General Gaming Article |
- HTC Vive Blitzes to 15,000 Headset Sales in First 10 Minutes
- Western Digital Adds 8TB Capacity to Several HDD Lines
- Acer Predator XB321HK Monitor Brings 4K Resolution and G-Sync to Gamers
- Apple Reveals Testimony Ahead of Today's Session
- Congressman Darrell Issa Backs Apple
- Microsoft HoloLens Dev Ed Pre-Order Now Live
- Thecus N5810PRO NAS Review
| HTC Vive Blitzes to 15,000 Headset Sales in First 10 Minutes Posted: 01 Mar 2016 09:58 AM PST Off to a fast start It's going to take some time to see if all the early hype surrounding today's virtual reality technologies turns into something lasting, but there's a ready audience willing to gamble it will. HTC revealed on Twitter on that it sold 15,000 of its Vive VR bundles in the first 10 minutes of being available to pre-order. At $800 for each bundle plus shipping charges, HTC processed more than $12 million right off the bat. It's not known how many additional orders were placed and processed since then. Vive is HTC's take on the VR scene that's captured the imagination of consumers and developers alike. While VR isn't new by any means, excitement for the category hit a fever pitch after Oculus took its Rift headset to Kickstarter around three and a half years ago. Where things go from here will depend on how well the Vive and Rift are received. Both devices consist of specialized head gear outfitted with sensors and cameras that you wear over your eyes. They both also must be tethered to a reasonably powerful PC, which adds to the cost of entry. Facebook-owned Oculus beat HTC to the pre-order punch by offering up its Rft headset for pre-sale in the first week of January for $599. Oculus hasn't shared any shipment figures, but the first batch of those pre-orders, which will ship on March 28, sold out in a matter of minutes. The Vive is more expensive at $799, but it also comes with dual controllers and two room sensors. Initial pre-orders for the Vive are scheduled to ship in April, with new orders now showing a shipping estimate of May. These early sales show that there's considerable interest in VR, even at early-adopter price points. |
| Western Digital Adds 8TB Capacity to Several HDD Lines Posted: 01 Mar 2016 09:26 AM PST Getting higher on helium Western Digital is expanding several of its consumer-based performance storage solutions with new 8TB capacity options. The solutions cover everything from Network Attached Storage (NAS) products to video surveillance and desktop applications. "We are committed to integrating high-performance, high-capacity and high-quality drives into all of our solutions," saidBrendan Collins, vice president of product marketing, Western Digital Corporation. "No matter what market or application, we have a solution - whether it's for small businesses, channel partners, enterprises or end-users. Our goal is to deliver the best and most competitive solutions on the market." External solutions getting an increase in capacity to 8TB include Western Digital's My Book and My Book for Mac, My Book Duo, My Book Pro, My Cloud, My Cloud Mirror, and My Cloud EX2 Ultra. As for Western Digital's internal solutions, its WD Purple (optimized for 24/7 always-on operation), WD Red (personal, home, and small business NAS), and WD Red Pro (small business and enterprise class NAS) are all getting upgrades to 8TB. The higher capacity solutions are based on WD's HelioSeal helium-filled technology. One reason helium is desirable is because it's seven times less dense than air. By replacing air with helium in a sealed drive, drag force on the spinning disk stack is reduced, resulting in significantly less wear and tear over time. The My Book and My Book for Mac in 8TB capacity are currently available for $300 MSRP. All of the other product lines getting upgraded to 8TB will be available during the first half of 2016. |
| Acer Predator XB321HK Monitor Brings 4K Resolution and G-Sync to Gamers Posted: 01 Mar 2016 09:01 AM PST Everything but the kitchen sink If you've been holding out for a gaming monitor that checks every entry on your must-have features list, Acer may have the solution you're looking for. It's the new Predator XB321HK, a big-size 32-inch monitor with a 4K Ultra HD resolution (3840x2160) and Nvidia G-Sync support, to name just two of the highlights. Acer went with a high quality In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel instead of a cheaper Twisted Nematic (TN) display. That means better viewing angles and superior visuals—Acer claims the XB321HK offers 100 percent coverage of the sRGB color space, which would make it suitable for even professional content creation where color accuracy and reproduction are key. The monitor also boasts a 4ms response time—it's not the fastest out there, but respectable, especially for an IPS panel. And if you're rocking an Nvidia graphics card, enabling G-Sync will significantly reduce or eliminate screen tearing, display stutter, and