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Diamond USB 3.0/2.0 to HDMI/DVI Mini Ultra Dock Review
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Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Review
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Dragon Age: Inquisition Wins The Game Awards 2014 Game of the Year
The Game Awards 2014 took place yesterday, December 5, and if you happened to miss the live broadcast, you can watch a replay or simply check out the list of all the winners below. The nominees and winners were selected by a jury of 28 international media and must have been commercially released by November 25 to be eligible, except for Most Anticipated Game, which was voted by fans. If you're a PC gamer, many of the nominated titles are discounted on Steam up to 67% until December 8 at 10AM PST.
- Game of the Year: Dragon Age: Inquisition from BioWare/EA
- Developer of the Year: Nintendo
- Best Independent Game: Shovel Knight from Yacht Club Games
- Best Mobile/Handheld Game: Hearthstone from Blizzard
- Best Narrative: Valiant Hearts: The Great War by Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft
- Best Score/Soundtrack: Destiny from Marty O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, C Paul Johnson, & Paul McCartney
- Best Performance: Trey Parker as Various Voices, South Park: The Stick of Truth from Obsidian/Ubisoft
- Games For Change: Valiant Hearts: The Great War by Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft
- Best Remaster: Grand Theft Auto V from Rockstar Games
- Best Shooter: Far Cry 4 from Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft
- Best Action/Adventure: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor from Monolith/WBIE
- Best Role Playing Game: Dragon Age: Inquisition from BioWare/EA
- Best Fighting Game: Super Smash Bros. Wii-U from Sora Ltd/Bandai-Namco Games/Nintendo
- Best Family Game: Mario Kart 8 from Nintendo EAD/Nintendo
- Best Sports/Racing Game: Mario Kart 8 from Nintendo EAD/Nintendo
- Best Online Experience: Destiny from Bungie/Activision
- Most Anticipated Game: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt from CD Projekt
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Resident Evil Revelations 2 Gets Second Trailer as Vita Added to Platform List
Announced back in September for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Xbox 360, Resident Evil Revelations 2 is now also coming to PlayStation Vita. Along with that announcement, Capcom has released a brand new trailer for the game:
Source: Capcom Blog
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Street Fighter V Coming Exclusively to PC and PS4 with Cross-Platform Play
You may have seen the leaked Announcement Trailer ahead of time, but Capcom made it official today – the next iteration of the venerable Street Fighter series is exclusive to PC and PlayStation 4. Not only that, but thanks to a strategic partnership between Sony and Capcom, Street Fighter V will feature cross-platform play for the first time ever. Yes, that means PC gamers and PS4 gamers can face off each other!
Source: Press Release and Capcom Blog
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Grim Fandango Remaster Gets a Release Date
When it was announced that a Grim Fandango remaster was coming to PC and PS4 in July, Double Fine had yet to settle on a release date. The game has now been given a release date of January 27 on PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, and Vita consoles. In addition to the release date announcement, Double Fine revealed that a remaster of Day of the Tentacle is also on the way for PC and PS4. As someone that never got a chance to play these highly touted games when they were first released, I am very eager to get my hands on the remastered versions.
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Imagination Announces Raspberry Pi Competitor
British company Imagination has announced a barebones computer to compete with the Raspberry Pi. The Creator CI20 beats the Pi in processor speed, memory, and onboard storage, and also has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for connectivity while many competitors only have wired Ethernet. The CI20 is available for purchase now, with shipment expected to begin in January, at an MSRP of $65. Imagination has previous experience designing graphics chips for Apple devices and will use a graphics chip found in iPads for the CI20. Chris Green, principal technology analyst at the Davies Murphy Group, described its' potential impact saying, "There will be a modicum of pick-up, especially for people trying to develop for Android it could be a very useful low-cost device to have. But do I think it will make much wider impact? The answer is no."
Source: BBC
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New The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 'Elder Blood' Trailer Features the Return of Ciri
Thanks to the Game Awards 2014, that means we get a plethora of new trailers and thankfully that includes one of the biggest games of 2015, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The new trailer is entitled "Elder Blood" and shows the return of Ciri, who is being hunted by the Wild Hunt due to the Elder Blood that flows through her veins. Oh, and the game took home the award for "Most Anticipated Game."
Source: Facebook [1] & [2]
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Dying Light Story Trailer Begs You to Live by Your Own Rules
On the heels of the PC system requirements and Season Pass details, coming a brand new Story Trailer for Techland's Dying Light. Enjoy!
