IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 6/15/2015

The world's first 360-degree 8K video has hit YouTube
If you thought your PC or Internet connection couldn't handle that 8K video we reported on last week, what do you think will happen with this new 360-degree, 8K video that Dubai360 has just posted to YouTube? Your PC will melt in its own flames, that's what.

The world's first 360-degree 8K video is a beautiful one, with a 24-hour timelapse of the Dubai airport. The 8K video was achieved using 88,000 individual shots that created many four-hour videos, that were then stitched together. It's an incredible video, and is sure to test out both your PC, and your Internet connection. Just don't try it with dial up.

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Industrial Light and Magic creates a VR experience for Star Wars fans
With Oculus VR unveiling the Oculus Rift CV1 last week, it should come as no surprise that the special effects arm of Lucasfilm, Industrial Light and Magic, has worked on a photo-realistic AR and VR experience that throws Star Wars fans into the middle of a new world.

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USA Today had some hands-on time with the demo, with ILM showing them the new experience at their ILMxLab development studio. The AR system was powered by iPads, while the VR experience used the Oculus Rift. With an iPad, users can watch a 360-degree scene from any of the characters' points of view, while the VR experience pitted users into a virtual X-wing cockpit, where they can steer the fighter craft through head tilts.

Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy told USA Today: "With image-quality rivaling film. You'll be able to literally step into an alternate reality." Both versions are expected to debut alongside the new film this Christmas".

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EA rumored to unveil next-gen Battlefield 5 at E3 this week
Very shortly after we posted our news on EA showing off three unannounced games with one of them being new IP, we had an industry source of ours say that they've heard that EA will be teasing Battlefield 5 at E3.

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We shouldn't be surprised by this, as Battlefield is one of EA's largest franchises. It was shot in the foot majorly with Battlefield: Hardline, and with Battlefield 4 being on the market for 16 months now, it's time to start hearing about a new Battlefield game. EA is already busy with Star Wars: Battlefront, and the new Mirror's Edge Catalyst, but a surprising tease of Battlefield 5 would really shake the walls at E3.

Of course our insider could be wrong, but with EA already saying Battlefield 5 will be a military-themed shooter in the same vein as Battlefield 4, and a release of Q4 2016, it's not too far away anyway. One thing I would like to see with Battlefield 5 is a full concentration on the PC build of the game, where they bake it down to consoles. This way we will get one of the best looking games ever released, and please EA - include VR support.

If we don't see Battlefield 5, we have a sneaking suspicion that EA could instead tease Battlefield: Bad Company 3, which would be equally, if not, more exciting.

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Samsung Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition sells for $91,635
Do you have $91,000 spare to blow on a smartphone? Too bad. Someone else shelled out a couple of house deposits on the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition smartphone.

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JD.com, China's second largest e-commerse retailer, auctioned off just one of the Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition smartphones, with a huge 92,429 bids received, the final price was $91,635. At $91,635, this lucky bidder spent nearly 100 times what the phone retails for, at $1079.

While I love the Galaxy S6 edge, you'd have to be very wealthy - Tony Stark rich - to spend nearly $100,000 on a smartphone. But, what a collector's item, eh?

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EA rumored to be showing off '3 unannounced games' and new IP at E3
With E3 2015 right around the corner now, Electronic Arts is teasing its lineup of games that it will have at the show. Not only will EA be showing off games we already know about, but industry insider Shinobi602 says that EA will be showing off "3 unannounced EA games, one of which is a new IP".

EA will be presenting a large amount of games at E3 next week, including FIFA 16, EA SPORTS FIFA, Madden NFL 16, Madden NFL Moible, Minions Paradise, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, NBA LIVE 16, Need for Speed, NHL 16, EA SPORTS Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR, Star Wars Battlefront, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

But it's the 3 unannounced games, with one of them being new IP that has me interested. I'm really hoping we get to see Battlefield 5 unveiled, with the player numbers on Battlefield 4 dropping, and Battlefield Hardline pretty much being a flop. Mass Effect 4 is sure to be shown off, but some new IP would be good to see, too.

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ArmA 3's new terrain surface looks incredible in a recreation of Tanoa
Bohemia Interactive has had its upcoming ArmA 3 expansion detailed in a new leak, where we've been teased of a beautiful new environment that is a far cry from the maps we have in ArmA 3, as you can see in the images below.

