ASUS Eee Box B204 / B206 grows an HDMI port, handles high-def material

Man, talk about maturing early. ASUS' Eee Box just hit the shelves here in America a few months back, and now the company is already pushing out a pair of successors. Both the Eee Box B204 and B206 retain the same overall design and processor (1.6GHz Intel Atom N270), but you will find a 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3400 GPU to complement the 1GB of RAM, 160GB SATA II hard drive, multicard reader, 802.11n WiFi, Windows XP Home, 10GB of online Eee Storage, gigabit Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, DVI connector and the freshly added HDMI socket. The B204 trumps the B206 (weird, right?) with the inclusion of Bluetooth and a built-in battery that acts as a UPS in case of power failure. We've already seen just how decently the B202 could handle 1080p playback; it's just that much easier with a dedicated HDMI port. As is par for the course with ASUS, there's nary a mention of price / availability.

Samsung teases with 50-inch OLED TV for CES, scolds us for caring

When SED development hit the brakes a few years ago, OLED technology quickly stepped in to fill the emptiness felt by our fickle hearts' desire for the blackest of blacks. Up until now, prototype OLED panels have been limited to a max size of about 40-inches. But these won't be available for consumers until 2010 or so. For now, we're "stuck with" Sony's little 11-inch XEL-1 if anyone actually wants to purchase an OLED TV for their living room kitchen. Samsung's vice president of flat panel development, HS Kim, says that Sammy "may demonstrate" a 50-inch OLED TV at CES in January but quickly tempers any enthusiasm with a crushing blow of reality,

"I'm sure that if we marketed such a set at ten times the price of current LCD TVs, which is what it would be now, no-one would buy it."

Kim then shifts into sales-mode by pointing out that Samsung's more power-efficient 240Hz LCDs and Plasmas with highly-reflective black panels and LED edge-lighting are quickly cutting into any advantage offered by OLEDs -- including thinness if you factor in the additional electronics you'd have to slap onto the back of those 3-mm thick OLED panels to create a TV. Of course, manufacturers can also dump all that tech into a display-side box much like Sony does with it's XEL-1, but hey, he's on a roll. When the interview with What Hi-Fi ended, Kim presumably kicked a puppy just to drive his points home.

Ben Heck outdoes himself with Xbox 360 Portable

Seriously, how many spare Xbox 360s does Benjamin Heckendorn have laying around? By our count, this is the third instance where the modder extraordinaire has shoved Microsoft's latest console into something that's theoretically playable on one's lap, and obviously, this one is the best one evar. Dubbed the Xbox 360 Portable, the unit is said to weigh almost as much as his sister's cat, and it differs from most other on-the-go 360s by featuring a removable standard Xbox 360 hard drive, two accessible memory card slots, no keyboard (use the chatpad!), an internal WiFi module and beveled edges for extra safety. We'd ask what crazy mod he's planning with all the free time coming up over the holiday break, but honestly, we'd prefer to be surprised.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II unboxed

It's been on sale for a couple days now (at least in Shanghai), so it had to happen eventually -- you're witnessing the first tentative breaths of a Canon EOS 5D Mark II as it leaves the box. So many manuals to ignore! So many useless composite video cables and driver CDs to fill your drawers! So much bubble wrap to spend intimate moments with! It all goes down at the read link, kids.

New Xbox Arcade units to pack 256MB internal storage

Now that the New Xbox Experience has been mostly-successfully pushed out, with its avatars, new interface, and updated marketplace, Arcade owners with less than 128MB of storage have been left out in the cold -- and the big M's "solution" of free memory cards wasn't exactly ideal. That's changing, however -- a MS spokesperson confirmed to Xbox360 Fanboy that new Arcade units will contain 256MB of internal memory. So if you've been looking to pick up a new 360 Arcade, feel free to get your Netflix HD on as soon as every last cord is connected -- if you're a subscriber, that is.