Bethesda announces Wolfenstein: The Old Blood for May 5, 2015

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Mar 5, 2015 12:37 AM CST

GDC 2015 - While the world thought that Bethesda would show off Fallout 4 at the Game Developers Conference, we didn't see it. Instead, they have just unveiled Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, with the first gameplay trailer available below.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is an "all-new standable prequel" to Wolfenstein: The New Order, and will be made available digitally on the Xbox One, PS4 and PC on May 5, for just $19.99. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood has players taking their hero BJ Blazkowicz "back to the year 1946 in an adventure that spans eight chapters and two interconnected stories (released together) that will lead into the events you know and love from The New Order".

Continue reading: Bethesda announces Wolfenstein: The Old Blood for May 5, 2015 (full post)

See Samuel L. Jackson kick ass as POTUS in 'Big Game'

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | Mar 4, 2015 11:41 PM CST

Whilst summer blockbusters such as 'Mad Max', 'Jurassic World', 'The Avengers' and 'Terminator Genisys' taking up all the oxygen, a smaller but nonetheless explosive trailer for the upcoming 'Big Game' is commanding some attention online today.

The film details the rescue of the President of the United States (Samuel L. Jackson) by a teenage boy, when Air Force One is shot down in the forests of Finland. With a budget of $94 million, the film is the most expensive film ever produced in Finland.

'Big Game' hits cinemas in the United Kingdom on May 8 2015, but doesn't yet have a confirmed US or Australian release date.

Continue reading: See Samuel L. Jackson kick ass as POTUS in 'Big Game' (full post)

OSVR headset updated, now features 1080p OLED display and much more

GDC 2015 - The Razer-powered Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) headset has reached version 1.1, with the HDK 1.1 now featuring a low-latency 1080p OLED panel, as well as much more.

The new 1080p OLED panel provides "high-contrast, low-latency imagery within minimal motion blur" reports RoadtoVR. But the new headset is also capable of mirroring what the VR headset is rendering to another monitor, something that you can do with the Oculus Rift DK2 headset - but it doesn't always work perfectly with the DK2.

The new HDK 1.1 is also now capable of converting standard video to side-by-side format, so that you can watch it in VR, as well as doing so on-the-fly and streaming low-latency video signals, too. OSVR will be providing downloadable schematics on their website, something that can be printed and furnished with the right electronics.

Continue reading: OSVR headset updated, now features 1080p OLED display and much more (full post)

G.SKILL announces 'OC World Cup 2015' with over $16,000 in prizes

Anthony Garreffa | Tweaking & Overclocking | Mar 4, 2015 9:31 PM CST

G.SKILL has announced its 2nd annual "OC World Cup 2015" overclocking competition, where there is a huge $16,200 up for grabs, which includes $10,000 in cash for the champion.

G.SKILL explains: "The OC World Cup 2015 is split into three rounds: Online Qualifier, Live Qualifier, and Grand Final. Live Qualifier and Grand Final will be held live at the G.SKILL booth during Computex 2015". The online qualifiers, which are the first stage of the competition, will take place on HWBOT between March 9 and April 13. There will be three benchmarks in this first round: SuperPI 32M, MaxxMem Read Bandwidth, and 3DMark Fire Strike Physics on specific hardware.

The top six from the first round of the competition will have the opportunity to enter the OC World Cup 2015 Live Qualifiers at Computex 2015, where they'll have the chance to win one of five prizes. The first of which is $10,000 in USD, but the rest of the prizes are not bad at all. Second place takes home $2500 USD and a 16GB kit of G.SKILL's 3300MHz DDR4 RAM, while third place takes home $1500 and a 16GB kit of G.SKILL's 3200MHz DDR4 RAM.

Continue reading: G.SKILL announces 'OC World Cup 2015' with over $16,000 in prizes (full post)

ZOTAC unveils its 'SN970' Steam Machine at GDC 2015

Anthony Garreffa | Computer Systems | Mar 4, 2015 8:32 PM CST

GDC 2015 - ZOTAC was one of the first companies to unveil its Steam Machine at the Game Developers Conference, with its weirdly named, but very powerful 'SN970' making an appearance.

ZOTAC's SN970 gets its named from the GPU powering it, the GeForce GTX 970M, the mobile Maxwell GPU from NVIDIA. We have four HDMI 2.0 ports (yes, four!), an unspecified sixth-generation Intel processor, dual GbE, two USB 2.0 ports (with another two on the front) and two USB 3.0 ports. There's also an HDMI in port, as well as Wi-Fi 802.11ac.

Inside, we have 8GB of DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM, a 64GB M.2-based SSD and a 3.5-inch 1TB mechanical HDD. There's an SD card reader on the front, as well as a microphone and headphone port for audio. We'll see SteamOS preloaded onto the SN970, while the HDMI 2.0 ports can handle a huge 4K at 60Hz for those with the display or TV chops to handle it.

Continue reading: ZOTAC unveils its 'SN970' Steam Machine at GDC 2015 (full post)

CliffyB: Valve's VR demo is 'pure magic', 'next level stuff' and more

GDC 2015 - Valve has been showing off its VR headset to various members of the press and industry, but ex Epic Games God and now boss of Boss Key Productions, Cliffy "CliffyB" Bleszinski, has used it and taken to Twitter with his impressions.