Source: YouTube
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Paradox Interactive Halts Development of RPG Runemaster
Paradox Interactive has announced that development of its upcoming RPG Runemaster has been suspended until further notice, with the development team being moved to other projects within Paradox Development Studio. Runemaster was a highly ambitious tactical RPG set within six worlds of Norse mythology and featuring procedurally generated content. Unfortunately that ambition could not be realized, and "Runemaster in its current form was unable to live up to the standards" Paradox sets for itself.
Runemaster was announced back in January for PC and PlayStation 4. Check out the Story Trailer from August:
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Dead Island: Epidemic Enters Open Beta with New PvE Mode, Crossroads
Free-to-play MOBA Dead Island: Epidemic has been in Steam Early Access for awhile, but now it's finally available to the public, as it has officially entered Open Beta. In doing so, the game also received a major content update, adding an all-new PvE mode called Crossroads, switching to a global progression system, overhauling the crafting system, adding a unique passive ability to each character, and making a smarter loot drop system.
Source: Press Release
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Dying Light PC System Specs Revealed Alongside Season Pass Details
If you're planning on picking up the PC version of Techland's upcoming first-person, open-world survival horror game Dying Light, you better have a fairly modern and beefy rig, especially if you want to reach those coveted recommended specs.
MINIMUM:
- OS: Windows® 7 64-bit / Windows® 8 64-bit / Windows® 8.1 64-bit
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-2500 @3.3 GHz / AMD FX-8320 @3.5 GHz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM DDR3
- Hard Drive: 40 GB free space
- Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560 / AMD Radeon™ HD 6870 (1GB VRAM)
- DirectX®: Version 11
- Sound: DirectX® compatible
- Additional Notes: Laptop versions of graphics cards may work but are NOT officially supported.
- Windows-compatible keyboard, mouse, optional controller (Xbox 360 Controller for Windows recommended)
RECOMMENDED:
- OS: Windows® 7 64-bit / Windows® 8 64-bit / Windows® 8.1 64-bit
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-4670K @3.4 GHz / AMD FX-8350 @4.0 GHz
- Memory: 8 GB RAM DDR3
- Hard Drive: 40 GB free space
- Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780 / AMD Radeon™ R9 290 (2GB VRAM)
- DirectX®: Version 11
- Sound: DirectX® compatible
- Additional Notes: Laptop versions of graphics cards may work but are NOT officially supported.
- Windows-compatible keyboard, mouse, optional controller (Xbox 360 Controller for Windows recommended)
- Cuisine & Cargo – Available first for Season Pass holders, these two hardcore missions let players put their skills to the ultimate test. Investigate buildings sealed off in the very first days of the outbreak – with the infected inside. Explore ominous corridors of once the most famous restaurant in Harran, and employ both stealth and combat to ransack a zombie-filled loading bay at an abandoned railroad yard.
- Ultimate Survivor Bundle – Players will receive seven unique in-game items that will bring fighting zombies to a whole new level. Grab three special outfits and four blueprints for over-the-top weapons to make your survival in the quarantine zone a good bit easier.
- The Bozak Horde – The final Season Pass drop will deliver a new map and gameplay, playable in either single-player or co-op. Go inside the Harran Stadium, the most famous landmark in the city, and test your combat know-how against relentless hordes of the Infected. Fight increasingly stronger and larger enemy waves as you oppose a mysterious psychopath called Bozak.
Source: Press Release and Steam
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New Coating Improves Lithium Battery Electrodes
Everybody is likely familiar with lithium batteries because they are such a ubiquitous energy storage system. What fewer people may know though is that they are very hard to improve and that one method to do so presents serious issues. Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory however, have recently found out why a specific coating can improve that method's effectiveness.
Normally lithium batteries rely on graphite electrodes to absorb and release the lithium ions, thereby storing and releasing electricity. Silicon electrodes can potentially hold ten times as many lithium ions though, and could allow for batteries with many times the life we have today. The problem is that silicon is so fragile that the swelling it undergoes when taking in the lithium ions breaks the electrodes. Silicon nanoparticles can help, and also offer even better performance, but still suffer the fracturing problem. Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and University of Colorado, Boulder have found that a rubber-like coating of aluminum glycerol protects can let the nanoparticle electrodes survive five times longer. Now, thanks to PNNL, we know why.
