General Gaming Article

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• How to Share Steam Games
• RadioShack is Closing Down 1,100 "Underperforming" Retail Locations in the U.S.
• Toshiba Marches Out Next Generation Enterprise Drives Spinning at 15,000 RPM
• Samsung Announces Chromebook 2 Series Laptops with Leather-Like Jackets
• Sapphire Chills Out with R9 280 Dual-X and R9 280X Vapor-X Graphics Cards
• AMD Introduces AM1 Platform with Socketed Kabini APU
• Newegg Daily Deals: AMD FX-8350 Black Edition, Intel Core i5 3470, and More!

How to Share Steam Games Posted: 04 Mar 2014 12:49 PM PST Lend your Steam Library to up to 10 of your friends for free It's finally here! Valve's long-awaited Steam family sharing feature has finally hit the masses. You can now share your games with up to 10 friends or family members. Sharing Steam games isn't as easy as just clicking a share button, unfortunately. Your friend will initially need to log into Steam on your PC to enable the sharing process. To help guide you through this process, we've compiled a step-by-step guide on how to enable the Steam sharing function. Note: A shared Steam Library may only be accessed by one user at a time. Step 1: Launch Steam on your computer and have a friend log in to their account. After they try logging in, they will be prompted to enter a Steam verification code (sent to them via email). Once you enter the verification code, your PC will be granted access to their Steam account.  Step 2: Click on the Steam tab and click Exit to log out your friend. Step 3: Re-launch Steam and log in to your account and click on the Steam tab and then click on Settings. Step 4: Click on the Family tab and the accounts you can authorize (your friend's, for instance) will be listed below in the Authorized Accounts column. Go ahead and authorize their account.  Step 5: When your friend launches Steam on their computer, your games will show up at the bottom of their library. Note: Only the games you don't already own between you and your friend will be displayed here. If you're playing a game that belongs to a friend, that title will have its own independent cloud save and achievements for each account. We like this feature as you won't have to worry about your friends overwriting your personal saved data, but we dislike the fact that you can't just lend out individual games to friends, and you have to lend your entire library instead. The good news is that if your friend is playing a game that you want to play, you can simply boot them out. We also don't like the authentication method, which is very clunky and a little confusing as it took us a while to figure out. In addition, it requires the presence of your friend to phyiscally log on to your computer initially. If your friend has a lot of trust in you, however, they can provide you with their Steam login/password to avoid the initial step, but we only advise this if both parties can be trusted.  Valve has made a very smart pro-gamer move to attract more people to PC gaming since new PC gamers will be able to borrow a friend's massive Steam Library for free. It will be interesting to see how PC game sales will be affected by this. What do you think of Valve's new Steam sharing feature? Let us know in the comments below!

