| 15 of the Best Free to Play Shooters Posted: 07 Feb 2014 01:56 PM PST  Team Fortress 2, Tribes Ascend, Blacklight: Retribution and more!
As successful as online MMOs have been (we covered 16 of the best here), it would be churlish not to mention the genre's equally popular cousin, the shooter. A genre that has been synonymous with video games since the dawn of time – well, since Space Invaders at any rate – the shooter has gone through many incarnations with the latest and greatest evolving into the online free-to-play market. With that said, we thought we would take a look at the best the medium has to offer. So here are 15 awesome f2p shooters. Note: If you're wondering why we didn't include Planetside 2, it's because we represented it in our best MMOs story. Do you have a favorite free-to-play shooter that you would like to share? Let us know in the comments! |
| HP Readies a Chromebox for a Spring Release Posted: 07 Feb 2014 10:09 AM PST  Google's army of Chrome OS devices continues to grow
Are mainstream users ready to live primarily in the cloud? With all the Chrome OS devices coming out (along with the ones that are already available), this year will be a good litmus test for the platform. Joining the ranks of those offering a desktop solution is HP, the world's second largest PC maker, which plans to launch a Chromebox in the spring. HP's Chromebox will initially debut in the U.S., though the OEM is mum on the price. For now, HP just wants to let the world know it's willing to look beyond Windows, if that's indeed what customers want. The HP Chromebox will come in a variety of color options -- Smoke, Silver, Ocean Turquoise, Snow White, and Twinkle Black -- so that it can blend in with your surroundings. Alternately, you can hide the HP Chromebox out of sight by attaching it to the back of a monitor using standard VESA mounts. A full spec sheet isn't available, though HP says its Chromebox will sport a Haswell processor inside, noting that "there's also a version of our Chromebox that is Chromebox for meetings with a 4th gen Intel Core i7 processor." We're guessing that means the standard version will rock a Celeron processor. It will also have HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, Bluetooth, and four USB 3.0 ports. If you'd like to be notified when it becomes available, you can submit your info to HP. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Get the Screen Wipes Ready, Mozilla Rolls Out Firefox Touch Beta for Windows 8 Posted: 07 Feb 2014 09:48 AM PST  A touch-friendly browser for Windows 8/8.1 users
Attention Surface owners and anyone else rocking a touchscreen display with Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, there's a version of Firefox you might be interested in. Mozilla today made its "Firefox for Windows 8 Touch" beta available to download, so you can tap and swipe your way through cyberspace the way you do on the Start screen. The browser has a new tile-based Firefox start screen with one-tap access to Top Sites, Bookmarks, and History. Though the touch aspect is new, you can still use familiar features like the Awesome Bar, Mozilla says. However, it also supports a wealth of touch input and gestures, along with several other key features baked into the latest release. These include Full, Snapped, and Fill views; Visual Navigation (big tiles on the Start screen); and Windows Share integration. Beyond touch controls and various Windows 8 goodies, the new build also offers volume control for HTML5 audio/video, VP9 video decoding, a finalized (and enabled) gamepad API, and a few other features as described in the release notes. If you want to give the new browser a spin, you can download it direct from Mozilla. Before you begin testing, Mozilla says to make sure Firefox Beta is your Windows 8 default browser. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| AMD's Radeon R7 250X Slides in Between R7 250 and R7 260X Posted: 07 Feb 2014 08:59 AM PST  New graphics SKU from AMD pops up online
It looks like AMD is fleshing out its graphics card line with a new part. A look around the web reveals several references to an AMD Radeon R7 250X graphics card from a variety of third-party partners, including one from Diamond Multimedia that's available to purchase for around $100 street. Looking at the specs, the Radeon R7 250X slides neatly in between AMD's Radeon R7 250 and R7 260X video cards. Bear with us as we drop a handful of links, as information about the card is scattered all over the web. We'll start with Videocardz.com, which surmises that the R7 250X sports the same Oland GPU as its non-X counterpart. There are both 1GB and 2GB models, both of which feature a 128-bit bus. The same site is hosting pictures of two R7 250X graphics cards, one by Sapphire with a dual-slot cooler and single 6-pin power connector, and one by Asus. We checked out Sapphire's website but didn't find any reference to the part. There's also a reference to the R7 250X on AMD Radeon Italia's Twitter account, which says the card has 640 stream processors, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. The Tweet links over to TechPowerUp's description of the card. Looking at online retailers, we found an overclocked version (1,050MHz GPU versus 1,000MHz) built by Diamond Multimedia selling for $100 on Amazon, or at least that's the way it's listed (the pictures Amazon is using show the non-X version). It also has a dual-slot cooler, along with DVI-D, HDMI, and VGA outputs, and 1GB of GDDR5 memory. Interestingly enough, this card isn't listed on Diamond Multimedia's own website. Finally, kudos go out to news and rumor site Fudzilla for bringing this new part to our attention. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Google, Asus Unveil $1,000 Chromebox for Videoconferencing Posted: 07 Feb 2014 08:28 AM PST  Video meetings made easy
Asus and Google are quickly becoming BFFs. As you already know, Asus is the one that builds Google's 7-inch Nexus tablet, and earlier this week, Asus announced plans to release a Chromebox starting at $179 in March. Google has now taken the higher end version -- the one with a Core i7 processor -- and is targeting businesses with a Chromebox bundle that's supposed to make videoconferencing easy. It's called Chromebox for meetings and it includes an Asus Chromebox, Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) camera with Carl Zeiss lens, microphone/speaker combo, and a RF remote control with a full QWERTY keypad on the back. The package starts at $1,000 and includes the first year's $250 management and support fee. Google says you can set up your entire room in just minutes and easily manage all meeting rooms from a web-based management console, provided you have a display in your room. To join a meeting, you just click the remote and you're in -- there are no complex dial-in codes, passcodes, or leader PINs to fuss with. Up to 15 people can participate in the video meeting from other conference rooms, their laptops, tablets, or smartphones, Google says. If a customer doesn't use Chromebox, they can still connect via Gmail or by using traditional video conferencing systems using a new tool from Vidyo. A customer can also opt to join via phone with a conference call number from UberConference. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Dual FTW w/ ACX Cooler, Intel Core i7 4930K, and More! Posted: 07 Feb 2014 06:33 AM PST |
