IT-Code-News: Overclockers Club

Showing posts with label Overclockers Club. Show all posts

Sunday, March 6, 2016

IT News Head Lines (Overclockers Club) 07/03/2016

be quiet! Dark Rock TF Review

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Video Capture & Edit Guide

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Hardware Roundup: Friday, March 4, 2016, Edition
The end of the week is here, with a few items to help you welcome in the weekend. There is a review on the Lexar JumpDrive M20c USB 3.1 Type-C Flash Drive, which offers quick speeds and the reversible design to fit however you place it. A new case mod takes the In Win D-Frame Mini, packs in a whole host of water cooling, uses the frame as the reservoir, and is just something to see. Ending things for today is a new podcast covering the latest news and reviews from the past week.
Storage/Hard Drives

Lexar JumpDrive M20c USB 3.1 Type-C Flash Drive @ Madshrimps
Miscellany

Case Mod Friday: L3peau @ ThinkComputers

Podcast #389 @ PC Perspective

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F3 Wi-Fi Router Released by Tenda

Tenda Technology, a subsidiary of Shenzhen Tenda, has officially announced a slim and low-profile 300Mbps Wi-Fi router known as the F3. The latest product offering from Tenda comes with a high-end Broadcom networking chip as well as three external high-gain omni-directional antennas, which combined allow users to experience excellent Wi-Fi range and speed. The Tenda F3, which is able to utilize IP-based control settings to effectively manage bandwidth, also makes use of an excellent user interface that is usable for both novices as well as tech-savvy individuals.
The Tenda F3 boasts a quick 30 second setup time and is able to be purchased from Amazon for just $24.99.
Source: Press Release

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Intel Working on Augmented-Reality Headset
Intel is working on an augmented-reality headset powered by its RealSense technology. Intel is planning the headset as a "reference design for other manufacturers, rather than an end product in itself." RealSense provides depth-sensing capabilities and high resolution image capture, providing a possible competitor to Google Glass and the Microsoft HoloLens. Augmented-reality is different from virtual reality, working by "superimposing virtual elements onto the real world."
Source: Fortune

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Steam Making Changes to Game Bundles
Game bundles have been a highlight of Steam sales for as long as I can remember, but they have been plagued by one potential negative. When purchasing a bundle, if you owned one or more of the games already in the bundle you wouldn't receive an extra key for that game. Valve has decided to switch things up and going forward bundles will be discounted if you own some of the games in the bundle. Valve described the move to developers stating, "With Steam Bundles, if a customer already [owns] some items in the Bundle, they will pay for and receive only the items not already in their account. This allows the best fans of your series or franchise to 'complete the set' and get a deal on the remaining items in the Bundle." The decision has not been confirmed by Valve yet, but the article noted that some bundles are "already available on some bundles in the wild." Hopefully it will be rolled out to all bundles in time for the next big sale.
Source: PCGames N

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Post-Release Plans for The Division Revealed
Tom Clancy's The Division releases next week and like many games, it will continue to receive new content, and now more details of its Year One plan have been revealed. In April it will receive its first free update which will introduce the game's first incursion, an end-game activity designed for squad play that will grant high level weapons and equipment. If you want what you friend got though, do not worry because this update also adds the loot trading system. In May the second free update will be released with new Dark Zone features and a new incursion set in Columbus Circle.
In June we will see the first of the three paid expansions release, which had some details revealed in January. The first expansion is Underground and will let the players explore New York City's underworld. Survival will be available this summer and will challenge players to survive in a hostile environment while gathering essential supplies. The third expansion, Last Stand will release next winter and will have players and their squads fighting a "relentless foe."

Source: Press Release and UbiBlog

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Dead Island Definitive Collection is Coming For You

Techland has been busy lately. Earlier this week its game Dying Light had NVIDIA PCSS technology patched in, and now the Dead Island Definitive Collection has been announced. The collection includes both Dead Island (released 2011) and its stand-alone expansion, Dead Island: Riptide (released 2013) with all of the previously released DLC and will be available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. The new mini game, Dead Island Retro Revenge is also included. It features a retro look to its melee-based combat, power-ups, super attacks, a combo system, leaderboards, and achievements.
To bring the titles to the current crop of consoles, both Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide have been rebuilt on Techland's next gen Chrome engine and will feature several improvements. The game textures have been redone at a higher resolution, models and geometry assets have had their quality increased, the lighting system has been improved to be more photorealistic, and Chrome engine's physically based shading technique is being employed to make the models and objects look better in various lighting conditions. A more sophisticated anti-aliasing system has also been added, for the benefit of console players, and HBAO and motion blur effects have been added. The UI has also been updated to provide a more consistent look between the two games and a fan favorite unofficial PC mod is being added to both titles, so you can punch your way through the games.
The Dead Island Definitive Collection is set to release on May 31 for $39.99. If you only want one title, Dead Island Definitive Edition and Dead Island: Riptide Definitive Edition will be available separately for the Xbox One and PS4 at $19.99 each, on the same day. Dead Island Retro Revenge is only included with the collection.

Source: Deep Silver

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Mass Effect: Andromeda Delayed to Early Next Year

The next entry in the Mass Effect series takes us to the Andromeda galaxy, but it now looks like we might be waiting a little longer to get there. Speaking during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, EA's CFO, Blake Jorgensen, mentioned Mass Effect: Andromeda will launch during the company's fiscal fourth quarter, which ends March 31, 2017. So this means Mass Effect: Andromeda will miss its original holiday 2016 launch date and won't be here until sometime between January and the end of March, 2017. It's not a huge delay, but if it means a bit more time to refine the RPG, all the better. You can read Jorgensen's full quote below, which gives an idea on some other titles EA has planned.

We've got a great year ahead... we've got our Battlefield first-person shooter game coming in the third quarter, and our third-party title that Respawn, our partner, built, it's called TItanfall, it's the second title that they brought into that brand. Both of those are first-person shooters and will be targeted around the fast, action-driven shooter market, as well as the strategy-driven market in that quarter... We have our Mirror's Edge runner game this first quarter, and then we have Mass Effect, which is a sci-fi action game, in our fourth quarter. So big year ahead and we're pretty excited.

That provides us an insight on EA's launch plans this fiscal year, with Battlefield 5 and Titanfall 2 slated to hit by the end of 2016. Mirror's Edge: Catalyst is scheduled to launch at the end of May, with Mass Effect: Andromeda bringing up the rear early next year. It's a little something for everyone, even if we're waiting a little longer to explore the Andromeda galaxy. Mass Effect: Andromeda will arrive on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
To help tide you over a little, some renderings of the "Pathfinder" character from Mass Effect: Andromeda were shared on an online 3D modeling community late last year, but only recently discovered. The renderings are made in ZBrush and show off just the male character model (female is an option in-game, too), but if this is our new protagonist in Mass Effect: Andromeda, as seen in the trailer, we're decked out in some sweet armor.
Sources: NeoGAF and VG247

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Hardware Roundup: Thursday, March 3, 2016, Edition
March is starting to pick up steam, with several items coming along with it. There is a look at the refreshed AMD FM2+ lineup on both the APU and CPU side to see just what's been done to it. To keep things cool, both the Reeven Okeanos and Brontes CPU coolers get reviewed, offering a large dual-tower cooler and a smaller C-type cooler to fit whatever type of build you have. We have a review on the OCZ Trion 150 480GB SSD, which can be won in our contest, to show off what kind of speed it can bring to your system. Ending things for today is the MSI GS40 Phantom 6QE Gaming Laptop, featuring a 14" display, Intel Core i7-6700HQ, and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M.
CPUs

