The Google Glass

Google Glass is a type of wearable technology with an optical head-mounted display (OHMD). It was developed by Google with the mission of producing a mass-market ubiquitous computer. Google Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format. Wearers communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands. Google started selling Google Glass to qualified "Glass Explorers" in the US on April 15, 2013 for a limited period for $1,500, before it became available to the public on May 15, 2014  for the same price.

Google provides four prescription frame choices for $225.00 U.S and free with the purchase of any new Glass unit. It is necessary to remove a small screw in order to move the Google Glass from one frame to another. Google entered in a partnership with the Italian eyewear company Luxottica, owners of the Ray-Ban, Oakley, and other brands, to offer additional frame designs.

Features

• Touchpad
• Camera
• Display

Applications

• MyGlass
• Voice Activation

The Oculus Rift

(Back View)

(Front View)

(Control Box)

The Rift is an upcoming virtual reality head-mounted display, being developed by Oculus VR. During its period as an independent company, Oculus VR raised US $2.4 million for the development of the Rift. The consumer version of the product is expected to become available in April 2015.

Videos of the Rift featuring both impressions and gameplay have been broadcast on YouTube by a number of popular video game content providers, with home video titled "My 90-year-old grandmother tries the Oculus Rift" going viral, with over 2 million views.

Games and game platforms must be specifically designed to work correctly with the Oculus Rift. Oculus is producing a software development kit (SDK) to assist developers with integrating the Oculus Rift with their games. The SDK will include code, samples and documentation. Since its introduction, many developers have been working on integration.

Team Fortress 2 was the first game to add support for the Oculus Rift, and is currently available to play with the Oculus Rift dev kit by use of a command line option. The second title to support the Oculus Rift was the Oculus-only version of Museum of the Microstar which was released in April 2013. Half-Life 2 was the third, and Hawken is likely to be the fourth game to support the Rift; it was prominently featured in the Kickstarter, and Oculus used it to demo the Rift at the GDC.

The Kinect from Xbox

Kinect (codenamed in development as Project Natal) is a line of motion sensing input devices by Microsoft for Xbox 360 and Xbox One video game consoles and Windows PCs. Based around a webcam-style add-onperipheral, it enables users to control and interact with their console/computer without the need for a game controller, through a natural user interface using gestures and spoken commands. The first-generation Kinect was first introduced in November 2010 in an attempt to broaden Xbox 360's audience beyond its typical gamer base. A version for Windows was released on February 1, 2012. Kinect competes with severalmotion controllers on other home consoles, such as Wii Remote Plus for Wii and Wii U, PlayStation Move/PlayStation Eye for PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Camera for PlayStation 4.

Kinect builds on software technology developed internally by Rare, a subsidiary of Microsoft Game Studios owned by Microsoft, and on range camera technology by Israeli developer PrimeSense, which developed a system that can interpret specific gestures, making completely hands-free control of electronic devices possible by using an infrared projector and camera and a special microchip to track the movement of objects and individuals in three dimensions. This 3D scanner system called Light Coding employs a variant of image-based 3D reconstruction.

Kinect sensor is a horizontal bar connected to a small base with a motorized pivot and is designed to be positioned lengthwise above or below the video display. The device features an "RGB camera, depth sensor and multi-array microphone running proprietary software", which provide full-body 3D motion capture, facial recognition and voice recognition capabilities. At launch, voice recognition was only made available in Japan, United Kingdom, Canada and United States. Mainland Europe received the feature later in spring 2011. Currently voice recognition is supported in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan,Mexico, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States. Kinect sensor's microphone array enables Xbox 360 to conduct acoustic source localization and ambient noise suppression, allowing for things such as headset-free party chat over Xbox Live.

The depth sensor consists of an infrared laser projector combined with a monochrome CMOS sensor, which captures video data in 3D under any ambient light conditions. The sensing range of the depth sensor is adjustable, and Kinect software is capable of automatically calibrating the sensor based on gameplay and the player's physical environment, accommodating for the presence of furniture or other obstacles.

ASUS G750JZ

Pros: Top-end gaming performance; Runs quiet and cool; Attractive design; Very good battery life

Cons: Expensive; Keyboard not customizable

With its new Nvidia GeForce GTX 880M GPU, the ASUS G750JZ is one of the mightiest gaming laptops on the market. At $2,999, it's not cheap, but this rig delivers some of the best gaming scores we've seen yet. Hardcore gamers may want to wait and see what sort of performance competing systems from Alienware and MSI deliver, but for those who want the best right away in a rad design, the G750JZ won't disappoint. - See more at: http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/asus-g750-xs72#sthash.fa494dUT.dpuf

The Alienware M18x

• PROS
  Blazing performance. Solid build quality. Sleek design. Cool lighting effects.
• CONS
  Expensive. Short battery life.
• BOTTOM LINE
  The Alienware M18x looks intimidating and has the performance chops that gamers crave, but it doesn't come cheap.

