Today SanDisk has likely pleased at least a few more professionals in the digital photography and videography world with the introduction of the new 32GB Extreme III CF card. Not only have they doubled the capacity of the largest CompactFlash card SanDisk previously had available, but they’ve also bumped the read/write speed up from 20 MB/second to 30 MB/second with this new item.

Anyone that heavily uses memory cards for digital cameras or video cameras can appreciate how nice it is to have more storage in a single card, and upping the transfer rate by 50% makes the decision to get the larger 32GB CF card just that much easier. Sure you can generally get an SDHC card for a little less money and they are a little bit smaller, but the transfer rate is what will make a difference. The Kingston 32GB SDHC card for example can hold just as much, but moving the card’s entire capacity of data is the difference between about 18 minutes for the SanDisk CF and 2.2 hours for the Kingston SDHC.

In what is probably the biggest physics experiment in history, today marks the first successful test of the Large Hadron Collidor in Geneva by sending a beam of protons through the the entire underground ring that makes up the world’s largest particle collider. The beam sent through travels through the 17 mile underground ring and nearly the speed of light and can make 11,000 laps through the tube every second.

Officials with CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) dubbed the test a success today and the next step will be to send a beam of protons through the tunnel in the opposite direction. Today’s beam went clockwise and the next trial will be to send the beam counter-clockwise.

If successful then the team will be able to work towards the ultimate goal of sending protons through the tunnel in both …

It’s obvious that we can’t let just anyone be an intern with us here at the ‘Brick (along with the other Pragmatic Labs sites) so earlier this year we took time out to pour through all of the applications of intern hopefuls. Unfortunately there was only one application in the stack, but on the upside it did make for an easy decision.

Since then we’ve had the enjoyment of Horatio around the Pragma-plex, constantly giving suggestions, asking questions and soaking up the technology blogging industry like a sponge. I do think he’s enjoying himself but sometimes it’s kinda’ hard to tell. We’ve published a few videos showing what Horatio’s been up to and some insight into his interests. You can see some of our favorites after the jump or check out all of them at the SlipperyBrickTV channel on YouTube.

Thank you Horatio!

How the folks at Schick knew we were a hairy bunch here at the ‘Brick is beyond me, but we’re glad they did since we got the chance to try out this new Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer. We’re really not in the habit of reviewing personal hygiene products such as razors, but this one is kinda’ cool and runs on batteries so we thought we would make an exception.

Today we got a chance to go hands-on with the DSM-330 DivX Connected HD Media Player that D-Link debuted last month. This media player is a handy piece of wireless-capable hardware that bridges the gap between your computer and your TV bringing your downloaded digital media into the living room at up to 720p, and in our tests it did so with ease.

Wicked Lasers recently gave us the opportunity to check out one of their popular laser pointers, which gave us quite a surprise. Actually, before we received it we called it a laser pointer but not any more. Wicked Lasers assured us that it is not a laser pointer – it truly is a wicked laser, and we can’t disagree.

The sample product we received was from the Elite Series of green lasers, specifically the Elite 125. This laser appears to be around the middle of the road for the different lasers offered by Wicked Lasers. The average output power according to the company runs from 125mW to 149mW. They also have lasers in their catalog with as little as 50mW and as much as 300mW. The Elite 125 for us had plenty of power and made it very clear why this is not a laser pointer for regular presentations. For starters it would be difficult to see anything on a presentation screen because the light from the laser is way too bright, even from across a large room. Also, the crowd would be so distracted by what you’re using to point with they’d never pay attention to anything else you’re trying to show them.

When the Wii game console could only play media on external discs the issue of storage was not a problem, but now that owners can download, store and play games online the issue of storage, as with competitor consoles such as the PS3 and Xbox 360, has suddenly become an issue.

Sure you can store some data onto SD cards and swap things in and out of 512MB of internal Wii storage, but that capacity is quickly becoming inadequate and is putting a damper on those wanting to download a lot of games not to mention the ability for Nintendo to sell more games online.

Microsoft announced at E3 today that along with a complete UI update coming to the Xbox 360, they will also be offering streaming movies via Netflix through the game console and Xbox Live. We had heard Netflix express interest in this partnership earlier this year and Microsoft says it will come to fruition in “late fall”. The new feature will require users to be subscribers to Netflix and manage their queue from their computer much like they do now, but will add the ability to stream and view the movies through the Xbox 360 game console. To make this even better, any Xbox Live Gold subscribers will get the service for no additional charge.

