Samsung's Galaxy S7 has the best OLED display in a smartphone yet

Samsung unveiled its new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge smartphones at Mobile World Congress earlier this week, with DisplayMate putting it under its equipment to test out just how good the new 5.1-inch QHD display really is.

Well, DisplayMate walked away more than impressed. The company said that the Galaxy S7 features the best OLED display its ever seen, with subtle improvements in brightness and contrast over its predecessor. The AMOLED display on the Galaxy S7 is 24% brighter than the Galaxy S6 display, which is important for visibility in various conditions. Contrast has been improved, with the Galaxy S7 falling closer to the larger Galaxy Note 5 - but offers higher pixel density than its larger sibling.

Samsung introduced Personalized automatic brightness with the Galaxy S7, a new feature which remembers the brightness settings you've chosen through ambient light levels. This results in the Galaxy S7 adjusting its brightness to your specific personal preferences, something else DisplayMate liked to see.

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Valve has $1 million on offer for CS:GO eSports prize pools

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Feb 24, 2016 9:55 PM CST

Valve has just raised the bar when it comes to the prize pool for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, with a 400% increase on what the CS:GO prize pool was last year. Valve has just raised its prize pool for CS:GO's championship events to $1 million.

Last year, Valve had $250,000 on offer so the increase is only going to whet the appetites of CS:GO professionals. The first CS:GO event to make benefit of the increased prize pool is Major League Gaming Columbus, which takes place in Ohio's state capital between March 29 and April 3. According to a post on the official CS blog, the increased prize pool was a required response to the "incredible rate" of CS:GO's influence on the pro-gaming scene.

In a statement, Valve said: "CS:GO tournaments are now among the largest esports events in the world, drawing global audiences of millions of viewers, filling massive venues, and garnering higher prize pools. Professional CS:GO has grown, and the CS:GO Major Championships are about to grow with it".

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Microsoft to acquire mobile developer software company Xamarin

Sean Ridgeley | Business, Financial & Legal | Feb 24, 2016 9:02 PM CST

Continuing its acquisition spree, Microsoft is set to snap up Xamarin, a company considered to possess the best mobile developer tools and resources anywhere. In combination with Visual Studio (which already made use of Xamarin) and the recently acquired Azure, this deal puts Microsoft in an excellent position from a mobile development standpoint. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Xamarin's platform supports iOS, Android, and Windows, so users of all kinds will benefit from this deal. The company boasts over 15,000 customers in 120 countries, including over 100 Fortune 500 companies. Yeah, they're kind of a big deal.

Plans relating to the acquisition will be revealed in a few weeks at the Microsoft //Build conference in late March/early April as well as at Xamarin Evolve in late April.

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MSI's CUBI 2 Plus is the first mini-STX PC, won't lose upgrade ability

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Feb 24, 2016 7:06 PM CST

MSI is taking Intel's mini-STX standard and running with it, with the CUBI 2, an upgradeable PC the size of a NUC, or about two decks of cards side-by-side.

The PC world is getting turned on it's head once again after it was rumored quite awhile ago that Intel was going to do away with socketed CPU's completely. Now even miniscule 5"x5" PC's have socketed, upgradeable CPU's. Granted, you're limited by the external power-supply and should probably stick to the T-series of Skylake processors. It has more connectivity than you can shake a stick at with three USB 2.0, one USB 3.1 Type-C in the front, two USB 3.1 in the rear, a top USB 2.0 port for quick-charging, HDMI, audio-out, ethernet, DisplayPort out, and an SD card reader as well.

This is a pretty significant move, especially with the idea of being able to able to have it sitting next to, or hidden close to, your TV or another display. It can actually be powerful enough to do work with room to spare. Plus it's a way to invest in a platform that can be upgraded later if more power is needed. That alone is an idea worth visiting for those that want tiny, but not limited. Imagine a day when you can hook up a GPU via USB 3.1 Type C, then this could be the ultimate in teeny gaming PC's.

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T-Mobile unboxes a Galaxy S7 underwater

Sean Ridgeley | Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones | Feb 24, 2016 6:01 PM CST

T-Mobile product expert Des takes a dip while showing you exactly what to expect out of the Samsung Galaxy S7 in the unboxing video below. That's one way to show off water resistance, right?

T-Mobile unboxes a Galaxy S7 underwater

Throughout the video, Des takes a call from his friend Darrel, snaps pictures, and streams TV, all the while indecipherably talking up the features (how about that 200GB microSD expandable storage?). A couple of things not mentioned in the video: The S7 includes caller ID (the traditional kind) and fraud and scam call flagging by default, as well as a very respectable 3000mAh battery.