RadioShack is Closing Down 1,100 "Underperforming" Retail Locations in the U.S. Posted: 04 Mar 2014 09:58 AM PST Store closures are part of RadioShack's turnaround plan If you're the nostalgic type, you may want to visit your neighborhood RadioShack store and savor the moment, it may be the last. That's because RadioShack is planning to close down 1,100 retail locations in the U.S. that are "underperforming," which will leave the electronics chain with 4,000 remaining stores stateside (including over 900 dealer franchise locations). Though that's a lot of store closures, RadioShack is confident it can turn things around. RadioShack has a turnaround plan containing five pillars. They include repositioning the brand, revamping the product assortment, reinvigorating the stores, operational efficiency, and financial flexibility. "Our brand equity remains strong, reflected in the sales growth we're seeing in our new Concept Stores which redefine the RadioShack store experience," said Joseph C. Magnacca, CEO of RadioShack. "We have also been encouraged by the positive response to our new brand positioning around 'Do It Together,' which we kicked off with our award winning Super Bowl commercial. Importantly, our key hires during the fourth quarter in merchandising, global sourcing, planning and allocation and, more recently, our new chief financial officer, round out our new leadership team as we continue to re-build the business." RadioShack's total net sales and operating revenues for the fourth quarter of 2013 were $935.4 million, down from $1.17 billion a year prior. Store sales dropped 19 percent year-over-year, which the chain blamed on soft performance in the mobility business. This led to a net loss of $191.4 million, or $1.90 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $63.3 million in 2012. For the entire year, RadioShack posted a loss of $400.2 million, or $3.92 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $139.4 million in all of 2012. "Without minimizing the challenges ahead, we have a detailed strategic path to profitability based upon the five pillars of our turnaround," Mr. Magnacca added. "Our entire team is focused on execution as we work to improve our performance in the coming year." Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Toshiba Marches Out Next Generation Enterprise Drives Spinning at 15,000 RPM Posted: 04 Mar 2014 09:25 AM PST New hard drives for mission critical applications If it weren't for pesky budgets and a little thing called fiscal responsibility, most businesses would opt for super fast and capacious solid state drives, but in the interest of balance sheets, hard drives are still vogue. There's also room for continued improvement and innovation in the HDD space, which Toshiba tackled with its new enterprise-grade AL13SXB and AL13SXQ HDDs. The AL13SX series comes in 300GB, 450GB, and 600GB capacities, each one boasting support for industry 512n sector lengths in a space-friendly 2.5-inch form factor. These drives include Toshiba's persistent write cache technology for improved data integrity and performance while spinning at 15,000 RPM. Specs are virtually the same for the AL13SXQ, except that it adds self-encryption to the fold. "The 15,000 RPM disk continues to be the backbone of mission critical IT operations. Toshiba's AL13SX doubles available capacity while preserving the low-latency and energy efficiency customers require," said Don Jeanette (PDF), senior director of marketing at Toshiba Storage Products Business Unit. "While older 3.5-inch 15,000 RPM disk drives are withdrawing from the market, the AL13SX provides a clear migration path to 2.5-inch models with the same 600GB capacity and lower latency for improved performance with a significant power savings – a real win-win for the important mission-critical storage category." Toshiba didn't say when the new drives will be available or how much they'll cost. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Samsung Announces Chromebook 2 Series Laptops with Leather-Like Jackets Posted: 04 Mar 2014 09:01 AM PST A Chromebook line for Ron Burgandy types who own many leather bound books The rumor mill was buzzing this week with word of a new Chromebook line from Samsung, and though some of the details were a bit off -- there's no Intel processor inside -- Samsung did release a couple of Chromebook 2 models today, including an 11.6-inch SKU and a 13.3-inch build. Both laptops sport a Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor, though they run at different clockspeeds. The 11.6-inch Chromebook 2 runs at 1.9GHz and features an HD LED display with a 1366x768 resolution. It also has 4GB of DDR3L-1600 memory, 16GB of onboard storage, 720p webcam, HDMI output, USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports (one each), microSD card slot, multi-memory card reader, headphone out/mic-in combo port, and up to 8 hours of run time. Samsung's spec sheet for the 13.3-inch Chromebook is mostly similar, except that it runs at 2.1GHz, has a Full HD 1080p LED display with a 1920x1080 resolution, and can last up to 8.5 hours on a single charge. "Chromebooks are particularly important in the education space – according to Futuresource, one in four devices now sold into K-12 schools in the U.S. are Chromebooks – so we've designed our latest models with students and teachers in mind, including features like rapid start times, longer battery life and easy-to-grip design," said Tod Pike, senior vice president at Samsung's Enterprise Business Division. The "easy-to-grip" design Pike refers to is the fake leather jacket that's stitched around the lid. It's the same material Samsung uses on its Galaxy Note 3. Both the 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch Chromebook 2 models will be available in April for $320 and $400, respectively. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Sapphire Chills Out with R9 280 Dual-X and R9 280X Vapor-X Graphics Cards Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:26 AM PST New cards from Sapphire keep their cool by using multiple fans Nobody knows how to chill better than Jeff Bridges and John Goodman from The Big Lewbowski, though Sapphire's willing to give it the old college try, only in a different way. Sapphire today announced a pair of custom cooled Radeon R9 Series graphics cards, the Dual-X R9 280 with two aerofoil fans and graduated heatpipes, and Vapor-X R9 280X featuring the company's new Tri-X triple fan design. Starting with the former, the Dual-X R9 280 is based on AMD's brand new R9 280 graphics card introduced today. Unlike the reference design, the Dual-X design supposedly allows the card to run cooler, quieter, and even a little faster at up to 940MHz Boost (versus 933MHz via Boost), or perhaps Sapphire is just rounding up. Whereas the Dual-X cooler has been featured on other cards in Sapphire's stable, the Vapor-X R9 280X is the first to sport the tri-fan solution, which uses vapor-chamber cooling. According to Sapphire, this translates into a virtually silent gaming experience with more headroom to explore overclocking. As such, it comes factory overclocked to 1,000MHz core (1,100MHz Boost) and 1,500MHz (6GB/s) memory. No word yet on price or availability. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

