Tech News
-
Twitch confirms sale to Amazon
Well looks like I was wrong along with the rest of the speculative world. Google may have been in line to buy Twitch.tv but instead it was Amazon who actually put in the order and spent the money.
$970 Million to be precise.
The Twitch CEO, Emmett Shear, had this to say.
Today, I’m pleased to announce we’ve been acquired by Amazon. We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We’re keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch
I personally want to thank you, each and every member of the Twitch community, for what you’ve created. Thank you for putting your faith in us. Thank you for sticking with us through growing pains and stumbles. Thank you for bringing your very best to us and sharing it with the world. Thank you, from a group of gamers who never dreamed they’d get to help shape the face of the industry that we love so much.Be sure to check out the full press release on this Twitch page.
The question remains, "What is Amazon going to do with a service dedicated to gaming?" Well, a couple things come to mind.
- Amazon Prime
- Amazon Advertising
The rest remains to be seen along with what changes they plan to make in the future.
-
Hands on with the ECS LIVA Mini PC Kit @ ThinkComputers.org
Not only is this an incredibly small and low power-draw Mini-PC, (it runs off of a micro USB cable!) but also arrives as a DIY kit to assemble yourself. Your choice of OS (not included) may eat up over half of the available storage space, depending on if you go with the 32 or 64GB version, though I'm sure swapping in a larger SSD of your choice later on down the road should be a perfectly acceptable solution.
At ECS’s LIVA, LEAD, L337 press event this week in Silicon Valley we were able to go hands on with their LIVA Mini PC Kit. They are dubbing this kit the world’s smallest Windows based Mini PC Kit. The LIVA has actually been out for a little while now, but at the event ECS announced the 64 GBversion (white). The black version of the LIVA is the 32 GB version. The unit itself is only 118 x 70 x 56 mm and weighs in at 190g, so yes it is very small. The device only uses 15W of power at full load and 4W during standby so it uses no more power than a light bulb!
-
Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury Review @ HardwareHeaven
The brain works in strange ways. When I read the title and saw "Hyperion" the first thing that came to mind is that Logitech is building a mouse tailoredfor Borderlands players. While I'm sure some owners of this mouse will eventually play the Borderlands Pre-Sequel that doesn't seem all this mouse is intending to do.
Today we have one of the latest G series mice from Logitech attached to our system for review. Read on to find out how the G402 Hyperion Fury does.
Looking at the review photos I can see Logitech hasn't deviated much from the traditional shape established around the G5 era. They did add some buttons to help with macro usage and the optics look amazingly impressive.
Overall this mouse looks really comphy and had it come with a weight system I would be online searching the stores for one right now.
-
Home Server Build Part 3 – The Context @ Hardware Slave
I have always been interested in servers and like the idea of having another computer where I can store my excess data or spin off other applications to run so they don't take up resources on my main machine. Back in the early says (before Ninjalane.com) I played around with NT4 and at one time had a remote server running a simple fileshare for me. The hardware was something like a Intel 486 with whatever hardware I had laying around. it was just a test and started a lifelong obsession to create the ultimate server.
Servers are a delicate balance of Min/Max between hardware cost and hardware performance and making sure you spend the money where you need it. Some simply need data storage so a simple NAS might be plenty. Others wish to run applications so CPU and Memory might be important. In the end you need to consider where the performance bottlenecks are and make sure you spend your money to maximize return.
Hardware Slave is building an article series on building a home server. The content and writing style remind me of some of my early work and while I never tackled a server build article I can understand exactly what they are doing.
In parts one and two, we basically spec’d and built a basis for a Home Server. In reality, other than plans to use it as a Server, it is currently just a desktop PC with RAID SSD’s and a lot of RAM. We have had the server up and running now for some weeks and it has performed flawlessly.
The 2 tests HDD’s are running quiet and cool, thanks to the 120mm case fan blowing fresh air over them and they are delivering content on demand while storing all our critical information. But now, it’s really time for the context of the build.My latest server upgrade consists of a Core i7 3770k on a Gigabyte motherboard. The server is designed as an application server so it needs CPU power but also serves as the primary data store for the house. Because of this I spend extra time making sure the data subsystem was fast (Hardware based RAID 5) and that there was enough CPU to handle large data transfers over the Gigabit network.
