Intel Delivers the World’s First 6-Watt Server-Class Processor

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Intel has updated their Atom line of processors, delivering a 6-watt server-class product aimed at micro servers.  Read on for details.

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Intel has updated their Atom line of processors, delivering a 6-watt server-class product aimed at micro servers. Here is the announcement:

Intel Delivers the World’s First 6-Watt Server-Class Processor

Several Equipment Makers Building Microservers, Storage and Networking Systems Based on 64-bit Intel® Atom™ Processor S1200 Product Family

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

  • Intel® Atom™ processor S1200 server system on-chip hits lower-power levels, and includes key features such as error code correction, 64-bit support, and virtualization technologies required for use inside data centers.
  • More than 20 low-power designs including microservers, storage and networking systems use the Intel Atom processor S1200 family.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 11, 2012 – Intel Corporation introduced the Intel® Atom™ S1200 product family today, delivering the world’s first low-power, 64-bit server-class system-on-chip (SoC) for high-density microservers, as well as a new class of energy-efficient storage and networking systems. The energy-sipping, industrial-strength microprocessor features essential capabilities to achieve server-class reliability, manageability and cost effectiveness.

“The data center continues to evolve into unique segments and Intel continues to be a leader in these transitions,” said Diane Bryant, vice president and general manager of the Datacenter and Connected Systems Group at Intel. “We recognized several years ago the need for a new breed of high-density, energy-efficient servers and other datacenter equipment. Today, we are delivering the industry’s only 6-watt1 SoC that has key datacenter features, continuing our commitment to help lead these segments.”

Intel’s Next Generation of Microservers: The Real Thing

As public clouds continue to grow, the opportunity to transform companies providing dedicated hosting, content delivery or front-end Web servers are also growing. High density servers based on low-power processors are able to deliver the desired performance while at the same time significantly reduce the energy consumption – one of the biggest cost drivers in the data center. However, before deploying new equipment in data centers, companies look for several critical features.

The Intel Atom processor S1200 product family is the first low-power SoC delivering required data center features that ensure server-class levels of reliability and manageability while also enabling significant savings in overall costs. The SoC includes two physical cores and a total of four threads enabled with Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology2 (Intel® HT),. The SoC also includes 64-bit support, a memory controller supporting up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, Intel® Virtualization Technologies (Intel® VT), eight lanes of PCI Express 2.0, Error-Correcting Code (ECC) support for higher reliability, and other I/O interfaces integrated from Intel chipsets. The new product family will consist of three processors with frequency ranging from 1.6GHz to 2.0GHz.

The Intel Atom S1200 product family is also compatible with the x86 software that is commonly used in data centers today. This enables easy integration of the new low-powered equipment and avoids additional investments in porting and maintaining new software stacks.

New Milestones in Power Efficiency

Intel continues to drive power consumption down in its products, enabling systems to be as energy efficient as possible. Each year since the 2006 introduction of low-power Intel® Xeon® processors, Intel has delivered a new generation of low-power processors that have decreased the thermal design power (TDP) from 40 watts in 2006 to 17 watts this year due to Intel’s advanced 22-nanometer (nm) process technology. The Intel Atom processor S1200 product family is the first low-power SoC with server-class features offering as low as 6 watts1 of TDP.

Broad Industry Support

Today, more than 20 low-power designs including microservers, storage and networking systems use the Intel Atom processor S1200 processor family from companies including Accusys*, CETC*, Dell*, HP*, Huawei*, Inspur*, Microsan*, Qsan*, Quanta*, Supermicro* and Wiwynn*.

“Organizations supporting hyperscale workloads need powerful servers to maximize efficiency and realize radical space, cost and energy savings,” said Paul Santeler, vice president and general manager, Hyperscale Business Unit, Industry-standard Servers and Software at HP. “HP servers power many of those organizations, and the Intel Atom processor S1200 will be instrumental as we develop the next wave of application-defined computing to dramatically reduce cost and energy use for our customers.”

An Even Brighter Future

Intel is working on the next generation of Intel Atom processors for extreme energy efficiency codenamed “Avoton.” Available in 2013, Avoton will further extend Intel’s SoC capabilities and use the company’s leading 3-D Tri-gate 22 nm transistors, delivering world-class power consumption and performance levels.

