Valve's Console Killer

Steam, stream, or build for your screen

The last two years have seen an almighty stirring in the foundries buried in Valve’s heartland. Mutterings on the breeze of a new operating system to rival the mighty Windows 10. A platform built and developed—from the ground up—for gamers, by gamers. Yep, you guessed right: That murmur on the wind was none other than Valve’s SteamOS, making its first foray into the spotlight. November 2015 saw its official launch into market and out of beta, and by golly, what a launch the Linux-based operating system has had. In case you forgot, this is an OS that was meant to take the world by storm, transforming living-room gaming irrevocably forever, and providing PC enthusiasts with a suitable solution to all of their console woes. After all, what could go wrong, when it's from the curators and masterminds of the greatest archive of PC games the planet has ever seen?

The Ad-Blocking Conundrum

The future of the web is at stake—who will come to its rescue?

For years, digital publishers have relied ononline advertising to sustain their existence. Save for sites that sit behind a paywall and charge subscription fees, ads are the reason why the vast majority of content on the web is free. It’s a business model that’s worked to this point, but with the recent rise in the use of ad-blockers, publishers and readers are suddenly at odds with one another.

Part of the problem is that many site owners treat ad-blockers as a taboo subject, as though acknowledging their existence will make things worse. Others bring attention to the issue, but in negative ways, by drawing battle lines in the sand. For example, Yahoo recently made headlines for running an ad-blocking test that prevented users of its Yahoo Mail service from accessing their email until they disabled their ad-blockers.

Apple iPad Pro

It’s everything you love about the iPad, only bigger, and with some new tricks – but also a little more confusing…

Evolution of the biological kind is a tough thing to follow, because it happens glacially slowly. It’s not like you can just throw a rat off a cliff and it’ll sprout wings halfway down to save itself. Yet it sometimes feels as if that’s largely how evolution works in the tech world – and with the iPad Pro, it feels like we’ve caught the process halfway down. The result, while impressive and definitely welcome as the ground rushes terminally upwards, is just as odd and sometimes as unsettling as a rat sprouting wings.

Vizio RS65-B2 LCD Ultra HDTV

The Vizio arrived in a huge box—at just over 7 feet long and nearly 175 pounds, you’re not going to just toss this set into the back of your SUV to drive it home. The reason for the massive box is that it also includes a soundbar, subwoofer, and surround speakers, with every piece in its own separate box inside the big one.

You read that right: soundbar, sub, and surrounds. You can either mount the soundbar on the set itself or separately. The sub is wireless, and the surrounds are powered by amps built into the subwoofer. You don’t have to use the soundbar and its accoutrements (though without them, the set has no audio), but you can’t buy the set without it. And according to Vizio, it will work only with the RS65-B2. So if you don’t need it because you already have a good audio system, Aunt Bea won’t be able to use it, either. Nor will selling it on eBay be an option to help offset the cost of the set.

Sony Alpha 7R II: Driving force

Professional motorsport photographer Nick Dungan tests the Sony Alpha 7R II at the 6 Hours of Bahrain World Endurance Championship race

My fascination with motorsport predates my love of photography. In fact, it was my desire to get closer to car racing that inspired me to buy my first DSLR.

I loved cars and motor racing when I was growing up. My dad used to take me to British Touring Car races, and it was great watching from the pit garages and grandstands, but as I grew older I wanted to get closer. I saw the media photographers and it looked like the closest you could get to the action without driving a car. So, as soon as I could, I bought a Canon EOS 400D.