AMD Refreshes FM2+ Lineup for APU and CPU @ PC Perspective
CPU Cooling

Reeven Okeanos and Brontes @ PC Perspective
Storage/Hard Drives

OCZ Trion 150 480GB SSD @ Benchmark Reviews
Laptops/Tablets

MSI GS40 Phantom 6QE Gaming Laptop @ TechSpot

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Lian-Li Holding Keyboard and Mouse Giveaway
In celebration of the launch of its first keyboard and mouse bundle, the TerminAl, Lian-Li is holding a giveaway on Facebook. To enter, simply navigate to the Lian-Li Facebook page and cast your vote for favorite color of TerminAl. The contest runs until March 25 and one of each color bundle will be given away every seven days. The bundle is available in green, red, blue, gold, silver, and black and is constructed from brushed aluminum.
Source: Press Release

No Early Access for Reviewers of The Division
Next week the highly anticipated The Division will be launching with its seamless online experience, allowing players to go it alone or to group up for missions and the Dark Zone. This flexibility has been part of the game's design since the beginning, and because of how much it can affect the gameplay experience, Ubisoft is not giving reviewers early access to the game. At 00:01 AM Australian Eastern Daylight Time on March 8, the servers will be turned on and everyone will get their first crack at the game, outside of the betas.
Source: UbiBlog

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New Laser Created That Covers Challenging Frequencies
Our eyes allow us to see a wealth of colors, but the frequencies they represent span a very small section of the spectrum. Wavelengths outside the visible range can have many, powerful uses, but can also be challenging to produce. On example of this is the mid-infrared area of 3.1 and 3.2 microns, which lasers have struggled to work with before, but now researchers, as reported by The Optical Society, have created a new kind of laser that is able to emit in that range.
There are many different kinds of lasers out there, such as gas and fiber lasers. Gas lasers tend to be bulky and inflexible, which limits their applications, while fiber lasers are actually made in small, flexible optical fibers. The problem with fiber lasers for mid-IR wavelengths though is that the silica the fibers are made from absorbs emissions past 2.8 microns. Quantum cascade lasers, which are also able to produce mid-IR, do not really work until you reach 3.5 microns, leaving a gap. The new laser the researchers created is a hybrid of both gas and fiber lasers, but differs quite significantly from fiber lasers because they are hollow-core fibers. Traditional optical fibers have a solid core that the light travels along. With these hollow-core fibers, the light will actually travel through an open space with bubble-like structures surrounding the region. When the light strikes these structures, it will reflect back, remaining trapped in the fiber. This prevents the silica from absorbing the light, which is produced by exciting acetylene gas. This gas is already known to emit in the mid-IR, when stimulated by external sources, such as more traditional lasers.
Lasers operating in the 3.1 to 3.2 micron range could be used in spectroscopy, environmental sensing, and explosive detection, but this discovery has more uses than that. This new type of laser could be used with other gases, expanding the range of frequencies that can be emitted, and potentially allowing for new interactions between lasers and gases.
Source: The Optical Society

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AMD Provides Crossfire Profile for Far Cry Primal in Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.2.1
AMD seems to be on a roll lately with its beta driver releases, as the company has just pushed out Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.2.1 hotfix to gamers. The updated driver comes just days after AMD released version 16.2 of its Radeon Software Crimson Edition driver, which provided gamers with various performance improvements and bug fixes. Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.2.1 hotfix is a much smaller update for the company, as it focuses on delivering a Crossfire profile for Far Cry Primal, which was just release by Ubisoft yesterday.
Source: AMD

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Available Tags:Hardware , Router , Intel , Steam , Keyboard , AMD , Radeon ,

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

IT News Head Lines (Overclockers Club) 03/03/2016

Raspberry Pi 3 Now Available
The Raspberry Pi 3 is the latest version of the extremely small computer to hit the market. The Pi 3 is powered by a 1.2GHz, 64-bit, quad-core ARMv8 processor featuring HDMI, Ethernet, and four USB ports. The system also adds new features in the form of built-in wireless and Bluetooth 4.0. The price remains at just $35 despite the new features and represents a solid choice for anyone looking to get started with a small form factor PC.
Source: Venture Beat

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Homefront: The Revolution Goliath Edition and Pre-Order Bonus Detailed
On May 17 Homefront: The Revolution releases in North America and globally on May 20, for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. For those in North America who want more than just the game, you will soon be able to pre-order the limited Goliath Edition. This edition comes with a boxed copy of the game, the Expansion Pass, the Revolutionary Spirit pack (which comes with every pre-order), a 32 page art book, an exclusive Steelbook, and a radio-controlled scale replica Goliath Drone. The drone features working lights and six-wheel suspension, like the in-game version.
Besides the Goliath Edition, we also got information about the pre-order bonuses for different North American retailers. Pre-orders at GameStop will get you the Guerrilla Care Packer, which comes with five 'Resistance Crates' containing random weapon blueprints, attachments, equipment and more, as well as the Combat Stimulant Pack. Amazon customers will get the Wing Skull Pack, which includes a Wing Skull motorbike skin and the Silver Pistol skin in the campaign. Best Buy pre-orders get you the limited edition Steelbook. All digital pre-orders come with the Liberty Pack, which gives the player the Liberty Body Armor and the KPA Shock Trooper Helmet to personalize your Co-Op character.
Source: Press Release and Homefront: The Revolution Game Website

Remote Play for PC and Mac Coming Soon to PS4
A closed beta test for the Sony PlayStation 4 will begin sometime this week featuring "a lot of social features, including notifications for when your PS friends come online; the ability to change your status to offline; and scheduling future online gameplay sessions with friends," and "live streaming integration for video site Dailymotion." Unfortunately, the beta test won't include the Remote Play feature for PC and Mac announced in November, but Sony added that "you can look forward to it soon." When Remote Play is finally added, gamers can look forward to an experience similar to streaming from the Xbox One to Windows 10 or Steam in-home streaming.
Source: PC World

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The Annual OCC Contest Has Arrived!
The calendar may say March, but we here at OverclockersClub like to give back to the community no matter what. That means it's time for our annual contest, offering a ton of prizes even if we're a little past our typical Christmas timeframe. We have cases, power supplies, keyboards, mice, hard drives, SSDs, and more to give away this year. Prizes from Corsair, Noctua, OCZ, AMD, Phanteks, Zalman, Seagate, ID-Cooling, Azio, and XTracGear are all available to win, as are some donations from the staff at Neoseeker and OCC, plus an assortment of games. It's quite an extensive list, really, so be sure to hit up the contest thread to see it all!
Our contest is open to everyone worldwide, including staff at OCC. All you need to do is send an email to contest@overclockersclub.com (subject "Annual OCC Contest") with your user name; your full name; full shipping information, including your complete street address and phone number; and your full system specifications. We're also asking you to answer the following question: "What is your next purchase for your PC going to be?" Once you have everything in your email, send it off to us and you're in it for the running. Please be sure to include everything in your initial email, as incomplete or multiple entries will result in a disqualification.
The Annual OCC Contest will run until March 21, so be sure to get your entry in by then! Good luck to everyone who enters, and thank you for supporting us in the past year!