The Alienware brand and PC gaming are synonymous, and with good reason. For the past 15 years the folks at Alienware have been churning out high-end gaming systems, and thankfully they continue to so. Its flagship laptop rig, the M18x ($4,529 direct), is packed with over-the-top components and presented in a sharp-looking chassis complete with tricked-out lighting effects and a killer 18.4-inch display. You'll pay more at the pump for this high-octane notebook and you don't get a lot of battery life, but for gamers seeking LAN party dominance it's an easy decision: The M18x eclipses last year's Alienware M17x cost-no-object (over $3,000) gaming laptops.

The Razer Blade

PROS

• Fast and powerful
• Great 3,200 x 1,800 display
• Slim, compact and attractive

CONS

• Expensive
• Screen resolution can undercut performance
• Shorter battery life than the 2013 model

The newest Razer Blade is the company's best laptop yet, but it trades epic battery life for an exceptional display.

Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan describes the 2014 Razer Blade as a "no-compromise" gaming laptop, and that's almost accurate. Between the machine's screaming graphics performance, its thin chassis and that new QHD+ touchscreen, I was hard-pressed to find a legitimate complaint. Even so, the shadow of compromise is indeed here. The 14-inch Blade's enhancements undo one of the previous models' best features: battery life. Lasting only about four hours on a single charge, the new Blade still has a decent runtime (for a gaming machine), but it used to be exemplary. It's a loss worth mourning.

It's also worth noting that the new Blade is the first in the product's history to launch with a higher price than the previous model, further solidifying it as a premium gaming machine that won't compromise features for the sake of price. Either way, Razer's 2014 Blade is the company's best laptop yet, trumping its previous machine in nearly every regard. If you've got deep pockets, an appreciation for finely crafted electronics and the know-how to navigate the machine's enormous touch display, you may have found your next laptop.

Borderlands 2

Game Review

Borderlands 2 is a first-person shooter that randomly generates the guns you find, varying damage values, clip sizes, accuracy, and even how many bullets they fire at once. It’s built like an RPG: you level up by killing things, improve your character’s abilities, and find higher-level guns to kill higher-level beasts and bandits on a rocky, backwater planet.

That was already compulsive in Borderlands 1, but here the formula’s been tweaked to ridiculously addictive effect. I think I had one or two guns I really liked in Borderlands, and the rest were necessary but uninspiring situational alternatives. In 2, I have a full loadout of weird, powerful and satisfying weapons I love, and an entire ‘alternate’ set in my backpack that I switch in and out to compare potency.

I’ve become a gun scientist. Sometimes I fill all four weapon slots with different types of shotgun and throw myself into a nest of Skags – as one does – to take notes.

The Jakobs has the numbers – 24 pellets at 600 damage each – but it’s an ammo hog, and the Hyperion’s bigger clip makes it better against mobs. But it’s hard to bench the Tediore, because when it’s out of shells, you can throw it at someone and it explodes and a new one teleports into your hands. And goddamn it, I’ve run out of Skags.

This is the game, and it makes Borderlands persistently fresh in a way other shooters never are. So it’s weird that they kick it off with a painfully slow introductory segment that strips the game of everything that makes it good. It’s ages before the first randomised gun even drops, and for ages after that, it’s all useless inaccurate trash. And although the quests later become a highlight, in the first hour they’re a maddening drag. You spend most of your time trying to figure out why your robot guide Claptrap has stopped following you, and backtracking to unstick his sloppy scripting.

It matters more than most shitty intros, because you’ll probably go through it more than once. Even if you stick to one class, you can start the game again after you complete it, taking your levelled character into a mode with new high-level enemies and loot. And if you don’t, of course, there are three more classes to try.

The Commando can throw down a turret, a play style that needs some planning: you can execute satisfying pincer movements, but it doesn’t help you escape if you screw up.

The new Siren can temporarily suspend a single enemy in the air, and her skill recharges rapidly enough to be used in every fight. It’s spectacularly cool to leap into the air to get a perfect shotgun critical on your hovering victim.

The Gunzerker can enter a rage that lets him use two guns at once, regenerating health and ammo as he goes. It’s fun, but the perks he can unlock as he levels up are less interesting: mostly percentage increases to this or that.

