Kingston HyperX Cloud II Headset Review
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Valve Announces Hardware and Software at GDC
Earlier this week, we posted about the Vive virtual reality headset from Valve, addressing rumors from late last month. The Vive wasn't the only piece of hardware that Valve brought to GDC, as the Steam Link streaming device made its first appearance. The Link will stream games from an existing PC or Mac on your network to a television at up to 1080p 60Hz. The streaming feature will make it easy for gamers that want to play games on their larger screens without moving their computers next to their TVs. Multiplayer games could benefit most from the expanded viewing area. The Steam Link will have a price of $49.99 and won't come bundled with a Steam Controller.
Valve also brought news of its next generation game engine, Source 2, joining other upcoming engines such as Unity 5 and Unreal Engine 4. Valve will be offering Source 2 completely free to developers and content creators, with the only requirement being that anything made with the engine must be made available on Steam in addition to any other platforms. This will still give Valve its normal 30% cut from Steam sales, but should be favorable to developers that can't afford any upfront costs for a license.
Source: Tech Spot and Rock, Paper, Shotgun
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Epic Games Reveals the 'Thief in the Shadows' with the GTX TITAN X
Earlier today Epic Games revealed it would be holding a keynote address at GDC 2015 that would cover the state of the Unreal Engine and what the future holds. Evidently the future is quite large, as Epic Games is partnering up with Weta Digital, Oculus, and NVIDIA to push virtual reality to a whole new level. Showcasing this new VR possibility is a demo featuring the "Thief in the Shadows" scene from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. In it we see the great serpent Smaug in his gold pile, talking to the person wearing the Oculus Crescent Bay prototype headset as if the person is actually there with Smaug under the mountain. It is an impressive experience that is made possible with a brand new toy from NVIDIA: the GeForce GTX TITAN X.
The TITAN X is the latest iteration of the company's powerhouse card, with a Maxwell GPU, eight billion transistors, and a 12GB framebuffer. Full details of the TITAN X are still under wraps until NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference later this month, but CEO Jen-Hsun Huang sounds positively excited about what it can do.
NVIDIA's new card enables the "Thief in the Shadows" demo to run at 90 frames per second on the Crescent Bay headset. Smaug is brought to life before your very eyes thanks to Unreal Engine 4, and sounds like he's right in front of you, too, thanks to the Oculus Audio SDK. Coins clink and fall as Smaug shifts around, his breathing fills your ears, and his massive 500-foot frame dominates your vision when he reveals himself.
Attendees of GDC 2015 can check out the "Thief in the Shadows" demo at the Epic Games, NVIDIA, and Oculus booths. The GTX TITAN X may make an appearance, too, but remember, the full details of that massive card will be revealed in two weeks.
Source: Press Release and NVIDIA Blog
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Engraving Wires in Topological Insulators
Topological insulators are a curious family of materials, as they are capable of conducting electrical currents on their surface, but highly resistant through their bulk. By exploiting their properties, many new technologies could be developed involving spintronics and quantum computing. Now researchers at TU Dresden have discovered how to engrave wires into TIs.
Currents on a TI follow very small channels in the surface, and in the case of Bismuth-Rhodium-Iodine, these channels are connected to one dimensional steps at the edges of atomic layers. The physics of TIs keep electrons flowing along these channels from jumping to others, which is why there is so little resistance to these currents. What the Dresden researchers have done is engrave new channels into a TI, effectively etching wires into the surface. This discovery will help us understand the exact physics behind topological insulators, which is necessary for using them in future technologies.
Source: Technische Universität Dresden
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Experience How the World Changed in Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
Prepare to journey back in time with Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, MachineGames' just-announced prequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order. The Old Blood takes us back to 1946, with BJ Blazkowicz on a new adventure to explore the events that lead up to The New Order. This prequel features eight chapters and two interconnected stories that should help to show exactly what happens to set up the world as it is in TNO.
The first story of The Old Blood is Rudi Jäger and the Den of Wolves, with Blazkowicz heading back to Castle Wolfenstein to steal the coordinates to General Deathshead's compound. Castle Wolfenstein has a crazy prison warden running it, so it certainly won't be a walk in the park. The second story is The Dark Secrets of Helga Von Schabbs, as the coordinates send Blazkowicz to the city of Wulfburg. There he finds a Nazi archaeologist obsessed with finding mysterious artifacts that will blanket the world in a dark and ancient power.
Source: Bethesda Blog
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MSI Unveils Its PAX East Lineup of Products, Including New Laptops and Motherboards
PAX East kicks off this weekend in Boston, but MSI is giving us all a sneak peek of what it will be showing off at the convention. Everything from laptops to motherboards, video cards, and all-in-one PCs will be on display, along with a few interesting items to build up MSI's market share. The GT80 Titan SLI gaming laptop features a mechanical keyboard, the first in a laptop, while the GS30 Shadow laptop can be hooked up to a new docking station. The docking station is called the GamingDock, and it's a large unit that can fit any desktop video card you want inside it to seriously beef up the laptop's gaming potential. MSI will also have the GE62 Apache gaming laptop that has an NVIDIA GTX 965M and a dual exhaust system.