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Harmonix Starts Crowdfunding Campaign to Bring Rock Band 4 to PC
Back in 2007 the first Rock Band game released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and then in October Rock Band 4 was released for the current generation of consoles. Since the first game, Harmonix has been asked about making a PC version, and now that might just happen. Today Harmonix has launched a Fig crowdfunding campaign to raise $1,500,000 to make the PC version. The developers actually estimate the cost of making the new version at $2,000,000 but will contribute the remaining half million themselves, if they can raise enough from pledges and investments. The company chosen to go with Fig for the campaign, feeling it to be the "logical evolution of crowdfunding" and it allows people to invest in and receive a share of the game's potential profits.
The actual work to bring Rock Band 4 to PC will be done by Sumo Digital, with support from Harmonix's engine team. By going with an external developer, it allows Harmonix to work on some new features, including the return of the Rock Band Network (RBN). Originally part of Rock Band 3, this system allowed people to add their own songs to the game, and sell them to other players, but was shut down in 2014 due to the amount of work it required to maintain its infrastructure. By utilizing the Steam Workshop, a lot of overhead can be removed, as well as the fees RBN required, while still allowing people to sell their tracks to other players.
The target for release is Fall 2016 and the PC version will include all of the content and features the console versions currently have and will be updated alongside the console version. The Rock Band Network will be a PC exclusive, though Harmonix might bring some RBN songs over to console. The Fig campaign runs for 35 days.

Source: Press Release and Fig

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GeForce Game Ready 362.00 WHQL Drivers Now Available
Tuesdays typically bring new game releases, but today they also bring new NVIDIA GeForce drivers to get your games running their best. The GeForce Game Ready 362.00 WHQL drivers are now available to download, offering game ready support for Far Cry Primal, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, and Dying Light: The Following - Enhanced Edition. Far Cry Primal arrived last week for console, but it's available today for PC, bringing with it higher fidelity visuals to soak in the world better. The new drivers bring performance optimizations and an SLI profile, giving you the best experience from the start. Launched late last year on Xbox One and now available today for PC, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition features remasters of the first three games and some new multiplayer features. The PC releases also has higher quality graphics, NVIDIA HBAO+ shadows, and the ability to bump the resolution to 4K. It's also the first Windows 10, DirectX 12-exclusive title, with the drivers offering a smooth gameplay experience. Recently launched is Dying Light: The Following - Enhanced Edition, which not only gets the boost from PCSS, but driver optimizations to give you an even better zombie killing time.
The GeForce Game Ready 362.00 WHQL drivers can be downloaded from within GeForce Experience or on GeForce.com.
Source: GeForce

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Dying Light Patch Adds NVIDIA PCSS
Last year we saw the release of Techland's open world, zombie-survival game Dying Light and last month its expansion, Dying Light: The Following released. Today it has received a patch adding NVIDIA's Percentage Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS) to its graphics options. This technology softens the edges of a shadow based on its distance from the shadow caster, increasing the realism of the virtual world.
To enable PCSS, the Shadow Map Size has to be set to High or Very High, and then NVIDIA PCSS needs to be toggled on, prompting a game restart. Dying Light already features NVIDIA's HBAO+ and Depth of Field technologies.
Source: NVIDIA

Hardware Roundup: Tuesday, March 1, 2016, Edition
March has arrived at long last, with several items along the way to welcome it. We start with a review on the Corsair VOID Surround Gaming Headset, which features both an analog 3.5mm and a USB connection to fit whatever system you hook it up to, from PC to console and smartphones. There's also the ROCCAT Kava Gaming Mouse, featuring an improved design and new enhancements, including an integration with Alienware technology, to give a new way to control your games. We have a couple of things for PC gaming, like how Microsoft is changing up its Windows Store to features some games that are only available there, some FCAT results with Ashes of the Singularity, and how Microsoft is merging PC and Xbox One gaming. We wrap up with a look at 20 of the worst PC setups seen during the month of February.
Keyboards/Mice

ROCCAT Kava Gaming Mouse @ Madshrimps
Speakers/Headphones

Corsair VOID Surround Gaming Headset @ Neoseeker
Gaming

PC Gaming Shakeup: Ashes of the Singularity, DX12 and the Microsoft Store @ PC Perspective

Microsoft plans to merge PC and Xbox gaming @ PC Perspective
Miscellany

20 of the Worst PC Setups - February 2016 @ ThinkComputers

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Super-Light Solar Cell Made
Miniaturization has been essential for many technologies to succeed and achieve ubiquity. Integrated circuits are one example as many of us are walking around with small computers in our pockets. In the future we may see solar cells become just as common, thanks to researchers at MIT who have developed a manufacturing process that can make cells so small and light that they will pop bubbles when placed on them.
While a great deal of focus might be on the tiny solar cells, it is the process that is the real accomplishment here. What the researchers figured out was how to grow the substrate, the solar cell, and the protective overcoating all in one process. It also can be done in a vacuum chamber at room temperature, unlike conventional solar cells that require high temperatures and harsh chemicals. This makes the manufacturing much easier and safer. The process starts with a carrier material, glass in this case, that a film of parylene, a somewhat common plastic coating, is grown on to serve as the substrate. The light-absorbing layer of DBP, an organic material, is deposited on the substrate and then another layer of parylene is put on top, protecting the cell from the environment. Once the process is done, it can be lifted off of the glass, producing a light, thin, and flexible solar cell.
At such a small size, these solar cells do not produce much power, but then this is a proof of concept that can work with other, better materials. Still, these solar cells have a tremendous power to weight ratio of 6 Watts per gram, which far surpasses the 15 W per Kilogram for silicon based modules. Potentially we could see these lightweight cells used in aerospace missions, where weight is an issue, or used to laminate existing structures, since the solar cells can be easily bent to match unusual surfaces.
Source: MIT

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Available Tags:Mac , PS4 , GeForce , WHQL , NVIDIA , Hardware ,

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

IT News Head Lines (Overclockers Club) 25/02/2016

Fnatic Gear Flick G1 Optical Mouse Review

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Version 0.8.7 of GPU-Z Released by TechPowerUp
TechPowerUp has officially released version 0.8.7 of GPU-Z, which brings in a multitude of fixes, improvements, and support for various hardware. The popular graphics subsystem information, monitoring, and diagnostic utility now properly detects the Radeon Software Crimson Edition Driver version, provides improved explanations for OpenCL detection errors on AMD GPUs, includes updated Armenian language texts, offers various stability fixes, and always displays the Revision ID as two digits. Version 0.8.7 also includes support for a multitude of NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel graphics processing units, and boasts fixes for a variety of detection issues.
The latest version of GPU-Z from TechPowerUp, which is available in a special ASUS ROG theme, can be downloaded from the software's official website.
Source: TechPowerUp

