PC Perspective Podcast #221

Join PC Per this week as they talk about Intel Clover Trail, AMD's Trinity Desktop APUs, the Samsung 840 SSD with TLC, and more!

Annoyed Gamer Episode 11

What frustrations does Marcus have with online security? Plus, why isn’t Microsoft popular in Japan?

Enter The Freeman: Half-Life Film

Finally see Gordon Freeman in the flesh in this cinematic horror short based on the video game Half-Life. Yes there will be headcrabs... This 11 minute fan-made film is very well done. Definitely worth watching. Makes me wish someone would make a feature length Half-Life film.

Shot by fans over two nights in a cottage in the middle of Hollywood for about $3000. It all started with the comment "Hey you would make a great live action Gordon Freeman, let's make a fan film". A year later we finally got around to it. Made for the fans and makers of Half-Life. We hope you enjoy!

Take a Free Networking Class from Stanford

Ever wanted to tell everyone you attend Stanford? Well now‘s your chance….and for free. Two Stanford professors are offering a free "Introduction to Computer Networking" with classes over the Internet and all you have to do is sign up. The prerequisites are simple: your above average working knowledge of computers will probably fill the bill.

Acoustic Guitars, Plucked By A Computer

Here's a computer that can play 14 guitars simultaneously. I can only play one Guitar at a time cool video from HardOCP.

Server Rack Tossed Off 18 Story Building

Not only does Symantec products make you want to dive off a building, they have the same effect on your server racks. big grin I guess this marketing stunt was successful, it got me to tune in to watch this thing get pushed off an 18 story building.

Toyota Makes The Backseat Invisible

Imagine parallel parking into a space and knowing exactly how far your bumper is from the vehicle behind you. It's a dream that rear-view cameras and in-dash displays have only marginally delivered on. But this technology promises to turn a vehicle's entire back seat into a giant display showing everything happening behind the vehicle in full scale. So when you turn around in your seat to back up, it will basically look like the back half of your vehicle has been lopped off.

High-Tech Low-Cost Halloween Costumes

I just have to post this, even though this video is basically a commercial for these interactive t-shirts, these are too damn cool.

Borderlands 2 PhysX Settings Comparison

The first thing we wanted to learn was just how much difference you would see by moving from Low (the lowest setting, there is no "off") to Medium and then to High. The effects were identical on both AMD and NVIDIA cards and we made a short video here to demonstrate the changes in settings.

Hack Your Doorbell To Open Locks

The only thing I see wrong with this idea is the possibility of someone opening your gate with a random combination by accident.

iPhone Case Stops .50 Cal Bullet!

This thing may be ugly as hell and it weigh a ton, believe it or not, the thing actually stopped a .50 cal bullet. Wow.

Dead Space 3 Gets Fan-Made Weapon

You gotta love a good underdog story, especially when that story involves a gun that shoots huge nails that are also on fire. Rather than greedily hold onto all the Dead Space 3 gun creation power themselves, Visceral has given players the option to create their own. Occasionally, they'll decide to toss one into the game, like a certain Caleb Mendoza's HUN-E1 Badger. How's that for fan service?

STALKER Reveals First Faction, Region, Ties

For the foreseeable future, Survarium is as close as we'll get to STALKER 2, and the two franchise appear to have more in common than I first thought. The debut game from Vostok Games, the studio created out of the ashes of GSC Game World, may be an MMOFPS, but it certainly captures the look and feel of STALKER. Get a good look at one of its regions and factions in the latest Survarium developer diary.

Assassin's Creed 3's Connor Trailer

AC3's Connor is a man stuck in a conflict between three worlds. He's a half Native American of Mohawk descent at a time when his people are being driven from their lands, all the while participating in a war between the American colonies and the British. Needless to say, his life is a little complicated, and this new trailer reveals how his mixed roots and colliding interests lead to his training as an assassin.

Hitman: Absolution The Killer Mode Trailer

The last scene in the Hitman trailer raises a question. I play my stealth games with brains instead of brawn, and when my well-laid plans are ruined, I typically just let my character fall under the knife before starting my stealth strategy again from my last save. How do you play your stealth-action games? And when you're spotted, do you switch to Rambo mode or do you treat it as falling off a cliff?

Far Cry 3: Lost Expeditions DLC

Far Cry 3's first planned DLC, Lost Expeditions, has gotten itself its own trailer. Yes! Who knew that DLC for as-yet-to-be-released games could receive their own promotional campaign? We seem to be getting a little ahead of ourselves here. In any case, the trailer claims that this DLC will add two unique new missions, totaling an extra 40 minutes of gameplay. That's an extra 40 minutes of deafening gunfire and things aflame. Score!

Annoyed Gamer Episode 10

Will BioWare be the same without the Doctors? Plus, Marcus rants about Metacritic & review scores!

Command & Conquer The Ultimate Collection Released

Holy crap. I'm going to be mining Tiberium for the rest of time. EA released Command & Conquer The Ultimate Collection today, a bundle which includes 17 C&C games and expansions for $50. It's not quite every game to be released in the classic strategy series, but it's damn close. Oh, and one more thing. If you pick up The Ultimate Collection, you'll also get beta access to the upcoming Command & Conquer, the free-to-play version of the RTS which drops in 2013.

From the Best Selling Real-Time Strategy franchise of all time, rediscover the groundbreaking, action-packed strategy game-play that changed PC gaming forever with Command & Conquer™ The Ultimate Collection. Fight as the Global Defense Initiative or the Brotherhood of Nod as they clash over the rare mineral Tiberium in the classic original series.

Challenge the red menace in an alternate universe in Red Alert, then step into the near future with Generals as China and the United States battle the Global Liberation Army, a terrorist organization hell-bent on bringing the world to its knees! Rule all three Command & Conquer universes and more with this incredible value – including 17 games and more!

AMD Prepping Hondo Hardware

A flashlight-equipped duo discovers in an engineering lab something "beyond explanation", something "mutated" and "cool". The video ends with what apparently is a secret notebook, but "not a laptop". The product is not quite as mysterious as it may sound, as the hints match up closely with previous claims made by AMD about its Hondo APU.

Hondo and the Hudson M2T FCH (Fusion Controller Hub) will become the Brazos-T platform that is AMD's x86 play to compete, together with Intel's Atom, against a wave of ARM rivals that will become available in Windows RT notebooks. Hondo's primary target in that market will be Nvidia's Tegra 3. SemiAccurate posted supposed specifications of AMD's platform, which are to receive the commercial names of the Z-60 APU and the A55T FCH. The dual-core CPU will run at 1.0 GHz and integrate a Radeon HD6250 graphics chip at 276 MHz.

Intel Pits HDD Against SSD in Human Productivity

If you're reading Tom's Hardware, you're probably well aware of the advantages of a solid state drive over a traditional hard drive. However, not all users are as tech savvy. Many people have little to no idea of the difference an SSD could make to their system until they see the difference for themselves. Intel took a handful of office workers and gave them a 'productivity test,' pitting each worker against an actor using a machine with an SSD. Sadly, the video doesn't go as far as to reveal the truth to those featured, or even ask them what they thought of the difference in speed. Still, it's interesting to watch despite this.

Note that Intel rolled out this video shortly before the launch of its SATA III drives, but it's still amusing to see how the company is trying to convey a faster technology to the masses.