The Console Contender

How Sony is using PlayStation to make a play for VR dominance

SETTING PLAYSTATION VR APART

PlayStation VR is unique from other VR options being readied in that it’s the only platform that tethers to a console. This means PlayStation 4 owners won’t constantly be asking themselves if their system is powerful enough to enjoy the newest games.

As of November, Sony has sold 30.2 million PS4s. This could help Sony market PlayStation VR to its already large player base, as the plug-andplay nature of consoles could help make it a more attractive option early on for the mainstream audience. Of course, a large number of PC owners – a much larger install base – already own rigs capable of running the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. Because of this, Sony must put an emphasis on its accessibility, its plug-and-play ability, and its name recognition with the mainstream audience.

Making Room For The Vive

Valve and HTC think they have a better way to do VR

LEARNING TO LOVE VR

In early 2012, Valve established a hardware-research group with the goal of developing projects such as the Steam Machine and Steam Controller. The team was also excited to work with augmented reality technology, but quickly came to the conclusion that virtual reality was a more exciting project. All the pieces for a great virtual reality headset were out there, but nobody was putting them together into a single headset.

The team spent 18 months buying pre-existing virtual reality technology off eBay and hacking it into a new patchwork VR headset. However, not everyone at Valve was convinced the project was worth the company’s time.

Oculus Prepares For The Virtual Future

Visionary Palmer Luckey’s dream is about to become reality

SETTING THE STAGE

Over the past 60 years, dating back to the first United States Air Force visual flight simulator, innovators and enthusiasts have been attempting to make immersive multimedia a reality. It took a 19-year-old who put it upon himself to fix the medium’s failures before people began to believe that virtual reality was viable.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey built his first prototypes in his parents’ garage leading up to development of what became the most direct predecessor to the Rift. A year later, after id Software co-founder John Carmack received one of the units, it was introduced to the world at E3 2012 running a version of Doom 3.

Killing Network Congestion

There's a war going on in the land of networking. Over the last year we've seen Rivet Network's Killer e2400 Gigabit Ethernet controller springing up all over the place, mostly on gaming-oriented motherboards, although we've also seen it in Dell and Alienware PCs. It promises to deliver razor-sharp pings while simultaneously allowing large downloads and media streaming in the background, but we've been a little skeptical so far. This is because our earlier experiences with Killer networking products weren't the greatest, but the time has come to put the company's latest Ethernet controller to the Labs test.

But before we head to the benchmarks, let's take a look at Rivet's past.

AOC G2770PF FreeSync Display

FreeSync on the cheap

We’re calling it now - the days of Nvidia's proprietary G-sync technology are numbered, and displays like the new G2770PF prove why. At a tad over $500, it shows how AMD’s competing FreeSync standard can match the quality of Nvidia's solution at a much less painful price. And with Intel recently announcing its support for Adaptive-Sync, the tech that FreeSync is based upon, G-sync seems even less relevant than ever. However, AOC has had to make a couple of rather severe compromises to deliver such a high-speed display at this price range.

How To Build An Emergency USB

When Windows won’t work and your PC won’t boot, what do you do? You use an emergency boot disk, that’s what

There are few moments in your time using a PC that are as panicinducing as being unable to boot into Windows. The thought that all your data, programs and other content is potentially lost because you can’t get to it can be enough to send you into a cold sweat, and understandably so.

If you can’t get to Windows, how on earth are you supposed to fix your PC and get your data back? Is there anything you can do, or are you stuck? No, you’re not stuck and there is an answer; it just needs a little forward planning, a USB drive and some useful software. This answer is to create an emergency USB drive.

Is Windows 10 Having A Wobble?

Microsoft’s latest operating system came out in July. Sarah Dobbs looks at how hard Microsoft is willing to push it onto users…

Upgraded to Windows 10 yet? Microsoft’s newest operating system is meant to be great, ditching the features of Windows 8 that people didn’t like and introducing all kinds of new stuff; it’s meant to be the operating system that’ll stick around for years, work on every device with every imaginable app, and finally persuade those slow adopters to ditch Windows XP at long last.

2016 Hardware Preview

David Crookes looks forward to the hardware goodies set to come our way over the next 12 months

It may be a sign of ageing but, boy, hasn’t 2015 gone fast? It barely seems like yesterday when we were ushering 2014 away and yet here we are waving a big fat goodbye to 2015 and starting to roll out the red carpet for 2016. Normally, we would say the new year would be very welcome, only it doesn’t appear as if it is going to start too well for our data. The Intel Security McAfee Labs Threats Predictions Report says cyber threats, attacks on hardware and firmware and the  continued flogging of stolen information are going to be solid features of the next 12 months.