After having had them announced as coming a while ago, Valve has finally put a release time on the long-awaited Steam Machines they hope to enter the console market with.

Valve revealed that the Steam Machines will be released towards the end of the year in November, starting off with a number of different models made by Alienware, Falcon Northwest and over a dozen more firms that have partnered with Valve for the manufacture of the hardware. Valve have said that Steam Machines will be priced similarly to games consoles and will deliver a higher performance than they do.

As well Valve announced that they’re also releasing a new product that will add streaming functionality to the Steam Machine. Called the Steam Link, it is a separate piece of hardware that will allow you to stream all Steam content from a PC or Steam Machine to any room of the house using the house’s local network. It will support 1080p at 60Hz with low latency. It is set to be priced at $49.99, with a Steam Controller thrown in for another $49.99 in the US and will also be released in November. Valve have yet to set the prices for other countries.

As well Valve announced the launch of the Source 2 game engine, which will be set up for the use of professional developers and gamers who create content for the Steam Workshop to be able to use efficiently and easily. More details are expected to be announced later this week to say when it will be available for use.

Players help to shape the world of Elite: Dangerous and one community goal saw the building of a new spaceport at New Yembo. Since then Frontier have been quizzing the community on names for it.

Many names were suggested from those used for spacecraft in popular media to even suggestions that it be named in honour of the deceased Leonard Nimoy (who instead had tribute paid by placing a station bearing his name around the game’s planet Vulcan). Finally the competition has closed and Frontier have looked through the entries to decide on a name. The starport will be named “Unity”.

On the forum Community Manager Edward Lewis announced the naming of the station, saying  that the name of Unity was “a very popular choice by the community” and saying that because unity meant that things were united as a whole, it felt like a fitting name for a station built as a result of the community’s efforts in-game.

Frontier Forum “Community Goal Starport named”: [x]

At GDC yesterday Epic Games announced that they were going to be making their Unreal Engine 4 game engine free to use for all users, including all future updates to it.

There will be no imposed limits on use of the game engine, with users utilising it for purposes from game development, education, visualisation or architecture. However despite free to use Epic will have the royalty fee – five per cent on gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter – remain in place.

Last year Epic launched the Unreal Engine 4 with a subscription fee of $19 (although it was later made free for educational establishments) and said that they wished to make the Unreal Engine attractive to creative consumers. Removing the subscription fee will probably go someway to making that a reality for Epic. Current subscribers will get a pro-rated refund for their most recent month’s payment and anyone who has ever paid for the subscription for the Unreal Engine 4 will also receive $30 credit for the Unreal Engine Marketplace.

“This is the complete technology we use at Epic when building our own games. It scales from indie projects to high-end blockbusters; it supports all the major platforms; and it includes 100 per cent of the C++ source code.” said co-founder of Epic, Tim Sweeney. “Our goal is to give you absolutely everything so that you can do anything and be in control of your schedule and your destiny. Whatever you require to build and ship your game, you can find it in UE4, source it in the Marketplace or build it yourself – and then share it with others.”

The market for eSports is expanding quite rapidly at the moment, with tournaments of the best players in the world drawing huge crowds to watch their matches. So it makes sense that Y-Combinator-backed Kickback is looking to make their mark on the scene.

They’ve already provided a free server hosting service for the Minecraft community last summer, called Triangle; and now they’re planning to build on top of this existing system which is hosting over 200,000 server already to put in place ways to help the competitive maps work much smoother.

Their method treats the entire experience as a single product; able to run the match-hosting servers, arrange the games, codifies the rules for the game and even keeping track of each player’s wins and losses within the game. They’re already testing out with members of the Minecraft community that has come to be using Triangle; with matches ranging from two to ten players, in game types from team-based combat to free-for-all. Community members are also able to contribute maps to help diversify the content available.

This matchmaking service is provided free to players just as Triangle is, provided they’re just playing for bragging rights. However if they want to actually bet money on it, players can pitch into a prize pot from as little as $1 to bet that they’re the best player and stand a chance of winning money in the process.

One of Kickback’s co-founders, Vlad Nov has said that the paid dynamic of these matches has helped the startup in two ways. Having money on the line obviously helps the experience, giving the game a different atmosphere from a match just for bragging rights – you’ve another reason to want to win over all the other players. But Nov says that those players who win also tended to be the service’s most vocal activists, bringing in more friends to play with them and so growing the potential number of users who would use the system for the offered aspects that they couldn’t get elsewhere.

Right now they’re working on utilising the enormous power Twitch has for bringing an audience to gaming-related content by making it possible for players to jump into a match being streamed from the web app of the service, hoping to make it so that matches can both be watched and joined in with should the fancy take you. The other two big focuses are attempts to further widen the number of map types available and also the types of matches within Minecraft.

Kickback also hope to be able to build similar systems around other games that maybe are not as well known and easy to modify as Minecraft is. The backend code and matching making systems were actually designed to be carried over though to make it as easy as possible for this to be done, so maybe we’ll see this system expand to other games fairly soon.

Now that smartphone makers are finally starting to adopt wireless charging more often into their newer models, companies are beginning to make it easier to use the technology by offering wireless charging pads in their products and services – for example Starbucks are trialling wireless charging coasters on some UK stores. Now the world’s largest furniture retailer, IKEA, is all geared up to give the technology a major boost by announcing a range of lamps and other furniture which will have wireless charging built-in to them.

As part of its commitment to making homes smarter, IKEA will soon launch a range of desk, table and floor lamp with wireless charging pads included in the base or a platform higher up. The technology being built-in to the lamps is based on the more common “Qi” standard – the market leader in wireless charging technology – so most smartphones with wireless-charging capability will charge as soon as you leave them on the lamp. However, should you happen to have an iPhone or a flagship Samsung phone – which both utilise a rival technology – IKEA will also sell you a number of wireless charging covers that will let you take advantage of your new power-giving furniture as well.

Besides the lamps, IKEA will also offer two wireless charging bedside tables; as well as charging pads to add the technology to your existing furniture. The wireless charging lamps and bedside tables will be available to buy in all UK IKEA stores from mid-April, starting at £30. The company has also confirmed that its new range will debut in US stores at the same time, but pricing will be announced in the near future.