input lag for smoother game play. Other rated specs include a 100,000,000:1 contrast ratio and 350 cd/m2 brightness. You can adjust the Predator XB321HK's spine up to 4.7 inches in height, along with tilt support from -5 degrees to 25 degrees. It doesn't swivel, but it does rotate so that you can view long webpages and other content in portrait mode. On the connectivity front, the monitor supports HDMI and DisplayPort v1.2 connections, plus it has a built-in USB 3.0 hub (1 up/4 down). Sound chores are handled by a pair of 2W speakers enhanced with DTS Sound. We haven't sampled them ourselves, but we've heard enough integrated speakers to feel comfortable in saying you'll probably want to use a solid set of headphones or your own external speakers. The Predator XB321HK is available now for $1,299 MSRP. |
| Apple Reveals Testimony Ahead of Today's Session Posted: 01 Mar 2016 06:09 AM PST Apple's senior vice president and general counsel Bruce Sewell will today make an opening statement before the House Judiciary Committee that defends the company's stance against the FBI. As previously reported, Apple has been ordered to create what it calls "GovtOS," a version of iOS that will allow the FBI to bypass an iPhone 5c's passcode feature. So far, Apple has refused to do so. The iPhone 5c in question is owned by the county of San Bernardino and was issued to one of its workers, Syed Rizwan Farook. He, along with his wife, killed 14 people and seriously injured 22 in a terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center in December. The iPhone 5c was recovered in the car after the shooters were killed by local law enforcement. The FBI merely wants to access the phone's data. After working with Apple and extracting as much information as they could via the cloud, the FBI needs to get past the passkey feature, which wipes the phone when entered incorrectly 10 times. The FBI wants to bypass this feature and get to the contents using brute force, and to do this, the government says it needs a tool created by Apple. The company doesn't want to create it. "As we have told them—and as we have told the American public—building that software tool would not affect just one iPhone," the three-page opening statement reads (PDF). "It would weaken the security for all of them. In fact, just last week Director Comey agreed that the FBI would likely use this precedent in other cases involving other phones. District Attorney Vance has also said he would absolutely plan to use this on over 175 phones. We can all agree this is not about access to just one iPhone." We now know that the Department of Justice wants Apple to break the encryption of up to 12 iPhones that aren't specifically related to terrorist attacks. However, the FBI claims that Apple's "GovtOS" operating system would only be used on the San Bernardino phone. As the statement points out, there are other agencies eagerly awaiting the verdict, hoping that a master key could be made to unlock the iPhones of suspected criminals. The statement points out that more than a trillion transactions take place safely over the Internet thanks to encryption. Even more, the government itself has shelled out tens of millions of dollars through the Open Technology Fund and other government-based programs in an effort to build strong encryption. Even Obama's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology insists that the government absolutely not "subvert, undermine, weaken, or make vulnerable generally available commercial software" in any way. Apple believes that there are several questions that deserve an honest conversation before it's forced to create a so-called master key:
"We feel strongly that our customers, their families, their friends and their neighbors will be better protected from thieves and terrorists if we can offer the very best protections for their data," the statement concludes. "And at the same time, the freedoms and liberties we all cherish will be more secure." Tuesday's hearing will be titled as "The Encryption Tightrope: Balancing Americans' Security and Privacy." In attendance will be FBI director James Comey, Susan Landau, a professor at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and New York County District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. District Attorney Vance Jr., who will represent thousands of local and state prosecutors across the nation, claims that Apple's switch to default device encryption back in 2014 "severely harms" many criminal prosecutions. Meanwhile, Professor Landau says that the government sees electronic surveillance "in 20th century terms and is using 20th century investigative thinking in a 21st century world." This will be an interesting argument. |
