IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (Overclockers Club) 04/10/2012

AMD 2nd Generation A10 5800 & A8 5600 Desktop APU Review

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New Stretch Goals and Features for Project Eternity as Kickstarter Surpasses 50,000 Backers

Project Eternity, Obsidian Entertainment's upcoming RPG, has surpassed 50,000 backers on Kickstarter. To celebrate the occasion, Obsidian is adding a mega dungeon to the game called "The Endless Paths of Od Nua." Currently the plan is to create three subterranean levels, but for every 2,500 additional backers a new level will be added. The more backers Project Eternity gets, the bigger the dungeon becomes, so Obsidian wants everyone to spread the word. The developer has also created a new stretch goal at $2.4 million, which adds crafting and enchanting to the RPG. Obsidian will design the system to be "easy to use and very flexible," meaning players can customize many aspects of their creation. Want to make a simple potion or completely change a basic sword to a magic-infused, awesome one? All that and more can be accomplished, and considering it's approaching $2.3 million right now, I say odds are pretty good.

There are 13 days remaining to help Obsidian expand Project Eternity, as the more money it receives the more can be added to the game. Every little bit helps, and we just may get a ton more sweet content to go with it.

Nickel Improves and Hurts Battery Performance

The batteries that power our devices are largely based on lithium-ions because of their potency. Not all lithium-ion batteries are equal though as different internal designs and materials affect their performance, and one of those materials is nickel. Nickel has the ability to improve the energy density of a battery but also can impair its long-term performance, and researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Berkeley Lab have discovered why.

Within a battery, ions move around and their placement determines how much energy is being stored. The more easily the ions can move, and more places they can connect to the electrodes, the better the battery will perform. It turns out though that the nickel in lithium-ion batteries can prevent the movement of the ions by clumping together in solid blocks in the ions' channels. This is why a battery will seem to hold less and less of a charge over time, because fewer and fewer ions can connect with the electrode.

The good news is that because we now know what is going on, the PNNL researchers and others can find a way to address this issue. It may be awhile before a fix is found, but now we know the direction it is in, albeit roughly.

Details Revealed for Mass Effect Trilogy

Last week, BioWare announced the Mass Effect Trilogy would arrive on November 6 for the PC and 360, with a PS3 version at a later date. There was not a lot else announced with it at the time, but today BioWare has revealed more details on the Mass Effect Trilogy. The PC version appears to be the most inclusive, as the Bring Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station DLC for the first Mass Effect are included on the disc. Mass Effect 2 benefits from the Ceberus Network and its DLC (Zaeed, Firewalker, Cerberus Assault Gear, Arc Projector, and Normandy crash site), while Mass Effect 3 has the Online Pass for co-op multiplayer.

The Xbox 360 version only includes the ME2 and 3 extras of the PC version, as the ME1 DLC is not included. Information on the PS3 DLC is not available yet, but should be soon. Mass Effect 1 will arrive as a standalone title on the PlayStation Store for $14.99. It will be available the same day the Trilogy launches, however that day is still to be announced.

Pushing to New Battery Technology

This day in age, there are many pieces of technology that are almost impossible to avoid, and among them are batteries. They are in our computers, phones, cars, remotes, headphones, media players, computer mice and keyboards, clocks, and much more. Despite how common they are though, there is still a great deal of work to be done on them to make them what we want them to be, and researchers at Kansas State University are among those doing that work.

Two of the most important properties of a battery are its energy density or capacity, and its charge/discharge rate. Traditionally batteries have been good at achieving high capacities, but cannot stand up to capacitors for charge/discharge rates. This is something the researchers are trying to change though by redesigning the electrode. The new structure they are testing has silicon coated with carbon nanofibers for the electrodes and can store 10 times more energy as current electrodes. This would represent a 10-15% improvement in overall battery performance and should make the gap between batteries and capacitors a little narrower.

The researchers are also working on improving the lifespan of batteries because having a battery only last a year or two is not ideal. Batteries can be quite expensive, so a future filled with battery-powered vehicles could be very costly with the number of replacements required.

