Intel intros series 7 motherboards
Easter Sunday. Depending on your ethical proclivities it was a day for church, chocolate or just chilling out playing some games safe in the knowledge that you don’t have to work tomorrow. Or, if you’re Intel, it’s a day for launching your new range of motherboard chipsets and a swanky example of their kind to go with it.
Nope, timing beats me too. Still, I’ve had one of their new Z77-type boards in the office for a few days now, which is long enough to be suitably impressed with it.
Cooler Master joins mechanical keyboard club
Once upon a time a mechanical keyboards seemed to be typing their way into extinction. Their loud and bouncy buttons appeared very old fashioned and expensive against a legion of slender Apple clones. Now, no serious peripherals company can be taken seriously without a mechanised letter rack to its name, and barely a week goes by without another one joining the fray.
The latest firm to do so is Cooler Master. Better known for its cases and power supplies, it’s been slowly building up its Storm gaming brand over the last couple of years, and just like Corsair before it has announced a Cherry MX Black-toting keyboard as its premiere gear du guerre.
Google glasses just got real
According to a post over on Google+ (remember that?), engineers from the top secret Google[x] laboratory have just confirmed one of tech’s most interesting rumours. They’re working on a pair of glasses that includes a heads-up display for augmented reality information.
There’s little in the way of detail on the Google+ landing page, but The New York Times has some interesting extra information, including a few quotes from someone who claims to have used the glasses in question.
Valve actively seeking Linux devs
Oh happy day. As someone who resents leaving the safety of his Ubuntu desktop every time I want to play a game or do some benchmarking, today’s headline from Phoronix.com is frankly the news I’ve been waiting for for years.
Valve has been recruiting for at least one Linux specialist to help port Windows games with this job ad since January. But it looks like they’re getting very serious, and keen to push on with the project. Phoronix’ Michael Larabel has received an email from Gabe himself asking for help head hunting.
‘Like’ to have a left handed MMO mouse?
In these days of equal opportunity and well enforced rights of access laws, it seems almost unforgivable that one group of gamers is still unconsciously discriminated against. But then, it wasn’t until I’d worked with a particularly militant south-paw dep ed that even liberal’ole me came to realise just how few of our toys take left-handedness into account. This realisation grew stronger every time a right-handed mouse was thrown in my direction.
You’ve been able to get left-handed guitars, left-handed golf clubs, left-handed hammers and even left-handed pencils on almost every high street since 1968, but only Razer makes mice suited to the one in ten people for whom ergonomics is a backward science. And they only released their first DeathAdder lefty two years ago. Which is great for FPS player, but what about MMOers? Won’t somebody think of them?
Help Hubble, win an iPad
It’s not a PC game as such, but it does involve your PC and there’s an element of competition, here’s something to occupy a few hours of free time between now and the end of May. Take those sharp powers of observation and image analysis you’ve honed through play and put them to some sort of productive use.
Join the hunt for Hubble’s Hidden Treasures. You can help to find new galactic objects, make some of those of colourful ‘artists impressions’ pictures of nebula that grace box art and maybe win an iPad too. Not bad for what is, to all intents and appearances, a browser based game. It’ll help kill time until the next Mass Effect 3 DLC comes out.
Digital Storm’s sub-zero system revealed
I’m not hugely familiar with US system builder Digital Storm, since they don’t have an outlet on this side of the Atlantic, but the ’boutique’ PC maker has just added an impressive looking new case to its line up that rather makes me wish they did.
It uses the first case that the company has designed itself, apparently, something which is almost unheard of for an independent shop, certainly since Alienware and VoodooPC were bought out by Dell and HP respectively. The ‘Aventum’, as Digital Storm’s new range is known, may not have the catchiest name and it certainly has a bleeding eye price, but it’s intriguing, nonetheless.
