Doug Aamoth…

The first two EA Sports MotionPlus-compatible games for the Wii will be shipping on June 16th, according to a company press release. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 and Grand Slam Tennis will both make use of the super-precise MotionPlus add-on for the Wii-mote.

EA Sports is promising “near-perfect 1:1 swing” mechanics for TW10 and “the deepest tennis experience ever for the Wii” with Grand Slam Tennis. I’ll be most interested in how Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 makes use of MotionPlus but the tennis game sounds interesting too with the drop shots and the lobs and the spins and whatnot. Golf first, though. Always golf first.

Still no word on whether or not the games will ship with the MotionPlus peripheral included but the fact that there was no mention of that in the press release leads me to believe that we’ll have to pay out of pocket for the add-on.

Ho-lee cow, that’s a sweet rebate. Amazon’s got the “lighter than air” Samsung X360 notebook for under a grand if you’re the type of person who owns stamps and can handle mailing things before certain deadlines.

The X360 weighs 2.8 pounds, features a 128GB solid state drive, and a six-cell battery for up to eight hours of juice. You get 3GB of RAM and a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU as well. The LED-backlit screen measures 13.3 inches, with a resolution of 1280×800. A fingerprint module and a full-size chiclet-style keyboard round everything else out.

Regular price is $1499 but a $500 mail-in rebate knocks it down to $999. You have to purchase the machine by Saturday, though, as the deal ends on 2/28/09.

Samsung X360 [Amazon.com via dealnews]

Remember when people used to memorize phone numbers? How many of the phone numbers of the contacts in your cell phone do you know by heart? I know my wife’s and both my parents — that’s it. Assuming I’d want to get in the way-back machine and go to a simpler time, this Bluetooth-equipped rotary phone might do the trick quite nicely.

At $250, the thought of actually owning this clunky chunk of nostalgia is mortifying to someone like me but I’m sure there are some phone lovers out there who’d gladly pony up. As long as your cell phone has Bluetooth, it’ll work with this phone – even down to the actual dialing. The slow, agonizing, wonderfully old-timey dialing.

Bluetooth® Portable Rotary Phone [Sparkfun via technabob]

Playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl with the standard Wii Classic Controller is okay, but it kinda feels small in my manly hands – like I’m playing video games using a granola bar or a harmonica or something. I’m sure it’s just fine for younger generations but I might have to gravitate to the Classic Controller Pro when it comes out this summer.

It appears to be a bit more substantial, with some added hand grips, more shoulder buttons, and a spacing-out of the analog thumb sticks. Pricing and exact availability are unknown but I bet it’ll run $25 to $30. I shudder to think how much I’ve actually spent on my Wii system with all these extra controllers and plastic gun-shaped doodads.

Classic Controller PRO [Nintendo (translated) via Kotaku]

Today’s the day that the Dell Mini 10 can be preordered on Dell.com, so happy Dell Mini 10 Day to everyone. There’s cake in the break room.

A crotch-punchingly expensive version’s been available for preorder on QVC.com for $559 (Easy Pay! 5 Installments of $111.80, plus Tax) but you can mold the computer to your liking at Dell starting at $399.

The base model gets you Windows XP, an Atom Z520 CPU at 1.33GHz, a 160GB hard drive at 5,400RPM, and a three-cell battery. As far as upgrading goes, you can bump it up to a Z530 CPU at 1.6GHz for an extra $50 and you can change the color for an extra $30.

That’s about it, though – no higher resolution screen, no RAM more than 1GB, no bigger hard drive, and no longer battery. Apparently we’ll see some or all of those options “in the future” according to Dell’s initial blog post. Orders are set to ship out around March 20th.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook Details [Dell.com]

For a full grown man, Michael Jackson sure has a lot of arcade games. Weird, huh? If you’ve got some money burning a hole in your pocket, why not head out to Beverly Hills in late April to see if you can pick up some of these machines at deep, deep discounts.

He’s basically got just about one of everything. It’s times like these that I wish I would have stuck with the alto saxophone in fifth grade band so I, too, could have made enough money to buy enough arcade games to fill my giant saxophone-shaped mansion. 

There are some real gems in here, like Zoltar the Fortune Teller, Super Street Fighter II, Blitz 99, Need for Speed, DDR, Neo Geo, Karate Champ, and even store display racks with consoles like PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, and 3DO. 3DO!

The auction will take place in two rounds; one at 9:00 AM and one at 2:00 PM on April 24th at Julien’s Auctions. It’ll be open to the public, adjacent to the Beverly Hilton at 9900 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Zip code? 90210, of course. You’ll have to pony up $20 to get in, or you can bid online at AuctionNetwork.com if you can’t make it in person. 

