Engadget has posted some screenshots of the unboxing of Halo 3 Legendary editions. They are worth feasting on. Here is a teaser

Checkout complete gallery here

Here is a slide-show of the Halo 3 goodness on Amazon

Starting midnight the WWW (world wide wait) to 'finish the fight' comes to an end. Halo 3 is a big phenomenon in the gaming industry and for Microsoft and even the stock market is aware of that.

Halo 3 has managed to muster significant hype. Till date there have been  1.5 million US pre-orders of the game. This is a new record for preorder sales.

MetaCritic (aggregates scores from several game reviewers) has given a score of 96/100 to Halo 3 which beats almost ever game title score.

Microsoft knows how important Halo is to its Xbox 360 business. And has prepared for a massive launch starting midnight across the US - New York, Seattle, Los Angeles and Miami. Microsoft has said that Halo 3 is expected to shatter entertainment sales records!

If you are new to this phenomenon, Talkxbox has 10 worthy reasons why you should buy Halo 3! Cannot wait to get my hands on it!

I am a fan of Amazon. Not just because I have friends who work over there, but also because I love their store, "The top sellers" page, the new widgets, and I am affiliate ;-).

Amazon.com announced its eagerly anticipated music store with unprotected 2.3 million songs. This music service will directly compete with the likes of Apple iTunes. The store offers MP3 downloads. The store  lets you buy and download individual songs or entire albums. Since they are not copyright protected, the tracks can be copied to multiple computers, burned onto CDs and played on most types of PCs and portable devices, including Zune and iPod.

Service is still in beta. Songs cost between 89 and 99 cents. The albums sell in the range of $5.99 to $9.99. Check it out.

Microsoft is running a promotion for students where they can get a Microsoft Office Ultimate via Web for a awesome price. Just $60 bucks! This is a steal! If you qualify for this just go for it. Nothing to think about here!

This offer is valid for higher education students and is available in US, UK and Canada. Earlier this year it was available in Australia as a pilot Its available until April 2008. Here are two reasons why this is an "ultimate" buy.

- Office Ultimate 2007 retails for about $679.99. Wouldn't you want it for $60 bucks ?

- Office Ultimate comes with the following. Yes it comes with OneNote!! If you have not used OneNote it is a must try! Extremely handy.

• Access 2007
• Accounting Express 2007
• Excel 2007
• InfoPath 2007
• Groove 2007
• OneNote 2007
• Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager
• PowerPoint 2007
• Publisher 2007
• Word 2007

via Money

Picked this up from Nathan's blog. A new sidebar gadget is in town. This one lets you search for a location and even get directions from within the Gadget. Mike Ormond wrote it and has more information about it.

Keep in mind, this gadget is not a replacement for the traffic sidebar gadget. If you already have the traffic sidebar gadget, Mike Ormond's gadget will install over the traffic sidebar gadget. To avoid that, follow these steps:

1.Visit  http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=8604d5c4-c7b1-4831-9bfd-d20d6885059a

2. Download the livesearchmaps.gadget file on your desktop

3. Rename it to livesearchmaps2.gadget

4. Double click on that file and it will install as a different gadget in your sidebar and not overwrite the Live Maps Traffic gadget

via blognewschannel