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The beautiful island of Tanoa, found in the South Pacific, is part of Horizon Islands. Tanoa is a lush tropical environment, with a thick jungle floor and very large geological features. Not only is Tanoa absolutely massive, but the upcoming expansion for ArmA 3 will feature new vehicles, weapons, attachments, gear, story content, and much more.

The developer will be detailing the ArmA 3 expansion during E3 next year, with the expansion due for release sometime in the first half of 2016.

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BIOSTAR teases new Skylake-powered Z170 motherboards for August
During Computex 2015 this year, BIOSTAR was showing off its upcoming Intel Z170-powered motherboards, something the company has just said will be available starting next month.

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One of the key motherboards in its range was the BIOSTAR Gaming Z170X motherboard, based on the Intel Z170 chipset with support for Intel's upcoming Skylake processors, and DDR4 RAM. The BIOSTAR Gaming Z170X includes an on-board USB 3.1 Type-C connector, dual GbE LAN, PCIe M.2, SATA Express, and much more.

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Facebook Messenger is now home to over 1 billion users
Facebook Messenger continues to grow, with the social network announcing that there have been over 1 billion downloads of the Facebook Messenger for Android application from the Google Play store.

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There are only a few applications with over 1 billion users, with Messenger joining the likes of Facebook, WhatsApp, Gmail, YouTube, Search and Maps. But how did Facebook Messenger get here? With instant messaging slaying SMS, Facebook Messenger slowly added VOIP calling, video calling, stickers, voice clips, peer-to-peer payments, location, the third-party app creation, Messenger is a juggernaut.

I'm a daily
addict
user of Facebook Messenger, what about you?

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Google Chrome will soon be better on battery consumption
Google has recently done the world some good, by detecting and shutting down any unnecessary Flash content in Chrome, which improves battery life on mobile devices and notebooks.

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But the company isn't just stopping there, as it's just the first change in Chrome in order to reduce the battery consumption foorprint of its popular browser. Senior Chrome Engineer, Peter Kasting, recently took to Google+ to talk about some of the changes the Mountain View-based search giant is going, which has them starting with how Chrome renders background tabs.

Up until now, Google has rendered all tabs with the same priority, but as you can imagine this isn't great on battery life. From now on, Chrome will be prioritizing foreground tabs over background tabs, which is sure to save some battery life. The team is also working on reducing the CPU usage that is used during Google searchers, by shifting the number of wakes down from around 390, to just 120, cutting CPU usage from 0.3% to 0.1%.

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Lian Li shows off their new dual-compartment chassis, the PC-O8
Lian Li have always had exciting cases, but their new PC-O8 is one of the bigger and badder ones the company has ever released. The new Lian Li PC-O8 chassis is a double-wide, dual-compartment beast, that can handle 240mm and 360mm radiators.

We have an oversized tempered front and side glass panels with built-in RGB LED lighting, support for ATX motherboards and the aforementioned 240mm radiator support at the top, and 360mm radiator support at the front. Lian Li has installed removeable HDD cages, and as usual, a beautiful all-aluminum construction.

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Lian Li will have the PC-O8 available in the US through Microcenter at the end of June for an MSRP of $395.

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Another look at the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X video card with 4GB of HBM
Our friends over at PC Perspective have received a few photos of the upcoming Radeon R9 Fury X video card from AMD, giving us a closer look at the self-contained watercooler.

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The cooler is absolutely huge, with it being thicker than the dual-slot R9 Fury X itself. According to PCPer's estimates, the radiator should be around 45mm thick, but the fan itself is in-set into the cooler design, which is a nice touch.

The tubing between the Fury X and the radiator is heavily braided, which means it'll be protected against the usual wear and tear, as well as help evaporation. You can get a much better feel for how short the Radeon R9 Fury X in these shots, especially when compared to even the new Radeon R9 390X.

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MSI Radeon R9 390X Gaming 8G spotted, features Twin Frozr V cooler
We were the world exclusive on posting the first images of the Radeon R9 390X, but the leaks continue with ASUS and now MSI. The MSI Radeon 300 series has been leaked, headlined by the Radeon R9 390X Gaming 8G.

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The MSI Radeon R9 390X Gaming 8G is based on the Grenada XT (Hawaii XT) GPU, which means we're getting a rebadged Radeon R9 290X. This has us seeing 2816 stream processors, 176 TMUs, and 64 ROPS. MSI has clocked its card at 1100MHz, using 8GB of GDDR5 sitting at 6.1GHz on a 512-bit memory bus. This card features the always impressive Twin Frozr V cooling technology that MSI is known for.

