Some time ago, Amazon launched a new online storage service called “Glacier”, so named because it was designed with a view to act as “cold storage” for your files. Glacier offered cheaper storage for those files you just HAVE to keep online, but don’t have a need to access on a constant basis – such as backups. In a clear case of “anything you can do, I can do better”, Google have responded by launching their own similar service, known as Google Nearline.

Google Nearline is a new service to host historical data and files you don’t expect to use very often. For example, say you’re a student. You’ll probably want your latest essays and coursework, research notes and so on immediately accessible via Google Drive to work on as you need ready for the upcoming deadlines; but what those essays from a year ago or older that have long since been passed to your teachers or professors and marked? They might be worth keeping for later review or research, but you probably won’t be needing to read those very often any more, right? That’s what Nearline is for. It’s the kind of cloud storage that businesses often need, but ordinary people may not want, especially if it isn’t cheap.

Luckily, keeping things cheap is something Google has been very aggressive about recently. Back in March, the company slashed Drive storage pricing across the board, cutting the price of its 100GB Drive tier by more than half and lowering the cost per terabyte per month to just $10 USD. With Nearline, however, Google are allowing customers to fine-tune their spending and storage requirements to the exact penny if they so choose – the service charges by the gigabyte, at a rate of just a penny per GB per month.

Google Nearline also offers advantages in other areas, according to the company. One is in its speed – while services such as the aforementioned Amazon Glacier require several hours before the stored data can be retrieved once again, Nearline is able to serve data in around three seconds. It also integrates with other products in Google’s Cloud Platform portfolio, making it easier for pre-existing installations to tap into the system.

Google’s moves are a reflection of the cut-throat industry online storage has become, where any company that doesn’t move fast will crash and burn rapidly. Even as storage offerings become cheaper and faster for the consumer, the profits on offer continue to shoot up as more people embrace online solutions to store data where they can easily get to it later – whether it’s personal, private or business. With Microsoft’s Azure platform proving itself one of the company’s most profitable divisions; and storage-based companies such as Box and Dropbox raising millions in investor funds, competition is always hotting up.

505 Games, a global publisher of video games, Overkill, a Starbreeze Studio, and film director Demian Lichtenstein brings you the live-action PAYDAY web series.

 

Director Demian Lichtenstein, of “3000 Miles to Graceland” commented, “The PAYDAY web series has been a solid and very close collaboration between all parties involved. I have never experienced such a high level of commitment to excellence from PAYDAY creators Bo and Ulf Andersson, to the rock-solid input of game director David Goldfarb, and the combined efforts of the powerhouse global teams at 505 Games, Starbreeze, Overkill, Solaris, Equilibrium and Lightstone. Simply said, this is the best experience of my career.”

 

Executive produced by Greg O’Connor of “Warrior” and “Pride and Glory” fame, the web series was filmed on location in Los Angeles with a crew of over 100 and sets the scene for the next steps in the evolution of the PAYDAY story.

The series can be watched live on your PC or Downloaded, episode by episode to watch how and when you want

We’ll have a full review later this week

This week has seen at least two big companies announcing that their latest game engines will be free-to-use provided other conditions are met as well. However, Crytek has no such plans to make their CryEngine free to use.

Speaking to GamaSutra at GDC, Crytek’s director of production David Bowman said that Crytek planned to stick to their business mode that they introduced at last year’s GDC event – that of a royalty-free $9.90 monthly subscription.

“At this point we see no reason [to drop the fee],” he said. “We want to get that right before we try to do a different model that requires a different support system. We’ve been focused on making the most powerful engine… We’re working on documentation, working on our process. We know to be successful, we have to grow our users, our community – that means giving them a good experience.”

Earlier in the week Epic Games announced that their Unreal Engine 4 was going to become free to use for everyone, and when Valve announced their Source 2 engine they emphasised that it would be free for developers and mod-makers alike.

Greetings fellow Hearthstone players and enthusiasts, I have some fantastic news to share with you.

The Blizzard team have announced a new Hearthstone adventure at Pax East this afternoon; Blackrock Mountain.

Just like Naxxramas before it, the new adventure has you tackling a classic Warcraft themed raid, going up against bosses with unique battle styles. You can play with your own decks in Normal and Heroic mode, and pre-programmed decks in the Class-specific mode. Each new wing will become available on a weekly basis.

The Blackrock Mountain expansion boasts 31 new cards to unlock, 3 card backs and a Ragnaros fire themed board. The new cards are based around the awesome, magnificent, amazing DRAGONS! You will be able to build a dragon-themed deck, complimenting the legendary dragon cards already available.

To unlock the first of the three card backs, you need to reach rank 20 or above in Ranked play during the March season. The second is available when you pre-order Blackrock Mountain, and the third is yours once you beat all the bosses in the expansion.

The best news about Blackrock Mountain is that it will be available to play next month! Depending on you region, you will be able to pre-order the expansion on 29th or 30th March.

Mozilla, creator of the popular web browser Firefox have announced that thanks to a collaboration with Unity Technologies and Unreal Engine, they will soon be able to allow developers to create browser-based games that won’t require plugins to operate.

Unity 5 was released earlier this week and contains a new WebGL export function, while Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4.7 has introduced a beta version of a new HTML5 exporter. The collaboration means that developers using either of these tools will be able to specifically select the Web as a target platform, building the games with this in mind.
“This means plugin-free Web deployment is now in the hands of game developers working with these popular tools,” Mozilla wrote in their blog on the subject, noting that developers are looking to reduce their dependency on plugins. “They select the Web as their target platform and, with one click, they can build to it.”