Intel Z77 Chipset motherboard Review
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Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Surpasses $2.2 Million
Good news everyone, as the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter fund has surpassed $2.2 million. Obsidian Entertainment stated it would help out if the funded amount hit $2.1 million, which it easily did. Now, Obsidian and Chris Avellone will be providing tools to help inXile Entertainment get assets into Wasteland 2 faster, meaning more can be added to the game. The amount right now sits at $2,239,648, which is a staggering amount to revive a classic game. This just goes to show that Kickstarter projects are proving to be a great way to go, especially after the success of Tim Schafer. Brian Fargo outlined what will be added to Wasteland 2 if the amount hits $2.5 and even $3 million, with more designers being brought in, more level scripters, and even more artwork added.
There are still seven days remaining to add your donation, so get out there and support it! As an incentive, inXile released the first concept art for Wasteland 2, which you can check out below and download here.
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Adult Learning Not Increasing With Internet Availability
Good education is important to everyone because everyone recognizes it is needed to succeed; at least when it comes to children. Adults who are out of school are not necessarily active learners, for a number a reasons. With the growth of the Internet though, many hope that adults may use the technology available to them for some informal learning. Researchers at the University of Leicester though have found that this hope, and the efforts made to support it, may have been misplaced.
The concept is simple enough; give adults a viable way to learn, in this case the Internet, and they will then improve themselves and bolster the ‘knowledge economy.’ The researchers collected data on the learning habits of British adults from 2002 to 2010. Within the data, the researchers found adults who continued their education after they were 16 years old and those who had non-manual jobs were more likely to continue learning informally. Other adults were not likely to try to participate in adult learning programs.
During that decade there were several technology advancements and government initiatives to stimulate adult learning, but it appears nothing had any impact. Adult who were previously not engaged in further education were no more likely to get involved in 2002 than in 2010. The researchers attribute this to the attitude of the adults, instead of the available access. Children who have an interest in their own education during school and were successful learners will maintain their interest in education when they become adults. Those who experienced some kind of educational failure or were otherwise alienated by the school system are not going to seek out education once adults, even if it is just a click away.
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Grand Theft Auto V Launching this October?
At this point, we know very little about Rockstar's upcoming Grand Theft Auto V. We know it exists and is set in Los Santos (Rockstar's take on Los Angeles), but that is pretty much it. We do not even know when the game is coming out, although Rockstar tends to release a game a year after showing it off. One analyst firm went against that trend in its prediction, but a Rockstar North employee may have tipped the company's hand. A recent CV posting by a Rockstar North employee listed Grand Theft Auto V as shipping this October, but that post has since been deleted. If GTA V does indeed launch this October, it would put it in direct sales competition with BioShock Infinite. Take-Two Interactive may not want two of its franchises fighting for sales, so I think we will just have to wait until this year's E3 for more information.
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Copper and Graphene Join Forces to Cool Computer Components
Copper is one of the best known electrical and thermal conductors, but it is still often out performed by graphene. The atom-thick sheet of carbon is an amazing material with its great strength and conductance, but it is notoriously hard to produce. Now researchers at North Carolina State University have combined the two materials to get a best-of-both-worlds heat sink.
Copper, though found in many common products, is somewhat expensive, so pure copper heat sinks are also quite expensive. To offset the cost the researchers added some graphene to the mix, making a lower-cost composite material. Price is not the only improvement though, as the material was found to be 25% faster at conducting heat than pure copper.
There is no speculation on when this material could be entering the market, but the paper on the experiment does describe a manufacturing process for the composite. It looks like graphene may be entering computers a bit earlier than some anticipated, and also in a different way than they expected.
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New Class and Character Customization Unveiled for Borderlands 2
PAX East was held this past weekend in Boston, and along with a huge selection of games to try out, some news came from the folks at Gearbox Software. Borderlands 2 will receive a new class and character customization, which both should be welcome news to any fan. The new gear, costume pieces, and even custom heads can all be unlocked by completing missions, challenges, and ranking up, meaning you have to play to earn it. This way other friends in a co-op session can easily tell who is who when two buddies are the same character. Anyone who played the first Borderlands will receive an exclusive head and skin, but what that will look like is unknown currently.
As for that new class, Gearbox stated it is still in development but is known as the Mechromancer. The Mechromancer is a mixture of human and machine parts, and she can control the D374-TP (Deathtrap) robot. You can check out the concept art pieces for the Mechromancer and Deathtrap below. There is no launch date or price for the DLC at this point, just that Gearbox will provide it for free to anyone who pre-orders. The studio also mentioned a $150 special edition of Borderlands 2 that comes in a loot box and features a Marcus bobblehead, but unfortunately there is no picture of that.
Borderlands 2 arrives on September 18th for the PC, PS3, and 360.
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String Actuator Gives Robots a Gentle Touch
The industrial robots that make our cars are known for their great strength and precision, but if we are to ever see robots enter our homes, they will need to considerably more gentle. Humans are not made of metal after all. Achieving this has proven quite difficult, because while a robot hand must have the ability to be gentle, it also needs some strength. Also whatever the solution is, it cannot be too big so the robotic arm is close to the size of a human’s.
