CES 2018 - Razer has revealed a very strange mix of laptop and mobile phone hardware in a bid to utilize its new Razer Phone.

Project Linda is quite...weird. The device is essentially a 13.3-inch laptop that somewhat follows Nintendo's playbook with the Switch dock; instead of a tablet, users dock their Razer Phone into the Project Linda laptop for Android-powered gaming. The device is clearly aimed at the massively popular smartphone gaming market, and aligns with Razer's coin-based microtransaction business, especially in regions like China that embrace both mobile and browser-based gaming.

"Razer's Project Linda laptop seamlessly docks the Razer Phone inside its chassis where a touchpad would normally reside, and connects with the press of a button. The phone's Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 mobile platform and 8 GB of RAM deliver responsive performance, instantly transforming Project Linda into an Android laptop," reads a press release from Razer. "The Razer Phone 5.7-inch display can be used as a touchpad, or as a second screen for access to apps, tools, and more."

CES 2018 - NZXT is mostly known for chassis and cooling solutions, but starting with the new N7 Z370, the company is getting into motherboards.

NZXT's first jump into the motherboard market comes with the N7 Z370, a $300 motherboard built on the Z370 chipset that sports a digital fan controller, RGB colors, and an all-metal frame that's specifically designed to compliment snazzy builds. The N7 Z370 comes in both black and white, and its full suite of profiles can be controlled by NZXT's CAM software, including RGB effects, fan curves, and more.

"Leveraging our years of experience as professional PC builders, we've designed the N7 motherboard with a completely new approach. In the face of increasing complexity in the PC gaming market, we want to make building easier and more enjoyable, with the N7 as a cornerstone for this new experience. Everything you need--from easy layout and obvious connections to digital fan control and RGB lighting--is included. We've also designed a completely unique motherboard cover so it's both beautiful and powerful. You can't build a quieter, better-looking system as easily as you can with our new N7 motherboard." says Johnny Hou, NZXT's founder, and CEO.

Nintendo Switch being the fastest selling console for 2017 has added some amazing titles to its library of games, now Damon Baker, Nintendo's head of partner management has taken to Twitter to tease a future 2018 line-up for the Switch.

With games such as Rocket League and Skyrim already on the Nintendo Switch there is no doubt that the hybrid console is getting great support for third party games coming to the new platform.

Damon Baker replied to a Tweet that was a screenshot of a Nintendo Switch users homepage showcasing Rocket League, L.A Noire, Skyrim, DOOM and Resident Evil: Revelations. The screenshot was titled "imagine this leaking last year", Baker replied by saying "I know, right?! I think you're going to like 2018 as well!" which suggests that more third-party titles of last year's caliber will be coming to the Nintendo Switch as the year progresses on.

Paying for Google services has previously been a struggle as Google didn't have a unified payment platform, forcing users into fiddling with multiple applications such as Google Wallet and Android Pay. But this will all change with Google announcing that a new consolidated payment option is on the way, dubbed Google Pay.

Originally the first Google NFC-activated payment option was called Google Wallet, then it was decided that the name was to be changed to Android Pay and now the titan company wants to bring all of its payment options under a single umbrella titled Google Pay. In attempts to keep the competition interesting between Apple and Google, Google Pay can be used for all of Google's services such as the Play Store and all NFC-enabled payment transactions for Google products.

The re-branding stage is already underway as Google Pay has been spotted in several locations such as AirBnB, Dice, Fandango, HungryHouse and Instacart. Google says that the "Bringing everything into one brand is just the first step for Google Pay" so we can expect that as the year continues on we will be hearing more updates for the new service as more convenience is supplied to Google's users.

The recent adoption of VR headsets is being taken quite healthily by the gaming community, as we move into the new year Sony wants to reward those that purchased their PlayStation VR with a wider choice of games, in fact they expect "over 280" titles by the end of the year.

Reported by Nikkei, Sony expects to bring much more titles to the VR library, by the end of 2018 the company wants to hit "over 280" titles. As we are experiencing the bleed-in effect for VR into the gaming community we can expect some of these games will not be as amazing as something like Resident Evil 7 or Skyrim in VR, as developers are still trying to flesh out ideas that utilize the full VR experience.

While some games might be a little disappointing this isn't going to stop Sony's updates to the PSVR software, the headset and the VR experience is only going to get better with time, so by the end of 2018 I'm sure we will see some massive improvements in not only the games coming to PSVR but also to VR experience as a whole.

The open world genre seems to be quite attracting to developers these days as many games seem to be adopting the genre in hopes of widening the universe that their game is built around.

Sometimes players of open world games say that their attachment to the main characters is diluted down by the sheer size of the world. Cory Barlog, the director of God of War seems to agree with this and says that his franchise will be taking a more "wide linear" approach, rather than jumping straight into massive open world.

In a recent interview with GameInformer, Barlog delves into the open world genre, bringing some good points about the genre disadvantages. Barlog says that when he was playing open world games that the experience felt more like "homework" as the list of things he "had" to do was to away from the character development.

Back in 2016, a League of Legends streamer going by the name of Tyler1 was banned by Riot as he was deemed detrimental to the communities health, Riot labeled the streamer as "a genuine jerk" but now his account has been returned to him.

Tyler1 has described himself as rehabilitated and that must of been enough for Riot, an account review has passed the standards of Riot, which then lifted the ban. As the old streamer was originally not allowed to stream League of Legends at all that ban has also been lifted which has created a massive influx of viewers curious to Tyler1's return.

The stream titled "THE RETURN" has been so popular that it has broken Twitches record for a single streamer being watched at once with 378,000 viewers, Faker originally held the record with 245,000 concurrent viewers on his first ever live stream back in February last year.

CES 2018 - HTC announced their higher-res Vive Pro headset at CES this year, but also announced their own wireless adapter for the current-gen Vive, making the wired VR experience wireless.

HTC's own adapter is powered by Intel's WiGig technology, which lives on a huge 60Hz band, which aims for the lowest latency and interference right now. HTC won't be releasing this new wireless VR adapter for the Vive until the summer, and they haven't shared a price on it just yet either.

We don't know about battery life with the wireless adapter, but anything over an hour or two would be impressive. TPCast has their own wireless Vive adapter and sell it for $299 without around two hours of battery life, just for comparison.

CES 2018 - It can't be CES without some crazy contraption or concept vehicle, with Texas-based Bell Helicopters unveiling its new electric flying taxi.

Bell only has the cabin of the flying taxi on show at CES, with a future event to unveil its new electric flying taxi in detail. Bell's director of innovation, Scott Drennen, explains: "We're just keeping our particular propulsion system in configuration to ourselves right now, to keep our competition on their on their heels".

Drennen continued: "This vehicle is going to be a part of the Internet of Things. The customer will be experiencing a part of the Internet of Things as they travel in the vehicle, with the connectivity that's going to happen from the place they took off from to the place they're going, with the ability to connect to friends, workers, colleagues, et cetera".

CES 2018 - Qualcomm has just announced their new QCC5100 Low Power Bluetooth SoC and while it might not sound like much, the company is promising it increase Bluetooth power consumption by up to 65%.

This means that any device powered by the QCC5100 could provide audio playback times of many days, and not just many hours. Senior VP and GM of Qualcomm's Voice & Music business unit, Anthony Murray, explained that the new QCC5100 chip transmits much more power which will reduce the amount of times headphones cut in and out when you're moving through a busy place or on transportation.

Qualcomm's new QCC5110 also supports Bluetooth 5, something that was only announced last year, and so far only found idn flagship smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Apple iPhone X.