Valve Announces Steam Machines

Valve Steam Box concept

Valve, today, in the second announcement of three planned for this week, announced The Steam Box Machines. In an announcement where they really told us…. well not really anything. Other then to saying that they are working with partners to create various machines, and there will be a beta test, in which they are inviting 300 people from the public to test these machines, which if you are interested in doing so, you can go see the requirements for the “hardware beta test” Here.

We don’t have specs, we don’t have a drawing, we don’t get to see a prototype, really all they have told is “Entertainment is not a one-size-fits-all world. We want you to be able to choose the hardware that makes sense for you, so we are working with multiple partners to bring a variety of Steam gaming machines to market during 2014, all of them running SteamOS.” They have said that they would be shipping hardware in 2014, and that said hardware will be running SteamOS.

Oh and at the very bottom we get this little, possibly foreshadowing, morsel “Am I going to be using a mouse and a keyboard in the living-room? If you want. But Steam and SteamOS work well with gamepads, too. Stay tuned, though – we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input.”  Possibly tipping their hand at what Friday’s announcement will be? I guess we will have to wait till then and see.

They have stated that we will begin to see Steam Machines in early 2014.

You can check out the Steam Machines page Here.

By Dayne “Anjel” Cody
@DayneCody

Microsoft Announces the new generation Surface 2 and Surface 2 Pro Tablets and Accessories.

Microsoft Surface 2

This morning, Microsoft showed off their next generation Surface Tablets, the Surface 2 running windows 8.1 RT and the Surface Pro 2 running Windows 8.1 pro. Here is what’s new:

Surface 2

  • New 2 stage Kickstand
  • Tegra 4 SOC for up to 4 times the performance of the old Tegra 3
  • Bigger battery, for up to 10 hours of battery life
  • 10.1″ 1080p IPS Screen (the old one was only 768p)
  • USB 3.0, Micro SD and HD video out ports
  • Increased WiFi and RAM performance
  • Users get 200GB of Skydrive Storage free for 2 years when they buy a Surface 2
  • 1 Year free Skype calling to landlines also included
  • Windows 8.1 RT Installed
  • Outlook 2013 RT preinstalled
  • Now thinner at 8.9mm and lighter at 676 grams
  • Now comes in both black and white
  • Starting at $449.99
  • Pre-Orders start Sept 24, Shipping to 21 markets Oct 21.

Surface Pro 2

  • New 2 stage kickstand
  • Intel 1.6GHz Core i5 Haswell processor (which is supposed to be faster and quieter then its predecessor)
  • 10.1″ 1080p Clearblack IPS Screen
  • Up to 512GB Internal Storage
  • 2 USB 2 Ports, 1USB 3.0, mini DisplayPort, Ethernet, Micro SD slot, audio in/out and charging ports.
  • Can output up to 3,840 x 2,160 pixels on an external display
  • Battery life increased by as much as 75% due to battery, architectural changes, CPU and platform changes.
  • Windows 8.1 Installed
  • 1 Year free Skype calling to landlines also included
  • 200GB Free Skydrive storage for 2 years
  • 4GB or 8GB RAM depending on package
  • Starting at $899.99 for the 64GB/4GB RAM package and increasing depending on package
  • Pre-Orders start Sept 24, Shipping to 21 markets Oct 21.

 

As well as these new tablets, Microsoft also announced several new accessories for the Surface series. The new accessories are; A docking station that also charges the Surface, a new Touch Cover that is both thinner and lighter then its predecessor, the Type Cover now in 4 new colours, the new Power Cover; which adds a battery to the type cover for extended range from your tablet, and a Wireless Adapter for type covers.

Pictures:

So there you have it, the new Microsoft Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 Tablets. For more information and pre order info you can go to Microsoft.

By Dayne “Anjel” Cody
@DayneCody

Steam OS has been announced, coming soon to a living room near you

Steam OS Logo

Today, Valve made the first announcement of three that they have scheduled for this week. Valve has announced the Steam OS, a Linux based Steam OS for the living room. In their own words:

As we’ve been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we’ve come to the conclusion that the
environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself.
SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen.
It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines.

In addition to a free open platform, they are also touting that due to being an integrated OS, they have “achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we’re now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level. ” As well, they are stating that Steam OS will integrate streaming your games from your desktop PC. They also stated that they are working on bringing the media services we love over to the platform in the coming months. No word on when Steam OS would be released, only that it would be released as a free download sometime in the near future.

This looks to be a way for Gabe Newell to show his love for Linux, and to try and build a better PC for the living room. We will be very interested in seeing where this goes in the future. Stay tuned for the next announcements that Valve is making later this week.

For more info on the Steam OS check it out here, Steam OS 

By Dayne “Anjel” Cody
@DayneCody