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Unofficial 60 FPS support on its way for Tales of Symphonia

Sean Ridgeley | Gaming | Feb 24, 2016 5:03 PM CST

What was originally thought impossible -- 60 FPS in JRPG Tales of Symphonia -- is coming to fruition. The major obstacle to modder Kaldaien was the game's VMProtect DRM, but recently, against all odds, he has managed to circumvent it for modding purposes. Thus, the door has been opened for a higher framerate cap, à la Tales of Zestiria.

Kaldaien wrote Monday that "work is progressing on 60 FPS support" for his TSFix mod. Given the steady progress he's made to date, it wouldn't be surprising to see that support arrive this week or next.

TSFix is currently at version 0.5.3. Since we last looked at it, it's added performance improvements, fixed aspect ratio scaling, enhanced anti-aliasing and character outlines, and more. Hit the source if you want the full details on it and to download it.

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New The Division trailer shows off PC prowess at 60FPS

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Feb 24, 2016 4:05 PM CST

The newest trailer for The Division is a spectacular showpiece designed to flaunt the high performance and graphical ability the PC is capable of. It's running at 60FPS, encoded in 60FPS and looks quite smooth.

New The Division trailer shows off PC prowess at 60FPS

In the video, Ubisoft goes through the different effects and options that can be turned on for the PC, from dynamic global illumination, realistic weather particles and even real-time reflections. All of those combine to make for a visceral experience that's quite nice. The beta might have been a bit sparse on content (as beta's should be, they don't want to give away the whole thing at once, right?) but it looked good and was stable.

And now they're selling you on more reasons to either upgrade your PC or just buy it on PC over consoles. Despite the seeming lack of love that the PC has had in the past from other developers, the platform is far from "dead" and is enjoying good advancements, however small they might be. An really, these technical optimizations for The Division look great. Even if they're been slightly downgraded from what we saw initially.

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Feeling lonely? Uber Australia offering free puppy hire today only

Chris Smith | Software & Apps | Feb 24, 2016 3:30 PM CST

Announced in a recent email, Uber has launched its puppies initiative, stating that it has"teamed up with Purina's Pets at Work mission and local animal shelters to bring UberPUPPIES to offices in 8 cities across Australia."

Pets at Work is a campaign conducted by pet food company Purina and is explained as a way to help keep your staff happy, offering workplaces the ability to create a pet-friendly office in order to boost morale and keep furry companions around throughout the working week.

If you're not in the right working conditions or ready to take on a pet full time, Uber will now let you borrow one for a short while. Simply select the puppies option on your Uber app and they will deliver to you a puppy for 15 minutes of delightful play time. Setting you back $40 in total, Uber has stated that it will be supporting the Animal Welfare League of Queensland, Australia as part of this promotion.

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Facebook just went beyond the traditional like button, with Reactions

Jeff Williams | Internet & Websites | Feb 24, 2016 3:05 PM CST

You've probably already seen the upgraded like button array already, likely due to being on Facebook at this very moment. But if you haven't had a chance, it seems that Facebook is adding a bit more to their Like button, letting users pick from five other emotes to express how they feel about a particular post, and they're calling them "Reactions".

Liking a post has been a way to acknowledge a post, interacting with it in a one-dimensional way that sometimes can be misinterpreted to mean something it doesn't. Do I "Like" the death of a friends grandmother? Well, now you can choose an emote to indicate how that post makes you feel. So it just got a bit less awkward.

The search for a better way to communicate actually was a long road by the team behind the new Reactions. The team, led by Sammi Krug, did a lot of research into how people tend to communicate, with stickers and with words, to determine the best mix of reactions to add. "People come to Facebook and share all kinds of things," Krug said. "And we kept hearing feedback from people that there wasn't an easy way to express empathy for these different kinds of posts."

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Wanna run Windows 98 for some reason? Why not in your browser!

Jeff Williams | Software & Apps | Feb 24, 2016 2:06 PM CST

Through the magic of a well designed JavaScript engine you can play with a Windows 98 virtual machine right in your browser, playing some classic minesweeper just as it was originally intended.

The emulator is capable of only basic x86 emulation at the moment, but the small program is a great example of just how capable JavaScript, in the hands of adept programmers, can actually be. You won't be able to do anything more than simple tasks, and can't play retro games, but it's certainly a very interesting project.

What's more, the individual whose made the project has also been able to emulate Windows 1.01 and certain versions of Linux that all work just swimmingly. So if you're of the generation that never knew the glory of Windows 98, now's your chance to play around without having to install it in your own virtual machine. And you can easily dabble in Linux without the need for a Live-CD and even dabble in FreeDOS.

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