![[blank]'s Universe](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbPle8dJFWiAakTzmFR5R01u47eJ3ZVgABgq9SaHtI6h0BZDYJ7C5_p85vUwsiJEI1Oqk8h5p3KP2KCRuHrFf_0eS1XKRjX1uAlIwA5ntlsvoehSyl3RehXby_SWWohNSfLVWldQQIjJFt/s1600/BU+Header+%2528H44px%2529.png)
Tomorrow is April 1st, with many waiting for an April Fools prank and Easter eggs. Google, who always has something for the special occasion, has made 7 Easter Eggs for April Fools, so far. The first one is found on YouTube.
March 31, 2013
When BlackBerry launched the PlayBook in 2011, it was rather short lived and one of the fastest failures for BlackBerry. Leaked information has it that BlackBerry is working on a new tablet, named the B10, as well as two new “phablet” (5-6’’ in size) handsets to launch sometime by the end of this year or next year.
Apple has applied to get a trademark for their iPad Mini but was rejected by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Apple's request was shot down as it "fails to include a picture or a sufficient textual description of the goods in sufficiently close proximity to the necessary ordering information/a weblink for ordering the goods, and thus, appears to be mere advertising material."
March 30, 2013
HP's Slate 7 tablet was announced during MWC 2013, with a price tag of only $169. That extremely low price point attracted many consumers to what could be HP's attempt at redemption, after the failure of their Touchpad.
Understandably, many consumers were outraged yesterday when their website set a release date for June 2013, delayed two months from the prior date of April 2013. Luckily, a few hours later, HP told Engadget that the listed June release was a mistake, and that the product would be ready for an April launch.
Source: HP
March 29, 2013
AMD showed Tom's Hardware a preview of the Radeon HD 7990, codenameed "Malta" at GDC 2013. It will feature two GPUs with 6GBs of GDDR5 memory (3GB per GPU) over a dual 384-bit memory interface. The core speed is predicted to be around 1.1 Ghz. The GPU has three 90mm fans, four mini-display ports and a single DVI port. Due to AMD's usage of three fans, similar to the other 7990 designs, the temperatures and noise should be lower.
March 28, 2013
Today, at the Game Developers Conference, the winners to the Game Developers Choice Awards were announced, with Journey by thatgamecompany taking 6 out of the 11 awards! Notable award winners include Bioware founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award. Chris Melissinos took home the Ambassador Award for his work on the exhibit The Art of Video Games. Finally, Spacewar! creator Steve Russell was presented with the Pioneer Award, 52 years after his game first ran on a computer, leading to today's advancements in the video game industry. The total list of winners follows:
March 27, 2013
Battlefield 3 was very successful, but would the sequel in
the series go down the same path? It has
been two years since Battlefield 3 and EA revealed that Battlefield 4 would be
available to PC come Fall 2013. As later
stated by EA, it will also be available on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and next-gen
consoles.
NVIDIA recently launched it's new 650 Ti Boost card which was made to compete in the sub $200 market, with AMD's new HD 7790 and the HD 7850. It's based on the same GK106 silicon found in the original 650 Ti and 660. The 650 Ti Boost features the same CUDA core and TMU count from the GTX 650 Ti, but the memory bus and ROP count of the GTX 660. The card features 768 CUDA cores, 64 TMU's, 24 ROP's, and a 192-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.
March 25, 2013
March 24, 2013
RaiderZ
is an “Action”-Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG),
developed by Maiet Entertainment and published by Perfect World
Entertainment. After a rough closed beta which ended on August 20, 2012, it
went live in November and has been going strong ever since.
RaiderZ calls itself an Action MMO, with a combat system around dodging
and combining skills together on the fly, in contrast to regular hot-key
based MMOs which makes its players button mash. The inclusion of such a
combat system makes RaiderZ truly stand out in this competitive market.
March 23, 2013
After rumours leaked about Apple and Samsung possibly making smartwatches, it appears that LG wants a slice of the pie as well. A source told the Korea Times that LG was not only working on a smartwatch, but also on something similar to Google Glass. The operating system was not mentioned, but Android, Firefox, and Ubuntu remain as open-source options.
March 22, 2013
As you all
know that the Samsung Galaxy S 4 would feature software that can track the user’s
face. In their presentation, Samsung was careful not to mention that it can
track eye movements. It might be because
all the way back in 2005, LG holds patents to improve their UI that involves
eye-tracking technology, which Samsung may be infringing on. So far, Samsung has
denied any infringement of LG patents.