CliffyB had nothing but good things to say, where he tweeted: "Valve's VR demo is a religious experiecne. I was nearly in tears at one point. Pure magic. Next level stuff. Mind blown. Also, funny too". I don't think there's anything else to know at this point - but VR is going to really change things. For it to be referred to as a "religious experience" and that it's "pure magic" and "next level stuff" and that he had his "mind blown" we are beginning to turn the dial up on our excitement meter.

Continue reading: CliffyB: Valve's VR demo is 'pure magic', 'next level stuff' and more (full post)

MAINGEAR unveils its ultra-compact Steam Machine known as DRIFT

Anthony Garreffa | Computer Systems | Mar 4, 2015 7:27 PM CST

GDC 2015 - The Steam Machine flood is here, with MAINGEAR joining the party at GDC 2015 with its new 4K-capable DRIFT. The MAINGEAR DRIFT can be configured with some seriously delicious specifications, including the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 or AMD's Radeon R9 290X.

MAINGEAR has crafted the DRIFT in a beautiful Formula 1-like chassis, with a beautiful unibody that is "whisper quiet" thanks to the inclusion of an Epic 120 Liquid Cooling system and "superbly design airflow". MAINGEAR's CEO and founder, Wallace Santos, explains: "The DRIFT packs the muscle and performance of larger gaming desktop systems into a beautiful compact design that fits on your desk or coffee table. Valve's STEAM OS will bring PC quality gaming to any location and the DRIFT is the perfect way to deliver that experience".

Inside of the DRIFT we have up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM, up to 2TB of SSDs, and a 6TB mechanical HDD, and fully customized for everything in between. This includes up to Intel's Core i7-4790K CPU, and the latest and greatest in GPUs. The MAINGEAR DRIFT will start at $849, come pre-loaded with SteamOS, with the DRIFT Super Stock Edition arriving in an amazing bodyshell travel case that you can see above.

Continue reading: MAINGEAR unveils its ultra-compact Steam Machine known as DRIFT (full post)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X with 12GB RAM can be used in 4-way SLI

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Mar 4, 2015 6:22 PM CST

GDC 2015 - Earlier today we were introduced to the GeForce GTX Titan X from NVIDIA, its Maxwell-based card that features a gigantic 12GB of VRAM. We don't know much else about it other than it featuring 12GB of framebuffer and 8 billion transistors, until now.

Legit Reviews spotted NVIDIA's soon to be dominant card at the NVIDIA booth at GDC, housed inside of the beautiful In Win Tou Tempered Glass chassis, where they got a closer look at the GTX Titan X. Thanks to the closer look, we can see that the GTX Titan X is a dual-slot card with a 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and two SLI connectors that mean you could have four of these bad boys in SLI. Yes, four GTX Titan X cards in SLI, for a total of 48GB of VRAM.

With the GeForce GTX Titan Z on the market being a dual-GPU solution, the Titan X is 100% confirmed as a single GPU card which means the single GPU is using all of that 12GB framebuffer. With four of these in SLI, we will be seeing 12GB of VRAM used in total which is much better than the Titan Z, or even the Titan Black Edition cards which have 6GB per GPU.

Continue reading: NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X with 12GB RAM can be used in 4-way SLI (full post)

Final 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' trailer reveals Vision

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | Mar 4, 2015 5:45 PM CST

The marketing train for this summers biggest theatrical release; the sequel to 'The Avengers', is now at full speed and the final trailer for 'The Age of Ultron' has just gone live. At just over two minutes, it might be one of the shortest - but my oh my, they have packed it full of epic action.

There is plenty riding on the success of the picture, which follows up for the second highest grossing film of all time, raking in $1.5B worldwide and comes with a huge estimated budget of $250 million (not to mention an advertising budget probably the same), but also has the future plans for the prosperity of multiple valuable properties and the whole Marvel brand in its care.

'Avengers: Age of Ultron' will be released on April 23rd 2015 in Australia and New Zealand and on the 1st of May in the USA.

Continue reading: Final 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' trailer reveals Vision (full post)

Javelin Strategy: New identity fraud victim every two seconds in 2014

Michael Hatamoto | Hacking, Security & Privacy | Mar 4, 2015 4:00 PM CST

Criminals took $16 billion from 12.7 million US consumers last year, with a new identity fraud victim every two seconds, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. Two-thirds of identity fraud victims last year received notification that their personal information was compromised in a data breach, which took over headlines as major retailers were hit.

On the bright side, new account fraud, which is when a criminal opens up an account in a victim's name, dropped to a record low in 2014. In addition, new monitoring and protection systems saw the amount lost due to fraud dropping 11 percent year-over-year, from $18 billion in 2013 down to $16 billion in 2014.

"Despite the headlines, the occurrence of identity fraud hasn't changed much over the past year, and it is still a significant problem," said Al Pascual, director of fraud & security at Javelin Strategy & Research. "Consumers, financial institutions and retailers are all taking aggressive steps, yet we must remain vigilant. The criminals will continue to find new ways to commit fraud, so taking advantage of available technology and services to protect against, detect and resolve identity fraud is a must for all individuals and corporations."

Continue reading: Javelin Strategy: New identity fraud victim every two seconds in 2014 (full post)