Revisiting the CM Storm Trigger Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review
Revisiting the CM Storm Trigger Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Gaming Review
Putting NVIDIA's long awaited full implementation of its Keplar architecture through OCC's benchmark suite.
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AZiO L3VETRON GM2000 Gaming Mouse and AZiO L3VETRON Mech5 Mechanical Keyboard Review
AZiO L3VETRON GM2000 Gaming Mouse and AZiO L3VATRON Mech5 Mechanical Keyboard Review
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Review
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NVIDIA Free-to-Play Review
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HighPoint RocketStor 5322 Review
Looking at the benefits of HighPoints latest storage solution the RocketStor 5322 with Dual dedicated 6Gb/s eSATA connectivity.
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OCZ Vector 256GB Review
A closer look at the OCZ Vector 256GB SSD.
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ECS A85F2-A Golden Review
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Transcend StoreJet 25M3 1 TB External USB 3.0 HDD Review
Transcend StoreJet 25M3 1 TB External USB 3.0 HDD Review
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Prolimatech MK-26 Review
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Kingston SSD Now 300V 120GB Review
We take a look at the latest SSD Now 330V 120GB from Kingston.
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Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital SE External Multi-Display Adapter Review
A review of the Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital SE External Multi-Display Adapter
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Phanteks PH-TC12DX Review
Testing the cooling prowess of Phanteks latest tower style CPU cooler.
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Noctua NH-L9i Review
An in depth look at the NH-L9i low profile CPU cooler from Noctua.
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Ten More Steam Greenlight Games Get Greenlit, Including Evoland
Steam unveiled the fifth batch of Greenlit titles today, which included ten games to go along with two software titles. Here is the list, as written in the official announcement:
The latest software titles (see all Greenlit software here)
The latest games (see all Greenlit games here)
Very glad to see my Week 18 Spotlight, Evoland, included in the list! All the titles above will be released on Steam as they are completed and ready to launch.
Source: Steam Greenlight
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Cooler Master Unveils Scout 2 Advanced Case
Last September, Cooler Master launched the Scout 2 case, which improved upon the original in a variety of ways. Now, Cooler Master is revamping it into the Scout 2 Advanced case after listening to user feedback. The Scout 2 Advanced comes in Midnight Black and Ghost White colors, with two LED fans in the front to give a unique look to the case. White fans with white LEDs adorn the Ghost White version, while black fans with red LEDs are on the Midnight Black version. Cooler Master redid the dust filter layout in order to provide better coverage, so that should mean less dust on your critical components. There's still the great features like support for three 5.25" items, seven hard drives, two SSDs, and long video cards like the NVIDIA GTX 690 or AMD HD 7990 after a hard drive cage is removed. Nine 120mm fans can be installed as well, plus there are sliding dust filters on the bottom and top of the case.
The Cooler Master Scout 2 Advanced should be available shortly for $109.99. Owners of the original Scout 2 can contact CM Support to receive the Advanced Upgrade Kit for free.
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Robotic Bat Wing Built
Bats are fantastic creatures, being the only naturally flying mammal and the inspiration for so many horror stories. It is the former we are interested in because of how complicated bat wings are compared to other flying animals. Researchers at Brown University have made several strides toward understanding bat wings by recreating one and putting it in a wind tunnel.
The artificial wing is not nearly as complex as the real thing, which has over 25 joints and 34 degrees of freedom, but while building the wing, the researchers found themselves recreating certain aspects of bat wings. For example, the elbow of a bat has some musculature that defies explanation as in humans it is used to rotate our hands, but bats do not have an analogous motion. While building the fake elbow joint, the researchers found it was constantly breaking under stress and had to reinforce it, which appears to also be the purpose of the musculature.
Of course the researchers have learned more than just the construction of bat wings as they used servo motors to flap them. The hope is that the information gathered from the artificial wing, which was able to generate enough lift to pick up the species of bat it was modeled after, can be used to develop advanced flapping aircraft.
Source: Brown University
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NVIDIA Tegra Highlighted at Mobile World Congress 2013
The newest iteration of mobile processors from NVIDIA, the Tegra 4, is under the spotlight at the Mobile World Congress event this week in Barcelona, Spain. The Tegra 4 is featured in Project SHIELD and is powered by a quad core A15 CPU and 72 GPU cores. NVIDIA released a number of white papers describing various aspects of the system that can be found on the NVIDIA MWC 2013 page. A number of benchmarks highlighting the power of the Tegra 4 family can also be found on the site.
Source: NVIDIA
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Improving Robot Dexterity
Videos of industrial robots will often show their arms moving at high speed as they carrying heavy objects. To achieve this, the robots have been carefully programmed to move those objects and that programming cannot adapt if the object is not where the robot thinks it is when trying to pick it up. Researchers at MIT are working to change that with two algorithms they have created capable of adapting to different environments and objects, which will be needed for future, general-purpose robots.
The typical experimental general-purpose robot uses the rapidly exploring random tree, which uses known unobstructed paths, and sticks to them, but depending on the complexity of a robot's design, that algorithm can become very complicated very quickly. For example, if a robot had an arm with seven joints and could move itself around, it would have to consider ten dimensions when computing its movement. One of the new algorithms from MIT looks to simplify those computations by describing how an object will respond to different forces.
The other algorithm developed at MIT actually isolates where obstructions occur and will use that information to the robot's benefit. For example, if the robot has two arms, it will use the second one to prevent the object in the first arm from falling, by placing its gripper in the way.
Source: MIT
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Futuremark Offers Demo Videos for New 3DMark
Since the release of the new version of 3DMark, over 250,000 results have been added to the database. The company has uploaded demo videos for all benchmarks to YouTube that can be viewed in full 1080p HD for those users that might not have systems capable of achieving those results. In addition to the new videos, Futuremark has acknowledged issues when using three or four GPUs and is working with AMD and NVIDIA to fix the issue.