Currently, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 is not available to the public, but
let’s see what happens.
Canon has released a new DSLR that may spark the interest of many new photographers looking for a affordable DSLR, or people who just love buying cheap things (me). The SL1 is about 25% smaller and 28% lighter than the EOS Rebel T4i. The Tiny (relatively) has a big punch for its size (4.6"(w) x 3.57" (h) x 2.74" (d)) and weighing in at a mere 14.36oz.
Canon has just announced the successor to the previous T4i this week. The EOS Rebel T5i is vitually identical to the previous T4i (Canon has admitted that) with the exception of better ergonomics, new software filters, and support for the new 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 STM kit lens. Like the T4i, it features the same 18MP APS-C CMOS sensor, 9-point AF, and 1080p video recording. The T5i still natively supports UHS-I memory cards, including wireless ones such as the Eye-Fi.
March 21, 2013
Once again, Google has done something amazing. Let me introduce Chrome World Wide Maze. This is a Chrome experiment that uses your mobile Android device and connects it to a computer running Chrome to create an interactive maze with any website. Simply connect your Android or iOS device with Google Chrome to your PC, sync the two devices, and turn your favourite website into a maze while controlling the ball by tilting your phone. The maze is a ball titling maze where you have to tilt the maze it self to get the ball to the finish line. The [blank]'s Universe team has been playing around with it and it creates a whole new experience to the game.
If you don't have a mobile phone with Chrome, you can also play it in your Chrome browser by itself. Check it out at chrome.com/maze!
NVIDIA is looking for another way to impress gamers just
ahead of summer, with its second GK110-based graphics card. The original
GK110-based graphics card, or the GeForce GTX Titan, was launched not too long
ago. The price for this graphics card might ward off potential buyers because
of its hefty $1000 price tag. The new GPU could feature 13 out of 15 streaming
multiprocessors on the GK110 silicon, working out to 2,496 CUDA cores, 208
texture memory units, a 320-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 5 GB of
memory, and 40 ROPs (similar to the “Quadro K6000”). With a large price gap
between the GTX 680 and the GTX Titan, NVIDIA can pick a price between the two
(~$450 - ~$1000).
Source : TechPowerUp
To mark the 40,000,000 player landmark, Origin has decided to launch a week long Player Appreciation Sale, offering more than 200 titles at prices as low as 70% off. Some great deals to look out for include Battlefield 3 priced at $12.00, Mass Effect 3 at $9.99, Crysis 3 for $30.00, The Walking Dead for $10.00 and the latest Dead Space for $29.99.
March 20, 2013
With so many ways to communicate with contacts on Google,
such as Google Talk, G+ messenger, Hangout and Drive Chat, it can be very
confusing keeping track of your conversations.
No worries, because Google is going to create a unified platform chat called
Google Babble that will span across Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and the cloud. It will be similar to Google’s current chat implementations
and will be able to do many of the things that are available now. Google is building
this from scratch so let's just hope that it goes well.
Google has introduced a new app called Google Keep that made a brief appearance earlier, but is now available to the public. Keep is available for download thorough Google Play for any devices running Android 4.0 and up (sorry Deon).
March 19, 2013
John Riccitiello, CEO of last year’s Worst Company in America as voted by readers of The Consumerist, has resigned yesterday, on the 18th of March 2013. This resignation should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially in the wake of the SimCity 5 launch and EA being nominated once again for Worst Company in America. However, the former CEO cited his reason for resignation as being due to financial troubles the company has been facing, resulting in multiple layoffs, such as at Bioware San Francisco.
Tired of waiting for the next Humble Bundle to appear? Then wait no more. Starting this week, Humble Bundle will be holding the Humble Weekly Sale. Pay what you want for a different game every week, with a new deal every Tuesday!
March 18, 2013
Today, the finalists for 16 categories were announced for the upcoming Canadian Video Game Awards, on April 20th, 2013. As the events are sponsored by Future Shop, gamers can vote for the Future Shop fans' awards! Without further ado, here are the finalists!
March 17, 2013
March 16, 2013
March 15, 2013
As Google is gaining popularity for their upcoming release of Google Glasses, Apple is rumored to be unveiling a new product that analysts say will be more profitable than any other Apple device. According to Bloomberg, it is reported there are approximately 100 people working on this new revolutionary device called the iWatch.