Here’s the full list of games:

• The Simpsons Pinball Party
• Sports Shooting USA
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• Megatouch XL
• Street Fever Basketball
• Jambo! Safari
• Super Chexx Hockey
• Hotflash Air Hockey
• Popstar Pinball
• San Francisco Rush
• Crazy Taxi
• Hog Wild
• F1 Exhaust Note
• Police Trainer 2 Deluxe
• Crazy Taxi III
• Star Trek (pinball)
• X-Men
• Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure
• Terminator 3 (pinball)
• Tokyo Cop
• Dark Stalkers
• Revolution X
• Ms. Pacman & Galaga
• Horse Ride
• The Simpsons Bowling
• The Simpsons (arcade game)
• Fortune Teller
• Grandmother Predictions
• Sammy USA Sports Arena
• Zoltar the Fortune Teller
• Lethal Enforcers
• Lara Croft Tomb Raider
• War Gods
• Jumbo
• Print Club 2
• Super Street Fighter II
• Little Red Corvette
• Sega R-360
• NBA Hang Time
• Harley-Davidson & L.A. Riders
• Polaroid Photo Booth
• The Portrait Studio
• Galaxy Force
• WWF Royal Rumble
• Oscar’s Wild Ride Gumball Machine
• Ziggy the Clown
• Nintendo 64 (in a store display rack)
• 3DO (in a store display rack)
• Sony PlayStation (in a store display rack)
• Clown Around
• Smashing Drive
• Sergeant Major
• Nintendo Virtual Boy (in a store display rack)
• Blitz 99
• Alpine Racer 2
• Hip Hop Mania Complete Mix 2
• Digital Thunder
• Crazy Taxi
• Ultracade
• Mocap Boxing
• Striker Xtreme
• Time Killers
• Saturn
• Karate Champ
• Super NEO 29
• Cruis’n Exotica
• Strike Fighter
• Megatouch MAXX
• Virtua Racing
• Ripley’s Pinball
• Austin Powers Pinball
• Ultracade
• NSM Jukebox
• San Francisco Rush 2049
• Eighteen Wheeler
• X-Men (arcade version)
• Sports Jam
• Lethal Enforcer
• Batman
• Luigi’s Corner
• Robovend
• LAX Rotary Merchandiser
• Guitar Freaks
• Tekken 2
• Star Wars Racer
• Bucking Bronco
• The Sands Slot Machine
• Mills Blue Bell Hi Top Slot
• Dig Dug
• Crystal Castles
• Soul Calibur
• Sunset Riders
• Danger Zone
• Donkey Kong
• Terminator 2
• Aliens
• NBA Showtime
• Frogger
• Cart Fury
• Manx Super Bike
• Atari Basketball
• Pony Mark IV
• Ms. Pacman
• Mortal Kombat
• Neo Geo MVS
• Caveman Ninja
• Super Mario Brothers
• Beach Head 2002
• Marvel vs. Capcom
• Virtua Tennis 2
• Top Skater
• Super Nintendo (in a store display rack)
• Dance Dance Revolution
• Sega Genesis Game Display
• Sega Dreamcast (in a store display rack)
• Frenzy Express
• Need for Speed

Whew, that’s a lot of games. There are 242 pages filled with various memorabilia in the auction catalog, which you can view here, along with the games listed above.

[via Kotaku]

Wow. While building a digital pinball machine out of a giant LCD and a second, slightly less-giant LCD might cost more than buying an actual machine, the ability to play multiple machines using the Future Pinball simulator effectively turns it into an almost endless supply of fun for any serious pinball fanatic.

A guy over on the HyperSpin/HyperPin forums did just that and uploaded the following video to YouTube for the whole world to see. Looks pretty nice, no?

[via Offworld]

Here’s one for the “Why would I buy a netbook instead of a notebook?” crowd. OfficeMax is selling the Compaq Presario CQ50-139NR 15.4-inch notebook for $349.99 after $100 instant savings – good until Saturday. It’s refurbished but you get a one-year warranty.

Specs include:

• Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3200 Mobile Processor (2.00GHz, 667MHz, 1MB L2 Cache)
• 3072MB DDR2 Memory
• 250GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
• 15.4″ WXGA High-Definition Brightview Widescreen Display
• Windows Vista Home Premium OS
• 802.11 b/g WLAN
• Built-In Webcam & Mic
• SuperMulti DVD Burner
• 1-Year Refurb Limited Warranty

So that’s a lot of computer for under $400, all with the price tag of a netbook.

Compaq Presario CQ50-139NR [OfficeMax via dealnews]

A UK man named Mark Taylor had his Gateway laptop fried by an actual earthworm, which was believed to have crawled inside the machine’s air vent to escape the man’s cats. Taylor received an error message that his processor’s fan wasn’t working and, upon inspection by an IT professional, it was found that the five-inch worm had been “cooked” after wrapping itself around the CPU fan, which in turn broke the fan, causing the computer to overheat.

According to the Telegraph:

Computer technician Sam Robinson, 28, who discovered the worm said: “The machine was displaying a message saying that the processor fan was unworkable.

“I took the back off and had a look inside. Then I spotted what at first I thought was some sort of hair band or elastic band wrapped around the fan.

“I soon discovered that it was a worm which had been burned to a frazzle. It had obviously wrapped around the fan when somebody had turned on the computer and caused the breakdown due to the fan jamming.

Now that’s a new one. I wonder if Gateway’s warranty covers death-by-earthworm.

[via The Raw Feed]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed on a conference call yesterday that Window Mobile 7 indeed won’t be here until next year. Although Ballmer didn’t give an exact date, it’s thought that the OS will be sent to manufacturers in November of this year and will show up in consumer devices by April of next year as previously reported.

Ballmer also reminded everyone that Windows Mobile 6.5 was just announced (photo, left) and will be rolled out in the second half of 2009, so perhaps that’ll tide people over for a bit.

He also denied any plans to produce a Microsoft phone, reaffirming his company’s commitment to license the OS to outside hardware manufacturers.

[WMPowerUser via PhoneScoop]