| Congressman Darrell Issa Backs Apple Posted: 01 Mar 2016 06:01 AM PST Congressman Darrell Issa took to Wired over the weekend to post his opinion about the conflict between the FBI and Apple. He's siding with the iPhone maker, saying that giving the government access to the locked iPhone 5c will ultimately make massive data breaches all the more common. Even more, forcing Apple to create "GovtOS" would impact the online security of Americans for generations. Congressman Issa is the US Representative for California's 49th Congressional District, and current Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. Before that, he was the chairman of the Consumer Electronics Association and the CEO of Directed Electronics, which designs and markets consumer-branded car alarms and remote starters here in the States. Simply put, Issa believes that the FBI should not be able to force Apple to create a backdoor in iOS that would override the baked-in encryption features. Such a move would create a "dangerous precedent" and haunt Americans in the future as they use their phones, laptops, and the Internet. Even more, the government could come back and repeatedly request the decryption of a number of devices used in multiple circumstances, not just national security. The Congressman points out that the Justice Department isn't just wanting access to the iPhone 5c recovered in the San Bernardino shooter's car. The government actually wants access to nearly twelve other locked iPhones scattered across the nation, and they're not strictly related to acts of terrorism. That contradicts the FBI's claim that Apple's tool would be used only for San Bernardino County's controversial iPhone 5c. "No one would say that Apple should obstruct justice or intentionally impede law enforcement's attempts to bring perpetrators of heinous acts of violence to justice," he says. "But a company also shouldn't be forced to deliberately weaken the integrity of their own products and subject millions of customers to security vulnerabilities in order to do so." As previously reported, the FBI wants Apple to create a tool for accessing an iPhone 5c. Apple says this would be a version of iOS that's void of specific security features, allowing the FBI to bypass the passkey roadblock, which will wipe the device if its entered incorrectly 10 times. The FBI wants to simply get around this and use brute force to gain access to the contents. Apple and the FBI previously stated that GovtOS would remain in Apple's hands in a special lab set up for the procedure at Apple's California-based HQ. The company also said it would have to fork over dedicated workers to the task, which could take several weeks to complete. Thus, the tool in question wouldn't be set loose in the wild, but reside within Apple itself. There are concerns that even the government can't be trusted with such a tool. Congressman Issa points out that the Office of Personnel Management suffered a security breach last year, resulting in the theft of 22 million Americans' information. And just recently the Internal Revenue Service had a security breach, resulting in the exposure of more than 700,000 taxpayer accounts. "As Congress begins contemplating revisions to the 1789 statue upon which this court order is built, lawmakers must be sure to protect citizens' right to privacy and preserve the integrity of the online security protocols that help keep us all safe," the Congressman concludes. Apple, which is refusing a court order to create GovtOS for the FBI, plans to argue its case in Congress today. |
| Microsoft HoloLens Dev Ed Pre-Order Now Live Posted: 01 Mar 2016 05:34 AM PST Although Microsoft has stressed that its HoloLens headset won't be available to consumers until "the world is ready," the company has been selling a $3,000 developer edition for quite some time to a limited number of developers and businesses. Now the company has thrown the doors open to all, allowing developers to pre-order the Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition, which will begin shipping on March 30. The price? Still a hefty three grand. According to Microsoft's Alex Kipman, HoloLens consists of a custom-built Holographic Processing Unit (HPU) that enables the device to understand gestures and gazes in real time. It's backed by a 32-bit Intel architecture and see-through holographic lenses that feature an "advanced optical projection system." This system generates multi-dimensional full-color holograms with very low latency, he says. In addition to that hardware, HoloLens includes built-in sensors that can capture information about what you're doing in the real world, and built-in cameras for recording "mixed reality captures," or MRC. These are HD videos and pictures of holograms that can be shared with everyone: even those without a HoloLens headset. The device also includes Bluetooth 4.1. "With HoloLens you can create and shape holograms with gestures, communicate with apps using your voice, and navigate with a glance," Kipman reports. "HoloLens understands your gestures, gaze, and voice, enabling you to interact in the most natural way possible. With spatial sound, HoloLens allows you to