developers worldwide and challenges the creative minds of these young men to address problems face the world today using the power of IT. The Philippines had two teams who were qualified for the competition but only By Implication made it to the finals.

The competition finals was held in Warsaw, Poland and was participated by 400 students worldwide, only six teams made it to the finals. The team’s entry dubbed as Wildfire is a game about saving the world through volunteerism, social interaction and non-violent activism.

The game will be initially available at their website which going to be up very soon according to Kenneth and it will be available for FREE. ByImplication.com is the official site of Wildfire.

Event photos can be found here.

Yesterday, we attended the World GameMaster Tournament 2010 Finals at the SM City Manila Cyberzone. Sponsored by ASUS, the gamers experienced gaming on another level using ASUS’ newest high end multimedia notebook and ultimate gaming rig.

Players of the Street Fighter 4 got the chance to show off their killer combos using ASUS N61Jv, the newest multimedia notebook from ASUS with Sonic Master technology. ASUS N61Jv is the world’s first notebook with NVIDIA Optimus™ Technology, providing outstanding graphics performance while extending battery life. This notebook is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor for the perfect multimedia computing experience.

Moreover, players of Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare displayed their brilliant strategies using the ASUS Ultimate Gaming Rig. This top notch hardware is packed with the latest ASUS motherboard part of ASUS Xtreme Design series, ASUS P7P55D LE. The gaming PC also includes the ASUS EAH5750 Formula video graphics card, a SATA III 640 GB Caviar Black HDD from Western Digital, Gold Series Memory from OCZ, Cooler and Power Supply from Thermaltake and gaming peripherals from Logitech

A total of eight finalists for the Street Fighter 4 and four teams for Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare battled it out for the top spots of the team and individual games. A separate Street Fighter 4 Tournament was also held for the Media.

Winners of the team and individual games took home up to Php200,000 worth of cash and hardware and the winner of the Street Fighter 4 Media tournament took home an ASUS UX50 series notebook.

The audience were also treated to a Cosplay competition and band performances.

Congratulations to the winners and to ASUS!

Photos of the event can be found here.

ASUS Ultimate Gaming Rig Specs

*The ultimate gaming rig will be available for gamers and enthusiasts at PC Gilmore stores with a 15% off discount.

ASUS N61Jv Specs

To all StarCraft fans out there, this is for you. Better check if your machine is ready to play the highly-anticipated sequel to the game that propelled Blizzard to the top as an RTS game developer, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

Your favorite PC game is coming out on July 28, 2010 and here are the specs that you need.

StarCraft II Official and Final System Requirements

Minimum System Requirements, should include the following:

• Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c
• 2.6 GHz Pentium® IV or equivalent AMD Athlon® processor
• 128 MB PCIe NVIDIA® GeForce® 6600 GT or ATI Radeon® 9800 PRO video card or better
• 12 GB available HD space
• GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 users)
• DVD-ROM drive
• Broadband Internet connection
• 1024X720 minimum display resolution

And, the Recommended System Requirements:

• Windows Vista®/Windows® 7
• Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor
• 2 GB RAM
• 512 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon® HD 3870 or better

So there you go! Is your PC ready for this? Or is it time for an upgrade? The gaming (StarCraft 2) standard package is around P3,500.00.

During Toshiba’s 25th anniversary at the Republiq in Resort World where they introduced a variety of laptops, I was able to try out their Satellite A665-3DV 3D laptop.

The Satellite A665-3DV is a very powerful laptop built for multimedia and gaming. It is powered by harman/kardon® stereo speakers and comes with and NVIDIA® 3D VISION™ Kit (glasses and IR emitter) to view 3D content.

I’m a fan of watching 3D movies after seeing Avatar in 3D but playing a game (Resident Evil) in 3D doesn’t quite match the experience when watching a 3D movie. Objects in the foreground looked like paper cutouts especially my character and the bullets ejecting from my gun. I think this has more to do with the game instead of the laptop itself.

3D laptops are very new to us Filipinos and it’s not going to be a common purchase for the average techie any time soon. However, there’s still a place for it for those who want to adapt early to the world of 3D in a smaller scale. The technology is already there so let’s just hope that games can adapt quickly.

Would you actually go for a 3D-capable laptop or spend the money on a more high-end system?

Specs:

• Intel® Core™ i7-740QM processor
• 15.6″ widescreen (Supports 720p content) HD TruBrite® LED Backlit display (3D Ready)
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 350M, 1GB GDDR3 discrete memory + up to 1757MB shared memory w/NVIDIA® TurboCache™ technology
• 4GB DDR3 memory
• 640GB HDD
• NVIDIA® 3D VISION™ Kit (glasses, USB controller/IR emitter, USB 2.0 cable, recharge cable)
• harman/kardon® stereo speakers
• High Capacity Li-Ion (98Wh, 12-cell)
• Blu-ray Disc™ Rewriteable (RE) and DVD SuperMulti drive with Labelflash®

No word yet about the price on this one but if we’re going to use the SRP abroad, it will translate to around Php74,000 (USD1,599).

Farmville for iPhone app has just landed on the App Store. If you’re an iPhone user and a Farmville player on Facebook, you might want to grab the app now. It’s a free app and offers the basic features of the online game.

Alright, to be honest I’ve never played Farmville on Facebook before. I just couldn’t dig it. But for the purpose of checking out the iPhone app, I downloaded the app on my iPhone and signed up.

Quite surprisingly for first time Farmville player like me, the app was not that hard to learn how to play. You can pick up with the game the moment you create your account. I’m not really sure whether you can use your existing Farmville account and then sync it up with the iPhone app.

At any rate, the app loads fast even if my iPhone was running on 3G. Speaking of 3G, be cautious when playing Farmville for iPhone as it is still an online game. Your iPhone will be eating up data charges.

You may download Farmville for iPhone from here. Have fun and enjoy farming!