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Check if Your PC Can Support the HTC Vive
The price of the upcoming Vive from HTC and Valve was just announced within the past few days, and the SteamVR Performance Test app will help determine if your system meets the hardware requirements. The minimum recommend specs are somewhat steep and now would be a good time for users that have been putting off new components to upgrade. Users that want to enjoy the VR experience should have "at least a 5th gen Intel Core i7 or 6th gen Core i5, 8 GB of RAM, and a more or less recent NVIDIA (or AMD) GPU." The app runs a two minute sequence from the Valve Aperture Robot Repair VR demo and tests if the content can run "smoothly" at 90 fps. In the event of a failed test, the app will tell you where the bottleneck is, potentially cutting down on the amount of components to upgrade.
Source: Slash Gear

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Hardware Roundup: Tuesday, February 23, 2016, Edition
A new day is here, with a few items to kick things off. There are two different takes on the Samsung Portable SSD T3, with one covering the 1TB and the other the 2TB. This new external drive revamps the original model and improves upon it in some areas, like with USB 3.1 Type-C support, a 2TB capacity, and more, so be sure to check out the reviews to see just how it performs. We also have a review on the Logitech Artemis Spectrum G933/G633 headset, with one wireless and the other wired, to see how the new versions stack up to the competition.
Storage/Hard Drives

Samsung Portable SSD T3 2TB @ PC Perspective

Samsung Portable SSD T3 1TB @ TechSpot
Speakers/Headphones

Logitech Artemis Spectrum G933/G633 Headset @ PC Perspective

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Robotic Arm Creates Cyborg Drummer
According to various pieces of science fiction, we will someday see humans augmented with robotic components to improve their capabilities. At least in one regard, that day has come as researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a robotic third arm for drummers.
This is not the researchers first time building an arm to play drums as they had made a robotic prosthesis for a drummer who lost his arm in an accident. The new arm does not replace an old organic arm, but gives the drummer a third, smart arm that will follow their tempo and movement as they play. It accomplishes this by listening to the drummer play and following programing from human motion capture technology.
Currently it just works by paying attention to the drummer and reacting as is appropriate, but the next step is to connect it to an EEG to monitor brain patterns. Ideally this will allow more direct control by the drummer as it reacts to thoughts and not just actions. Beyond playing music, this third arm could have many other applications, such as being an extra hand for doctors, for getting tools and supplies.

Source: Georgia Institute of Technology

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Available Tags:TechPowerUp , HTC , Hardware ,

IT News Head Lines (Overclockers Club) 25/02/2016

Fnatic Gear Flick G1 Optical Mouse Review

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Available Tags:TechPowerUp , HTC , Hardware ,

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

IT News Head Lines (Overclockers Club) 24/02/2016

Tomb Raider (2013) 3-Years Later Review

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HyperX Savage 2666MHz 32GB Memory Review

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IOGear Kaliber Gaming Saga Surround Sound Gaming Headphones Review

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Huawei Announced 2-in-1 Windows 10 Device
Huawei announced its' first foray into the 2-in-1 device market with the MateBook at the 2016 Mobile World Congress. The 12" tablet is powered by Windows 10 with a screen resolution of 2160x1440 and the observed "text and photos look sharp and the colors are bright." Users can choose between Intel Core M3, M5, or M7 processors and the MateBook is being marketed to users looking to achieve high levels of productivity. The battery will last up to 13 hours under light use or up to 9 hours for video playback. To help aid in productivity, the tablet comes with the MatePen, a digital pen that includes a laser pointer, eraser, and two multi-function buttons, with up to 100 hours of battery life on a single charge.

Source: The Verge

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Price Announced for Vive VR Headset
The Vive Virtual Reality headset was announced last March and is the collaborative effort between HTC and Valve, and the price has just been announced. The Vive will release in 24 countries in April at an MSRP of $799, $200 more than the Oculus Rift. The price includes a pair of controllers that "you’ll need to power the Vive’s 360-degree tracking experience," which is being referred to as "the complete package." Worth noting is that the Oculus Rift won't have controllers available until the second half of the year and they aren't included in the initial $599 price tag, which means the two devices could be closer on price when that is taken into account. Vice President of VR at HTC Dan O'Brien described the price stating, "Because it is the price for the complete system. It is the price for a system with input and controllers. For 360-degree tracking at full room scale. With safety and chaperone. All the things that we’ve thought about to make it the best possible experience. That’s what that price is for. And we feel really good about it. It’s giving that user that one-time, out of box, it’s all there for you."
Source: Tech Crunch

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Corsair Announces VOID Surround and Wireless RGB White Headsets Available Now

If you are looking for a new gaming headset, Corsair has just added to its line up the VOID Surround and a white version of its VOID Wireless headset. Both feature Dolby 7.1 support, unidirectional noise-cancelling microphones, and microfiber and memory foam earpads for comfort. The VOID Surround is a wired headset with a 3.5 mm connector, making it compatible with various handheld devices and both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, though you will require an Xbox One controller with the appropriate port to connect to. For when you play on PC, you can use the included USB 7.1 Dolby headphone adapter to get Dolby Surround and use Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) software with its customizable equalizer.
The new white version of the VOID Wireless 7.1 RGB Gaming Headset keeps the multi-award winning design of the Void Wireless headset. It has up to 40 feet of wireless range and its battery can last 16 hours, so you can keep playing all day. Its lights can also be synchronized via Corsair's CUE link with other RGB-enabled Corsair products, like mice, keyboards, and other headsets. The Corsair Utility Engine software is also getting a new feature that allows any RGB-enabled keyboard to act as a multi-color graphic equalizer. You will be able to watch it change color in response to the active audio or microphone signal. This feature is compatible with the VOID Wireless, USB, and Surround headsets, including the two new ones.
The VOID Surround has an MSRP of $79.99 while the VOID Wireless RGB in white is $129.99, and both are available for purchase today. The VOID Visualizer feature is also live right now, in version 1.15.36 of the Corsair Utility Engine.
Source: Press Release

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Hardware Roundup: Monday, February 22, 2016, Edition
February is starting to wind down, but not before we have plenty of items for you to check out. We have a look at the Samsung Portable SSD T3, a compact model offering fast speeds, large capacities, and a USB 3.1 Type C connector. There are two reviews on the Corsair VOID Surround Gaming Headset, a new headset offering Dolby 7.1 surround and compatibility with PCs and consoles. We have another headset in the Patriot Viper V360, which also offers 7.1 surround sound, as well as the Patriot Viper V560 mouse with its Avago 9800 laser sensor and nine programmable buttons. Wrapping things up for today is a guide on how to assemble your first gaming PC, perfect for those just entering the DIY computer field.
Storage/Hard Drives

Samsung Portable SSD T3 @ Benchmark Reviews
Keyboards/Mice

Patriot Viper V360 Headset and V560 Mouse @ LanOC Reviews
Speakers/Headphones

Corsair VOID Surround Gaming Headset @ Madshrimps

Corsair VOID Surround Gaming Headset @ ThinkComputers
Miscellany

My First PC Build - Going from Zero to Gaming in 3 Steps @ PC Perspective

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Graphene Made Superconductive
Graphene is a somewhat common topic when discussing future electronic technologies because it has some very useful properties, such as electrons flowing across it as though they have no mass. This means the all-carbon material has exceptional electron mobility, but these electrons do still flow with some resistance. Only electrons in superconductors move without any resistance, and now researchers at Tohoku University have discovered how to make graphene superconducting, combining these two amazing properties.
To achieve superconductivity, the researchers fabricated bilayer on a silicon carbide substrate. Next they inserted calcium atoms between the two atom-thick layers of graphene, creating a sandwich, and cooled it. At temperatures around 4 K (-269 ºC) the electrical resistivity of the material dropped quickly, as happens when superconductivity emerges. At just 4 K, this transition temperature is very low, but potentially replacing the calcium atoms with some other metal or increasing the number of graphene layers could raise it. Regardless, this is going to lead to new studies to try to understand what exactly is going on when electrons that move with no mass also move with no resistance.
Potential applications for superconducting graphene include ultrahigh-speed nano devices and quantum computers. If the transition temperature can be raised from 4 K, many more applications will become possible for this combination of highly desirable electronic properties.
Source: Tohoku University