For the motherboards, MSI has the Z97A GAMING 9 ACK, Z97A GAMING 7, X99A GAMING 9 ACK, and the X99A GAMING 7. All four feature support for Type-A USB 3.1, which is twice as fast as USB 3.0, with the two Z97 boards also featuring Type-C USB 3.1 ports. Those Type-C ports feature a reversible connector so the USB plug no longer needs to be facing the correct way or exist in the fourth dimension. Each motherboard has two USB 3.1 ports, which are also backwards compatible.
Switching over to video cards, MSI has the GTX 900 GAMING series, with the GTX 980, 970, and 960 all featuring the company's Twin Frozr V cooler. There are even limited edition GTX 970 and 960 cards that have an NVIDIA Green cooler on them instead of the typical color scheme. MSI also has a black and white cooler on the GTX 960 2GD5T OC card, which pairs up nicely with the company's Z97S SLI Krait and X99S SLI Krait Edition motherboards. If you're going to be running two video cards together, perhaps MSI's new premium SLI bridge is for you. It supports 2-Way SLI and LED backlighting that can be controlled via the MSI Gaming app.
Finishing off MSI's PAX East showcase are some new all-in-one gaming PCs. The AG270 2QC 3K features a 27" WQHD IPS panel with a 2560x1440 resolution, and is powered by an Intel Core i7 CPU and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M video card. It also has Yamaha speakers for blasting your favorite tunes or getting you closer to the game. There is also the Gaming 24GE PC, which sports a 4K resolution for some truly impressive visual power. It's powered by an Intel Core i7-4720HQ and a GeForce GTX 900 Series video card, and features a Nahimic Audio Processor to increase its audio output.
All of these and more will be available at the MSI booth at PAX East, which runs from March 6 to 8 at the Boston Convention Center. MSI will also have some League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive matches to win some prizes, as well as daily raffles with SteelSeries products, t-shirts, MSI components, and even a laptop from iBUYPOWER.
Source: Press Release
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Quantum Radar Coming Closer
Science fiction has long been providing us with devices capable of seeing otherwise invisible objects, and some of these technologies have come to exist. In the future we may see a new technology emerge called quantum radar that puts quantum mechanics to work catching things we cannot see. Researchers at the University of York have recently built a prototype quantum radar system that has potential for finding low reflectively objects, such as cancer cells and stealth aircraft.
Traditional radar works by sending out a microwave signal and capturing what bounces back. Objects with low reflectivity pose a problem though, as little comes back, and if there is a lot of noise in the area, finding something is going to be even harder. Quantum radar however couples a microwave beam to an optical beam, making it much more sensitive to small reflections, even in a noisy environment. What the York researchers specifically did was develop a special converter for entangling the two beams, for emission, and converting the microwave beam into an optical beam, for collection.
The researchers do acknowledge that quantum radars are still a ways off, but they could have a large number of applications. This includes non-invasive biomedical applications for analyzing proteins and acids, which expose patients to less radiation thanks to the low number of photons being used.
Source: University of York
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Epic Games Set to Deliver Keynote Concerning the Current State of Unreal Engine
Epic Games, who just recently announced that the latest version of the incredibly popular Unreal Engine is now free for everyone to download, is set to deliver a keynote at GDC 2015 in the coming hours. The keynote, which will take place between 9:30AM and 10:30AM in San Francisco, California, will include thoughts about the initial launch of Unreal Engine 4 and will also dive into the current state of the engine itself. Developers of all disciplines and skill levels are being invited to attend the event, which will be given by Tim Sweeney, the CEO and Founder of Epic Games. For individuals who cannot attend the event in person, the keynote will be available through the popular Twitch streaming service.
Additional information about the keynote can be found on the official GDC 2015 website.
Source: Press Release
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ZOTAC Reveals Steam Machine SN970
ZOTAC, a global innovator and manufacturer of graphics cards and mini-PCs, has officially revealed the Steam Machine SN970. This latest product by ZOTAC, which of course features Valve’s SteamOS, aims to bring the gaming experience to the living room, allowing PC gamers to enjoy the latest titles through their home entertainment center instead of a desk. The Steam Machine SN970 offers premium components to ensure maximum performance, such as a 6th generation Intel CPU, a discrete NVIDIA GTX level graphics card, a 64GB M.2 SSD, a 2.5-inch 1TB HDD, and 802.11ac wireless. With all of this technology, gamers are able to connect up to four displays to further immerse themselves in their favorite video game titles, which can be enjoyed with the included Steam Controller. According to Tony Wong, the CEO of ZOTAC International, "We have employed the latest Intel CPU and NVIDIA GPU technology so gamers can keep the graphics sliders on ultra, and enjoy smooth, 4k gaming."
Source: Press Release
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