hear holograms from anywhere in the room, even if they are behind you." Microsoft's HoloLens is self-contained and fully untethered, he says, meaning you aren't required to have a high-performance PC to use this device. Users also don't need any additional devices to see the holograms in the real world: no phone, no wires, no additional cameras. It's also powered by Windows 10, meaning users should be familiar with the interface right out of the box. In addition to getting their hands on the HoloLens device, developers can also gain access to a number of guides and tutorials to get them started, and additional development tools such as Visual Studio projects and a HoloLens emulator that will be released when the headset ships in March. This emulator will allow developers to test holographic apps on their PC without the actual hardware in hand. Microsort's Kudo Tsunoda adds to the announcement, saying there's now a free portfolio of holographic "experiences" for developers to check out, including HoloStudio, a program that allows developers to create 3D objects in 3D on a real-world scale. There's also an enhanced version of Skype so that users can communicate using holograms. HoloTour, another "experience," provides high-resolution 360-degree panoramic displays. That's not all. There are three examples of mixed reality games to experience, one of which is Fragments, a mixed reality crime drama that "unfolds in your own environment." There's also Young Conker that brings traditional platform gaming mechanics to the real world, and RoboRaid, a first-person holographic shooter where players defend their home against an alien invasion. "It is a highlight of how our key holographic platform features can be used in gaming," Tsunoda says. "It uses your real world as the environment. Nothing adds urgency to 1st person shooter gameplay like seeing alien robots breaking through the walls of your own home." Developers wanting to get their hands on Microsoft HoloLens can head here to apply for the Development Edition. Those who purchase the device will have immediate access to UWP apps listed on Windows Store, such as OneDrive, Maps, Remote Desktop, and more. They'll also have access to the HoloLens experiences listed above. |
| Posted: 01 Mar 2016 12:00 AM PST Over the last several months, we've taken a close look at a network attached storage (NAS) device provided by Thecus called the N5810PRO. It's a five-bay storage solution that was released last summer, built for small- to medium-sized businesses, and is packed with its own built-in mini-UPS and a quad-core Intel Celeron J1900 processor. Priced at nearly $900, the N5810PRO is unquestionably feature-rich and should meet the needs of its target audience. For the general consumer, however, the NAS can be a bit challenging. First, let's start with the hardware specs. In addition to the processor, which is clocked at 2GHz, the N5810PRO has 4GB DDR3 RAM (expandable to 8GB), five Gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 ports (one front, one back), two USB 2.0 ports on the back, an HDMI port on the back, and an LCM display on the front complete with two navigational buttons (Enter, Esc, up, down). It also packs a 130W power supply and a built-in fan to keep its innards cool. This hardware is packed into a metal chassis measuring 9.06x7.48x9.45 inches. There is an LED installed beside each drive bay to indicate when the NAS is accessing the installed hardware. We inserted three 4TB drives into the NAS; drives must be physically mounted in the drive tray rather than merely slipped in. Upon first setup, users must install a small program on their PC that will find the NAS on the network. Once the device is found, the user clicks on the IP address link, logs onto the NAS using the default password and username, determine if the NAS needs a fixed IP address or one supplied by the local router (DHCP), sets a new password, saves the information, and then closes the program. After that, users simply load up the NAS address in a web browser using the saved credentials. For this review, the first thing we did was update the firmware to the latest release (v2.05.12). This NAS runs on the company's Linux-based ThecusOS operating system, which upon loading provides links to the main administration portion, modules you may have installed, and other apps that can be installed from the Thecus NAS App Center. (Not all apps show up here, but more on that later.) By clicking the Admin button, you jump into the meat of ThecusOS. I'm going to be honest and admit that I'm not a big fan of ThecusOS, having been spoiled by other NAS solutions that provide a more pleasant visual experience and easier access to apps. The general consumer may be confused and overwhelmed by this platform at first, but again, this NAS is designed for the small- to medium-sized business. Those accessing ThecusOS in an enterprise environment are presumably professionals who are used to