I’m not really sure how many Steam players are into achievements, but the team behind Valve’s gaming platform has decided to make the total aggregates publicly available. In other words, players get to see their achievement-based performance compared to other Steam members.

If we take Left 4 Dead (by far my most favorite Steam game), some of the trends made clear by the achievement tally make sense. For instance, only 0.5% of L4D players have achieved “Legendary Survivor”. Achieving that means holding off endless waves of zombies for at least 10 minutes—in five different situations while hoping your 3 teammates know what they’re doing. Read more

The folks over at Tom’s Hardware’s Forums apparently know their stuff, having come up with a configuration that supposedly provides great gaming for the first year, “decent” gaming for the second—working with a $1000 budget. Here what they have so far:

• Casing: Antec Three Hundred Black Computer Case ($60)
• Power Supply: CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply ($100)
• Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro ATX Intel Motherboard ($200)
• CPU: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor ($289)
• Memory: Kingston 3GB (3 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory ($52)
• Video Card: EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512-P3-N873-AR Video Card ($135)
• Hard Disk: Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive ($75)
• Optical Drive: LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS30 ($25)

Take note though! This setup obviously does not include a display or a pair of speakers. There’s nothing wrong with using your current ones though.

During a summit for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, venture capitalist John Doerr spewed some funny logic regarding the iPhone:

But he also repeated his claim - made in March at the App store announcement - that the iPhone is more important than the PC. Even with the runaway success of games on Apple’s iconic device and thousands of other applications for the iPhone, that is still quite a claim.

I’m trying to think of a metaphorical explanation here (perhaps Doerr was trying to package the iPhone as the platform of the future), but I can’t help but gag and agree with the polite “quite a claim” conclusion of Mike Harvey.

Let’s face it: the iPhone is, for all intents and purposes, a phone. The PC—a generic gadget category that ironically covers the Mac—is a versatile multi-purpose piece of machinery that can do so much more. Even the most wild-eyed iPhone fans understand that even the “best” phone can’t do everything a PC can.

Granted, Doerr may have equated the importance of the iPhone with the apparently vast market potential of its application platform. But we are all aware of current hardware and ergonomic limitations. The phone still has a long way to go to offering an experience that matches what’s offered by the PC.

(image from kottke.org)

** NO PICS UNTIL SOME ISSUES ARE SORTED OUT**

The guys at Engadget get to play the new 8.9 errr 9.0 inch (who cares? its bigger) Asus Eee PC at CeBIT 2008 in Hannover. Lucky them. There is some similar traits between the 7 inch version and this 9 inch wonder ( is it called Eee PC 900? ) Its gonna be having a quoted 2.5 to 3 hours of battery life, hit shelves mid 2008 with a 8GB and €399 price for the 12GB model. Nice compact model with higher capacities.

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