The Assassin can cloak, leaving a hologram of himself to keep enemies focused on his former location. I stuck with him for my main character, upgrading to give myself lots of buffs shortly after every kill. The ultimate skill in that tree let me maintain stealth if my melee attack killed someone in one hit. I could prey on groups by taking out the weakest first, invisibly eliminating each until only the toughest was left.

The main quest takes you to some cool places, but it’s often marred by disproportionately tough bosses. Dying in a boss fight also undoes all the damage you’ve dealt, wasting all that time and ammo. I once made the mistake of using the nearby fast-travel station to get to a shop to restock. Turns out you can’t travel back to that particular beacon, so I had to do the whole mission again, with all enemies respawned.

Luckily, you can level up by doing side missions first, where these problems generally don’t come up.

It’s generally well-adapted to the PC: graphics options, an FoV slider, some sensible control tweaks, and most importantly smooth and responsive mouse movement. My only issue is that levels load before the textures are ready, so everything’s hideously blurry for a moment.

I’ve been playing Borderlands 2 all day, every day, for five days – and I’m probably going to play it again when I finish this. It’s not the most consistently brilliant game, but I can’t think of another singleplayer shooter that’s given me more hours of fun. My Assassin’s second playthrough is as interesting as starting fresh with a new class, and I plan to do both.

It seems crass to judge a game by quantity, but this is quantity of quality. So if the amount of money you spend on games is a practical concern, it’s worth saying that this one is freakishly good value. Even if it’s not a concern, it’s worth saying that this one is freakishly good.

Verdict:

An even more satisfying and tactically interesting shooter, with great missions and excitingly random guns.

90/100

Team Fortress 2

Game Review

Team Fortress 2 is the best game I’ve ever played. Over the last three and a half years I’ve clocked up 666 hours on Badwater and Dustbowl. I’ve stabbed, shot, cloaked, crafted, traded and unlocked my way to a backpack full of awesome weapons and hats. Where Team Fortress 2 is now, with its ridiculous weapons, headgear and recipes, is a long way from the lean multiplayer shooter it launched as.

And now it’s free. Imagine people on servers freezing at the news: the Red Scout’s fish flopping in his hand, the Blu Soldier raising his frying pan, about to crown a Pyro before stopping and looking around. All this? Free? Really?

It’s difficult to comprehend. Fortyeight maps, nine classes, most of the weapons: Valve are giving them away for nothing. All you need is a Steam account. With that you have a free account for TF2: you get a 50-slot backpack to hold your stuff, access to all the standard items, and limited crafting (no rare items).

To upgrade to premium (everyone who bought the game is a premium user), with 300 backpack slots and access to all weapons and full trading, all you need to do is buy one item from the microtransaction store. The cost of the cheapest items (such as the Soldier’s replacement rocket launcher, the Direct Hit) is 29p. That the dearest item, a pack containing all the weapons and apparel of the most recent update, costs £59, is of no consequence.

Even though Valve make money from sales, they’ve provided a number of ways of getting items for free. You can unlock weapons for every class through achievements. You get weapons given to you through random item drops. If you don’t like what they’ve given you, you can use the crafting system to smelt the weapons into raw material for weapons you do want. Or you can trade. Simply playing the game will give you ample rewards. It’s the best example of F2P I can think of. There’s no splitting of the community, either: new maps and game modes are always free.

Whether it’s Capture the Flag, Control Point or Payload, the servers are full of glowing Heavies with pet Medics in tow, Pyros charging into flaming targets with their barbedwires axes raised over their gimp masks, Soldiers and Demomen flying through the air, boots on fire. They host last-minute dives to stop a Payload bomb detonating the server, and rows of dancing Engies. I’ve dropped in on a server where everyone was battling a laser death cat that was spitting bees from its mouth. Even with intense rocket fire and grenade spam from everyone in the game, it still reigned supreme.

Valve’s continual tinkering has led to classes that can play multiple roles. The Demo-man started off as a grenade-spamming defence class, but with his new boots, shield and sword add-ons, he’s a frontline, headhunting warrior. Possibly with an Afro. The Spy can either be skulking in a corner, cloaked and waiting for the perfect moment to strike, or he can swap watches and run into battle and drop a fake corpse just to mess with the enemy.

Anyone signing up to Team Fortress 2 for the first time now will be part of an ever-expanding community, something that Valve have smartly steered but also learned from. It’s a vast experiment in incremental game design, but one that provides comics, movies, and piles of hats. Every update is an event and every player can be part of it. For a game that started out as just a multiplayer shooter, Team Fortress 2 has become something astonishing.