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Instagram Surpasses 100 Million Active Users
As of today, Instagram has over 100 million active users that use the photo sharing network every month. The site, owned by social network giant Facebook, allows users to upload photos directly to the site from almost any device with an internet connection.
What makes this announcement even more surprising is that just one month ago, Instagram announced it had surpassed the 90 million user mark. This increase comes despite disagreements about its privacy policy last year, as well as a content disagreement with Twitter. Over 40 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every day, coupled with over 8,500 likes and 1,000 comments every single second. These facts may make Instagram's growth seem almost unstoppable.
Source: CNET.com
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AMD Shows Off New TressFX Hair Rendering Technology in Tomb Raider
Video games, for all their lifelike facial animations, typically have an unsightly blob for characters' hair. Some games pull it off better than others, but for the most part it's still unrealistic. Luckily, AMD is looking to change all of that with its new TressFX Hair showcased in the new Tomb Raider game. Lara Croft is an iconic figure, so AMD and Crystal Dynamics teamed up to ensure every part of the redesigned Lara is perfect, including her hair. She still has that distinctive ponytail, just now it actually looks and behaves like real hair instead of a clumped mess. TressFX Hair uses DirectCompute to enable the parallel processing capabilities of the Graphics Core Next architecture, which results in CGI-quality hair. It "makes use of Per-Pixel Linked-List (PPLL) data structures to manage rendering complexity and memory usage."
DirectCompute also performs the physics simulations for TressFX Hair, which treats each strand as a "chain with dozens of links." It means wind, water, gravity, and head movements are all accurately reflected in the hair, so the wind can whip each strand around or the rain can make it stick to her neck and shoulders. Her hair also has collision detection, so it won't be passing through other strands or part of Lara herself. Basically, how hair reacts in real life is how it reacts in the new Tomb Raider game.
You can read a more in-depth view of TressFX Hair at the source below, though it's unclear if only Radeon HD 7000 and future GCN-based card users can benefit from TressFX or if it's open to everyone. Tomb Raider arrives on March 5, 2013, for the PC, PS3, and 360.
Source: AMD
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Facebook May Improve the Elderly's Cognition
Some would call Facebook one of the most distracting things currently in existence as people spend hours upon hours visiting it. These same people may also say that it serves little purpose, because of all that time it takes away from other endeavors, but some would argue against that. Researchers at the University of Arizona have recently completed a study that suggests Facebook can actually be used as a tool to build the cognitive reserve of the elderly.
The study used three groups of fourteen senior citizens, each, between 68 and 91 years old, with an average age of 79. One group was taught how to use Facebook, friended those within the group, and were instructed to post something at least once a day. The second group was given similar instructions but instead of Facebook they were taught to use Penzu.com, an online diary, which is private. The third group was told they were on a wait-list for Facebook training. Before the study began and again after it ended eight weeks later, the participants were given tests to measure their cognitive abilities and those in the Facebook group performed 25% better than when the study started. The other groups did not change.
The researchers believe this increase is because of the complex interface and social nature of Facebook. Together these characteristics keep Facebook interesting and engage the minds of its users, which should help prevent cognitive decline due to age.
Source: University of Arizona
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Tomb Raider Runs on Windows XP, Designed to Work with Most Gaming PCs
Reviews of Crystal Dynamics' highly anticipated reboot have started pouring in, and by most accounts, Tomb Raider is a triumphant return to form for Lara Croft. But which platform deserves your hard-earned cash? If you're going for the best eye candy then it's hands down the PC version you want, and you probably don't even have to upgrade your existing hardware either to enjoy the lush, brutal island that Lara's trapped in. If all you've got is a paltry AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT or NVIDIA GeForce 8600 on a Intel Core2 Duo 1.86 Ghz (E6300), you're all set. Those with beefier setups (AMD Radeon HD 4870 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480, Intel Core i5-750) are naturally rewarded with high resolution textures to the tune of 16x the amount of data, with tessellation greatly enhancing the game's varied terrain and surfaces. The PC version also supports improved cloth, SSAO, quality wetness effects, and post-filter effects, for that extra visual immersion. Steamworks is integrated for online saves and matchmaking, and is expected to make full use of Steam's Big Picture. Here is a rundown of the system requirements:
Minimum system requirements:
Recommended system requirements:
Source: IGN
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Hardware Roundup: Tuesday Edition
Corsair has a full range of self-contained liquid CPU coolers in its Hydro Series including the Hydro H55, the Hydro H60 and five other models all the way up to the Hydro H110. Today, our roundup includes a review of the Hydro Series H90 and H110 coolers, both of which are equipped with 140mm fans. The Phantom 630 full-tower case from NZXT supports 120mm water cooling radiators, USB 3.0 connections and internal SSD mounts all for around $180US. We wrap things up today with a review on the Plextor MP5 Pro Xtreme 256GB solid state drive.
Cases
NZXT Phantom 630 Case @ ThinkComputers
Cooling
Corsair Hydro Series H90 and H110 140mm-Based Liquid Cooler @ PC Perspective
Mobile
Cygnett Metalicus Silver Aluminium Case for iPhone 4 & 4S @ Madshrimps
Storage/Hard Drives
Plextor MP5 Pro Xtreme 256GB SSD @ [H]ardOCP
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Available Tags:Gaming , Keyboard , NVIDIA , GeForce , GTX , OCZ , USB 3.0 , USB , HDD , Kingston , SSD , Steam , Cooler Master , AMD , Facebook , Windows , Hardware ,
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