Vagrantclan.com Announces 'King of the Hill' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Tournament - ...

Counter-Strike players can rejoice, as Vagrant is holding a public "King of the Hill" tournament in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. All matches will be played on the infamous The Art of Drowning server, with HLStatsX:CE keeping track of all in-game statistics. OverclockersClub.com is sponsoring the tournament with several prizes, including computer cases, RAM, motherboards, and more. Head on over to Vagrant's website for full details on how to enter and win prizes. The King of the Hill tournament begins on November 1 and runs to November 30, with prize winners announced on December 1. This is something you do not want to miss, so stop by Vagrant's website and its Facebook page to stay up-to-date on all the news.

ECS Reveals A85F2-A Golden Motherboard

ECS has announced a new motherboard for AMD socket FM2, the A85F2-A Golden. The black ATX motherboard features several gold plated components and is certified by ECS Nonstop Technology testing. The board has two PCIe x16 slots and support for CrossFireX. Four memory slots can handle up to 64GB of dual channel DDR3. Also found on the board are seven SATA 6Gb/s connectors, six USB 3.0 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, DVI, and HD audio support. The company is also holding a contest to win one of these motherboards and you can enter by simply liking the ECS Facebook page.

Synology Announces Two New DiskStations

Synology has announced a pair of new DiskStation Network Attached Storage devices, the DS213air and DS2413+. The DS213air is the first unit with integrated wireless, with the goal of making setup easier for home and small office users. It features a media server package to easily stream various media to networked machines, Cloud Station to sync files from all types of devices, and Quick Connect for direct download links. The DS2413+ is billed as "great for photographer/creative agencies and small and medium businesses." This unit also features the media server package and includes Photo Station for easy photo sharing. It can handle backups from both Windows and Mac computers, and has improved VMware support.

Smartphone App to Intelligently Prevent Car Accidents

Most people are likely familiar with warnings about using a smartphone while driving, as the distraction of the phone can lead to a serious accident. Smartphones are not the only distraction though or cause of preventable accidents either, but they may be able to provide a solution. Researchers at Dartmouth College have created an app to alert drivers when they are at risk of having an accident by processing data from its many sensors.

Along with the phone's accelerometer, gyroscope, and GPS, the CarSafe app also uses the front and back facing cameras of the smartphone to monitor the driver and the road. The back facing camera measures the distance to the car in front and tracks the road, to detect swerving, while the front facing camera watches for signs of distracted driving or drowsiness. This was not easy for the researchers to achieve though, as smartphones are not designed to handle the streams from both cameras at the same time, but by switching back and forth they achieved real-time performance.

Sadly this app is not available at the moment as it is going through large-scale evaluation, but the researchers hope to have it out early next year. As this will bring functionality only available as optional features on specific cars at the moment, it will hopefully be welcomed by many as a way to keep safe and without purchasing a new vehicle.

Steam Now Offering Non-Gaming Software

It's come a little later than originally planned, but you can now purchase non-gaming software on Steam. The first list of titles include GameMaker: Studio, 3D-Coat, ArtRage Studio Pro, 3DMark Vantage, 3DMark 11, CameraBag 2, and Source Filmmaker. Valve is celebrating the event by offering 10% off all the products until next Tuesday, which is a nice way to save a bit of cash. Source Filmmaker is a public beta so no purchase is necessary, while GameMaker: Studio has a free version with purchaseable upgrades adding more content. All the programs benefit from Steamworks, so any updates can be automatically downloaded to keep you benchmarking, editing photos, creating models, or even building a game. More titles are on the way, so keep a lookout on the Steam software page to see what arrives.

Keeping it Cool May Not be Necessary

We know how important it is to keep our computers cool, especially as we push their performance. This is true for our personal computers and for the servers in data centers which can hold a great many computers, all of which are pouring out heat. Now some researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough are asking if maybe the data centers are kept cooler than they need to be.

Overheated computers will throws errors and typically will shutdown before components can be damaged, but for large datacenters, downtown could be unacceptable, and errors definitely would be. This is why they are typically cooled to somewhere between 20 ºC and 22 ºC, but the researchers are questioning if that range could be raised. After analyzing data from data centers run by Google, Los Alamos National Labs, and others, and some equipment tests in their own labs, the researchers found that higher temperatures either had no negative effects or the effects were less than predicted.