working without the visual glitz. The ThecusOS UI consists of a menu bar on the left, the information window on the right, and a toolbar on the bottom. This toolbar provides quick access to RAID management, disk information, fan information, details regarding the mini-UPS, the current temperature, and the current network status. The information window defaults to the main Home page, which lists shortcuts to the iTunes server, shared folders, the system log, FTP setup, and more. Users can add shortcuts to this page by clicking the My Favorite button listed throughout the platform's settings. The toolbar on the left has nine categories: System Information, System Management, System Network, Storage, User and Group Authentication, Network Service, Application Server, Backup, and External Devices. To create a volume for storing data, we clicked on the Storage category, which lists the subcategories Disk Information, RAID Management, NAS Stacking, ISO Image mounting, Share Folders, iSCSI, Disk Clone and Wipe, and System Failover. We clicked on RAID Management to create a RAID 5 volume, which provided a total capacity of 7.5TB. After that, it was time to install some apps. Unfortunately, installing apps isn't as easy as loading up a built-in app store, as we've seen with other NAS solutions. Instead, users must click the Application Server section listed on the toolbar and click the Manual App Installation subcategory. Here you'll see a field for pointing the ThecusOS to an app downloaded to your PC. These can be obtained by visiting the company's online NAS App Center, which offers 727 apps for its NAS lineup. On the site, Thecus provides means for searching for apps by model and categories. The company serves up a handful of first-party apps for the N5810PRO along with an individual named Stephane. Categories include Backup/Sync, Business, CMS, Downloader, File Management, Mail Server, Media/DNLA, Photo Server, Security, Tools, Web, Others, and Core App. Thecus-developed apps include Dropbox, WebDisk, XBMC, Piczza!, McAfee VirusScan, Dashboard, and more. For this review, we installed Plex, DropBox, the Thecus Dashboard Server, VirusScan, and Piczza. As previously mentioned, you must download and extract these apps onto your computer, hit the little monitor button next to the App File field on the Manual App Installation page, direct ThecusOS to that unzipped file, and then hit the Install button. Once the app is installed, you'll have to search for it on the ThecusOS platform by heading back to the Manual App Installation page. These apps do not appear on the Home page. For instance, the App Management box on the Manual App Installation provides links to the installed apps. Click on the Plex link, and you're directed to "NAS address:3200/web/index.html#!/dashboard" in your browser. Dropbox is located at "NAS address/modules/Dropbox/www/manage.htm" and Piczza at "NAS address/modules/Piczza/www/index.php". The Thecus Dashboard Server is necessary if you want to access the NAS by using the company's Dashboard app for mobile devices, which allows the user to manage services like AFP and NFS, change a user's password, and so on. Because you'll likely have different users accessing the NAS, administrators will need to set up accounts by clicking on the User and Group Authentication category on the toolbar. Under this section, Local User Configuration allows you to create a username and password for each individual accessing the device. Unfortunately, the NAS doesn't simply show up in Windows Explorer when you install it on your network (unless you've installed services like Plex). So, how do you upload and download files? In a Windows 10 environment, I had to load up File Explorer and type a \\NAS address (such as \\192.168.0.15) into the search bar to access the volume. Once loaded, I could see the volume's existing folders, such as NAS_Public, usbhdd, iTunes_music, _NAS_Piczza_, etc. Initially, you can't create new folders in this File Explorer window; this action is instead done via ThecusOS by clicking on the Storage category in the toolbar, the Shared Folders subcategory, and the Add button if adding a folder. These folders can also be edited and removed using this tool. However, the good news is that you can map your PC to one of these folders in File Explorer and add/delete files and folders. For instance, I could map the "NAS_Public" folder to Drive Z in a Windows 10 environment, which allowed me to create and delete folders, and upload files. Because ThecusOS is based on Linux, file access in Windows is made possible thanks to the Samba service, which is enabled by default. Users can change Samba's details by using the Network Service category in the ThecusOS toolbar, and then selecting the Samba/CIFS subcategory. Settings include File Access Cache, Samba Native mode, Block size, Server Signing, and more. For the record, the Network Service category also provides other services users can