When Oculus VR finally announced the $599 price tag of its commercial VR headset, it opened a rift in the potential VR market. On one side is the enthusiast crowd, who isn't fazed by spending $600 on new tech, and on the other is the crowd who feels cheated and mislead by Palmer Luckey's previous statements. After all, $600 is much different than Luckey's previous "north of $350" price tease, and that's not including the requisite PC hardware needed for VR.

In an attempt to set things straight, Luckey explained some things about the Rift, including the fact that the company isn't making money on the hardware. "To be perfectly clear, we don't make money on the Rift," the VR pioneer bluntly pointed out.. The founder went on to say that the extras bundled with the Rift--Xbox One controller, audio headset, carrying case--didn't impact the cost at all.

So why is it so much? The Rift's internal components, which include custom VR OLED displays with blazing refresh rates--among other high-grade materials--are the main culprits.

Online retail giant Amazon will soon sell its own brand of silicon on its digital storefront.

According to reports from Bloomberg, Amazon will start selling its own custom platform-on-chip and semiconductor line as part of its move into the data-center market.

The chips--called Alpine--are based on ARM's 32-bit v7 and 64-bit v8 chips, and are being manufactured by the Israel-based Annapurna Labs facility which Amazon acquired in January 2015 for an estimated $360 million. The Seattle-based retailer purchased the facility to bolster its Amazon Web Services and fold in IC technology into its ever-expanding brand.

If you've been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of press releases and news articles to come from CES 2016 in las Vegas, soothe your eyes on this slightly old yet stunning build called Project Grey.

Created by Malik Customs, this build was spotted on the Ocaholic Facebook as part of its 'Rig of the day' series, featuring a Phanteks Enthoo Primo Ultimate chassis, housing an ASUS Z97-AR motherboard.

This grey and blue highlighted system is simplistic and packs a cooling punch thanks to EK Water Blocks fittings throughout, further incorporating an ASUS Xonar Essence STX II 7.1 sound card to ensure it's not only just for looks, it would make a stellar gaming PC too.

Apple Mac upgrades certainly aren't cheap, but users should know that they're purchasing a system without many upgrade possibilities being given.

Other World Computing (OWC) are a zero emission Mac and PC technology company and are one of the global experts when it comes to pimping out your Mac system. Its latest offering is the 4.0TB Aura SSD upgrade for the 2013 Apple Mac Pro, set to cost a cool $2,128 for anyone who wants the privilege.

If you're not prepared to spend that kind of cash, $895 will get you the 1.0TB version or you can spend $1,447.99 on the 2.0TB kit instead. Packed within these kids are the SSDs themselves, an Envoy Pro SSD USB 3.0/3.1 enclosure for the existing 2013 Mac Pro SSD (so you can transfer files or use it in the future), a complete installation kit for the Aura SSD and a three year OWC warranty.

CES 2016 - The tiny GIGABYTE BRIX computer systems just got beefier, with the trade show in Las Vegas bringing around an announcement that this tech giant will be throwing Intel Skylake processors into new models, including i3, i5 and i7 chips.

Coupled with Intel HD Graphics 520, the BRIX will further offer support for a 2.5" SSDs or HDDs, while also offering M.2 compatibility. USB 3.0 ports are now standard with HDMI and DisplayPort being thrown in, giving the BRIX the ability to send signal to three displays in total. Wrapping up the feature list is Intel Thunderbolt 3 support, found on the new GB-BSi7T-6500 and GB-BSi5T-6200 models only, meaning that the BRIX will be capable of Power Delivery 2.0 for fast charging and can daisy-chain up to 6 devices in total.

While this sounds quite promising, issued press release didn't mention any availability or pricing information.

CES 2016 - EVGA prepares for the incoming storm of VR by converting NVIDIA's champion GeForce GTX 980 Ti GPU into a quick and easy solution for VR gaming.

EVGA has announced the VR Ready flavor of NVIDIA's graphics powerhouse GeForce GTX 980 Ti, which supports VR head-mounted displays right out of the box. It's the first card to feature VR-ready HDMI output. The card comes with a 5.25-inch x 3.5-inch front header panel outfitted with front-facing HDMI 2.0 ports and 2x superspeed USB 3.0/3.1 ports for Users can slide in the front header into a PC chassis, making for easy interfacing with VR headsets.

Apart from the front panel setup, EVGA's VR Edition GeForce GTX 980 Ti also sports a mini-HDMI port on the rear side of the card for compatibility with various virtual reality hardware. The card sports two different kinds of cooling solutions, ranging from ACX 2.0+ and a customized blower-type cooler, and EVGA has clocked the VR Ready GTX 980 Ti at reference clock speeds. Pricing and availability have yet to be revealed.

Microsoft is finally retiring old versions of Internet Explorer (IE) this month. As of January 12, IE 8, 9, and 10 will kick the bucket, ceasing to receive updates or official support, thereby leaving you in the cold and vulnerable to viruses and such, but allowing developers to further focus on newer technology. IE 11 will still be on the menu for the foreseeable future, and then of course there's Edge.

If you are an old fogey determined to not upgrade or just don't even know how (if you're on this website, this probably isn't you, but hey), the company encourages you to do so to get the benefit of "improved security, increased performance, better backward compatibility, and support for the web standards that power today's websites and services." A final update for the aging browsers will nag you to do so, as well.

Kingston Digital, Inc. has released a product for those looking at carrying sensitive information, or just really don't want their siblings seeing the hundreds of selfies that were taken the night before.

Introducing the DataTraveler 2000, coming in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities, packing Datalock Technology licensed from ClevX, LLC within and a keypad to ensure only you can access what is inside - unless someone else knows the code.

This USB drive is suitable for Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7 and even Vista systems, while also functioning just fine with Mac OS X, Linux, Chrome OS and Android devices. Offering USB 3.1 Gen. 1 speeds, this encrypted device allows users to choose their own PIN and auto-locks when removed from the host device, with further security measures meaning that it will delete the encryption key and password after 10 invalid login attempts.

Team Group has made a bold statement through its recently issued press release, claiming to offer "without a doubt the best overclocking and gaming memory for Z170 motherboard," further mentioning that their RAM called the "Dark Pro starts the war of overclocking."

Offering low-key styling as seen in the Dark series and mashing it with the Vulcan multi-color design, Team Group has come up with its new Dark Pro series of DDR4 RAM, offering a design that has 'punched dots' throughout the heat spreader. Utilizing a black Tungsten steel heat spreader, Team Group claims that its Dark Pro will defeat the competition in overclocking performance.

Released in 3000, 3200 and 3333MHz models, consumers are able to purchase 4GBx2 or 8GBx2 kits for use. With this overclocking claim comes a warning from Team Group, stating in the press release that "You might come across compatibility issues when investing on overclocking accessories. Please choose the easy overclocking, most stable and highly compatible Team Group Dark Pro series, for it will give you the best performance and smoothest gaming experience you ever have."

CES 2016 - Kodak has just unveiled its new 4K action camera, with it arriving in a small cube form, rocking a 12.4-megapixel sensor, and a 235-degrere field of view.

Kodak has designed the new camera with VR filmmakers in mind, where it records in two modes - "global", which captures "an almost spherical image 360-degrees horizontally and 235-degrees vertically", reports Engadget, or "front", which shoots in the traditional wide-angle panorama in 16:9.

The global footage arrives in 1:1 aspect ratio with a maximum resolution of 2880x2880 at 30FPS, while the front mode shoots up to 4K. If you want to make spherical and VR-ready clips, you'll need two of these back-to-back.