Hardware Slave is on the right track though I suspect there will be some hardware upgrades shortly after the server goes live.
-
Corsair Carbide Air 240 @ techPowerUp
Back in the old days, I believe there was more of a distinct seperation between the console world and PC's. Recently however, it seems like that line has definitely blurred. With examples like AMD fueling it's revenues feeding chips to Sony for their PS4s, the definition of what makes the traditional PC unique seems to be more elusive, and the arguement is really just over your preferred chassis, UI and input device. This may feed into why we're starting to see more chassis designs deviating away from the traditional tall, rectangular, iconic design, in favor of something a little more... well, like a console.
Corsair has steered clear of the tiny cube chassis, while other companies like BitFenix, Xigmatek, or Aerocool have been duking it out, trying to get the attention of gamers who want a compact chassis with the ability to hold potent hardware. Well, the Carbide Air 240 is about to step into the ring and manages to impress.
-
Cooler Master Nepton 280L Liquid CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Heaven
Cooler Master recently released the Nepton, a liquid cooler built for high performance applications. It uses slightly larger radiators and fans to improve airflow, over it's counterpart the Saidon line of coolers, preferring to use 140mm fans over the Saidon's 120mm. The Nepton is available in a single 140mm design, as well as a dual-fan 280mm design.
Recently we took a look at a bundle of Cooler Master components which included their Silencio case, gold rated PSU and the Seidon cooler. That cooler really stood out for us with its simple install and decent performance… but it was an entry level cooler. Today we have the Nepton 280L on our test bench which we hope takes that same installation and adds a whole whack of performance for the high end user. Let’s find out…
-
Russian Hackers Steal Over a Billion Passwords
Following just a short span after the Heartbleed bug was discovered, a new security exploit is now being reported, causing yet another large wave of reminders to err on the side of caution and change your passwords again to all of your favorite sites - just in case.
A Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses, security researchers say.
The records, discovered by Hold Security, a firm in Milwaukee, include confidential material gathered from 420,000 websites, including household names, and small Internet sites.
-
ASUS R9 270 Direct CU II OC 2 GB Video Card Review @ Madshrimps
Today we're looking at another budget enthusiast card with a lot of (potential) horsepower under the hood. The CU II posts some good gaming figures, and is cheaper than many 270X variants. Since it's built on the same hardware, with a few clock tweaks, it can also can run nearly as fast as them too.
The ASUS R9 270 Direct CU II VGA card shares the hardware with the more expensive 270X variant, but has lower stock clocks; from our experiences regarding overclocking with this card, we could say that it can easy surpass the R9 270X clocks or ever surpass it. Those who search the best bang for the buck VGA cards and won’t game on higher resolutions than Full-HD should put this card on their short list.
-
NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet: The Fastest Tablet Available @ HotHardware.com
Back in late July, NVidia showcased their new Shield tablet, aimed squarely at mobile gaming and multimedia. Now that they've started shipping, we're starting to get some more information now on it's performance, both as a mobile gaming platform, and as a tablet device.
A few days after the initial announcement was made, we got our hands on a SHIELD tablet, wireless controller, and cover. We’re still working (and playing) with the SHIELD tablet, and will be posting up some more information about its gaming prowess in the days ahead, but in the meantime, we thought you’d all like to take to see just how the device performs.
-
Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2 Teardown @ iFixIt
When Facebook's acquisition of Oculus went public there was a rather fierce uproar over the whole thing. That has all since simmered down as the collective internet has since found something new to decry and rally against a week later.
Now, to assuage any lingering fears that Facebook was using any of its other intellectual properties for nefarious emotional conditioning experiments, the kind folks over at iFixIt have torn apart the latest Oculus Rift development kit to make sure. Long answer short, it's perfectly safe - but you may be surprised at what they did find inside.
Oculus VR took the world by surprise last year with the Oculus Rift. This year, they seek to push their own self-created envelope with the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2. We may not have flying cars, hoverboards or (commercial) teleporters, but we do have the latest virtual reality tech. Join us as we ogle the wizardry in the Oculus Rift DK2, teardown style.