As data centers are currently estimated to represent 1% of the world's power consumption, any way to reduce their energy requirements is worth investigating. Estimates predict that raising the temperature even one degree could cut this requirement by 2-5%, so this research could definitely lead to some impressive savings.

HTC One X+ Armed with 1.7 GHz Quad-Core NVIDIA Tegra 3 Processor and Longer Battery Life

HTC's quad-core flagship Android phone just got a little better and more powerful with its latest iteration, the HTC One X+. While the original HTC One X was arguably one of the year's best smartphones, the refreshed 4.7-inch smartphone features an impressively mighty 1.7 GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 chip, a roomy internal storage of 64GB, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS, along with a 2,100 mAh battery. These upgrades look all set to provide longer battery life with six hours more talk time, and boost the performance of the HTC One X+ by up to 67% compared to the original. Complementing the One X+ is an update to Sense UI, the Sense 4+, which adds features such as a self portrait camera mode and "Tap and Go" pairing for those sporting Beats Speakers. The HTC One X+ is scheduled for release starting October in North Asia and Europe, with a North American release sure to follow.

Samsung Files Lawsuit Against Apple Over iPhone 5

Samsung has announced that it will be returning fire at Apple in regards to patents in the smartphone market. A lawsuit was filed in California claiming that the iPhone 5 violates eight Samsung patents. The company said, "We have always preferred to compete in the marketplace with our innovative products, rather than in courtrooms. However, Apple continues to take aggressive legal measures that will limit market competition." In addition to filing this lawsuit, the sales ban of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been overturned by the court system.

Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee New 'N' Tasty Lands in 2013

Quirky side-scrolling platformer Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee is getting remade in high definition, just don't call it an HD remake. Called Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee New 'N' Tasty, the new game is set to arrive next fall for the PC, PS3, PS Vita, and 360 as a download. The reason Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning isn't adding HD to the title is because New 'N' Tasty is essentially being made from the ground up in 3D. It still handles like a 2D game, just with vastly better visuals and upgraded camera movements. The faster Abe moves in the game, the faster the camera shifts (up to 15 degrees) to give gamers a better view of the world. Other things like flip screen scrolling are removed because the 3D engine doesn't require those.

Development duties are handled by Just Add Water, with between 80-90% of the game's levels and puzzles intact. A few things are changed to be more modern, like anything that relied on a flip screen to reset an enemy, such as a sleeping Slig. Other changes come in the form of gameplay balancing, quick saving, and a modified puzzle system that is more user friendly. As Just Add Water's Stewart Gilray puts it, "The nice thing is we're not reinventing the wheel. We know the wheel. We're just putting better spokes on it."

New Report Says XCOM FPS is Now Third-Person

Much has been made of 2K Marin's upcoming XCOM remake. Unlike Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown, 2K's was announced as a straight first-person shooter. The change was defended soon after E3 last year, but the majority of the news since has been about Firaxis' RTS version. Earlier this year we learned that XCOM would be delayed for a while, and now a new report has surfaced that may explain why. According to an anonymous tip, XCOM has shifted from a first-person shooter to a third-person one, has you commanding a team of agents, and would be downloadable. All of those are departures from 2K's previous stance, but again it is only a rumor for now.

The rumor comes from an apparent survey to judge interest in a third-person XCOM, and a downloadable one at that. A $30 price is mentioned for the PS3 and 360 versions, but curiously no PC version. It would not be the first time a PC version of a game has been canned, but we'll just have to see what happens. Remember, all of this is just a rumor until 2K Games or parent company Take-Two makes an official statement. XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the RTS, comes out next week, so at least fans of the franchise can still get their fix.

Available Tags:AMD , APU , Smartphone , Steam , HTC , NVIDIA , iPhone 5 , Samsung , Apple , iPhone ,

Thursday, October 4, 2012

IT News Head Lines (Overclockers Club) 04/10/2012

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