Phanteks PH-F140 (XP, SP, SP_LED) Case Fan Review
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Facebook Buys Oculus VR for $2 Billion
Facebook has been on something of a buying spree this year, but those acquisitions have focused more on communication than anything else. That all changes today, as Facebook's CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the company has purchased Oculus VR, the team behind the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. A rather lengthy post by Zuckerberg on Facebook (viewable at the source) covers the decision to buy Oculus VR for $2 billion, and it stems from the fact that Oculus is a leader in virtual reality technology. Zuckerberg intends for the Rift headset to continue on its intended course of delivering immersive gaming experiences, and how Facebook can help accelerate that plan. However, there's another part of the VR experience Zuckerberg is interested in, and it ties directtly into what Facebook is about: communication.
Zuckerberg explains that VR communication can allow people to share experiences easier, from meeting your doctor when you aren't in town to taking in your favorite team's game when you're nowhere near the stadium. It can also be used in the classroom for a multitude of applications. Hopefully we can avoid people sharing their most recent meal on an Oculus headset, but you never know. So, we have Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg saying the Oculus Rift will continue on its gaming path, but also get expanded upon to cover much more. It could be the kick in the pants needed to make VR a possibility for everyone, but it could also be something that makes plenty of people wary.
Source: Facebook and New York Times
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Linkin Park's "Guilty All The Same" Music Video Created in Project Spark
Microsoft's world creation tool Project Spark isn't just for games. American rock band Linkin Park decided to use Project Spark to create an interactive music video for "Guilty All The Same" (featuring Rakim), the first single from the band's upcoming album The Hunting Party. The band wants "fans to literally play with their music" – which you can do if you're in the Project Spark beta.
Band member Joe Hahn attended E3 2013 where Project Spark was unveiled, and told Billboard it blew his mind. Hahn explained that "the next step was to see if we could showcase our next song as a game instead of a video." Fellow band member Mike Shinoda told Billboard that he always wanted to make games since he was a kid, so the pieces seemed to all fall into place when Project Spark came around.
While some bands wouldn't dare think to let fans mess with their songs, Hahn says that once you put a piece of art out there, "people will interpret it their own way, and even re-interpret it as something else" – Linkin Park is simply fostering that behavior. Shinoda sees the process as a turn-based game of its own. The band has taken their turn and now it's the fans' turn.
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Fractal Design Hosting Case Giveaway
Fractal Design has launched a contest to give away the original Define R4 Blackout Silent case that was introduced at CES 2014. The case features a little something extra in the form of a side panel signed by a number of Youtube personalities including "Linus from Linus Tech Tips, Marques of MKBHD, Logan from TekSyndicate, Austin Evans, the entire NeweggTV team and more." Entry is simple and only requires you to Like the Fractal Design Facebook page and then fill out a form. Three bonus entries can be obtained by getting your friends to enter.
Source: Press Release
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Corsair Announces Obsidian Case
Corsair has added a new model to the Obsidian series of mid-tower cases, the 450D. According to Corsair, "the 450D matches the iconic, brushed aluminum design of the Obsidian series with an increased focus on high-airflow, ensuring your system not only looks great, but runs cool." A pair of 140mm AF140L fans are included on the front of the case with a 120mm AF120L mounted on the rear of the case. The case also has three different mount points for a water cooling radiator, a 360mm in the top, 280mm in the front, and a 240mm in the bottom. Three 3.5"/5.25" combo bays are included along with space for a pair of 2.5" drives behind the motherboard and an additional two 5.25" drives. The case will have an MSRP of $119.99 and will be available in April.
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NVIDIA Announces Pascal, the Follow-up to Maxwell; Coming 2016
NVIDIA just launched its first Maxwell-based GPUs last month and isn't even done with Kepler (see today's GTX TITAN Z announcement), but the company is already looking to the future. During the keynote speech at NVIDIA's annual GPU Technology Conference, CEO Jen-Hsun announced the company's follow-up to the Maxwell architecture, Pascal, named after the famous 17th century French mathematical Blaise Pascal.
Due to arrive in 2016, Pascal-based GPUs will include three key new features: stacked DRAM, unified memory, and NVLink. Here are the descriptions of those features in NVIDIA's words:
- 3D Memory: Stacks DRAM chips into dense modules with wide interfaces, and brings them inside the same package as the GPU. This lets GPUs get data from memory more quickly – boosting throughput and efficiency – allowing us to build more compact GPUs that put more power into smaller devices. The result: several times greater bandwidth, more than twice the memory capacity and quadrupled energy efficiency.
- Unified Memory: This will make building applications that take advantage of what both GPUs and CPUs can do quicker and easier by allowing the CPU to access the GPU’s memory, and the GPU to access the CPU’s memory, so developers don’t have to allocate resources between the two.
- NVLink: Today’s computers are constrained by the speed at which data can move between the CPU and GPU. NVLink puts a fatter pipe between the CPU and GPU, allowing data to flow at more than 80GB per second, compared to the 16GB per second available now.