Basically this means that owners of an Xbox 360 are getting a brand new interface and all the features of a Roku box (Netflix set-top box retailing for $100) for no additional charges, aside the Live subscription fee that any true Xbox fan is paying anyway.

Nintendo today issued a press release to introduce an unexpected accessory to the Wii Remote controller, called Wii Motionplus. The new attachment is designed to give even more accurate responses to a players hand and arm motions and we hope will lead to a lightsaber game in the very near future. According to Nintendo, the new controller add-on connects to the bottom end of the Wii Remote and will do a better job of “reflecting motions in a 3-D space”.

The attachment works in conjunction with the existing accelerometer in the remote and the Wii Sensor bar to track the players hand and arm motions and give what Nintendo is calling a true 1:1 response, which is sure to be a welcome feature for those interested in first person shooter games or anything requiring a little more precision beyond shaking or waving the remote wildly. The Wii remote currently with the game console does a great job of sensing more general motions, twisting and waving but sometimes can be a little shaky with the direct pointing. The Wii MotionPlus is sure to be an improvement and open up the Wii to less frustrating times at games requiring more precision.

Microsoft has now confirmed a couple of rumors we had heard last week about a new 60GB Xbox 360 and a price cut for the 20GB model. Today the company made an official announcement of the release of a new Xbox 360 with a 60GB hard drive coming in early August to take advantage of the increasing number and size of games, video and music for the game console.

In the same announcement Microsoft announced that the 20GB Xbox 360 model is on its way out with a price drop to $299 while supplies last, which is $50 less than before. The Arcade version and the Elite will remain at $279 and $449 respectively.

The Apple Application store for the iPhone and for the iPod Touch is finally now live and you can check it out here. The store is loaded with applications for use the the mobile devices that are both for sale and for free.

Topping the list of “Free Apps” early on today include Remote which lets you control iTunes on your computer through Wi-Fi with your iPod Touch or iPhone, an AIM application and applications for use with Facebook, Google Mobile, eBay and Twitter. Some of the top applications in general include Super Monkey Ball (big surprise), MLB, Texas Hold’em and Cro-Mag Rally.

If you were excited when Hitachi came out with the first 1TB internal hard drive early last year then be prepared to be just slightly more excited. Hitachi today introduced that same 1TB Deskstar drive but now using 43% less power consumption, naming it the Deskstar 7K1000.B.

The “.B” means that you can buy this whopping internal hard drive with less concern that it’s going to sit there and suck loads more power than your old 80GB drive, which it will, but not as much as it used to according to Hitachi. The drive is actually available in sizes from 160GB up to the largest 1TB capacity.

The rumors are flying today about changes to the availability of hardware configurations for the Xbox 360. These rumors are due to a “leaked” company memo sent out to a few retailers making some statements and implications of changes to come.

For starters, we’ve seen fairly impressive evidence that the Xbox 360 Pro will see a price drop to $299 starting this Sunday. In addition, an email spells out some plans for later this year starting with an 60GB Xbox 360 Pro game console being introduced yet this month, and later on implying that the 20GB console will reach its “end of life” yet this year, likely replaced by this 60GB to accommodate more and bigger Xbox Live games.

Hasselblad is known for making some high-end photography equipment and it appears that they are not going to disappoint today with the introduction of the 50-megapixel H3DII-50 camera. The company is boasting the world’s largest sensor with this latest product. It’s made by Kodak and measures 36x48mm, which is twice the size of the largest 35mm DSLR sensors.

The H3DII is capable of capturing images at 1fps while creating 300 MB files with an ISO range of 50 to 400. The camera has a laundry list of other features and accessories as you might expect including a wide range of lens choices, 3″ display, CCD cooling sink for noise reduction, GPS accessory and choices for file output and media cards.

According to the Sony Playstation blog, the company has released firmware version 2.41 for the Playstation 3 which is expected to be a smoother update than the 2.40 version they released last week and had to pull shortly after. Apparently some folks who installed the 2.40 version experienced problems getting to the XMB when booting up and were stuck with a bricked console, at least temporarily.

We had heard that Sony would get a fix for the 2.40 firmware out sometime this week and their blog entry late last night said it would be available shortly. According to a number of reports the 2.41 version is available now with much, much fewer problems.

Both the 2.40 and the 2.41 firmware updates for the Playstation 3 game console bring some new features including in-game access to the XMB and a new Trophy system …