AMD Introduces AM1 Platform with Socketed Kabini APU Posted: 04 Mar 2014 06:43 AM PST A system in a socket It's on like Donkey Kong between AMD and Intel in the low-cost computing space. In the blue corner is Intel with its Bay Trail platform, and in the green corner is AMD, which just introduced its AM1 platform featuring a socketed quad-core or dual-core Kabini SoC. Put another way, take a Kabini APU and combine it with a socketed FS1b motherboard with a pin-grid-array (PGA) and you have the AM1 platform. This is AMD's first "system in a socket" offering. The Kabini chips will sport up to four Jaguar CPU cores, a memory controller supporting up to DDR3-1600, a Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, and various I/O functions (two SATA 6Gbps, tow USB 3.0, eight USB 2.0, DisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA). All of this will exist in the APU; supporting motherboards lack a chipset to keep costs down. "AMD continues our APU technology leadership by introducing the AM1 platform with 'Socketed Kabini', an APU designed for the mainstream market," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Business Unit, AMD. "The AM1 platform gives us a great opportunity to deliver a flexible infrastructure environment, and provides a multitude of options for consumers and system builders looking for upgradeability packed into an extremely affordable solution." AMD is particularly proud at how its AM1 platform stacks up against Intel's Bay Trail, the latter of which the Sunnyvale chip designer calls a "dead end platform." AM1 supports more memory, faster memory, more flavors of Windows, and has an upgradeable socket. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Newegg Daily Deals: AMD FX-8350 Black Edition, Intel Core i5 3470, and More! Posted: 04 Mar 2014 06:08 AM PST Top Deal: Have you finally had your fill of Flappy Bird? Good, not put down the tablet and return to the world of power computing. We've missed you. Truly. Unfortunately, while you were preoccupied tapping away at your tablet trying to earn a high score, a band of thieves came into your home and stole everything you owned, even the couch you were sitting on, which you didn't notice because Flappy Bird has that kind of effect of people. They also took your PC - drats! It's time to rebuild your belongings, and where else should you start other than your PC?  Yeah, we couldn't think of a better place either. Want to go AMD this time around? Then direct click through to today's top deal for an AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera for $190 with free shipping (normally $200 - use coupon code: [EMCPHHB22]. This 8-core chip flies along at 4GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) and has 8MB of L3 cache. Other Deals: Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge 3.2GHz LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor for $180 with free shipping (normally $190 - use coupon code: [EMCPHHB29]) BitFenix Phenom M  Arctic White Steel/Plastic MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case for $77 with free shipping (normally $90 - use coupon code: [EMCPHHC38]) Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive 3TB IntelliPower 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive for $123 with free shipping (normally $135 - use coupon code: [EMCPHHC24]) Acer H236HLbid Black 23-inch 5ms IPS HDMI LED Backlight LCD Monitor for $140 with free shipping (normally $150 - use coupon code: [LSTFEBSVNGS2])

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