Creative Introduces SoundBlaster Recon3D

When it comes to building a gaming PC, I find the most overlooked feature is the Sound Card. On-board sound cards that come with higher end gaming capable motherboards are often more than good enough to feed a nice signal to your speakers.

But leave it to the people at Creative Labs to once again introduce a PCI-E audio board and new quad core processor technology called Recon3D in three different flavors:

GamingBlend offers this:

For gamers on a budget you can go with the standard Recon3D card for $99.99, with THX TruStudio Pro support and Crystal Voice audio technologies powering the card, along with the proprietary quad-core Core3D processor at its heart.

The next step up is the Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional edition, which features everything the standard edition has but with added I/O support, beam-forming microphone, and CrystalVoice Echo Cancellation, CrystalVoice Focus and CrystalVoice Active Noise Reduction, all for $149.99.

If you have the cash to spare and the ears to withstand the awesomeness of the pure and unadulterated rush of THX TruStudio Pro audio technologies then you’ll want the Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion Edition. This bad-mofo comes custom I/O mini-jacks, CrystalVoice Echo Cancellation, CrystalVoice Focus and CrystalVoice Active Noise Reduction, as well as custom software to easily and efficiently switch between multi-speaker setups

I have been coasting with a really decent set of speakers and my on-board card for a while now, but this just has me eager to earn back my game geek street cred.

And by “street” I mean the information superhighway. Ok… that last statement might have cost me more points than it earned.



Half-Life 2: Godspeed You! Gordon Freeman [Video]

The goal of this project was to take the song “The Dead Flag Blues” and match it with striking imagery from the Half-Life 2 series to create a unique video that fans can hopefully enjoy, and get a bit of nostalgia . Call it a trailer, short, montage, music video, machinima, whatever you want, this is my tribute to one the best game series around and everyone’s favorite hero. Oh, the band rules too.

[Via]

Skyrim Intervention [Video]

Are you or a loved one addicted to Skyrim? If you’re seeking help against this serious addiction, fear not, there is a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel.

Since the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Greg hasn’t left his man cave and is living in an altered Skyrim reality. When Greg’s family and friends finally have enough of him missing out on real life, they must take drastic measures to convince him to stop, but will he listen?

[Skyrim Intervention]



World’s Most Disgusting Superhero: Milkman [Video]

This is the grossest and funniest thing I’ve seen today, even thought it’s a little on the perturbing side.

[Freddiew]

One Day, Nano Quadrotor Swarms Will Hunt and Kill Us All [Video]

Experiments performed with a team of nano quadrotors at the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania. Vehicles developed by KMel Robotics.

[Via GTDW]

Android Users’ Bathroom and Bedroom Secrets Revealed

Android users in North America are more likely than other handset owners to put out on a first date. But if you do find yourself benefiting from that statistic, another finding means you might want to be wary of touching your new buddy’s handset.

The first stats come from dating site Match.com. It conducted a survey but hasn’t yet released the full data, so it’s worth bearing in mind that the closeness of some of the stats may well mean there’s little statistical significance in the “rankings”. But let’s not allow that to spoil the stereotyping.

The survey, of people who are currently single, found 62% of Android users have slept with someone on the first date, compared with 57% for iPhones and 48% for BlackBerry. There’s no figure for Windows, but then again if you set your heart on a Windows Phone 7 handset, you’re probably used to delayed gratification.

Of the respondents, Android users were also most likely to have had a one night stand. It may well be that the smartphone is a correlation red herring: Android users are also most likely by some distance (72% compared with 58% for iPhone and 50% for Blackberry) to have used an online dating site, which could be a better indication of sealing the deal on day one.

Meanwhile another survey suggests Android users are most likely (87%) to have used their smartphone while on the toilet, with BlackBerry (84%) a solid number two and iPhone coming last at 77%. That may well back-up a recent British study that found 92% people had some form of bacteria on their phones, with 16% of handsets harboring E.coli.

Overall people were most likely to be texting (67%), with 63% taking calls but only 41% making calls. A mere 38% said they’d used the web while in their porcelain office, though these figures don’t appear to include tablet users, which would surely boost the numbers.

Rather bizarrely, just 20 percent of women and 30 percent of men agreed that “I don’t go to the bathroom without my mobile phone.” The female figure I can understand given the use of handbags, but aside from getting up in the middle of the night, I can’t believe that many men ever have their phones anywhere but in their pocket.