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It’s said to be the second largest computer expo in the world; and regularly attracts key manufacturers both in its local Taiwan and worldwide. Today, the 2014 edition of COMPUTEX Taipei kicked off; and as you may have expected, some cool technology was shown off. Much of the action today was dominated by ASUS, who were later followed by Acer – Taiwan’s two main computer and smart phone manufacturers and a mainstay of the expo; with Dell taking centre stage in the dying minutes to reveal two new Inspiron Tablets. Grab a coffee and read on for all of today’s news.
The show itself started with ASUS taking the stage, five minutes later than planned due to the late arrival of some members of the assembled press. As is typical with ASUS, however, the news came thick and fast. Just three minutes into their keynote conference, we were introduced to the ASUS ZenBook NX500, a laptop described by Shih as being “perfect for the ultimate professional”. The new ZenBook has a UHD panel, delivering a crisp 3840×2160-pixel screen resolution; and combines it with ASUS’ VideoMaster display technology which, so they claim, makes for “true to life” colours. It also has a fourth-gen Intel Core i7 and NVIDIA GTX 850, and supports the latest PCI-E SSDs and 802.11ac Wi-Fi standards.
Speaking of UHD panels, ASUS also revealed a 32-inch UHD ProArt monitor – the PA328Q. It’s designed for imaging professionals, and has all the latest ports like HDMI 2.0. A brief mention was given to the Transformer Book Flip, a previously revealed product that’s basically a laptop whose screen can bend all the way back to behind the keyboard to allow it to be used as a tablet. ASUS then took a brief detour to show us a new Wi-Fi Router, the RT-AC3200. Capable of speeds of 3.2Gb/sec, it may be the world’s fastest router to date.
Just ten minutes since their keynote started, and already we’ve moved on to smart phones. With a claimed 72-per cent screen to body ratio, the ASUS FonePad 8 – the company’s next addition to their range of really big smart phones – is “designed to maximise your viewing experience”, so says chairman Jonney Shih. Interestingly, it’s planned to be released in 7- and 8-inch varieties, but the company already has a FonePad 7 – will this device supersede it? But these aren’t the only devices ASUS is planning to release in 7- and 8-inch versions. ASUS are planning to refine another of their products, the MeMoPAD HD7, with a thinner, lighter profile and a choice of 7- and 8-inch screen sizes. The 299g, 7.45mm-thin ASUS MemoPAD 8 is new too — it has an 8-inch screen as you’d expect, with Full HD resolution. It’s 1920x1200pixels, which means it’s a 16:10 ratio panel. It uses an Intel quad-core Atom Z3580 processor running at 2.3GHz. It’s the most powerful and beautifully designed 8-inch LTE tablet out today, apparently.
ASUS has often tried to combine phone and tablet with their FonePad and PadFone lines, but perhaps the biggest news is they feel this is only the beginning. In their words, the “ultimate convergence” of devices would be a device that combines Android Phone and Tablet along with a Windows Tablet and Windows and Android laptops. That’s apparently the plan for their boldest device revealed yet, the Transformer Book V. A full HD IPS phone slots into the back of an LTE-capable tablet with a 12.5-inch screen. This then slots into a laptop keyboard dock with a 1TB hard drive, turning the tablet – phone still inside – into a full-power laptop. A single button press on the keyboard switches the device from Android to Windows 8.1, after which the screen can be undocked and used as a tablet, or kept in place for a laptop. When you’re done, remove the phone out the back of the tablet and you’re back to an Android phone and on your way. Now THAT’S a bombshell!
After Samsung’s announcement earlier this year of plans to launch two new wearable, electronic fitness devices, 2014 seems to be the year of fitness wearables – and Acer’s first announcement today was to let us know the choice of devices available is only set to grow. The company announced the Acer Liquid Leap, a fitness armband with a 1-inch display, which will also be capable of call and SMS notifications.
Acer also revealed its new line of Liquid brand mobile devices, comprising four different smart phone models as well as one new tablet. One of these, the Acer Liquid Z200 smartphone, is already being referred to by some members of the press as Acer’s attempt to compete with Motorola. Expected to retail at just €79, has a modest 4-inch display; and will be available in a choice of five colours: Titanium Black, Essential White, Fragrant Pink, Sky Blue and Sunshine Yellow.