Corsair has announced that they will be releasing the world's fastest rated production PC memory kit - the Corsair Vengeance Extreme. It is to come in a 2 x 4 GB dual-channel DDR3 package rated at 3000 MHz with the stock cooling. It will be passively cooled with a low-profile heat sink similar to other low-profile heat sinks in the Vengeance line.
After parent company Koch Media acquired Volition Inc., publisher Deep Silver announced that they will be launching the latest game in the Saints Row franchise on August 20 in North America and on August 23 for the rest of the world.
Samsung unveiled their new flagship device today, the Samsung Galaxy S4. The phone will be coming to Canada soon! Samsung Canada has released some details on the Canadian availability of the new phone. It will come in the 'black mist' and 'frost white' colours and will be available on most carriers.
March 14, 2013
Today, 505 Games and Rebellion Entertainment announced that the sequel to Sniper Elite V2 is now in development, slated for a release in 2014. Sniper Elite 3 continues the story of OSS Sniper Karl Farinburner during World War II. The developers are currently focusing on creating detailed environments, refining gameplay, and a new storyline. Sniper Elite 3 is being developed for PC and current/future consoles.
“Sniper Elite V2 has been a great success for us and we are thrilled to partner with Rebellion on Sniper Elite 3," said Ian Howe, president, 505 Games North America. “Fans can look forward to the same heart-pounding action they have come to expect from a Sniper Elite game as well as refined and new features that will blow them away.”
“We’re very excited to be working with 505 Games again on a sequel that will build on the highly successful Sniper Elite V2. We’ve got some great ideas to improve on what we did before and feedback from fans has been invaluable. Sniper Elite V2 was just the beginning of what we want to do with the franchise, there are things we didn’t have time to do before that we can really look at featuring this time. We want to focus on making this latest incarnation of Sniper Elite more of a sandbox game but also build on the awesome X-Ray Kill Cam and the atmospheric World War II setting. We’re looking forward to seeing what Sniper Elite fans and gamers in general make of the latest chapter in the story,” said Jason Kingsley, CEO, Rebellion.
HTC has confirmed that production of the One smartphone is at 20% of capacity, citing shortages of camera components. Germany remains unaffected by this delay, but the UK launch date will be pushed back from March 15 to March 29. All other regions of the world will have their dates changed to an unknown time in April.
Source: NextPowerUp!
To play in the Arma 3 Alpha Lite, players need to be invited by those who have purchased the regular Alpha. The Alpha Lite will also be discontinued on June 18th of 2013. Make sure to check out our Arma 3 Alpha Lite review & giveaway!
Hours before the long anticipated launch of the Galaxy SIV in New York’s Times Square, a new batch of specifications and pictures have been unofficially leaked. They claim that the SIV is 7.7 mm thick and weighs in at 138 g, boasting a 4.99 inch, not to be mistaken with 5 inch, 1080p display. It utilizes a Exynos 5410 octa-core processor running at 1.8 GHz alongside a PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU. Other specifications include the built in 16 GB memory, as well as 2 GB of RAM. The battery is sized at 2600 mAh, quite a bit larger than the S3’s 2100 mAh battery. The official SIV release in New York will take place tonight at 7 PM EST.
Source: NextPowerUp!
Source: Engadget via NextPowerUp!
On
Wednesday, Dell revealed the versatile XPS 18 PC, an 18-inch all-in-one PC from
Dell, which can also be used a supersized tablet that runs Windows 8, sporting a large
touchscreen, similarly to ASUS's Transformer variant. This 5 pound mobile PC starts at $899, which includes a battery
and functions as a tablet when detached from an outlet. It can run up to 5 hours on just one single
battery charge and there are also two stands that pop out to provide balance
when settling it on a table.
The XPS 18
has a high-definition display that has a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. The
main function of all-in-ones is to assume the role of desktops while adding
tablet-like functionality, giving users a new way to interact with the AiO. The
availability of this product was not released. Options of processors for this
product vary from Intel Pentium, Core i3, i5 or i7 based on the Ivy Bridge
microarchitecture. It also includes a 720p webcam, memory card reader, Wi-Fi, 2
USB 3.0 ports, and Bluetooth 4.0. Storage options include a 500GB HDD or a 512GB SSD. Sadly, it does not include
a mouse and keyboard, but it would create a healthy margin of sales for the
company.
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