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Tt eSPORTS Announces COMMANDER COMBO Multi-Light
Tt eSPORTS, a brand of Thermaltake that is committed to providing gamers with the most personalized and highest quality weapons for competitive cyber battles, has officially announced the COMMANDER COMBO Multi-Light. The new gaming keyboard and mouse combination from Tt eSPORTS improves on the original COMMANDER Gaming Gear Combo that was revealed in January of last year by offering two additional colors and other enhancements and improvements. The included keyboard boasts red, blue, and purple LED backlighting, Plunger Switches with mechanical keycaps, select N-key rollover, repeat rate options, multimedia keys, and shortcut keys. The mouse that is featured as part of the COMMANDER COMBO Multi-Light offers gamers with four different LED lighting effects, on-the-fly sensitivity adjustments from 800DPI to 2400DPI, an illuminated dragon logo, and side buttons.

The COMMANDER COMBO Multi-Light from Tt eSPORTS features an MSRP of just $34.99, making the keyboard and mouse combination quite affordable for a wide range of consumers.
Source: Press Release

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Sony Smart Ear Expected to be Unveiled at Mobile World Congress

Thanks to a press render that has recently been leaked online, Sony is expected to reveal its Smart Ear device at this year's Mobile World Congress, which begins on February 22 and runs until February 25. If officially confirmed and released by Sony, the device will be the company's first entry into the growing market of truly wireless earbuds. Due to the name, it is likely that the Sony Smart Ear will be more of a headset than an actual stereo earbud solution, but the self-contained Bluetooth wireless device is said to be similar to the Moto Hint that was released in 2014 and featured built-in assistant functionality.
Source: The Verge

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Simple Means of Doping Graphene Discovered
Since its discovery, graphene has been of great interest to many thanks to its intriguing properties, such as high conductivity strength, flexibility, and transparency. Getting into electronics is difficult though, because the material is a natural conductor and what we want is a semiconductor. Combining it with certain other materials can affect its electrical properties and now researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, and SUNY Polytechnic Institute have found a very simple means to dope graphene.
The discovery, like many others, was actually an accident. Initially the researchers were testing a solar cell made of graphene stacked on top of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), a semiconductor, which was also stacked on a soda-lime glass substrate. When considering doping the graphene to optimize performance, they were surprised to find it was already optimally doped. After careful analysis, which involved isolating the graphene on the glass, they discovered the sodium atoms within the glass were causing high electron density within the multi-layered piece of graphene. They also found that this doping is quite resilient, lasting for several weeks in open air.
This is a very important discovery for potentially bringing graphene to various devices, especially as this combination can be made cheaply and be easily scaled up. Among its possible applications is replacing ITO, a transparent conductor used in many technologies such as displays and solar cells, but is also quite brittle and expensive.
Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Hardware Roundup: Friday, February 19, 2016, Edition
The end of the week is here, with a couple of items along to help you welcome in that weekend. A new case mod is highlighted that features an custom-made Parvum Systems case and as much ASUS ROG hardware possible to give this its ROG BOX name. The red and black color scheme is quite striking, as is the overall size and portability of the project. Our other item is a podcast covering the latest news and reviews from the past week.
Miscellany

Case Mod Friday: ROG BOX @ ThinkComputers

Podcast #387 @ PC Perspective

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LPC-720F Fanless Mini PC Released by Stealth

Stealth, a leader in the industrial rugged computer and peripherals market, has officially released its new fanless mini PC, the LPC-720F. The latest product from Stealth features a rugged extruded aluminum chassis that allows the computer to be ran without any fans, providing users with a quiet and clean computing environment. The Stealth LPC-720F offers built-in dual expansion slot capability that includes either two PCI slots or two PCIe x1 expansion slots, allowing consumers to add additional functionality, as needed. Louis Houde, the Business Unit Director of Stealth.com, noted that "Customers require high-powered products with small formats that can be used in multiple applications." Houde went onto say that "We relied on our expertise to develop a product that exceeds those requirements."
The LPC-720F includes a third generation Intel Core i7 mobile processor, up to 16GB of memory, six RS232 serial ports, two Gigabit LAN ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and VGA, DVI-D, and HDMI display outputs. Stealth has ensured that the unit also operates on a wide range of DC input power, making it ideal for various markets such as military, marine, utility, transportation, mining, telecommunications, and more.
The LPC-720F fanless mini PC starts at $1,995 and is available for immediate purchase.
Source: TechPowerUp

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Original Developer Joins System Shock 3 Team
Warren Spector, the "main creator" for the original System Shock, has joined the development effort for System Shock 3 to "make sure that the new title is as good as the original." OtherSide Entertainment is trying to get as much of the original team back together to try to recreate the magic from the original, which received "unanimous praise in its 22 years of existence." In addition to the original System Shock, Spector has worked on titles such as Deus Ex and Ultima. Spector described his motivation for returning to the System Shock universe, stating "Working on System Shock was one of the most fulfilling things I've done in my career and it's hard to describe how much I'm looking forward to sharing with players what Shodan has been up to since the last game was released."
Source: Tech Times

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Nanowire Lasers Integrated Into Silicon Chip
We are quickly approaching a wall that modern electronics cannot surpass due to the physical limitations of the materials used. Some new technology will be necessary to continue increasing computing power and among the possibilities is photonics, which use light to transmit information instead of electricity. To make photonics possible though, we need to ability to attach light sources to silicon and now researchers at the Technical University of Munich have found a way to do just that.
The light sources in this case are nanowire lasers, which create the coherent light by reflecting photons off of the top and bottom of the wires, amplifying the light until it can start lasing. The nanowires are made from gallium arsenide, which normally cannot be grown on silicon, because the two materials have different lattice structures and expand differently when heated. Also the interface between the silicon and gallium arsenide is not reflective enough for a nanowire laser. The solution to both problems was to add a 200 nm layer of silicon oxide on top of the silicon. Small holes can then be precisely etched into this layer so that the nanowires will grow vertically from them. This reduces the footprint and thus the strain the nanowires will endure, while also providing the desired mirror surface.
The next step for this work is to find a means to power the nanowire lasers electrically, instead of requiring an external laser to pump in the energy. Also the researchers want to be able to control the light emitted by the lasers, which is currently limited to a predefined infrared wavelength.
Source: Technical University of Munich