Nvidia unveils the GeForce GTX 680: massively multicore, insanely powerful
You’ve known it was coming, but you are not prepared. Until now you’ve known it only as “Kepler,” but after today you’ll know it as the GeForce GTX 680—the fastest and most efficient GPU that Nvidia has ever built, and one of the sexiest we’ve ever laid eyes upon. (There’s also the matter of their new 600m series of mobile GPUs that are capable of running games like Battlefield 3 smoothly off an slim, 9lb laptop with eight hours of battery life, but that’s a whole other story to come shortly.)
So let’s get right down to it.
First things first, here’s the specs on the GeForce GTX 680. I hope you’ve got an extra set of pants available.
Red Harbinger puts a PC in your desk
Big gaming PCs are great, but finding room for that giant case with all its fans and graphics cards can be tough. Especially if you live in a moderately sized flat as opposed to a rural mansion. Which is why the work of Red Harbinger looks interesting. This newcomer to the world of bespoke boutique systems is looking to popularise the idea of putting a PC inside a desk.
Future PCs made of blood and spit
If you built a computer using your own bodily fluids, would you – shamanlike – imbue it with mystical powers and the very essence of your life force? Would it be, technically, an android? We’re about to find out, if researchers at the University of Tel Aviv have their way.
They’ve figured out a way to create nano-scale transistors from organic materials, including blood, milk and mucus. Which means not only are they the future of electronics, they could also be classed as art.
And they’re biodegrable. Everyone wins.
Gaming ultrabooks on their way?
There’s been some interesting new laptops shown off this week over at the giant German gadget-fest that is CeBit. Most intriguing is Acer’s next ultrabook, the Aspire Timeline Ultra M3. That machine is just 20mm from table to top, has a 15inch screen and a DVD drive, an Ivy Bridge processor and what appears to be a – if Legit Reviews is to be believed – a GeForce GT640M graphics chip.
Roccat puts PC game controls on your phone
Roccat’s mysterious viral marketing campaign has run its full duration, with the announcement of Power-Grid, a new mobile application that puts PC game controls onto your phone screen.
Power-Grid is a customisable interface which will be launched first on iPhone, with Android devices to follow, that puts macro keys and chat functions into a customisable layout for quick access while playing. The best way to think of it is as an interactive version of Logitech’s G-series keyboard displays, combined with the LCD screen buttons of an Art Lebedev keyboard.
Radeon HD7800 pre-orders live. Is it the upgrade you’ve been waiting for?
Even I’ve been forced to admit that PC hardware has seemed pretty dull lately. While there’s been no shortage of new launches, there’s been no must buy upgrade. That might have changed today with the launch of AMD’s Radeon HD7850 and HD7870 graphics cards.
Based on ‘Pitcairn’ revisions of the Southern Islands processor design, the HD7800s are slightly cut down versions of the hugely powerful but hugely expensive 7900s, with the same Graphics Core Next (GCN) tech at their heart. They’re fast, futureproof and with prices for both cards around the £200/$300 mark, they’re also relatively affordable.
Windows 8 beta is out now
Want to know what your games are going to look like in Windows 8? You can find out first hand if you like – Microsoft has put the ‘Consumer Preview’ version of its operating system up for download, and you can grab your copy here. Cost to you? Just bandwidth and patience my friends.
The Consumer Preview is what was known in old money as the beta. It’s a fairly finished version which won’t change hugely between now and the final launch, other than bug fixing and last minute tweaks that arise out of testee feedback. The beta is free of charge to use, should install on just about any PC or laptop, and will work at least until the release candidate is out. The exact expiry date hasn’t been confirmed yet.
The Roccat Savu is probably not the saviour of PC gaming
Remember this viral campaigning which had us groaning/guessing last week? Those of you who thought it was the build up to a 4000DPI mouse were wrong – Roccat’s just announced one of those, and its called the Savu. That’s Savu, not saviour. Which is something different.
The Savu is a ‘Mid Sized Hybrid Gaming Mouse’. I’m not entirely sure what the ‘hybrid’ bit is, since there’s no third ear growing on its back, but apparently all will become clear (again) at CeBit next week.