Uncoated silicon nanoparticles will have an oxide layer on their surface, which restricts their ability to swell, but the aluminum glycerol, or alucone, actually removes that oxide layer is allows for the swelling. The researchers also observed the alucone preventing the nanoparticles from merging, which was another issue that would damage the electrodes.
Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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Hardware Roundup: Friday Edition
The first week of December is nearly in the books, but not before we have some reviews for you to check out. There is a look at the NZXT H440 Razer Edition case, which is designed in part with Razer to deliver a unique experience. We also have a look at the new Ubisoft game The Crew and how it performs on various video cards. For something a little different, there's the ROCCAT Apuri Active USB hub, which adds four USB 2.0 ports and even a mouse bungee to your desk. We have a rather unique case mod called the ASUS ROG Table and Rig, and you really have to see it to believe it. Wrapping things up is a podcast covering the latest news and reviews from the past week.
Cases
NZXT H440 Designed by Razer @ PC Perspective
Gaming
The Crew Benchmarked: Graphics & CPU Performance @ TechSpot
Gadgets
ROCCAT Apuri Active USB Hub @ Benchmark Reviews
Miscellany
Case Mod Friday: ASUS ROG Table & Rig @ ThinkComputers
Podcast #328 @ PC Perspective
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Electrically Reading Nitrogen Vacancies for the First Time
In the future we may have advanced quantum computers capable of running algorithms that modern electronic computers could never hope to. There is still a lot of work to be done before these devices can become reality though, including finding ways to store and read quantum information. Now researchers at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen have found a way to access the information stored in nitrogen vacancies electronically, which has never been accomplished before.
Nitrogen vacancies are a defect found in diamonds where carbon atoms have been replaced by nitrogen atoms. When the nitrogen atoms are hit by a laser, an electron is popped up to a higher energy state, creating an electron-hole pair that can store quantum information. To access this information, the researchers used nanodiamonds and a layer of graphene. When the electron-hole pair, which acts as a dipole, formed in the diamond, another dipole formed in the graphene, which is highly conductive. Gold electrodes are then able to record the induced charge, thereby measuring the information electronically.
As the electron-hole pairs will disappear in a matter of nanoseconds, the researchers had to use a laser that reaches into picoseconds and use very sensitive equipment. Such a combination should allow it to future quantum computers to achieve clock speeds in the terahertz domain, if this system is used.
Source: Technische Universitaet Muenchen
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TYR-SD962 CPU Cooler Announced by Xigmatek
Xigmatek, a manufacturer of computer peripherals and thermal solutions, has just announced its latest entry-level CPU cooler, the TYR-SD962. The TYR-SD962 is a tower style heatsink that incorporates two 6mm copper heatpipes that make direct contact with the CPU. The heatpipes pass heat to the aluminum fins of the Xigmatek TYR-SD962, which are cooled by the included 9225 fluid-dynamic bearing fan. The included Xigmatek fan is capable of spinning between 1,200 and 2,800 RPM, with noise output of up to 28dBA. Processors with thermal loads of up to 100W are supported, and the latest Xigmatek heatsink, which measures 65mm x 85mm x 121mm without the included fan, is compatible with LGA1150, FM2+, and AM3+ sockets.
Source: TechPowerUp
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Making Metamaterials Digital
Metamaterials are a special class of materials with unnatural properties. For example, a metamaterial can be made to bend light backwards, opening up the possibility for invisibility cloaks and flat lenses. Actually designing and building them is rather complicated though, but researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have made a recent discovery that may make it all much simpler.
Inspired by digital electronics that can sample analog signals to create a digital signal; the researchers found they could create metamaterial bits based on electromagnetic properties. Specifically it is a material's permittivity they look at, which is a measure of how it reacts to an electric field inside of it. When you place two materials with different and opposite permittivity values against each other, you can get some very odd results like a new permittivity value far outside what the two original materials had. By controlling the geometry of the bits though, the permittivity of the metamaterial byte can be controlled. All it takes is that the two materials have opposite permittivity values; one must be positive and the other negative.
Obviously this discovery could dramatically simplify the design of bulk metamaterials, especially as it opens up so many material combinations. The researchers did their simulations with silver and glass, but if these materials do not have the necessary physical properties to be used as a hyperlens, another combination could be found and the lens made from that.
Source: University of Pennsylvania
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