Source: NVIDIA Blog and NVIDIA Developer Zone
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New Trials Fusion Trailer Features Epic Tricks and Epic Fails
Ubisoft has released a new video for its upcoming 2.5D platform racing game Trials Fusion, which shows off the all-new FMX tricks system. This pure gameplay trailer features some insane tricks, some bone-crunching falls, and a slew of tracks specifically designed for FMX tricks.
Source: Ubisoft
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New Features Coming to NVIDIA SHIELD on April 2, Including Enhanced GameStream
NVIDIA sees the SHIELD as an evolving platform and the software update coming April 2nd proves that, with a whole slew of upgrades and enhancements, including going from Android Jelly Bean to the latest Android KitKat OS, 4.4.2. The biggest enhancements are coming to GameStream, including the oft-requested ability to stream PC games to SHIELD away from home. Referred to as "Remote GameStream", it not only allows you to stream PC games without the need for a VPN workaround, but also includes Wake on LAN support and Remote Login support. However, a "robust Wi-Fi connection" is required, with minimum speeds of 5 Mbps up and down, so don't expect to connect at your local Starbucks.
Notebook support will also be coming, allowing GameStream to be used with Kepler and Maxwell mobile GPUs, which includes all GTX 800M, GTX 700M, and most GTX600M GPUs. In addition, full Bluetooth keyboard and mouse support will be added to Console Mode, which allows you to stream games through your SHIELD to your TV. This will make playing gamepad-unfriendly games like Civilization V a lot easier. Furthermore, while the number of GameStream-Ready games has increased from the initial 24 at launch to over 100, GeForce Experience will be getting the ability to add unofficially supported games manually. A host of advanced settings will be added to the SHIELD as well, allowing users to manually set bitrate, FPS, and optimal settings preferences.
Those advanced settings will be found in the TegraZone, which is getting an update of its own. While there are now over 140 games in TegraZone, the current interface doesn't make it easy to discover new additions. The TegraZone is getting a complete user interface overhaul that should improve organization and discoverability of games. There will also be an integrated news feed, which will provide the latest SHIELD and TegraZone articles. While GameStream is a huge selling point, NVIDIA is committed to bringing PC and console games to Android, which is no more apparent than with three recent additions to the TegraZone: Rochard, Mount & Blade: Warband, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. For those games without official physical-button support, Gamepad Mapper is getting a new user interface that should make it easier to download and share Mapper profiles.
In honor of all these great improvements, the SHIELD will be priced at $199 through the end of April, providing an instant savings of $50. You can check here to buy directly from NVIDIA or for a list of retailers in your region. Be sure to check out my pre-update review of the SHIELD if you're on the fence.
Source: NVIDIA
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NVIDIA Unveils the GTX TITAN Z, Featuring Dual-Kepler GPUs
Back in February, NVIDIA unveiled the GTX TITAN Black, which offered increased clock speeds and performance over the original GTX TITAN. Today, at NVIDIA's annual GPU Technology Conference, the company unveiled the newest iteration, the GTX TITAN Z, which includes two Kepler GPUs (with 2880 processor cores apiece) and 12GB of 7Gbps GDDR5 memory.
According to NVIDIA, TITAN Z's GPUs "are tuned to run at the same clock speed, and with dynamic power balancing [...] so neither GPU creates a performance bottleneck." The company also claims it's "cool and quiet" with "low-profile components and ducted baseplate channels" to reduce turbulence and noise.
Source: NVIDIA Blog and GeForce.com
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The Guild Wars 2 April 2014 Feature Pack Will Include an Account-wide Wardrobe System
ArenaNet will be releasing a Guild Wars 2 update on April 15 that focuses entirely on in-game features. Dubbed the April 2014 Feature Pack, it includes a variety of additions and changes, from new traits to balance changes. Arguably the biggest addition – at least of the ones announced thus far – is the inclusion of an Account Wardrobe.
The Wardrobe "makes it easy to customize your look at any time and to share cosmetic items across all the characters on your account." The Wardrobe is accessible in a tab on your Hero Panel and includes every armor and weapon skin you have unlocked on any character. Changing skins consumes Transmutation Charges, but you can preview them before applying them, and you can apply skins infinitely, so you can always change your look whenever you want.
To accommodate the new Wardrobe system, ArenaNet has changed skins to an account-wide unlock system. Account-bound items will automatically unlock their skin when they go into your inventory, while you'll be able to unlock other skins "by using consumables, equipping items, salvaging equipment, or right-clicking on equipment and account-binding it." In addition, if you have any current items that have gone through "skin progression," you'll unlock all the skins in that line of progression when you log into that character for the first time after the April 15 update. Check out the video and screenshots below for a more in-depth look at the new Wardrobe system.
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Maker Studios to be Purchased by Disney
Maker Studios, which was founded in 2009 and focuses on online videos featured on YouTube, is set to be purchased by The Walt Disney Company for a minimum of $500 million. Maker Studios is able to deliver online videos to more than 380 million subscribers located across the world, and successfully receives around 5.5 million video views every month. Disney stated that depending on the milestones hit by Maker Studios before the purchase is completed, the price for the YouTube network could be as high as $950 million. Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, noted that because short-form online video is growing so quickly, the company is excited to enter the dynamic industry.
The purchase deal is expected to be completed during the third fiscal quarter for Disney.
Source: Reuters
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