Let’s face it: despite the new Xbox 360 being joyously quieter and more efficient, the previous model still manages to seduce some of us with its sexy curves. Speaking of which — according to Joystiq’s source, Best Buy’s going to kick off August by lowering the prices for the Splinter Cell: Conviction and Final Fantasy XIII previous-gen Xbox 360 bundles. For just $299 — $50 off the current price point (and $100 off the launch price) — you still get a copy of the corresponding game title, a 250GB HDD, and two wireless controllers.

In 2009, Chris Paget showed the world the vulnerabilities of RFID by downloading the contents of US passports from the safety of his automobile. This year, he’s doing the same for mobile phones. Demonstrating at DefCon 2010, the white hat hacker fooled 17 nearby GSM phones into believing his $1,500 kit (including a laptop and two RF antennas) was a legitimate cell phone base station, and proceeded to intercept and record audience calls

Yelp’s CEO Jeremy Stoppelman deserves credit for trying to play nice with Google, even appearing onstage at the Social Currency CrunchUp with John Hanke , a Google VP of Product Management. As expected the tension was palpable, as Hanke and Stoppelman discussed Google Places and the goliath’s heavy reliance on Yelp’s content .

AMD had its turn in the high-end Dell desktop spotlight, but it’s time for another Intel beast, as the company’s quietly upgraded its tower lineup to support Intel’s consumer-grade champion chip, the 3.33GHz Core i7-980X . While the new Studio XPS 9100 looks just the same as its predecessor on the outside and sports the same basic options and ports, internally there’s a 525W power supply with enough juice for a Radeon HD 5970 2GB graphics card (a $580 option) and slots for up to 24GB of DDR3 memory. You won’t be getting any of this pixel-pushing goodness on the $950 base model, of course, which has only a (respectable) quad-core 2.66GHz Core i7-920 and an Nvidia GeForce G310 512MB, but the machine looks like it could hold its own with low-end Alienware cousins if you get into $2,000+ territory

Well this is interesting. One of the key points at Apple’s recent press conference to discuss the iPhone 4′s antenna , was that the problem (called “attenuation”) is not unique to the iPhone 4. To highlight this, Apple showed videos of the problem on smartphones by rival companies

Commercial egg-style smokers are extremely expensive. Put off by the high price one resourceful DIYer made an absolutely beautiful homemade smoker complete with stand, chimney, inlet damper, and other polished features. More

Let’s call this a single source rumor. But the source is Paul Carr’s camera, so we feel pretty good about it. The picture was taken last night at the TechCrunch summer party at August Capital

If you’ve built your fair share of custom PCs over the years, you’ve probably got more than a few circuit boards stashed away. Here’s how to turn them into a cool coffee table.

Windows: Raptr is an impressive social networking tool designed to replace and enhance the lackluster tools included in many games. Connect with your gamer friends more effectively and with clearer information on who is playing what and when. More

One great way to support the local food market , reduce environmental waste, and save money is to buy whole animals instead of single cuts of meat. Iowa State University has created a guide to help you do so at home. More