General Gaming Article |
- No BS Podcast 244: VR Talk and Jimmy's Farewell
- Newegg Daily Deals: The All Asus Graphics Card Edition!
- UC Irvine is Handing Out Academic Scholarships to Hardcore Gamers
- Ubuntu Bash and Linux Command Line Headed to Windows 10
- Oculus Rift Teardown Reveals a Clever Design without Gobs of Glue
| No BS Podcast 244: VR Talk and Jimmy's Farewell Posted: 31 Mar 2016 01:45 PM PDT |
| Newegg Daily Deals: The All Asus Graphics Card Edition! Posted: 31 Mar 2016 10:50 AM PDT Top Deal: Tired of always going the budget route? Hey, there's nothing wrong with being tight with your money, but once in awhile it's fun to splurge. And with this being the year of VR, if you're need of a new graphics card, now is as good of a time to splurge as any. Need direction? Check out today's top deal for an Asus GeForce GTX 980 Ti S 6GB 384-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card for $625 with free shipping (normally $660; additional $20 Mail-in rebate; Free Game: The Division with purchase, limited offer). This fast card wields 6GB of GDDR5 memory and a custom cooler for lower thermals and noise. Other Deals: Asus ROG GeForce GTX 980 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready SLI Support Gaming Video Card for $590 with free shipping (normally $600; additional $50 Mail-in rebate; Free Game: The Division with purchase, limited offer) Asus GeForce GTX 980 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card for $520 with free shipping (normally $530; additional $30 Mail-in rebate; Free Game: The Division with purchase, limited offer) Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready SLI Support G-SYNC Support Video Card for $329 with free shipping (normally $349; additional $20 Mail-in rebate; Free Game: The Division with purchase, limited offer) Asus Radeon R9 Nano 4GB 4096-Bit HBM PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card for $490 with $5 shipping (normally $520; additional $20 Mail-in rebate) |
| UC Irvine is Handing Out Academic Scholarships to Hardcore Gamers Posted: 31 Mar 2016 10:38 AM PDT Gaming the education system Kids looking to convince their folks to let them spend more time in front of the PC playing games can now play the college card. How so? The University of California, Irvine, is launching an official e-sports initiative this fall and plans to hand out as many as 10 academic scholarships to students on the team. "UCI eSports will be built on four pillars: competition, academics, entertainment and community," said Thomas Parham, vice chancellor for student affairs. "We hope to attract the best gamers from around the world, and our academic programs in computer gaming science, digital arts, computer science, engineering, anthropology, law, medicine, neuroscience and behavior create a strong foundation for research and inquiry related to gaming." Those selected will have access to a state-of-the-art arena outfitted with high-end gaming PCs. There will also be a stage for League of Legends competitions and a live webcasting studio. Competitive gaming is growing in popularity. It's also attracting some big names, like Mark Cuban, who invested in an e-sports betting startup called Unikrn last year and has been vocal about e-sports being a real sport. "It has been a dream for many of us on campus that UCI recognize the importance of e-sports and create a space and a program that cater to the large community of gamers at the university," said Jesse Wang, president of The Association of Gamers. "The eSports team and the arena will ensure that UCI continues to be a leader and trendsetter in collegiate e-sports." Students who are not on UCI's e-sports team will also have access to the 3,500 square foot facility, which will also serve as a hub for social and competitive gaming in Southern California. As for the PCs that will be used, UCI didn't provide any specs, but did say that boutique builder iBuyPower will supply 80 of its high-end gaming systems pre-loaded with popular video games. |
| Ubuntu Bash and Linux Command Line Headed to Windows 10 Posted: 31 Mar 2016 10:09 AM PDT Opposites attract If you think Windows and Linux go together like peanut butter and mustard, you're in for a surprise. Out of all the things Microsoft has talked about at its Build Developer Conference so far, one of the most interesting is its plan to bring native Bash and with it support for Linux command line tools to Windows 10. That's right, Ubuntu and Windows 10 are about to become BFFs of sort. One thing that's important to note here is that the integration of Bash isn't through a virtual machine, containers, or otherwise sandboxed. What that means for end users is real access to popular open-source tools right from within Windows. "You can now run Bash scripts, Linux command-line tools like sed, awk, grep, and you can even try Linux-first tools like Ruby, Git, Python, etc. directly on Windows," Microsoft explains in a blog post. "You can also access your Windows filesystem from within Bash allowing you to work on the same set of files using your preferred Windows tools or Linux command-line tools." This is a pretty big deal and as such, Microsoft is being careful about the roll out. Rather than bring Bash to all Windows 10 users at once, it plans to first make it available to Windows Insiders sometime after the Build conference, which runs until April 1. Guinea pigs first, everyone else later. "We know that there are some rough edges and that some things will break! Do not expect every Bash script and tool that you run will work perfectly –there will be gaps. But by trying out this feature, you'll help us figure out what we need to work on in order to greatly improve our reliability, coverage, and reach," Microsoft added (bolded text is by Microsoft, not us). This collaborative effort between Canonical and Microsoft is mostly aimed at developers. Towards that end, Microsoft warns that this isn't a server platform for hosting websites, running server infrastructures, and things of that nature. Furthermore, Bash and Linux tools can't interact with Windows applications and tools, nor the other way around—that's to say you can't run Notepad from Bash. So what's the point of all this? Simply put, Microsoft wants developers to choose Windows, and giving them access to Bash within Windows increases the chances they will. Who ever knew that Microsoft would be the one to Bash Windows? |
| Oculus Rift Teardown Reveals a Clever Design without Gobs of Glue Posted: 31 Mar 2016 09:18 AM PDT Ripping open the Rift There's a somewhat depressing trend in today's mobile gear, and that's the copious use of glue to hold things together. It's effective, but it also makes do-it-yourself repair a headache. Unlike the majority of desktop PCs, mobile gadgets just aren't designed to be user serviceable. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, and it appears the Oculus Rift might be one of them. The experienced disassemblers at iFixIt got their paws on an Oculus Rift headset and did the only logical thing—they promptly gutted the thing knowing full well that they were embarking on a journey in which the $600 headset might not return. Respect. This wasn't iFixIt's first rodeo with a virtual reality headset. Those fearless folks tore down two pre-release versions, so they were anxious to see what's changed in the final build that's now shipping to consumers. "This is definitely the sleekest Rift yet—lightweight, impressively comfortable, and now with earphones built right in for maximum immersion," iFixIt noted right before performing tech surgery. Things started off easy enough. There's a thick foam frame that's attached with clips and is easily removed. With that out of the way, there's a single cable from the head-mounted display that needs unplugged. Removing the adjustable earphones proved easy-cheesy as well—an embedded flat barrel nut is all that secures the speaker arm, while spring contacts connect it to the wires inside the headband. "We've seen our share of expensive, un-repairable, nigh-impossible-to-disassemble earphones, so this is a welcome surprise, especially considering these lil guys are prime damage targets should your headset 'fall' to the ground following a rough PvP match," iFixIt says. The deeper into the teardown you go, the more interesting things get. Negotiating components also becomes a little more tricky with hidden interior clips and delicate parts. As you can imagine, there are a lot of parts that comprise the Oculus Rift, and that's the real challenge. Among the negatives, iFixIt noted an "intricate design and delicate ribbon cables," which makes it "very difficult to remove the lenses, displays, and motherboard." It's also impossible to replace the head strap without cutting the fabric on the headset. On the plus side, there's no adhesive holding any of the removable parts together, and cable management is much better than it was before. When all was said and done, the Rift left the operating table with a 7 out of 10 Repairability Score—not bad. |
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