Every year, the TVs, phones and gadgets at CES seem to get bigger and bigger – but Intel’s reversing the trend with its brand new computer, the Intel Edison, which fits everything you need into a board the size and shape of an SD card. Raspberry Pi, eat your heart out.

This might look like the storage card for your compact camera, but make no mistake, this is a computer, with its own 22nm dual-core processor, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities.

It can run multiple operating systems, including Linux, and will be available for manufacturers and hobbyists this summer – price is still TBC, but we’re hoping it’s as low as the £25 Raspberry Pi computer.

Intel’s making a big push with wearable technologies this year at CES in Las Vegas – the company also showed off its own smartwatch prototype yesterday, although it is not planning to release it to the public – and it’s betting big that Edison will play a part in that.
One of its demonstrations showed the little computer working in harmony with sensor’s connected on a baby’s onesie, displaying temperature and even turning on a bottle warmer when the baby started to wake.

When you consider what hackers have turned the Raspberry Pi into, a robot, a media centre, a pet feeder and much more besides, the ideas a computer this small could be put to are dazzling.

During Valve’s CES 2014 event this evening, the company released a brochure featuring images, prices, and specificiations for 13 third-party Steam Machines. Let’s take a look-see!

Aside from Alienware, the party pooper, each of the 13 machines at the very least comes with some basic specs, giving us an idea of what to expect from these Valve-approved gaming PCs. Some we’ve seen earlier today. Others we’ll be getting to know more about later this evening. According to Valve’s Gabe Newell, Maingear’s system was too late to make the brochure, but I’m sure there will be more about that down the line.

So, what do you guys think? That certainly a bunch of PC gaming machines, right?

Give that there are so many options, could it be that this will confuse consumers? After all, when you purchase a console you know that you are evenly matched with anyone else who buys it and developers know the specs everyone has under their TV.

With Steam Machine there seems to be so many options and some are so expensive that it seems it’d be more sensible to go out, buy a PC and hook that up to your TV. Can anyone actually see this venture being a success?

Check out the brochure here.

CES 2014 kicks off this week and you can expect to see a plethora of Steam Box related news.

Up until now we have received a good amount of information pertaining to Box’s specs but very little has been known as to whom would be selling the machines.

iBuyPower will be showing off their machine fitted with a multi-core AMD Cpu, 500GB hard drive (we are not sure if this is SSD), WiFi, Bluetooth, and an AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card.

The size if the unit is said to be around the same size as a PS4 and a tad smaller then an Xbox One.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning closed down this Wednesday (18th Dec 2013), when the licensing agreement Electronic Arts had with Games Workshop ended. A developer who worked on the game says there is a way to preserve its world in a kind of museum-exhibit way, should EA choose to release it.

Andrew Meggs, who was the lead client engineer for Warhammer Online when he was at Mythic Entertainment, says there was an option to run the game without a server in an unreleased, developer-only build of the Warhammer Online client. If EA released this, then fans could run around in the virtual world, explore it and remember the good times.

“There were no login or character selection screens,” Meggs wrote on his blog. “There were no NPCs or other players. There was no gameplay of any kind. It was just you and the entire world spread out before you. You could fly around like Superman, or teleport anywhere at will.”

An MMO without other players or quests is not an MMO, and Meggs isn’t pretending this would be one. He’s more suggesting it as a memorial to Warhammer Online’s five year run. “It’s a double-clickable museum exhibiting much of what WAR was, so it won’t be forgotten completely. It’s an effort by all of us, as developers, to preserve a living record as our transient medium is created and destroyed. I can’t do this; I left behind the code when I left EA. But there are people inside EA who can easily make this happen.”

It’s a nice thought but it leaves me feeling like the mere suggestion creates a no-win situation to crap all over EA, as if that’s not a forum pastime already. First, they’d have to release it for free, because otherwise, the story becomes “EA Wants Warhammer Fans to Pay for an MMO with No Quests or NPCs.” Secondly, this is a licensed game, which means the licensor would have to consent to all of this, and the agreement has expired. I’m guessing that contract is pretty absolute on proscribing EA from continuing this game in any form past the expiration date.

Closing an MMO is always painful to those who played it. Sometimes it’s best to just say goodbye and move on, rather than dredge up another reason to be disappointed by the company shutting things down.

WAR in a Bottle [Shiny Toys/Andrew Meggs, via Polygon]

Free browser game also an international success

All players of My Free Zoo will receive an extraordinary log-in bonus

Bamberg, December 19th 2013. German developer and publisher of free-to-play browser games Upjers is delighted about 8 million registered players in My Free Zoo. This highly positive number confirms the developer team’s efforts to implement new content into the game on a weekly basis. By way of thanks for their loyalty, all players of My Free Zoo (www.myfreezoo.com) will receive a unique log-in present.

My Free Zoo is celebrating its 8 millionth registered player. This success is due to enthusiastic zoo directors all the world over, and of course to the hardworking developers of My Free Zoo. Since its release not even two years ago, more than 100 animals have been added to the zoo simulator. Among these are several extraordinary specimen, such as the white lion or the Western Crowned Pigeon.

Almost weekly, new animals and new features are implemented into the game. Besides the possibility to breed animals, organizations have been introduced to the game. In these organizations, the players can help out their fellow organization members in their virtual zoos as veterinarians, mechanics, shippers and as environmental officers.

Upjers would like to say thanks to all 8 million players in My Free Zoo. That’s why all of them will receive a unique log-in present with their next log-in into the game. In accordance with this cold season, every player who logs into the game up until January 9th will receive an Ice Castle.

My Free Zoo can be played for free on https://en.upjers.com/my-free-zoo.