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Hardware Roundup: Thursday, February 18, 2016, Edition
Another week is nearing its end, but not before we have plenty of items for you to check out. There is a look at the OCZ Trion 150 SSD, a budget model using 15nm TLC NAND to help boost performance compared to the previous model. If you need to keep your CPU cool, perhaps the CRYORIG H5 Ultimate CPU cooler is your solution. To better control your games, the Gamdias Mechanical Gaming Combo features a Hermes Lite GKB1000 mechanical gaming keyboard and Erebos Lite GMS7300 optical mouse to get you everything you need in one convenient package. There's a look at the Braven BRV-1 Bluetooth Speaker that can work indoors or out, thanks to its IPX7 certification for rain or getting dunked in a pool. Wrapping things up is a portable storage option with the Silicon Power Mobile C80 Dual Flash Drive that has a USB 3.1 Type C connector and also a USB 3.0 Type A connector.
Storage/Hard Drives

OCZ Trion 150 SSD @ TechSpot

Silicon Power Mobile C80 Dual Flash Drive for Type-C Ready Mobile Devices @ Madshrimps
CPU Cooling

CRYORIG H5 Ultimate @ ThinkComputers
Keyboards/Mice

Gamdias Mechanical Gaming Combo @ Benchmark Reviews
Speakers/Headphones

Braven BRV-1 Bluetooth Speaker @ ThinkComputers

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Square Enix Games Coming to GeForce Now
Today it has been announced that five Square Enix games will be coming to NVIDIA's GeForce Now game streaming service, starting with the 2013 title Tomb Raider. If you have an NVIDIA SHIELD device and a subscription to the GeForce Now service, you can start playing Tomb Raider today, for free. Later we will see Sleeping Dogs, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Quantum Conundrum, Murdered: Soul Suspect and more launching for the service.
A GeForce NOW subscription costs $7.99 a month, but the first three months are free. With these titles, the service offers members over 80 games they can play instantly on a SHIELD device.
Source: NVIDIA Blog

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Comparing Vulkan, DirectX, and OpenGL in The Talos Principle
Version 1.0 of the Vulkan graphics API was released yesterday, and while many game developers have pledged to support the new software, Croteam is the first to release support with its game The Talos Principle. The puzzle based game already supports rendering through DirectX 9, DirectX 11, and OpenGL and the team can now add beta support for Vulkan to the list. The tests that were run offer an early look at the potential of Vulkan with Croteam noting that it is "not as fast as their now highly tuned DirectX 11 implementation." Tests were run on multiple cards from AMD and NVIDIA at multiple resolution settings, with frame rate being the comparison metric. DirectX 11 was the clear winner in all tests, and Vulkan compared favorably to OpenGL in most tests, coming out ahead in some and losing in others. The tester notes that the Vulkan rendering looked just as good as its competitors, and it should be interesting to see what developers can do going forward after becoming more familiar with the API.
Source: Anandtech

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Available Tags:Gaming , Gaming , Windows , Wireless , Hardware , Sony , GeForce ,

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

IT News Head Lines (Overclockers Club) 17/02/2016

Vertagear Launches the Racing Series P-Line PL6000 Gaming Chair

Vertagear, a company that aims to enrich the lifestyle of gamers with products expressed through experience and offers a greater appreciation of gaming products through excellent design, has officially launched its P-Line PL6000 gaming chair. The chair, which falls within the company's Racing Series lineup, features perforated PVC leather, a new heavy duty base frame, soft glide PU wheels, and a wealth of padding on the seat as well as the included headrest. The Vertagear P-Line PL6000 also supports individuals up to 440 pounds and boasts a new tilt locking mechanism that is quite easy to reach, which ensures that gamers are able to find the best tilted position for intense gaming or relaxing.
The P-Line PL6000 gaming chair from Vertagear comes in five different color combinations that include blue, carbon black, green, red, and white, and is expected to be available for purchase later this month for $439.99.
Source: Press Release

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Simpler Optical Receiver Developed for Cheaper Fiber-to-the-Home Connections
Today several companies are offering fiber connections to homes in more and more areas, with speeds far surpassing traditional copper lines. With those increased speeds come increased costs though, as each home requires an optical receiver. Typically these receivers are quite expensive because of the advanced technology they use, but researchers at University College London have designed a new receiver that is much simpler, making it much cheaper to mass produce.
For some time now fiber networks have been deployed in many areas, because the increased bandwidth they allow for makes them future-proof, while copper lines are approaching their limits. Still, the fiber optic cables will stop at a cabinet and from there copper lines connect to houses because of how expensive the fiber-based 'last-mile' is. What the UCL researchers have done is simplified the optical receiver design so much that the new version contains only 20-25% of the components traditional receivers hold. This also allows them to be much smaller and cheaper to mass produce, but does not sacrifice the advantages of an optical receiver. To achieve this, the researchers are using a wireless communications method to be insensitive to the polarization of signals and offset the receiver and transmitter lasers, so that the same fiber can be used for upstream and downstream data.
Before we can see a commercial prototype of this receiver, the researchers have to investigate its laser stability. After that it will be possible to begin field tests and eventually commercialization. Many believe it will be necessary to transition to fiber to the home (FTTH) technologies as the demand for bandwidth reaches the limits of current copper networks.
Source: University College London

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Hardware Roundup: Monday, February 15, 2016, Edition
A new week is here, with February rolling right along past its halfway mark. We have a review of the Sapphire R9 380 ITX Compact 4GB video card, a tiny model perfect for small builds that don't want to skimp out on power. For those needing a way to keep their processor cool, the SilverStone TD03-Slim Liquid CPU Cooler gets tested to see how this thin model performs. Wrapping things up today is a review of the Synology DiskStation DS416 4-bay NAS, which can help boost your home server storage potential or even for business owners.
Video Cards

Sapphire R9 380 ITX Compact 4GB @ LanOC Reviews
CPU Cooling

SilverStone TD03-Slim Liquid CPU Cooler @ ThinkComputers
Storage/Hard Drives

Synology DiskStation DS416 4-bay NAS @ Madshrimps

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Easier Means of Producing Flat Optics Developed
Researchers at the University of Illinois College of Engineering have developed a new, easier fabrication method for flat optics that allows for table-top production. Many traditional optical components can be large and difficult to produce, even requiring a cleanroom environment. This method removes the need for the cleanroom but only sacrifices a little quality to do so.
Flat optics utilize the way light will interact with nanoscale objects to reproduce an affect that would normally require a much larger optical device. This means that instead of requiring a large glass lens, a small plate can be used instead. Normally to etch the nanoscale patterns onto a material requires visiting a clean room, but the Illinois researchers they could use plasmon assisted etching to craft flat optics using a laser-scanning optical microscope. It uses a 2D array of bowtie nanoantennas that are being supported by gold pillars on top of a glass substrate. This much has to be produced in a cleanroom, but then it can be submerged in water and have a laser trace out the desired pattern onto it. The light from the laser will interact with the nanoantennas, causing them to heat up and this makes the gold expand. With enough thermal expansion, the gold will separate from the substrate, etching the metal.
By removing the need to return to the cleanroom, this makes fabricating flat optics practically do-it-yourself, at least for researchers needing to work with specialized optics. Thus far the researchers have created a flat focusing lens, a diffraction grating, and a holographic converter but it should also be able to produce components for optical nanotweezers and heterogeneous nanoantennas as well.
Source: University of Illinois