Under that we have the Radeon R9 280 Gaming which uses the Tonga Pro GPU, with 1792 stream processors, 112 TMUs and 32 ROPs. The GPU is clocked at 1GHz, while the memory sits at 5.7GHz for the 4GB part, or 5.5GHz for the 2GB version. Then we have the Pitcairn XT-based Radeon R7 370 which has 1280 stream processors, 80 TMUs and 32 ROPs. This is pretty much the Radeon HD 7870 with 4GB of VRAM, a clock speed of 1070MHz on the 4GB model while its just 1050MHz on the 2GB model.

Last but not least, we have the Radeon R7 360 which is based on the Bonaire Pro GPU. The R7 360 has 768 stream processors, with the GPU clocked at 1.1GHz and its 2GB of RAM clocked at 6.5GHz.

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YouTube pledges to take on Twitch TV in the game streaming arena
A blog posted today by Alan Joyce contained a heartfelt recap of a childhood filled with Pokémon, Game Boy's and LAN Parties.

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In addition to this, Joyce's piece titled 'A YouTube built for gamers' talked about the new YouTube focus website, providing "more than 25,000 games" with their own personal pages, filled with videos and live streaming alongside content creators and publishers alike.

This gamer-orientated offshoot has been made to ensure gamers looking for content are kept within the gaming scene and searches for things like 'SSB Brawl' won't come back with a plethora of street fights. Live streaming will feature on the front page of YouTube Gaming including 60FPS and auto-uploading features.

Beginning with the U.S and U.K markets, YouTube gaming will be opened this summer.

Does this remind anyone of Justin TV birthing Twitch TV? However, I can't see YouTube closing down YouTube.com in favor for gaming only like Twitch did.

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Dota 2 announces new interface, engine and custom games
In a short blog released recently, the Dota 2 team announced its Reborn Beta - boasting a new interface, new engine and added custom games.

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"Everything in the dashboard has been completely redesigned utilizing a new UI framework, and the engine that powers the game has been fully replaced" reads the blog, with fans being given the opportunity to test out what Valve has made and provide extensive user feedback.

The blog also makes sure to point out that it;s the dashboard that is being focused on, as the HUD has remained the same. This beta is set for release "some time after The International" and it's likely that we'll see a sneak peak of whats on offer during the tournament.

For more information on the updates with screenshots, head to the official part one page. Next week the information on custom games will be released.

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AMD Radeon R9 Fury X confirmed, rocks 4GB HBM and 4096-bit memory bus
We had a world exclusive when we outed the name of AMD's new Radeon R9 Fury X, which has been 'confirmed' with the official marketing material for AMD's Fiji-based product. We are to expect this to be AMD's best GPU yet, aimed at the ultra enthusiasts and those who want to run 4K and beyond.

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The new Fiji GPU will measure in at around 560mm2 making it the biggest GPU that the company has ever produced, where inside we'll have 64 Compute Units each featuring 64 stream processors. This brings us to a total of 4096 stream cores, 128 raster operation units, and 256 texture mapping units.

But it's going to be the High Bandwidth Memory that sits next to the GPU die that is going to make the Radeon R9 Fury X special. The GPU and HBM have allotted space on an interposer die which measures at around 1000mm2, and while this chip is far larger than any other previous GPU released, HBM saves countless space on the PCB that would normally have GDDR5 chips sprawled throughout.

The 4GB of HBM is spread out over an insane 4096-bit memory bus at 500MHz with 512GB/sec of bandwidth, and with an overclocked R9 290X hitting 422GB/sec, this is quite the upgrade. But, how much faster will it be compared to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti on its 384-bit memory bus with 336GB/sec of memory bandwidth? Time will tell. Not only that, but we have the core clock sitting at 1050MHz for the reference design, providing 8.6 TFLOPS of FP32 compute performance.

Display connectivity finally moves into the DisplayPort era with three DisplayPort outputs, and a single HDMI 2.0 port. We should hopefully see AMD unveil the Radeon R9 Fury X next week during E3 2015, with samples hitting shortly after.

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The Mighty Gaming Movement: Part 3 - Case Modding

Just like the Phoenix

Modding and PC DIY was seemingly unstoppable five or more years ago with companies like Cooler Master, Antec and Thermaltake leading the chassis charge - seeing enthusiasts worldwide spend a little extra time in on the weekends managing their cables, tweaking their water-cooling systems and some were crazy enough to start cutting holes in and painting their cases.