For customers interested in low-voltage Intel® Xeon® processor models for low-power servers, storage and networking, Intel will introduce the new Intel Xeon processor E3 v3 product family based on the “Haswell” microarchitecture next year. These new processors will take advantage of new energy-saving features in Haswell and provide balanced performance-per-watt, giving customers even more options.

Pricing and Availability

The Intel Atom processor S1200 is shipping today to customers with recommended customer price starting at $54 in quantities of 1,000 units.

Look for these low-power chips to start showing up in low-power server units soon.

Intel Press Release

Microsoft Tuesday Updates Include RT Patches

Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday is here, and it includes some patches for RT units.  Check out the details, and get your updates!

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Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday is here, and it includes some patches for RT units.  Check out the change log here:

This is a summary of the new and changed content to be released on Tuesday, December 11, 2012.

New non-security content:

Windows Management Framework 3.0 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (KB2506143)
Locale: All
Deployment: Optional/Automatic Updates, WSUS, and Catalog
Classification: Updates, Non-Security
Target platforms: Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
Approximate file sizes:

  • Windows Management Framework 3.0 for Windows 7 update: ~ 12069KB
  • Windows Management Framework 3.0 for Windows 7 x64/Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 update: ~ 16291KB

Description:
Windows Management Framework 3.0 provides updated management functionality for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows Management Framework 3.0 includes Windows PowerShell 3.0, WMI, and WinRM 3.0, along with other management features.

Windows Management Framework 3.0 for Windows Server 2008 (KB2506146)
Locale: All
Deployment: Optional/Automatic Updates, WSUS, and Catalog
Classification: Updates, Non-Security
Target platforms: Windows Server 2008
Approximate file sizes:

      • Windows Management Framework 3.0 for Windows Server 2008 update: ~ 10778KB
      • Windows Management Framework 3.0 for Windows Server 2008 for x64-based Systems update: ~ 14804KB

Description:
Windows Management Framework 3.0 provides updated management functionality for Windows Server 2008. Windows Management Framework 3.0 includes Windows PowerShell 3.0, WMI, and WinRM 3.0, along with other management features.

Language Packs for Windows 8 – (KB2607607)
Locale: All
Deployment: Dynamic Installer, WSUS
Classification: Updates, Non-Security
Target platforms: Windows 8

Language Packs for Windows RT – (KB2607607)
Locale: All
Deployment: Dynamic Installer
Classification: Updates, Non-Security
Target platforms: Windows RT.

Update for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP (KB2748349)
Locale: All
Deployment: Windows Update, Microsoft Update, Important/Automatic Updates, WSUS, and Catalog
Classification: High Priority, Non-Security
Target platforms: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP
Approximate file sizes:

  • Windows 7 update: ~ 148KB
  • Windows 7 x64/Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 update: ~ 164KB
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 IA-64 update: ~ 306KB
  • Windows Server 2008/Windows Vista update: ~ 149KB
  • Windows Server 2008 IA-64 update: ~ 294KB
  • Windows Server 2008 x64/Windows Vista x64 update: ~ 169KB
  • Windows Server 2003 update: ~ 587KB
  • Windows Server 2003 IA-64 update: ~ 1257KB
  • Windows Server 2003 x64/Windows XP x64 update: ~ 843KB

Description:
Install this update to resolve issues in Windows. For a complete listing of the issues that are included in this update, see the associated Microsoft Knowledge Base article for more information. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Update Rollup for Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials (KB2757007)
Locale: All
Deployment: Important/Automatic Updates
Classification: High Priority, Non-Security, Update Rollups
Supersedes: KB2705117 on Windows Server 2008 R2
Target platforms: Windows Server 2008 R2
Approximate file sizes:

  • Update Rollup for Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials update: ~ 166871KB

Description:
Install this update to resolve issues in Windows. For a complete listing of the issues that are included in this cumulative update, see the associated Microsoft Knowledge Base article for more information. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Update Rollup for Windows Home Server 2011 (KB2757011)
Locale: All
Deployment: Important/Automatic Updates
Classification: High Priority, Non-Security, Update Rollups
Supersedes: KB2705118 on Windows Server 2008 R2
Target platforms: Windows Server 2008 R2
Approximate file sizes:

  • Update Rollup for Windows Home Server 2011 update: ~ 166585KB

Description:
Install this update to resolve issues in Windows. For a complete listing of the issues that are included in this cumulative update, see the associated Microsoft Knowledge Base article for more information. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Update Rollup for Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials (KB2757013)
Locale: All
Deployment: Important/Automatic Updates, WSUS, and Catalog
Classification: High Priority, Non-Security, Update Rollups
Supersedes: KB2705122 on Windows Server 2008 R2
Target platforms: Windows Server 2008 R2
Approximate file sizes:

  • Update Rollup for Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials update: ~ 166535KB

Description:
Install this update to resolve issues in Windows. For a complete listing of the issues that are included in this cumulative update, see the associated Microsoft Knowledge Base article for more information. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

App Update: Sky Go for Android now at version 2.1

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The Sky Go app for Android has been updated to version 2.1.