Verdict:

A brilliant, ever-evolving multiplayer shooter. three years on and Team Fortress 2 is better and cheaper than ever.

96/100

Defense Of The Ancients 2 / Dota 2

Game Review

Of the half-dozen people I started learning Dota 2 with, three still play regularly. Though there are hundreds of thousands of players of our approximate skill level populating the matchmaking queues, the four of us are more like each other than we are like anyone else playing Valve’s isometric wizard-’em-up.

Spending a year learning to shuffle a gaggle of fantasy heroes up Dota’s teetering stack of rules and game mechanics will do that to you: we’ve developed a secret language of our own, one that runs parallel to the talk of creeps and lanes and farm and rax common to everyone who plays the game. “Whack a ward on the donkletron I’m going to stick one up their jungle” is a sentence I can say out loud and be completely understood by at least those three people. For some reason, there’s also a lot of singing involved. It’s a lot like being a sailor.

Dota 2 is a remake of Defence of the Ancients, the Warcraft III mod that laid out the principles of levelling up a hero, pushing lanes and knocking down towers. Many of the games that followed the original DotA sanded down its rougher edges in pursuit of new audiences or alternative business models. That’s not the case here: this is the lane-pushing game in its original, most intricate form. Getting into Dota 2 means committing time to learning a game whose mechanics have been designed with complexity rather than accessibility in mind.

If you’re looking for a reason to commit time to Dota 2 – if you’re actually reading this review for advice and a critical opinion, rather than to see what score I’m going to give the most popular game on Steam – then, first up, thanks for being here. Second, I want you to consider what it means when two grown men accidentally lather each other in regenerative goop. It’s gaming’s equivalent of holding a door open for somebody who is already reaching to hold the door open for you: a synchronicity of kindness that speaks to a deeper shared understanding of the situation both people are in. Dota is a game where you can say the words “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” and be reliably assured that the person on the other end of your VoIP connection actually is. It might have the systems and bearing of a videogame, but Dota shares the social impetus of a sport. Its single environment isn’t a map, it’s a pitch.

Verdict:

A deep and rewarding competitive game that becomes something special when taken on in the company of others.

90/100

One Xbox vs. PlayStation 4: Console Wars

The wait is over. The  Xbox One $ 399.00 and Amazon  and PlayStation 4 $ 455.95 and Ebay are here. They're ready. They're available. And they're inevitably going to be compared with one another. If you want to get a new video game system, these two are the frontrunners of the current generation, with Several years of games ahead of them and loads of new hardware and features. We put the PS4 and Xbox One against each other in a variety of categories to determine Which system comes out on top.  

Price

The PlayStation 4 is a full $ 100 less expensive than the Xbox One, winning the price war decisively. Depending on your gaming preferences, you MIGHT actually see savings greater than $ 100 by getting the PS4 over the Xbox One.

Both Microsoft and Sony offer premium subscriptions to their online services. Xbox users can get a year of Xbox Live Gold for $ 60, and PlayStation users can get a month of PS Plus for $ 50. For Both systems, this premium service is required to play multiplayer games online. However, the Xbox One also Requires Xbox Live Gold to use any online media services or the OneGuide feature, as well. The PS4 can run Netflix, Hulu Plus, and other apps without a PS Plus membership. PS Plus can still be beneficial to gamers of all stripes, though, since it tends to offer many more and varied free (as part of the subscription) games than Xbox Live Gold currently does.

Winner: PlayStation 4

Hardware

Now that Both systems are out, arguing about the technical specifications seems moot. On paper, the PlayStation 4 has a slight edge thanks to using GDDR5 RAM instead of the DDR3 RAM used in the Xbox One, but besides that their hardware is incredibly similar. Both have 8-core AMD CPUs, 8GB of memory, 500GB internal hard drives, and Blu-ray optical drives.

Because of differing architectures and operating systems, benchmarking and comparing the directly- One Xbox and the PlayStation 4 is effectively impossible. They're so similar we can not declare one to be superior based on specs, and they're different enough that we can not compare directly- performance. At this point, it's up to developers to get the most out of Either console, and whether one truly shines as more powerful will only be revealed with new games and how They performed. Different games MIGHT run at 720p or 1080p, 30fps or 60fps or, Between the different systems. But there's no single, set winner here.