activate and tweak including AFP, NFS, FTP, TFTP, WebService, UPnP Service, SSH, DDNS, VPN Server, and loads more. As previously stated, this NAS provides five gigabit Ethernet ports. The first port is for connecting the device to the local network while the others can be used as a redundancy in case the main connection fails. Users can tweak each port by selecting the System Network category on the toolbar, which provides Networking, DHCP/RADVD, and Link Aggregation subcategories. For instance, by selecting Networking, users can manually set an IP address or let DHCP assign a number on each port. Under Link Aggregation, users can set the default gateway and view the IPv4 and IPv6 settings of each port. Thecus says the NAS supports additional external NIC cards, allowing administrators to pack on extra networking ports. On the backup front, users can access this feature by selecting Backup in the toolbar, which serves up DOM Backup, Rsync Target Server, ACL Backup/Restore, Data Burn, Data Guard, and Amazon S3 subcategories. For instance, under the Amazon S3 subcategory, you can load up a backup wizard that allows you to back up to a remote NAS, to folders/devices/iSCSI targets on a local NAS, or to an Amazon S3 service. If users choose local backup, they're greeted with options to import from external devices, copy between folders according to the source and destination of your choice, real-time NAS backup, scheduling a backup, iSCSI backup, and iSCSI import. The Data Burn feature is interesting in that users can burn NAS data directly to a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray disc. It's as if users have a built-in disc burner, allowing them to name the disc, add folders and files, select the data verification, and burning speed. If you have an ISO stored on the NAS, there's a tab for that, too: just locate the file, select the destination disc, and hit burn. You can also create an image file by adding folders and files, and selecting an ISO path. One of the big selling points of the Thecus NAS is its VPN support. The device provides both a client and a server; the former merely requires the user to input a VPN Server IP address, a username, and a password. The VPN Server feature offers plenty of settings to tinker with, such as choosing which Ethernet port to use, and enabling an L2TP/IPSec VPN server. This section also provides a list of clients (in this case, the two user accounts I created for the review), a list of connected users, and a usage log. The Thecus NAS also provides settings for external devices such as connected printers and a UPS. For the latter, you can enable UPS monitoring, view its IP address, manufacturer and model, check out its current status, and additional information. The Printers subcategory also provides the device's manufacturer and model information along with its current status, the ability to restart the printer service, and remove a document from the queue. Another cool feature for home users is the N5810PRO's inclusion of an HDMI port on the back, so that it can connect to a monitor or HDTV. And thanks to the two USB 2.0 ports on the back, users can also connect a keyboard and mouse, allowing the NAS to turn into a makeshift Linux desktop. Thus, instead of grabbing video files through the network, you can watch stored movies and TV shows directly. There's also a built-in web browser with Flash support, making this device more than just a storage solution. Finally, users can get a brief list of information about the NAS by through the System Information category in the toolbar. Here you can get general information, the system's status, hardware information, and so on. The System Management category is where you can update the firmware, control the built-in fan, set the NAS back to its factory defaults, manage passwords, schedule a reboot to check the file system, and so on. The device also supports SNMP, which is turned off by default. Ultimately, there's a lot going on with the Thecus N5810PRO NAS device, more than can be covered in this review. To get a full idea of what this machine is capable of, the company provides a 220-page manual here, which we relied on heavily to get started. Naturally, the NAS doesn't come ready out of the box, so if you purchase one, you'll likely need to give the manual a thorough read-through. As previously expressed, I'm not a big fan of the ThecusOS platform in its current state. It's not exactly user-friendly to the novice user, and its overall presentation could be better. However, the company introduced its upcoming ThecusOS 7.0 platform back in December, promising a better experience. This updated operating system is said to be compliant with HTML5 and features a 64-bit architecture, a File Center feature, and a modernized design. It also promises enhanced multimedia capabilities and an incorporated App Center. I'm looking forward to checking it out. |
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