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This is what is included in the update:

– Improved User Interface
– Improved Navigation
– Support for 14 new devices
– Support for Jelly Bean v4.1, 4.2 and 4.2.1

Download now from Google Play

Have you used it? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

First DLC for Dishonored – Dunwall City Trials out now

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Bethesda has released Dunwall City Trials, the first DLC pack for Dishonored.

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Dunwall City Trials includes 10 challenge maps that will test and track your combat, stealth and mobility skills. Creatively combine your supernatural abilities, weapons and gadgets to eliminate as many targets as possible, fight off waves of tallboys, guards, weepers and thugs, or take out targets in a non-stop run of drop assassinations. Dunwall City Trials also features a new set of achievements and trophies as well as a global online leaderboard.

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Dunwall City Trials is now available for Xbox 360 and PC for £3.99 (or 400 Microsoft Points). For PS3, the add-on pack will be available later today in North America and on 19th December in Europe.

For more information on Dishonored and the newest add-on pack please visit www.Dishonored.com.

SkyDrive Coming to XBOX For Gold Members

The SkyDrive team announced today that they are bringing an app to the XBOX for XBOX Gold members, allowing you to see videos and photos stored on the service via the XBOX.  Read on for details.

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The SkyDrive team announced today that they are bringing an app to the XBOX for XBOX Gold members, allowing you to see videos and photos stored on the service via the XBOX.  The app is not yet available on the XBOX Marketplace, but it should be available after 1000 hours Pacific time.  Here is the announcement:

The entirely new SkyDrive experience for Xbox 360 spotlights your photos and videos. The app connects the cloud to your Xbox and TV: every photo, video, movie, and other file you put in SkyDrive from Windows or the web will be available on your Xbox-connected TV. Your Windows Phone is also now connected to Xbox and every photo you snap can be available on your TV automatically.

When we thought about all of the possibilities of introducing SkyDrive to the Xbox 360 environment, there were lots of features we could have tied together but we wanted to focus on the scenarios that people have told us they would find most valuable. So in building a SkyDrive experience for the living room, we’ve spent our time on making these three primary scenarios feel great:

  1. Shared photos & videos. Share a meaningful event with your friends or family by viewing photos & videos on your TV, or view photos & videos others have shared with you through SkyDrive. Imagine being able to view cherished photos and videos shared by friends and family —like a musical performance, a kid’s birthday, or baby’s first steps—on your TV.
  2. Snap and see. For Windows Phone users, snap a picture and see it appear almost immediately in your camera roll on the big screen. This feels like magic! For example, you could take a quick snapshot of your child making a funny face, fire up the SkyDrive app on your Xbox, and view it right away on your 50” screen. Just make sure you’re using the same Microsoft account sign-in for both Xbox LIVE and your Windows Phone.
  3. Party slide show. Plan a great slide show to play in the background of a dinner party. For example, you could start a slide show of a recent trip for friends, or have holiday-themed photos and videos playing during a holiday party.

Plus, the SkyDrive app for Xbox supports Kinect voice controls and gestures as well as remote and controller input. Yes, this means you can view a slide show of your SkyDrive photos just by talking to your Xbox… which is very, very cool. (Kinect voice controls are not available in all languages.)

Get started now

Here’s how to get up and running with the SkyDrive app on your Xbox:

  1. Turn on your TV and your Xbox.
  2. Go to Apps, and then select Browse Apps.
  3. In the Social category, select SkyDrive.

We hope you love this app as much as we do, and enjoy using it the next time you have friends or family over. As always, we’re excited to see how you use it, and we’re looking ahead to bringing you more SkyDrive coolness in the future.

They also posted this video to YouTube:

If you have an XBOX Gold membership and use SkyDrive, go ahead and check this one out.  It looks very cool to me!  Oh, Microsoft, how about a Skype client for XBOX Kinect?

SkyDrive Comes to XBOX!

