Intel Core i3 2120 Review
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Putting Copper in your Screen
There is a pretty good chance you are reading this on an LCD, in which case you are looking through a material that can cost as much as $800 per kilogram. Indium is a rare earth metal and is used in displays and solar panels because indium tin oxide, or ITO, is conductive and transparent, making it perfect to deliver power and commands to individual pixels. The catch is the cost of indium, as already mentioned, so researchers all over the world have been looking for a replacement material, and Duke University believes copper may be it. Copper is more common than indium and considerably cheaper at only about $9 per kilogram. What researchers made is a transparent film of copper nanowires without any clumps, which can survive one thousand bends. In the future, when you’re reading Overclockers Club homepage on a cheap and flexible screen, it may be a copper film you’re looking through.
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2D Team Fortress 2? Why Not!
Valve's Team Fortress 2 released several years back, but the game still has an avid fanbase and new content coming out for it. Today, we have a game inspired by Team Fortress 2, but this time it is a 2D side-scroller. Dubbed Team Fortress Arcade, the game was developed by Eric Ruth and features 2D sprites of all of the classes from TF2. You and up to three friends play as a member of the BLU team, and it is up to you to decimate the RED team across ten stages. Each stage has a unique boss to defeat, plus the end boss hails from another Valve franchise. Each playable class has a different play style, but it should all feel familiar to you in a short time. Currently, the game only supports local co-op, but in time Ruth hopes to add online play to Team Fortress Arcade. Feel free to download TFA here for absolutely no money.
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Serious Sam 3: BFE Delayed to November
Serious Sam 3: BFE is the long awaited third entry in the frentic FPS series. The game was originally slated to launch on October 18th, but the folks at Croteam have delayed Serious Sam 3: BFE to November. The reason for the delay is to iron out any technical issues so that the game launches as smooth as possible. The team may even add some new enemies to the game, possibly ones that were on the cutting floor but can now be put back in. New enemies, a balance to the difficulty, and hopefully a lack of technical issues sounds like a good enough reason for a delay, especially with the original launch date so close. Serious Sam 3: BFE will now release on November 22nd, giving us a bit more time to play some of those other games launching over the next eight weeks.
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Psychonauts Gets Massive Update on Steam
Psychonauts is a game that has been around for some time. Developed by Tim Schafer and the team at Double Fine, Psychonauts is perhaps the best game from the studio. However, a legal snafu meant that no new updates to the game could be released, and in fact, Double Fine no longer makes PC games. However, earlier this summer Double Fine got the rights to Psychonauts back, and must have been working on improving the game as a major update for it just landed on Steam. The update is in the 2GB range, and adds Mac OS X support, Steam achievements, cloud saves, and a tweak to the Meat Circus. The Meat Circus is now a bit easier for those wishing to complete it, while the addition of cloud saves means you can play the game on your desktop and then pick up right where you left off on your laptop. If you haven't had a chance to play Psychonauts yet, go ahead and grab it off Steam for either the PC or Mac. It is only $9.99.
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Google Building Three Data Centers in Asia
Google is getting ready to build its first three data centers in Asia, with locations in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. The land has already been purchased, and construction is expected to finish in under two years. The Hong Kong and Taiwan sites will each cost about $100 million, while no estimate was given for the center in Singapore. According to Google's policy communications manager in Asia, Taj Meadows, the aim of this move is to provide the rapidly expanding user base in the region with "faster and more reliable access to online services." Some services that should see great improvement in the region are YouTube and Google Docs. The data centers are expected to employ up to 20 full-time staff upon completion.
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Microsoft Announces New Zune Pass Option, Expands to Canada
Microsoft's Zune service may have lost some of its luster with the likes of Spotify, Rdio, and MOG making huge splashes in the US, but that doesn't mean Microsoft is ready to throw in the towel just yet. Today, Microsoft has announced a new Zune Pass option that starts at only $10 a month. It is identical to the $15 a month option, except that you do not get to keep ten free MP3s each month. The $15 a month option still remains open to existing subscribers, while this new option appears to be only for new subscribers. Microsoft has also announced the Zune Marketplace and Zune Pass will start in Canada on October 3rd. The Zune Pass has the same $10 a month option as the US plan, so nothing has changed on that front. This way, however, Canadians get another option for their music services.
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New RAGE Gameplay Trailer Prepares You for Jackal Canyon
RAGE is almost here. Id Software's most ambitious game to date releases in less than a week in North America, and I am sure many of you, myself included, are looking forward to it. RAGE has you venturing forth into a post-apolcalyptic wasteland, destroyed by a massive asteroid, and it is up to you to figure out what happened to your Ark as well as find any survivors. The survivors, however, find you within moments of starting the game, putting you in a frentic fight for survival. Luckily, you get some help, and after an introduction to the mechanics of the game, you are free to do whatever you like in this open-world first-person shooter. Today, id Software has released the final gameplay trailer for RAGE, and it has you going against a particularly savage clan of bandits called the Jackals. You have to venture into their territory searching for a valuable data decrypter wanted by the Resistance. It is up to you to use all your wits and skills to fend off the Jackal Clan to recover that decrypter. Good luck.