Researchers at Saarland University have come up with a somewhat ingenious system using polymer string that delivers power while still being gentle. The string actuator twists the strings to deliver force to the fingers, while being positioned away from the hand. This is similar to how human fingers work with tendons in the fingers reaching back to the muscles in the arm that actually power any movement.
The researchers also put sensors on the robotic finger tips, so the robot knows when it needs to be gentle and when it does not.
(Image from Saarland University's German site.)
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Mass Effect 3 Patch Arriving Today - Fixes Face Import Bug and Others
Remember when BioWare said a patch to fix the face import bug in Mass Effect 3 was on the way, but did not give a date? Well, wonder no more, as a new patch for Mass Effect 3 is ready to download, which will fix the face import bug and a few others. Some bugs that would crash the game and others that would cause connectivity problems have been fixed in this patch, so everyone should reload Origin if the patch has not already downloaded. The big thing is a fix for people who did not alter Shepard's face in Mass Effect 2, causing Mass Effect 3 to decide on its own how your character should look. In some cases the result was not too far off, while others were downright comical. This patch will fix that problem, and you can head to the BioWare site to see the full change log. Tomorrow the free Resurgence multiplayer DLC will land (and the console patch), so this is a good week for ME3 owners.
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Google Wants You to 'Start Something' for the Internet
On January 18 of this year, parts of the Internet went dark or otherwise demonstrated in protest to the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act, better known as SOPA and PIPA respectively. Google, for example, had its logo blacked out on its search page and also setup a petition that got 4.5 million signatures. Fortunately the bills were both stopped and on that day several US politicians pulled their support from the bills. Recognizing the victory as just one in a larger war, Google is now asking people to Start Something, to protect against bad legislation and policies in the future.
The Start Something campaign at Google’s Take Action website is currently asking people to explain what the Internet has empowered them to do. The ultimate goal is to be proactive in what happens to the Internet, by sharing with others how important the Internet is and supporting or even suggesting policies to protect and improve the Internet.
"You proved we can stop something, but now it’s time for us to start something."
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Sony to Cut 10,000 Jobs
Just the other day we reported that new Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai would be discussing the company's new strategy in light of a $3.2 billion loss. That meeting is still scheduled for April 12th, but it looks like some information about it has leaked. Sony is expected to cut 10,000 jobs by as early as the end of this year, which comes out to about six percent of its total workforce. What's more is that seven Sony executives, including chairman and former CEO Sir Howard Stringer, may have their bonuses removed for this year in an effort to save money. Half of the 10,000 jobs would come from Sony's consolidation of its chemical and LCD businesses, with the LCD side expected to be merged with Hitachi and Toshiba. These would be some sweeping changes for Kaz Hirai, but it would be necessary in order to get Sony back on the right track. We will know for sure in a few more days.
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Study Questions Entire Video Game and Aggressiveness Link
Do violent video games cause people, especially children, to become violent? One side of the debate argues that violence in the video game is transferred to real life causing people to act it out, while the other side argues lessens are learned within games that actually improve a person, such as cause and effect relationships. Due to the prevalence of video games in society, researchers have been trying to study and prove one side or another, except for some researchers at the University of Gothenburg.
Both sides of the debate require one thing to be true, that experiences within a video game can be transferred to other situations, specifically those in real life. The concept of transference is fundamental to education research, but is still not well understood. Actually causing transference to occur is very difficult and no one has determined how it happens. The researchers played games themselves and studied other gamers playing violent video games and found an interesting link between a gamer’s ability and a gamer’s aggression.
The most successful gamers were already skilled with good strategic and technical knowledge, and good timing. The gamers who were most emotional and aggressive were not as good at the games. If transference was really occurring, the researchers would have expected either the good gamers to become aggressive or the poorer gamers to become better gamers.
This is probably not the finding those on either side of the debate want, but it may lead to the questions which will actually help deal with the alleged problem.
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Epic Games Working on a PC Exclusive Title
Once upon a time video game developer Epic Games' portfolio was synonymous with PC gaming, but that all changed when the company went the console route with Gears of War. Now, 14 years after Epic released the original Unreal FPS, the studio will be creating a brand new title only for the PC. That's right, according to Epic's own Mike Capps and Cliff Bleszinski this upcoming game won't be a measly port from a console but built specifically just for our favorite platform. But what exactly does Epic Games have in store for us? While the project is currently underway, there's not much information to go on as yet, but we'll definitely keep our eyes peeled for any news to this great announcement from Epic Games.
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Hardware Roundup: Intel Z77 Series Chipset Motherboard Edition
Intel has officially pulled the wraps off its Z77/Panther Point chipset designed with native support for the upcoming Ivy Bridge processors. Other features include 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes, up to 14 USB ports, four of which can be USB 3.0. You get six SATA ports supported through the Z77 PCH and a maximum of two of those can be SATA 6Gb/s with RAID support. OCC looks at the chipset and specifically the MSI Z77A-GD65 and Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H motherboards. We also have reviews on boards from ECS and Intel in this roundup.
Intel Z77 Chipset Motherboard @ OCC
Intel 7 Series Chipset and DZ77GA-70K @ Bjorn3D
ECS, Gigabyte & Intel Z77 Motherboard Preview @ Neoseeker
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard @ ThinkComputers
MSI Z77A-GD65 LGA1155 Motherboard @ Benchmark Reviews
MSI Z77-GD65 @ Bjorn3D
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