Exclusive - In February of this year, Intel acquired game developer Offset Software and its game engine technology with the obvious goal to deliver a game that can show off the capabilities of its upcoming discrete graphics card, code-named Larrabee. Late Friday we got our hands on new concept art, revealing some of the work that has been done over the past six months and received word that Offset will also be launching a new community to collect feedback from gamers on Monday.

Analysis – “I don’t get it” was the answer we most often heard today when we asked people what they thought about Microsoft’s first Seinfeld ad that aired yesterday. Producing commercials is an art o skewing of perception, transporting underlying messages and achieve effective comprehension. So we thought about it and found at least 17 possible messages packed in a 90 second commercial. Some of them being funny, some very intelligent, some controversial, some boring and some may even be considered very disturbing. Join us for a journey on taking this commercial apart, piece by piece.

Our love/hate relationship with hard drives maybe coming to an end … that is if Intel has its way.  For more than ayear, Intel has been touting their upcoming solid state drives and atthe recent Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel basicallytrumpeted the end of the spinning magnetic platter era.  Lower powerconsumption, faster speeds and longer life were the reasons peoplewould be buying SSDs in the coming months and Intel engineers gaveplenty of numbers to back up their claims.  The engineers also claimedthat not all solid state drives are created equal and, you guessed it,Intel SSDs were at the top of the dog pile.

The Institute of Physics (IOP) published a report today in Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics providing the most comprehensive mathematical evidence that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), scheduled to go live Wednesday, September 10, 2008, poses no threat to mankind. The research cites the creation of high energy particles in Earth's upper atmosphere, those comprable to the ones LHC will produce, from a constant and natural bombardment from the Sun. In short, there is no danger, the scientists concluded.

Feature – We have had three days to digest Google’s take on the future web browser. We took it through its paces, found bugs, hidden folders and lots of irregularities that you would expect to see in any beta software. We have read lots of opinions – how great and how bad Chrome is, some even suggested it shouldn’t get the name of a polished product, but should be called “Rust” instead. But if we take a step back, it is clear that Chrome isn’t entirely black and white. That of course means that the company sparked some ideas, but will have to adjust the browser as well. We published an article on what is great about Chrome earlier and finish the week with what we believe needs to be changed.

Samsung is reportedly aiming to increase its share of the global flash business by acquiring Sandisk, the world’s largest flash memory card vendor. Following an article published by a Korean website, Sandisk surged by about 28%, giving Sandisk a market capitalization of about $3.85 billion.

Researchers from the Center for Neutron Research at National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), and Seoul National University (SNU), have cooperatively developed a way to tweak the a crucial design aspect for printed organic-based semiconductor circuits. The redesign not only makes them easier to manufacture, but also increases yield and will eventually lead to better performing organic circuits (relative to silicon).

If you are still scratching your head over the first Gates-Seinfeld commercial, perhaps some explanation from Microsoft will help to figure out the reasoning behind the campaign. In short: Windows is a long story and every such story needs and introduction.

Opinion – How would shopping for shoes compare to using a Mac. Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates try to play such a scenario in a first episode of a series of commercials to ridicule the tight grip Apple has on its users.    

Analyst Opinion – Microsoft’s business is built on four main software pillars - Windows, Office, Windows Server and IE.  The two most important, because they have the greatest number of related offerings, are Windows and IE. Windows has been struggling for some time and IE as been losing ground slowly to its rivals, especially Firefox. But Firefox against IE is kind of like Switzerland against the U.S. The resource mismatch is massive and you’d think Firefox would have failed given this massive disadvantage.   It didn’t and has become a poster child the power of viral product growth. But now Google is joining the party – with funding levels that rival Microsoft.    

LG has announced a new Blu-ray player that can stream Netflix videos.  The BD300 will be available this fall for $400 and will have the standard Blu-ray features like 1080p resolution and five channel uncompressed audio playback.  The player also has a USB port that plays music, pictures and videos from common handheld devices.  Standard definition DVDs can also be played and the BD300 will upsample the video to 1080p resolutions.  But perhaps the most interesting feature is the Netflix streaming, but sadly the video and audio quality will be extremely limited.

The CEDIA show in Denver Colorado has become a pre-CES show of sorts with many home electronics companies showing off their latest gadgets.  So far attendees have been wowed by a 400-disc Blu-ray changer from Sony and a JVC 4K projector that pumps out 3500 lumens worth of video.  As usual, no prices were announced, but for these things if you have to ask, then you probably can’t afford it.

While praised, today's multi-touch input methods are clearly in its infancy. It recognizes only a handful of gestures, it isn’t terribly accurate and not a great tool for precise object manipulation. It seems, however, Apple has many more ideas for multi-touch and is working on adding new technology that could improve multi-touch accuracy, enable more detailed gestures and perhaps change the way you use your computer.  

Craigslist has always extolled a “damn the torpedos” mantra when it comes to ad postings, but things at the world's most popular online classifieds site may be getting out of hand.  A simple scan of Google News shows dozens of stories of Craigslist-related robberies, prostitution stings and other shenanigans in recent days.  Sure, there’s always one or two Craigslist robbery stories every day, but in the past few weeks things seem to have exploded for no apparent reason.

Comcast today filed a complaint in the DC Court of Appeals, challenging the FCC’s August 20 conclusion that the cable Internet service provider’s approach to slowing down Internet connections violates federal policies. The outcome of this complaint is unclear, as the company also said that it will comply with the FCC’s request to provide details about its network management techniques.