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amazon, apple, macbook, tablet, exchange, netbook, laptop, refu

After many customer requests, Amazon has expanded its trade-in program to include mobile computers. As of yesterday, you can use the service to exchange your used laptops and netbooks for an Amazon gift card. To get started, search for eligible items here, provide information about the condition of your belongings, and use the supplied shipping label to send your package within one week.

Assuming your trade-in isn't rejected (in which case it'll be sent back to you), your Amazon account should be credited with the gift card. There's surprisingly little fine print and there are only a few real limitations: you must be 18 years old, live in the US, you can't send more than $1,250 worth of goods in a given trade-in and you can't send more than two of the same item in a three month period.

Whether by coincidence or not, Amazon updated its program only weeks before Apple is expected to refresh its MacBook lineup. The etailer's trade-in program seems to offer competitive rates compared to Apple. For instance, the late 2011 13.3-inch MacBook Pro (model MD313LL/A) is fetching a maximum of $625 on Amazon, whereas Apple's best rate is $605.25. However, you could get $900+ on eBay.

You might make more selling the items yourself, but that comes with extra responsibilities, so services like Amazon's are worthwhile for many people. The trade-in program also covers CDs, movies, books, games, cameras, tablets, smartphones, MP3 players and other electronics. In the case of textbooks, Amazon is running a test program at select colleges that let you exchange the books in person.

Posted in: ahead,Amazon,laptops,MacBook,program,refresh,tradein

EA confirms the existence of Battlefield 3 'Premium' service

6:36 PM

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EA is planning to launch a “Premium” service for Battlefield 3 that’s sounding a lot like what Activision did with their Elite service in Modern Warfare 3. News of the membership came to light via a leaked fact sheet out of Germany but don’t brush this aside as another baseless rumor; EA has confirmed that Battlefield Premium will be announced on June 4.

The one-time fee of $50 will grant players access to the five released expansion packs as well as two weeks early access to future packs and the ability to reset stats. There’s also another member perk that Joystiq describes as “pretty gross.”

According to the leaked document, premium members will get queue priority into servers. That’s right, if you pay $50 you essentially get to skip the line when trying to join a game. Meanwhile everyone else is pushed further down the queue list. It will be interesting to see how this plays out – depending on how many gamers sign up for the premium service, this could either be a non-issue or potentially generate lot of hatred from Joe Gamer.

The idea of bundling all of the expansion packs into a single purchase actually saves gamers a bit of money in the long run. The model has proven successful with the Call of Duty franchise as it has amassed 2 million paying subscribers.

EA has confirmed the existence of the Premium service on Twitter and says that users should check out Battlefield.com on June 4 for more info. This date just happens to coincide with the company’s E3 press conference so there’s a possibility that they could launch the service on the same day.

Posted in: Battlefield,confirms,existence,Premium,service

Megaupload's lawyers file notion for dismissal due to lack of jurisdiction

3:14 PM

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united states, megaupload, court, copyright infringement, kim dotcom, legal action, indictme

Following a New Zealand court ruling ordering the US Government to share all evidence relating to the criminal charges of the accused on Tuesday, attorneys representing Megaupload filed a notion in the Alexandria District Court to throw out the criminal copyright charges (PDF) brought against the file-sharing website due to lack of legal jurisdiction.

"Megaupload does not have an office in the United States, nor has it had one previously," Megaupload's lawyers wrote in the motion filed with the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. "Service of a criminal summons on Megaupload is therefore impossible." The filing pointed out that even if the US was successful in extraditing Doctom, it would still be unable to satisfy the second part of rule 4.

"The Federal Rules do not contemplate service of a criminal summons on a wholly foreign corporation without an agent or offices in the United States. Wholly foreign corporations, therefore, may not be prosecuted for alleged violations of federal criminal law unless they waive service. In short, a corporation such as Megaupload cannot be brought within the jurisdiction of this Court for criminal proceedings absent its consent."

This marks an important point in the ongoing legal battle and follows an earlier hearing in which the court acknowledged that Megaupload not having been served was an "issue." In a remark that could prove very damaging to the US Government's case against the file-sharing website, the court even admitted that it "frankly didn't know that we are ever going to have a trial in this matter."

Speaking on Radio New Zealand, Ira Rothken, a member of Megaupload's legal counsel said, "the law here in the United States is that you can't indict and then serve a company that does not have a presence in the United States [...] This case was flawed from the start, once this case gets dismissed it cannot be fixed."

Dotcom's legal counsel also filed a second notion requesting (PDF) that assets seized as a result of the raid on his residence be unfrozen to allow them to fund their defense. The filing also highlighted the key points of argument should it reach court: "Patent law, from which the Grokster Court borrowed the 'inducement' rule is exclusively civil in nature," the brief stated. "There is no such thing as criminal liability for patent infringement."

"The Government has stepped in to transmogrify the doctrine of secondary infringement, as fashioned by the courts for civil copyright cases, into a crime and to wield its prosecutorial pretrial powers to snuff out an innovative technology," Megauploads lawyers argued. The consequence of doing so would risk "upsetting the essential balance that Congress and the Supreme Court have taken such care to strike and maintain."

"We'll respond at the appropriate time in court," a spokesperson for the US Attorney's Office for the District of Virginia said in an emailed statement to CNet,

Posted in: dismissal,jurisdiction,lawyers,Megauploads,notion

Rumor: Apple to demo new Apple TV OS at WWDC, will be used on iTV

11:26 AM

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Apple could be preparing to demonstrate a new operating system for the Apple TV set-top box at the Worldwide Developers Conference in a couple of weeks. The OS is much more feature-complete than the current offering and while that alone could be exciting news for some, BGR says that this OS will also be utilized on the company’s long-rumored HDTV.