Winner: Tie

Controls

You need a good gamepad to play games, and Both the Xbox and PlayStation 4 One have them. The Xbox gamepad One is a slightly updated version of the Xbox 360 controller, with a slightly more rounded feel and trigger buttons that offer individual force feedback. The DualShock 4, the PS4's gamepad, is a Completely overhauled controller that keeps the best parts of the DualShock 3 gamepad and fixes the worst. The analog sticks feel better, the triggers are more responsive, and the controller just feels nicer in the hand. Even it features a built-in speaker and a potentially Useful but so far underutilized touchpad in the middle. The only problem with the DualShock 4 is the light bar that marks Which controllers are on and assigned to Which players. You can not turn off the light bar or Even dim it, and if your HDTV is glossy you'll probably catch an irritating glare from it if you do not cover it up.

The Xbox One gamepad is great, but the DualShock 4 is outright excellent with a few irritating or puzzling features. Neither shouldnt be considered a deal-breaker Because They Both played very well, but the DualShock 4 is simply the most comfortable gamepad we've tested yet.

Winner: PlayStation 4

Games

The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 dmg each are less than a year old, and that they're Both Means dealing with the early doldrums Known as the launch lineup. Dmg each system has a handful of excellent games, but the best titles are coming in the next year or two.

Most major games are available for Both systems, like the Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, and Madden franchises. Dmg each console has a few notable exclusives, though. The Xbox One boasts Killer Instinct, Dead Rising 3, and Forza Motorsport 4 5 The PlayStation has the less impressive Killzone: Shadows Fall and Knack. Neither set of exclusives is enough to justify the purchase yet, and upcoming titles look much more interesting than what's available now. The Xbox One will get the highly anticipated Titanfall, while the PlayStation 4 will get less notable but still intriguing The Order: 1886, Infamous: Second Son, and Driveclub. Expect the biggest games of the next year (excluding One Xbox and Windows-exclusive Titanfall) to be cross-platform titles, though.

Winner: Tie

Online Services

Whether you want to play online games or watch Netflix, you need to connect your game system to the Internet. The Xbox One uses Xbox Live, and the PlayStation 4 uses the PlayStation Network to access online services. In Both cases, you need to purchase the premium subscription plan (Xbox Live Gold for Xbox Live, PlayStation Network for PS Plus) to play games online. However, for streaming media services like Netflix and Hulu Plus, only the Xbox One Requires Xbox Live Gold. You can use any app on the PlayStation 4 without a PS Plus membership. PS Plus also offers better benefits than some Xbox Live Gold thanks to a regular rotating list of free games. Xbox Live Gold has a handful of free titles, but PS Plus refreshes Them offers more and more often.

Winner: PlayStation 4

Camera

The Xbox One Includes the Kinect camera, Which provides voice control and facial recognition for the system and offers Several Useful features. The PlayStation 4 does not include a camera, but the optional PlayStation Camera offers similar functionality. The PlayStation 4's voice controls are much less flexible or sophisticated than the Xbox One. Microsoft's console is also the only one that can use Skype, without video chat and there's little reason to consider in spending the extra $ 60 on the PS4's camera.

Winner: Xbox One

Media Features

Both the Xbox and PlayStation 4 One can play Blu-ray movies and access a variety of online services like Netflix and Hulu Plus. The Xbox One goes an extra step with its television integration. An HDMI passthrough lets you run your cable or satellite box through the Xbox One, and an infrared blaster in the Kinect can control it. This incorporates live television through your cable or satellite provider into the Xbox One's menu system, giving Kinect-based voice control over live television. The program guide displays OneGuide Both live television and what content is available on services like Hulu Plus and Machinima, giving you total control over what you watch without having to pick up a remote or a gamepad. Even if you do not want to use voice controls to change channels, you can simply enjoy a split screen view of what's on television while you play your favorite game or browsing the Web, thanks to the Xbox One's Snap feature. In bringing all of your home entertainment together into one HDMI input, the Xbox One wins by far.

Winner: Xbox One

Totals

By the numbers, the PlayStation 4 wins. Of course, "by the numbers" assumes no weighting Between categories, simply tallying points Which makes meaningless. The PlayStation 4 has an edge in price and a much nicer (if irritatingly lit) controller, but the Xbox One jumps far ahead in media features if you do not mind Both the $ 100 extra on the system and the $ 60 per year for a subscription to Xbox Live Gold. The PlayStation 4 is economically superior as a pure gaming system, but the Xbox One is superior as a comprehensive media hub that doubles as a game system. Either way, as always, the biggest determining factor shouldnt be Which games you want to play, and Which platform will have them.