Major Nelson Announces Over 40 New Dashboard Apps for XBOX Live

Good old Larry Hryb. He’s updated his blog today with a whole heap of new dashboard app goodness.

Microsoft have been busy doing deals with over 40 new entertainment partners around the world and some of them will be coming to a dashboard near you. These are all scheduled to be released between now and Spring 2013 and could be included in only specific regions, which are listed in brackets next to the channel.

Here’s the full list:

1. All3M (United Kingdom, United States)

2. Ameba TV (Canada, United States)

3. ARTE (Germany, France)

4. Azteca (Mexico)

5. Canalplay Infinity (France)

6. CBC’s Hockey Night (Canada)

7. CrunchyRoll (Majority of LIVE Regions)

8. Deezer (Majority of LIVE Regions)

9. Eredivisie Live (Netherlands)

10. Fightbox (Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom)

11. Flixster (United States)

12. GameTrailers (Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, United States)

13. Globosat Muu (Brazil)

14. Gulli Replay (France)

15. HBO Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)

16. IndieFlix (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States)

17. Livesport.tv (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom)

18. Machinima (Majority of LIVE Regions) 19. Maxim (United States)

20. MTV (United States)

21. MyTF1 (France)

22. MyTF1VOD (France)

23. Napster (Germany, United Kingdom)

24. Pathe Thuis (Netherlands) 25. PBS (United States)

26. PopcornFlix (United States) 27. Rai TV (Italy)

28. Sainsbury (United Kingdom)

29. Saraiva (Brazil) 30. SBS (Netherlands)

31. SF Anytime (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)

32. Slacker Radio (Canada, United States)

33. SPORT1 (Austria, Germany)

34. The CW Network (United States)

35. Televisa (Mexico)

36. TV3 (Spain)

37. Viaplay (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)

38. Vidéo à la Demande d’Orange (France)

39. Vimeo (United States)

40. VIVO Play (Brazil)

41. Watchever (Austria, Germany)

42. Zattoo (Germany)

43. Ziggo (Netherlands)

In addition to this, some regions will be seeing new entertainment apps being rolled out, as of today.

Here are the ones we’ll expect to be getting in the UK:

Karaoke (All LIVE regions, excluding Japan and United Arab Emirates) Karaoke provides access to more than 8,000 songs from the latest hits to the oldies but goodies, available on Xbox LIVE. Your avatar will go on stage and sing with a full complement of stage props and back band. Use SmartGlass to play/stop/pause, browse the database and lyrics or to add songs to the playlist. Songs don’t require any download and will playback immediately via streaming for a robust karaoke experience.

Napster (Germany, United Kingdom) With your Xbox and Napster Unlimited plus Mobile, you can play millions of songs instantly. Listen to millions of songs in various genres, play as much as you want, enjoy hours of expertly programmed music. Discover new releases, charts and much more.

SkyDrive (All LIVE regions) SkyDrive is the place to store your files so you can access them from virtually any device. With SkyDrive for Xbox, you can easily view your photos and videos on your TV. You can also play slideshows and view photos and videos shared with you.

 

New Tomb Raider trailer released

SQUARE ENIX and Crystal Dynamics have released a new trailer for their forthcoming game Tomb Raider.

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Tomb Raider explores the intense and gritty origin story of Lara Croft and her ascent from a frightened young woman to a hardened survivor.

Shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Japan, Lara Croft began armed with nothing more than her wits and will to live. Forced to forage for food and defend herself from hostile natives, Lara is forever changed when her friends are captured and she realizes she is the only one who can save them. Pushed to the limits of human fortitude, Lara knows that if she doesn’t survive, none of them will.

And here is the trailer:

I am a huge fan of the new Tomb Raider game, and recently I got to play the first three hours of Tomb Raider – my preview post will be up soon.

LaCie to NAS Backup: Part Two: 5Big Office+ Configuration, Overall Assessment

In my last article, I showed you how to set up the ISCSI target on a QNAP NAS to support backing up a 5Big Office+ NAS from LaCie.  Now, I show you the LaCie side of the configuration.  Read on for details.

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I showed you the installation requirements for the QNAP NAS in my last article. In this one, I show you the setup on the Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials LaCie 5big Office + and execute a backup.

Hardware Used

I have a QNAP TS-419 P II NAS unit connected via ethernet to my home network.  The QNAP is running TurboNAS 3.7 and is using 8TB of drives in a RAID5 configuration.  I also have a LaCie 5big Office + NASs unit, running Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, and this unit has a 10TB RAID5 implemented.