RAGE launches on October 4th in North America and October 7th in Europe. It will be available on the PC, PS3, and 360.
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Gears of War 3 Sells Over Three Million Copies in First Week
The latest from Epic Games, Gears of War 3, launched just last week on the 20th. That has not stopped the game from selling incredibly well, as Microsoft has announced Gears of War 3 has sold over three million copies since its launch. The game went triple platinum in a mere seven days, and what's more, is Microsoft announcing the entire Gears of War franchise has made more than $1 billion in lifetime sales. Both of those numbers are incredibly staggering, and just goes to show how a console exclusive can be done well. During the beta of Gears of War 3 earlier this year, it hit over 1.29 million users across the world. During that time, Microsoft announced that the pre-orders for the game reached one million faster than any other Xbox 360 game, including Halo 3 and Halo: Reach. As for Gears of War 3, the first of four planned expansion packs will hit in November. You can buy all four individually for $45, or spend $30 on the Season Pass to get them plus an exclusive "liquid metal weapon set." As for what Epic's plans are after Gears of War 3, that remains to be seen, but here's to hoping the next game can be just as successful.
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Researchers Get a Grant to Develop the Future of Computing
As part of the Nanoelectronics for 2020 and Beyond contest, researchers at the University of California, Riverside have been granted $1.5 million to develop technology to carry us past an approaching barrier. Silicon technology has been working great for a long time now, but will eventually hit a minimum size. This funding will go towards developing charge-density wave technology. Charge-density waves do not rely on electronic current or spin what on modulations in the electron density. This allows data to be encoded into the phase, frequency, and amplitude of the signal, thus enabling parallelism and should satisfy the computing needs of the future.
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Conducting Polymers in Lithium-Ion Batteries
The high-capacity lithium-ion batteries found in much of the technology we use today, and will use in the future, are not perfect. Part of their function uses graphite or silicon to absorb the ions during charging. When this occurs, the molecules swell to as much as three times their original size, which can push away the conducting molecules which allow future charging and discharging. With each use of the battery, there is a risk of it losing effectiveness in the future. Researchers from many institutions have been working to find a cost solution to this problem, and Berkley Lab may have succeeded. Instead of having the silicon and conducting molecules separated, its plan is to contain the silicon within a conducing polymer which will swell with the silicon. Already this design has been tested to survive hundreds of charge-discharge cycles without losing its energy capacity. Polymers have been investigated for use in batteries before, but Berkley is using a new designer polymer that is both superior and more economical. As though the resiliency and cost were not motivating enough, this polymer can also absorb eight times more lithium than current designs, making it more powerful.
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Reverse Piezoelectric Effect Observed in Polymers
Some materials, when put under strain, will create an electric current and this result is known as the piezoelectric effect. These materials are typically crystals and ceramics, so when researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory observed the reverse piezoelectric effect, an electric current causing strain, they did not think much of it. Though they had observed it, they did not expect the effect to be large enough to be interesting. Fortunately curiosity got the better of them as they eventually did examine what was happening and found a very surprising result. The polymer, a kind of material this effect has not been observed in before, was being affected ten times more strongly than the strongest piezoelectric crystals and ceramics. This opens the door to potentially hundreds of uses by possibly starting a revolution in electro-active devices.
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Carbon Dioxide Eating Nanostructure
Last year Northwestern University discovered a nontoxic nanostructure with potential use for storing gases. Their metal-organic framework (MOF) is back again as researchers have found a way to use this structure to capture carbon dioxide. A key ingredient to the MOF is a sugar and when it is in an alkaline environment, carbon dioxide will react with the MOF in a way similar to how sugars are made. Realizing it is a chemical reaction that is occurring, the researchers added an indicator to visually show when the MOFs have had their fill of CO2. The process is also reversible, allowing the carbon dioxide to be released if desired. For now though, the nanostructure will be considered for possible commercial uses as it is not only safe and easy to produce, but low cost and carbon neutral to begin with.
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BlackBerry PlayBook Prices Drop $200 at Best Buy
Amazon's first entry into the tablet market is still a month and a half away from release, but already we are seeing the beginnings of a response. Amazon's Kindle Fire, a 7" Android-powered, full-color LCD touchscreen tablet, was announced yesterday, along with two new Kindle e-readers, but today there has been a response by one current tablet maker. RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook has not exactly been the success the company was hoping for when it was announced, and has been available for some time. Today, it looks like retail giant Best Buy is looking to move PlayBook stock by slashing the price by $200. There is no gift card or rebate to send in, the discount is automatic. The 16GB PlayBook now starts at $299.99, the 32GB at $399.99, and the 64GB at $499.99. The prices may still seem high, but undercuts a majority of the tablets already on the market. The PlayBook lacks a dedicated email and calendar app unless you pair it with a BlackBerry phone, something that RIM was derided for upon launch. RIM says it will correct that in the 2.0 update for the PlayBook this October, but it may be too little, too late. We'll see if other retailers follow Best Buy's decision to drop the price on the PlayBook and potentially other underperforming tablets.
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