As for the other models, here’s a quick bullet-point summary:
Acer Iconia Tab 8 tablet – 8in 1920 x 1200 IPS display, quad-core Intel Atom processor, “sleek” metallic finish, 7.5 hours of battery life “for uninterrupted multimedia enjoyment”, dual speakers
Acer Liquid Jade smartphone – 5in HD display with Gorilla Glass 3, 13MP rear camera, KitKat Android 4.4
Acer Liquid E700 smartphone – 5in HD IPS display, 3,500mAh “never-ending” battery offering 60 days standby or 24 hours talk time, quad-core processor, 16GB internal storage, 2GB of RAM
When the Lenovo Yoga released and showed off its super-tiltable screen, which allowed it to be suspended in a number of positions or even have the screen fully folded back to use as a tablet, it seems the concept was popular enough to spawn a number of imitators – and now Dell has thrown one of its own into the mix. The Dell Inspiron 13 7000 is a great-looking convertible laptop, but sadly little is known so far of the specs – we’ll have more as its revealed.
But if you prefer an actual tablet, Dell had an announcement there too. The new Dell Inspiron 20 is an upcoming tablet that supposedly will last six hours on a single charge, but maybe someone should tell the company that bigger isn’t always better – sporting a sizeable 19.5 inch display, this tablet isn’t going to fit into anyone’s coat pockets any time soon – in fact many laptop bags would struggle to contain it – but it is handy for moving from room to room, and watching your favourite films wherever you want to sit in the house. In fact, perhaps standing it up and using it as a TV replacement isn’t actually too far-fetched, given the powers of on-demand TV, Chromecast and so on…
One of the co-creators of Mortal Kombat, Ed Boon, has just announced that a new Mortal Kombat game is in development right now, scheduled for a release sometime next year. The development is being handled by NetherRealm Studios and the game will be dubbed Mortal Kombat X, as this is to the the tenth iteration of the Mortal Kombat series. A trailer has also been released which shows a battle between characters Sub-Zero and Scorpion.
A classic RTS game is to return with an upgraded look and enhanced features next month. Set to be sold on Steam by new owners Skybox Labs, the new Rise of Nations hopes to capture the elements that made it originally a well-received game while providing a smooth updated feel.
Originally developed by Big Huge Games, Rise of Nations combined two of the other best-selling strategy games – Civilization and Age of Empires – into a game that made use of some of the best parts of each back in 2003. Big Huge Games was eventually acquired by 38 Studios and along with other properties, Rise of Nations was snapped up at auction by Skybox after 38 Studios went into liquidation. Skybox have also touched up other classic property Age of Mythology, so they’re not new to the game of enhancing older games.
The new Rise of Nations Enhanced Edition will include both the base game and the Thrones & Patriots expansion, and comes with upgraded graphics, fixes to allow the game to run better with newer hardware as well as Steamworks and Twitch integration to allow for easy multiplayer connection and streaming respectively. It’s also available with a 20 percent discount if pre-ordered.
Details have emerged of a new Sony studio set to reveal its first project at E3. The studio is named Pixel Opus and is partially the result of a program where Carnegie Mellon students were allowed to work with Sony Computer Entertainment America executive producer Alex Lee as part of their coursework.
The students produced prototype games for the Vita as part of their studies, which led to a number being taken on as interns with Sony and eventually hired. The studio, mainly made up of students who have now graduated Carnegie Mellon, have been working hard to get their first project finished in time. Lee says that although a number of programs like this one have been available at established universities for a while, they’ve been gaining in relevance and it’s only recently that their effect has begun to be felt by the industry.
We can only wait and see what the project they are presenting will be.
A small mod team have been working on a recreation of the original Metal Gear it seems. Cautiously at first because they didn’t wish to tread on the toes of original developers and owners Konami, lest they get into trouble with the company. However, Konami have heard of the project and have now given the team the go-ahead.
The mod team named Outer Haven are making their recreation in a version of Valve’s Alien Source engine and although they’ve started their work, they haven’t really made a lot of progress thus far as they’d been waiting for Konami’s go-ahead. Konami have now let the team ‘fill their boots’ and make their recreation on the condition that it isn’t used commercially (i.e. “you cannot use our copyrighted material to promote a product you are selling or making any profit from ”). As long as Outer Haven stick to that, they are free to proceed.
As they reach out to the wider Internet community to look for more team members to help bring their project to fruition, it’ll be interesting to see just how faithful a recreation they will make.
