LeMaker Guitar

The last LeMaker product I reviewed was the Banana Pro back in July 2015, and if you thought the Chinese-based electronics company had finished drawing inspiration from the Raspberry Pi Foundation when it dropped the ‘Banana Pi’ branding, the Guitar will soon disabuse you of that notion. Based in no small part on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module, the Guitar serves to fill a gap in the market, being an affordable computer-on-module (COM) in a 204-pin SODIMM form factor.

So far, so Compute Module. However, while the Raspberry Pi Foundation has been slow to replace the Compute Module’s aging single-core ARMv6 BCM2835 system-on-chip processor, the Guitar boasts a quad-core ARMv7 chip running at up to 1.3GHz, sitting alongside a PowerVR SGX544 graphics processor. There’s also 1GB of DDR3 memory included on the SODIMM module itself, along with a combined audio and power management unit and 8GB of on-board flash storage. That’s a lot of hardware, and the footprint suffers for it.

Taming the wilderness

Online abuse in gaming and over social media is widespread and severe. Rick Lane investigates why it happens, the damage it inflicts and how it can be stopped

It’s common knowledge that the Internet has a nasty side. From petty and vindictive arguments in comments sections to flaming in online games, the Internet can be a hostile and volatile place. Indeed, a whole lexicon has arisen around the subject of how to avoid the worst excesses of interacting online, such as ‘don’t read the comments’ and ‘don’t feed the trolls’.

The ugly side of the Internet is viewed as part of its essential nature, an unfortunate but necessary evil in its capacity as a free and open platform. Sure, someone swearing at and insulting you in a comment isn’t very nice, but it boils down to words on a screen from someone thousands of miles away; how hurtful can that be?

Helldivers

Helldivers is the finest cooperative game since Left 4 Dead, a frenzied team-based shooter where, if your enemies don’t get you, you’ll be got accidentally by your friends instead. It’s Starship Troopers meets Keystone Cops, a blend of frenetic action, tongue-in-cheek satire and slapstick comedy. It’s also fearsomely challenging and richly rewarding, taking no prisoners but recognising talent and teamwork.

Arrowhead Studios’ sci-fi shenanigans place you in the steelplated boots of a Helldiver, one of thousands of identikit interstellar soldiers tasked with bringing ‘democracy’ to the alien enemies of Super Earth in a vast galactic war. The Helldivers’ approach to spreading government via popular consensus is certainly unique – they land on an alien planet by orbital drop pod, then shoot or explode anything that comes within a hundred feet of their position until the planet is conquered.

QPAD DX-20

We reviewed QPAD’s very first gaming mouse – the excellent 5K – back in 2009 and since then the company has gone on to produce more great gaming mice, as well as keyboards and award-winning headsets. The DX-20, though, is a complete redesign and a comparatively expensive one too. It’s still relatively long at 130mm, but it now lacks the five-finger grip support of its predecessors and sports an ambidextrous design, albeit with thumb buttons on the left side. It’s narrower too, with no support for fingers other than your usual two finger buttons.

In Win Chopin

Last month we looked at Fractal Design’s excellent Core 500, which is fairly typical of a cube mini-ITX case. You can fit relatively large graphics cards inside it, as well as a full-sized ATX PSU, 5.25in drives, several SSDs and fans, and even a modicum of water-cooling components too. However, you can make your system even smaller if you’re prepared to chop a few items from your shopping list, and use a tiny case such as In Win’s Chopin.

Our initial thoughts when we saw images of the case for the first time was that it was a relatively attractive mini-ITX case that could compete with the likes of In Win’s own 901, or perhaps the Phanteks Evolv ITX. We were a little disappointed to read, then, that the Chopin lacked any room for expansion slots – it was a motherboard-only case. However, when we looked at the dimensions, we were flabbergasted.