Filed under: Gaming

As much as we’re going to miss covering the entertaining side show that has been the life of Bo Stefan Eriksson for the last nine months, we’re relieved that the former Gizmondo Europe director has finally admitted some culpability in this strange saga — and that he’ll soon be forced to leave the country and become someone else’s problem. After a Los Angeles jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict in Eriksson’s grand theft auto case last week — resulting in a mistrial — the imaginary friend-loving Swede apparently decided that a retrial coupled with the separate weapons charges would be too much to bear, and ended up receiving a pretty sweet deal from prosecutors. In exchange for pleading guilty to two counts of embezzlement and one count of illegal gun possession, the one-time mobster weaseled his way out of an auto theft charge and ended up receiving a three-year sentence plus three years of probation — but because of the time he’s already served as well as “other allowances,” he should be free in about a year. Once he gives up his orange jumpsuit, Eriksson faces immediate deportation from the US, although his lawyer has stated that the now house-less and car-less felon was planning to leave anyway (expect us to be liveblogging his bon voyage party). The only matter that has yet to be settled is how much loot will have to be paid to the British banks who repo’d Eriksson’s Mercedes and non-crumpled Ferrari, so after December 7th, ol’ Stefan will be lucky to have enough money in his commissary account to afford a package of Twinkies.

[Via GamesIndustry.biz]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

Acer’s Ferrari 1000 is likely to be nominated for sexiest ultraportable, but even if not, this 12.1-inch widescreen machine looks pretty impressive; not too far back we announced that this thing was hitting the street, and now it’s been properly test-driven. As expected, the Ferrari 1000 utilizes the AMD Turion 64 X2 and comes stuffed with 1GB of RAM, 120GB SATA hard drive, 1.3 megapixel webcam, external DVD+/-RW optical drive (where are the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray drives?), ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics chipset, 1,280 x 800 WXGA screen, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, and reads practically every flash card we’ve ever heard of. cNews in Russia found very little to grumble about: the 3.7-pound machine wheeled through benchmarks, but apparently left reviewers disappointed by fingerprints showing on the carbon fiber. Going for about $4,000, this notebook ain’t cheap, but if you want an ultraportable to match your Enzo, you can take delivery later this month.

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Filed under: Peripherals

We thought $50 was a lot to spend on Kokuz's mousepad made of 200-year old elm wood, but apparently we hadn't seen anything yet. F1 racing is hocking a mousing surface made of polished carbon fiber, leather and Italian suede for a whopping $489.34 ($470.52 if you don't need the leather surface), boasting that it was made by "specialist composite technicians." Sure, it will probably look great sitting next to your new Acer Ferrari 1000/5000 and Pininfarina-designed external HDD, but we can't help but think how much more impressed we'd be with someone who took a little initiative and built their own air-cooled mousepad or, better yet, embraced the unique pointing technology of the Novint Falcon.

Filed under: Laptops

It hasn’t been long since we saw AMD pop up with their own dual core mobile processor, the AMD Turion 64 X2, and the first round of products are already beginning to appear. Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Acer‘s Ferrari 5000 and 1000, the former a 15.4-inch carbon fiber desktop replacement, outfitted with a 1.3 megapixel camera, 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, gigabit Ethernet, and a dual-layer slot loading DVD±RW drive — or, eventually an HD DVD drive (what, no Blu-ray?); the latter is a 12.1-inch widescreen machine that weighs in at 3.7 pounds. We’re not clear yet on price, availability, or what it’ll look like up in the face, but we are definitely interested to see how this machine will stack up against the slew of Core Duos already on the market.

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Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Transportation

border="1" src="http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/04/083.jpg" alt="" />

We shamelessly ripped this
headline verbatim from the subject of reader Dave M’s tip, because, well, it’s just so perfect, isn’t it? Specifically,
former Tiger Telematics Europe executive and drunk driving enthusiast Stefan Eriksson was arrested at his Bel-Air
residence on Saturday, booked on suspicion of grand theft, and is currently enjoying decidedly less-luxurious
surroundings, as the Sheriff’s Department is wisely holding the slippery Swede without bail. It’s not immediately clear
whether the theft charge is related to Eriksson’s href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/22/former-gizmondo-execs-crashed-1m-ferrari-enzo/">destruction of that million
dollar Ferrari Enzo in February (pictured in cake, above), but since we’d already heard that href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/02/more-twists-and-turns-in-gizmondo-execs-ferrari-crash/">a Scottish bank may be
the rightful owners of the mangled supercar, we wouldn’t be surprised if the former videogame exec is guilty of
playing a little real life GTA along with his favorite DUI. Meanwhile, Eriksson’s imaginary friend and supposed
co-conspirator, "Dietrich," remains at large.

[Thanks, Dave M]

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