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Adobe Creative Cloud Bug Deletes Mac User Data
After a recent update, the Mac version of Adobe’s Creative Cloud could potentially delete user data with no warning. A script created by the update deletes the first directory in the root directory once the user signs in after updating. The users at the highest risk are BackBlaze customers. BackBlaze is a data backup service that stores user data in a directory named .bzvol, which is typically the first directory in the root directory. Due to this, BackBlaze was the first to report the issue and include it in its FAQ. After a storm of complaints from upset users, Adobe has released a fix for the update, which you can download below.
Source: TechRampage and Adobe

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Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Photos Leaked
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge photos were leaked on Twitter yesterday, just a week before the phone’s unveiling at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The photos reveal a silver, black, and gold handset, which represents a reduced choice in colors from the emerald green, black, white, and gold options that were available with the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. The Galaxy S7 Edge is expected to be shipped with Android 6.0, 4GB of RAM, an Exynos 8890 octa-core chipset clocking in 2.3 GHz, and a 3600mAh battery. The screen size is to remain the same as the previous Samsung flagship models, at 5.1-inches for the Edge and 5.7-inches for the Edge+.
Source: TechRadar

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Available Tags:Gaming , Hardware , Adobe , Mac , Samsung , Galaxy ,

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

IT News Head Lines (Overclockers Club) 11/02/2016

G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3400 16GB Memory Review

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PC Bundles Announced for Oculus Rift
Oculus has announced a number of "Oculus Ready" systems from ASUS, Alienware, and Dell. The systems start at $1,500 when bundled with the Rift, including a bundle discount. The cheapest system features an Intel Core i5-6400, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, 8GB of DDR4, and a 1TB hard drive. At the other end of the spectrum the system uses a Core i7-5820K, GTX 980, 16GB of DDR4, a 128GB SSD, and a 2TB hard drive for $3,150. None of the bundles include an AMD video card despite the fact that the cards do support the Oculus Rift.
Source: PC World

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Non-K Skylake CPUs Can No Longer be Overclocked Due to CPU Microcode Update
In July of last year, it was reported that Skylake processors from Intel that were not a part of the K-series would be able to be overclocked due to changes made by motherboard manufacturers. Then, in December of last year, ASRock released a BIOS update that enabled overclocking for Intel Skylake CPUs that were not marketed as being overclockable. Now, Intel has pushed an official CPU microcode update to various motherboard partners that unfortunately disables the ability for customers to overclock their non-K series Skylake processors. An Intel spokesman noted that "The latest update provided to partners includes, among other things, code that aligns with the position that we do not recommend overclocking processors that have not been designed to do so." The spokesman went on to say that "Additionally, Intel does not warranty the operation of the processor beyond its specifications."
Fortunately for consumers, the CPU microcode update that disables the ability for Intel Skylake processors that are not a part of the K-series to be overclocked will only make its way onto motherboards with a BIOS update. So, in short, consumers can still overclock their non-K series Skylake processors as long as they continue to utilize the BIOS update that enabled the feature in the first place.
Source: TechPowerUp

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Intel Skylake Overclocked to 7GHz
The Intel Core i7-6700K is the "flagship" processor of the Skylake architecture with a base speed of 4GHz, but the base speed is never enough for some people. Overclocker Chi-Kui Lam managed to achieve a clock speed of 7025.66MHz, breaking the record for highest clock speed on the new architecture, but falling short of the highest clock speed of 8722.78MHz, obtained using an AMD FX-8370. Lam paired the CPU with an ASRock motherboard, G.SKILL memory, a 1300W Antec power supply, and liquid nitrogen cooling. In addition to the ultra low temperature cooling provided by the liquid nitrogen, Lam also chose to disable all but one core to give the best chance of achieving high clock speeds.
Source: Hot Hardware

The Division Getting an Open Beta
Starting the end of January, Ubisoft held a closed beta for the upcoming Tom Clancy's The Division game and if you missed it, do not worry, you will get a second chance soon. Today Ubisoft has announced The Division is getting an open beta February 19-21 for the PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One. For Xbox One players it starts a day early, so you can have an additional 24 hours of exclusive access.
The open beta will include the content featured in the closed beta along with a new story mission. Everyone who plays in the beta will receive a special in-game reward once the full game releases on March 8.
Source: The Division Official Website

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Hardware Roundup: Tuesday, February 9, 2016, Edition
Another Tuesday has arrived, bringing with it a couple of items for you to check out. We have a review of the NZXT Manta case that offers some unique external styling thanks to the curved panels and an overall clean appearance. If you need a case that's even smaller, perhaps the Fractal Design Core 500 SFF case is for you, with this tiny case holding a Mini-ITX motherboard and plenty of full-size components.
Cases

NZXT Manta @ ThinkComputers

Fractal Design Core 500 SFF @ Madshrimps

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Amazon Launches Lumberyard Game Engine and Amazon GameLift
Back in August 2014, Amazon surprised a great many by purchasing Twitch for almost $1 billion. The company's latest move is perhaps less surprising though as it has launched its own game engine, Lumberyard. This engine is based on technologies from CryEngine, Double Helix Games, which was also purchased by Amazon in 2014, and AWS, or Amazon Web Services. The engine is completely free to use, including its source code, and comes with Twitch integration. The only thing Amazon will charge a developer for is its uses of AWS.
Also announced today is Amazon GameLift for Lumberyard games. It is a service for deploying, operating, and scaling multiplayer game sessions, which will hopefully cut the time it takes developers to build the multiplayer backend needed for many of today's games. With it game servers can be deployed across the AWS Cloud and the capacity can be scaled up and down as needed, thanks to real-time reporting of server capacity and player demand. It is currently available in AWS US East and US West regions and costs $1.50 per 1000 Daily Active Users on top of the standard AWS fees.
Source: Amazon

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Sony Announces SLW-M Series SSD
Sony-Asia has announced its first solid state drives that will sell in retail. The Asia-based company is being careful and testing its regional market with only two models of its SSD, a 240 GB and a 480 GB version. Sony’s SLW-M SSDs come in the standard 2.5 inch form factor and use a SATA-6 Gbps interface. The drives are said to be capable of up to 560 MB/s sequential read speed and up to 530 MB/s sequential write speed. As a bonus for the customer, the drives come with Acronis True Image 2015 and Sony SSD ToolBox pre-loaded to help users manage and back up their data. The SLW-M SSDs feature a Phison PS3110-S10 controller and a buffer of 128 MB DDR3 made by Nanya. These specifications are very promising for Sony, and its choice of hardware indicates it is trying to compete with the more affordable SSDs on the market, like the OCZ Trion 100 series and the Kingston HyperX Savage.
Source: Anandtech

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Batteries Might Get a Boost from Pollen
Pollen is a fairly common material in Nature, and for those with allergies, it may be a bit too common. Either way this makes it interesting as a potential feedstock and researchers at Purdue University have found an intriguing use for it. By processing pollen into carbon, the researchers were able to create anodes for lithium-ion batteries with some impressive properties.
The researchers started with bee pollen and cattail pollen, and with a process called pyrolysis created pure carbon. This process involves heating the material to high temperatures in a chamber of argon gas, leaving a pure-carbon version of the original object. This pollen-derived carbon was then activated at around 300 ºC in an oxygen environment, causing pores to form. These pores improve the energy storage capacity of the carbon by increasing its surface area. The researchers next took the pollen anodes and found that while it took 10 hours to fully charge them only one hour was needed to reach more than half charge. In theory the graphite anodes currently used in lithium-ion batteries can reach 372 milliamp hours, and with just one hour reached 200 mA hours with these new anodes.
In the future the researchers intend to test these anodes in a full-cell battery with a commercial cathode. Further testing will be required to determine just how viable these anodes will be, and perhaps ways to improve their efficiency will also be discovered.
Source: Purdue University