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This trend died off in recent times, replaced by company pre-built systems, laptops, smartphones and tablets, all-in-one PCs and smaller builds - whether that's good or bad we'll let you decide. However, there's been a resurgence of the modding movement - seeing a few big players globally produce some absolutely jaw-dropping systems. This article will cover one or two modders from different parts of the world, a couple of their projects and some of the companies backing them fully.

We will link all modders' social media and label their respective sponsors - if you like what you see I urge you to let them know!

Stuart Tonks

First cab off the rank is Stuart Tonks from GGF LAN Party. Besides helping conduct a modding seminar in Victoria, Australia coming up on June 30th, Tonks has been a busy modding man.

Recently, he has hit the global scale thanks to the Thermaltake CaseMOD competition where he created a dual-Intel Xeon Thermaltake Core X9 build, complete with SLI watercooled graphics and a 1080p touchscreen all mounted within the massive case.

- Project XX

Components:

CPU/s - 2x Intel Xeon e5-2667s

Motherboard - ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS

Memory - 64GB Avexir Raiden

GPUs - 3x ASUS NVIDIA STRIX GTX 980's

SSDs - 3x Kingston HyperX

Storage (HDDs) 3 or 2 Western Digital 4TB Blacks

Power Supply - Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W Platinum

Fans - Thermaltake Riing Fans x22

Water Cooling

Pacific VGA Bridge Triple x1

Pacific V-GTX Block - STRIX - 980 x3

Thermaltake Pacific W2 CPU Water Block x2

Thermaltake Pacific PT40-D5 Silent Kit Reservoir/Pump Combo x2

Thermaltake Pacific P1 Black D5 Pump w/ Silent Kit x2

Thermaltake Hard tubes 500mm x10

Fittings

Thermaltake Pacific G1/4 Stop Plug w/ O-Ring - Chrome x10

Thermaltake Pacific G1/4 45 & 90 Degree Adapter - Chrome x10

Thermaltake Pacific G1/4 90 Degree Adapter - Chrome x10

Thermaltake Pacific G1/4 Y Adapter - Chrome x10

Thermaltake Pacific G1/4 Female to Male 20mm Extender - Chrome x6

Thermaltake Pacific G1/4 Female to Male 30mm Extender - Chrome x4

Thermaltake Pacific G1/4 Hard Tube 16mm x30

Radiators

Thermaltake Pacific RL480 x4

Check out the build log here.
... Read the rest in your browser!

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BIOSTAR showcases Gaming Z170X Intel Skylake Motherboard at Computex - Available this August
At this year's Computex trade show in Taipei, BIOSTAR showcased upcoming Intel 100 series chipset motherboards, gaming oriented motherboards and VGA cards as well as mini PCs designed for Karaoke and IPC Embedded solutions.

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BIOSTAR "Gaming Z170X" motherboard turned out to be the star product this year at Computex. Based on the Intel Z170 chipset with support for Intel's Skylake CPU and DDR4 memory, the kit comes with BIOSTAR's Gaming Commander Box, Gaming Armor design, on-board USB 3.1 Type C connector and Dual GbE LAN (Intel & Killer) along with PCIe M.2, SATA Express and Touch OC. Also on display were the Intel 100 series chipset based motherboards Z170, H170, B150 that support the 6th Gen Intel® Core Processor family (codenamed Skylake).

The Gaming Z170X has two LAN connectors, with the most popular Killer LAN and Intel LAN chips. With Dual GbE LAN, the primary advantage is doubling bandwidth from 1G to 2G, and with two high-speed gigabit networks plus zero packet delay that provides super high data transmission efficiency. Another major advantage is "Load Balancing", it allows a gamer to attach both network adapters to a single network. It will therefore support the aggregation "teaming" function by merging the two connections to support multiple aggregation modes. In addition, two Gigabit Ethernet lightning protection circuits reduce the probability of damage from lightning or other power surge, so if one connection is disabled the other connection will automatically kick in.

Consumers can start looking for these cool new boards from BIOSTAR starting in August.

For more go to: http://www.biostar.com.tw

Check out BIOSTAR's latest video:

Sunday, June 14, 2015

IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 6/15/2015

Just like the Phoenix

Stuart Tonks

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