A trusted source told the publication that Apple has been shopping around a new “control out” API that would allow manufacturers to make accessories and components that would be compatible with the new TV OS and the pending television set. This new API will reportedly be able to control any connected component from the Apple remote control and probably the Apple iOS remote app as well.

As you can imagine, having this level of control over components would be unheard of as today’s home theater systems typically include a bevy of different remote controls, infrared codes, physical cables and / or separate Wi-Fi apps for each device.

The publication’s source claims that the API works on all levels of popular components, even allowing the user to control programming guides on a cable provider’s box. Perhaps this could be the game-changer that the late Steve Jobs was referring to when he said he’d finally cracked it?

Finally, the iTV isn’t expected to make an appearance at WWDC although at this point anything is viable. The developer conference runs from June 11 through the 15th in San Francisco.

Posted in: Apple,Rumor

Gigabyte unveils "world's lightest" carbon fiber notebook

7:34 AM

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Gigabyte has taken the wraps of what it claims is the world's lightest notebook: the Gigabyte X11. As the name suggests this is an 11-inch system —11.6 specifically — and the Taiwan-based manufacturer has used an all carbon fiber enclosure to achieve an impressive light weight of 975g (2.15 pounds). For reference, Apple’s aluminum-body 11.6-inch MacBook Air is just slightly heavier at 1,080 grams (2.38 pounds).

Design-wise the X11 features a wedge-shaped design that goes from 3mm (0.19 inches) at the front to 16.5mm (0.65 inches) on the back. Opening the lid you’ll see an aluminum hinge, a chiclet-style keyboard with a backlight and ambient light sensor, and a large buttonless touchpad. Ports include power, USB 2.0 and mini DisplayPort on the left side plus microSD, combo audio and USB 3.0 on the right.

Under the hood the system features an unidentified “3rd generation Intel Core” processor (Ivy Bridge) and Mobile Intel HM77 Express chipset with Intel HD Graphics 4000, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 128GB solid state drive, a 1366 x 768 pixel LED-backlit display, 1.3 megapixel camera, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0, as well as a choice between Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional operating systems.

Expect the Gigabyte X11 to arrive in July priced from $999 to $1299 depending on configuration.

Image via Engadget

Posted in: carbon,fiber,Gigabyte,lightest,notebook,unveils,worlds

Latest Humble Bundle offers Bastion, Psychonauts, Limbo and more

4:09 AM

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In what may be its finest promotion yet, the latest Humble Indie Bundle kicked off today with five highly rated indie games for less than the price of one. In case you're unfamiliar with the formula, the service lets you set your own price for the titles involved. Pay less than the average rate (currently $7.38 and rising) and you'll get Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Psychonauts, Limbo and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. Pay more than the average price, and you'll get Bastion as well.

All five games work on Windows, Mac and Linux with modest requirements that should play nice with most modern machines (Amnesia: The Dark Descent might not run well on integrated graphics or very low-end cards). Bastion, Limbo, Sword & Sworcery, and Amnesia were considered some of last year's best games -- indie or otherwise -- with average review ratings in the mid to high 80s. Psychonauts dates back to 2005 and despite its relatively poor sales, it also has very high ratings:

89 Bastion (action-RPG) - Wikipedia, GameTrailers, Metacritic87 Sword & Sworcery (adventure) - Wikipedia, GameTrailers, Metacritic90 Limbo (puzzle platformer) - Wikipedia, GameTrailers, Metacritic85 Amnesia (survival horror) - Wikipedia, GameTrailers, MetacriticPsychonauts (adventure platformer) - Wikipedia, GameTrailers, Metacritic

You'll have to spend more than $1 if you want at Steam key and paying less than that doesn't leave the organization much profit after transaction fees anyway. Your payment can be split anyway you want between the event organizers, the developers and charities including the EFF and Child's Play. So far, 145,000 gamers have spent over a million bucks (with 14 days to go!) and the highest submission is $3,000. Windows users have spent an average of $6.81, $8.87 for Mac and $11.39 for Linux.

Posted in: Bastion,bundle,Humble,Latest,Limbo,offers,Psychonauts

Media Center yanked from Windows 8 Release Preview, here's how to re-enable it

1:07 AM

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Microsoft has already said that Windows Media Center will be available to Windows 8 users as a separate, paid for add-on, rather than being integrated into the OS as was the case with the last two releases of Windows. Although it was still present in the Consumer Preview, if you’ve already installed the new Release Preview build you may have noticed that the media center software is nowhere to be found.

Fortunately, there is a way to enable Media Center in Windows 8 Release Preview for free so users can continue testing it in the interim. Also, if you want to play DVDs on Windows 8, Media Center or a third-party app are required, as Microsoft decided not to include DVD and Blu-ray playback by default anymore.

Here are the instructions as detailed on a Microsoft Windows 8 Release Preview FAQ:

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search.
(If you're using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, and then click Search.)Enter add features in the search box, and then tap or click Add features to Windows 8.Tap or click I already have a product key.Enter this product key: MBFBV-W3DP2-2MVKN-PJCQD-KKTF7 and then click Next.Select the checkbox to accept the license terms and then click Add features.Your PC will restart and the Windows Media Center tile will be pinned to the Start screen.

This is the same procedure users will need to follow when adding Media Center to the final version of Windows 8 — save for the fact that you’ll need to pay for the license key. Microsoft hasn’t revealed exactly how much the upgrade will cost yet, besides saying that "it will be in line with marginal costs".