Microsoft has recently revealed 5 pricing plans for the online program for Xbox 360 console. The most expensive subscription is the “Premium Gold” at $69.99, which comes with a 12 month subscription, a communications headset, an Xbox Live arcade game “Billiards,” a $20 discount on an Xbox 360 game purchase and 200 points in the Xbox Live marketplace.

The 3 month version of the Premium Gold Package is priced at $39.99. This includes a headset, a $10 off coupon for Xbox 360 games, 100 Xbox Live marketplace points, and access to the Xbox Live arcade game Joust.

There are also 3 different versions of the Xbox Live subscription card, with a $59.99 12 month Gold Card, and a scheduled $19.99 3 month Gold Card as well as a $7.99 1 month Gold Card.

The Xbox Live Silver subscription is made available to all Xbox 360 owners, but it will only grant access to the Marketplace and Chat functions.

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When you get your next MP3 player from Creative, not only will you be getting the Zen Patent - creative’s patented navigation technology, but also possibly a Windows worm!

Creative Technology has just announced that 4,000 of its Zen Neon portable music players are shipped with a Windows worm - Wullik.b worm.

The players sent to Japan in an allotment during late July are infected with the Wullik.b worm, a mass-mailed worm code. The Neon’s file system includes an infected file, but the worm won’t infect a connected PC unless the user browses the device’s file list and clicks on the infected file.

In addition Creative has already verified that none of the other creative products are affected by this Windows worm.

Shipments of the Zen Neon 5GB model have been temporarily suspended while the company investigates the matter and checks for possible infections.

“Presently these systems are removed rapidly, problem has already been corrected. We verify that problem was corrected in regard to Creative Zen Neeon which is newly produced at the factory where this time obstacle occurs.” a Babel Fish-translated statement from the company read.

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Ricoh’s Caplio GX8 is a slim and compact 8.2-Megapixel digital camera that commands one of the world’s fastest shutter response time, super-close macro mode and a fast start-up time of 1.3 seconds. The wholly-black camera is quicker, lighter and even easier to use than its wide-angle lens predecessor, the Caplio GX, but only offers a 3x optical zoom lens. Nevertheless, it can easily slip into a jacket pocket, is a snap to use and produces excellent quality images. You’ll struggle to find a camera in this price bracket that offers so much functionality or that produces such good images.

The Caplio GX8 manages to capture colours great and its automatic white balance offers the correct result in most cases. The quality of the lens is excellent for a camera in this price bracket and the wide angle capabilities will be greatly appreciated by creative photographers. Distortion stayed within reasonable limits in our tests, and purple fringing and corner shading only appeared in rather extreme settings - wide angle with maximum aperture.

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The Pentax Optio S5z, a 5 megapixel compact camera with a 1/2.5-inch CCD, 3x zoom, and a 2.5-inch LCD, is the smallest camera in Pentax’s Optio S line at 3.3 x 2.2 x 0.8 inches and 4.2 ounces. It’s also the most expensive, with an MSRP of $349.95, though online prices range from $270 to $350. It’s about $50 more than Pentax’s Optio S55, and about $120 more than the Optio S45.

Like the other cameras in the Optio S line, the S5z is clad in a bright aluminum alloy, and features the Pentax Sliding Lens system, which allows the lens to retract fully when the camera is shut off. Also like other cameras in the S line, the Optio S5z is very easy to use. Pentax’s slogan for the cameras is in fact, “No experience required,” and they deliver.

The Pentax S5z surprised us with its substandard color performance, earning just a 3.73 overall color score. Many colors produced by the camera were extremely under-saturated, resulting in a dull overall color pallet, while others stayed completely from their intended hue. Cooler tones, namely tones in the blue and green channels, were grossly inaccurate, and some orange tones shifted colors to near white (#16 and green #11). While many compact digital cameras earn low scores on color accuracy tests, none we’ve tested so far have strayed so significantly from the ideal tones. The S5z, like many compact cameras, will consistently produce images with inaccurate color tones; however, the problem is severe enough on the S5z to render many of the produced images unusable.

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The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30 is darn close to the perfect ultra zoom camera. It has a fast 12X optical zoom lens (though not as fast as on its predecessor), optical image stabilization, full manual controls, a high resolution LCD and electronic viewfinder, and a VGA movie mode. The big disappointment on the FZ30 was the higher than average noise levels, especially at high ISO sensitivities.

Camera performance is excellent. The FZ30 is ready to shoot in under a second, and its new high speed focusing system is VERY quick. Shutter lag was minimal, and shot-to-shot times were very good, even when shooting in RAW mode — just remember to use a high speed memory card for best performance. The camera has a full suite of manual controls, ranging from the usuals like shutter speed and aperture to white balance fine tuning. Those seeking some automatic modes will be pleased to see a large number of scene modes on the camera. The FZ30’s burst mode is one of the best out there, with unlimited recording at 2 frames/second (with a high speed SD card) and more limited low and high speed modes as well. And the FZ30 finally brings a modern movie mode to the FZ-series of cameras, with unlimited recording at 640 x 480 / 30 fps (again with a high speed memory card) and the ability to use the zoom lens during filming.

The FZ30’s weak point is its image quality. On the positive side, photos were well exposed, with accurate color and low purple fringing levels. Redeye was not a problem. Unfortunately, noise levels are above average, especially at ISO 200 and 400. If you’re printing your photos at 4 x 6 and 5 x 7, you really don’t need to worry about this issue. If you’re printing larger than that, or you enjoy looking at your photos at 100%, then you’ll probably be disappointed. The best solution to the problem that I could find was to use noise reduction software to clean things up a bit. I did this with several of my gallery photos and I got very nice 8.5 x 11 inch prints with just a quick run through NeatImage. I strongly encourage you to print my sample photos to see what you think about the noise levels, since ultimately this is a subjective thing.

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