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Assets and USB Technology of IronKey from Imation is Acquired by Kingston Digital
Kingston Digital, the flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, has revealed that it has officially acquired the assets and USB technology of IronKey from Imation. The acquisition provides customers with a comprehensive set of products and solutions, thereby demonstrating the commitment that Kingston has when it comes to providing trusted encryption solutions for mobile data. Valentina Vitolo, the Flash Business Manager at Kingston, noted that "The addition and integration of the IronKey brand with our own award-winning line of DataTraveler encrypted USB drives provides a dynamic range of encrypted solutions for customers of all levels who want to protect mobile data." Vitolo went on to say that "Having our great partner DataLocker manage both the EMS and SafeConsole platforms is a win for all of our combined customers."
Kingston notes that there will be no immediate change to the way that businesses work with channel partners currently supporting IronKey products. Kingston also announced that more information surrounding the acquisition of the assets and USB technology of IronKey from Imation will be available at the RSA Conference 2016 in San Francisco, CA, which runs from February 29 to March 4.
Source: TechPowerUp

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First 4K Blu-Ray Player Released

Much to the delight of 4K TV owners, the first 4K Blu-Ray player is now on sale. Samsung’s UBD-K8500 was scheduled to roll out in March after being announced in Q4 2015, but some shops already have the player in stock. Customers ordering from Best Buy have been informed that it will ship on February 10. The Samsung UBD-K8500 can stream 4K video from Netflix thanks to its built in Wi-Fi adapter. It supports full 7.1 channel audio, and can play standard Blu-Rays, DVDs, and CDs. While there is a definite lack of 4K content, multiple studios have announced films will be released and re-released in Ultra High Definition. Titles such as The Martian are available on pre-order with shipping dates as early as March 1.

Source: The Verge

Ubisoft Responds to Claims That PC Version of The Division Is Held Back by Consoles
It is no secret that when comparing the graphics and performance of a game released on both PC and consoles, the PC version usually comes out on top due to a number of factors including more powerful hardware and customization options. Ubisoft is now facing accusations that the PC version of its upcoming game The Division is being "held back" by the console versions of the game. The accusations are based on an interview that YouTubers Team Epiphany did with a Ubisoft developer who said "We do have to kind of keep it in check with consoles because it would kind of be unfair just to push it so far away from them." Ubisoft has now responded stating, "It has come to our attention that a comment from one of our team members has been perceived by some members of the community to imply the PC version of The Division was 'held back' and this is simply not true. From the beginning, the PC version of The Division was developed from the ground up and we're confident players will enjoy the game and the features this version has to offer. And the feedback from PC players who participated in the recent closed beta supports this." It will be interesting to see how the different versions of the game compare when the final version is released.
Source: PCGamesN

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Phanteks Announces Eclipse P400 and P400S Cases

Phanteks has announced its latest case series with the Eclipse P400 and P400S. The P400S is the Silent Edition of the base model case and both cases will be available in Satin Black, Anthracite Grey, and Glacier White. The cases are described as "compact midtowers that are easy for beginning PC builders that want to create a clean and beautiful build." Phanteks used the Enthoo series as a base for the case with metal exterior, RGB lighting, dust filters, and radiator mount points. The P400S has all the features of the base model with the added bonus of a soundproofing layer and 3-speed fan controller. The P400 has an MSRP of $69.99 without a window or $79.99 with a window, while prices for the P400S are $10 higher in both cases.
Source: Press Release

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$1700 AMD Polaris GPU Found in Shipping Database
With both AMD and NVIDIA making major shifts to 14 nm production nodes this year, there has been a great deal of interest in any bit of information about the upcoming GPU series. This latest data point comes from Zauba's shipping database where it lists a C99 graphics card, with a per unit value of roughly $1700. It is not clear what this is exactly, but with such a high value, it is likely meant for a very high-end Polaris-based graphics card, and perhaps even a dual GPU card. The Polaris series of GPUs have a release target of mid-2016.
Other Polaris GPUs have been spotted in this shipping database before and appear to form an interesting timeline. Previously C91, C92, and C98 GPUs have been found in the database, with the C98 appearing in December 2015 and the C91 and C92 chips going as far back as January 2015. In August 2015 the C91 and C92 chips gained their FOC designations, which was just months before Polaris GPUs were first shown off to the press. Potentially those demonstrated GPUs are these C91 and C92 graphics cards, which would also mean that AMD has had them in their labs for over a full year now. The C98 is likely one of the high-end chips, based on its having a per-unit value one third greater than AMD's Hawaii chips.
Source: WCCFtech

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Hardware Roundup: Monday, February 8, 2016, Edition
A new week begins with some items for you to check out, starting with the Scythe Ninja 4 SCNH-4000 CPU cooler. This cooler is a tower-style heat sink that may seem massive, yet can help lower system noise thanks to a quiet fan. We also have the QNAP TS-453A 4-bay QTS-Ubuntu Combo NAS, which can work as a home server or full on media center thanks to Ubuntu. Our final item for today is the Dell XPS 13 laptop, updated at the end of last year with a Skylake CPU, USB Type C with Thunderbolt 3 support, and plenty more to try and make this laptop the one to get.
CPU Cooling

Scythe Ninja 4 SCNH-4000 @ Frostytech
Storage/Hard Drives

QNAP TS-453A 4-bay QTS-Ubuntu Combo NAS @ Madshrimps
Laptops/Tablets

Dell XPS 13 @ TechSpot

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New Chip Could Bring AI to Phones and More
Neural networks and artificial intelligence are both things that have seemed to largely exist in science fiction for a long time, but recently advanced computer systems have been making them a reality. For most people though, these systems are something remote that data has to be sent to for processing. Thanks to researchers at MIT, we may actually be able to fit them into our pockets.
Neural networks are systems meant to emulate the operation of our brains with simple processing units. As GPUs are comprised of a great many cores, these are often used to create neural networks, and at 200 cores, even mobile GPUs can be used. The chip the MIT researchers created though is 10 times more efficiency than a mobile GPU, so it could allow mobile devices to run AI algorithms without help from the Cloud. To achieve this efficiency, the researchers designed the chip to reduce the number of times the cores access memory, which takes time and uses energy, and a circuit compresses the data before sending it. The cores also have the ability to communicate with their neighbors, so they can directly share data as needed. Finally there is special-purpose circuitry for allocating tasks to the cores, and this circuitry can be reprogrammed depending on what kind of network is desired.
Besides the possibility of phones being able to perform tasks locally and privately, this chip could also advance the Internet of Things by bringing neural networks to a variety of places. This would allow important decisions to be made automatically and without having to call back to a server, and would of course be helpful in battery-powered autonomous robots.
Source: MIT

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Available Tags:CPU , Intel , Hardware , Amazon , Amazon , Sony , SSD , USB , Kingston , Blu-Ray , Ubisoft , AMD , GPU ,