Configuration on the LaCie 5big Office +: iSCSI Target

Connect to the 5big Office + via Remote Desktop Connection and click on the Start button. Choose Administrative Tools and iSCSI Initiator.

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Click Yes to enable iSCSI Initiator to load on startup.

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The iSCSI Initiator box pops up where you configure the connection. Enter the IP address for the iSCSI target, here the QNAP NAS. Click on Quick Connect. It populates the usable targets. In this example, we’re going to use the LUN with 19002 in the name. Highlight it and click Connect.

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Make sure that the connection is listed in Favorites here to enable automatic connections when the LaCie restarts. Click OK.

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LaCie to NAS Backup: Part One: QNAP Configuration

In this article, I show you how to set up a QNAP NAS unit to handle the ISCI target function for backing up a LaCie 5Big Office+.  Read on for details.

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In this article, I show you how to set up a QNAP NAS unit to handle the ISCI target function for backing up a LaCie 5Big Office+.  We’ll set up the QNAP NAS to be he ISCSI target and then show you how to configure the LaCie in the next article.

The LaCie 5big Office + runs Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, so many Server 2008 R2 technologies are available. In this case, we’ll leverage the ISCSI Initiator technology to establish a link to a QNAP NAS running TurboNAS 3.7 and configure the LaCie to back up to the QNAP.

This process is very similar to the one that I followed when I brought you my two-part ISCSI series a few weeks back, but instead of connecting a virtualized Server 2012 Essentials box, we’ll connect the LaCi 5big Office +. As a refresher, here are my prior two articles:

ISCSI Setup Series Part One: QNAP TurboNAS 3.7 Configuration

ISCSI Setup Series Part Two: Server 2012 Essentials Configuration

Most of the QNAP configuration will be unchanged, but I’ll step through the process for you. Please note that since this is in a test lab environment, I will skip the authentication steps throughout. This of course is not a best practice for you to emulate in a production environment. Ready? Let’s go!

Hardware Used

I have a QNAP TS-419 P II NAS unit connected via ethernet to my home network.  The QNAP is running TurboNAS 3.7 and is using 8TB of drives in a RAID5 configuration.  I also have a LaCie 5big Office + NAS unit, running Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, and this unit has a 10TB RAID5 implemented.

Configuration of the QNAP

We need to do some work to configure the QNAP to act as an ISCSI target.  The steps are activating ISCSI, creating the target, and setting up the server application to use the target.  First, log into the administrative panel of the QNAP.

Click on Disk Management and then ISCSI. Select Enable iSCSI Target Service. Click Apply.

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Click OK as we’ll take care of that setting in a later step.

Click Target Management, OK to start the wizard. Select iSCSI Target with a mapped LUN. Click Next.

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The ISCSI Quick Configuration Wizard launches.  Click Next.

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Give it a name and an alias. Click Next.

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New South Park The Stick of Truth trailer released

THQ have released a new trailer for their forthcoming game South Park The Stick of Truth. Sweeeeet!

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A new kid rises in the second South Park: The Stick of Truth trailer. See for yourself the reason why humans and elves are locked in a never-ending war: the hallowed Stick of Truth. This is the epic quest to become… cool.

Here is the trailer:

For more information on South Park: The Stick of Truth, visit www.stickoftruth.com.

App Update: 12 Days of Christmas for 2012

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Apple has updated it’s annual 12 Days of Christmas app ready for 2012’s freebies.

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You and your friends can download a fantastic selection of songs, music videos, apps and books for free. Each download will only be available for 24 hours. Get our special 12 Days of Christmas app to make it even easier to access your gifts while you’re on the go. Don’t have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch? Don’t worry. Come back 26 December to download gifts from your computer.

What’s New in Version 2.1

Updated for 2012. Get your first gift on December 26.

You need to download the app and then each day for 12 days there will be something free.

Metro: Last Light – The Survivor Series – The Commander

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Just surviving in the world of Metro is an enormous struggle. The next in the Survivor Series has been released – this one is called The Commander.

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Here it is:

Metro Last Light from THQ looks really interesting and we will be able to tell you more in a few weeks.

What do you think of it? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Dark Souls II information and pictures released

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NAMCO BANDAI have announced that the critically acclaimed Dark Souls saga marches forward with Dark Souls II, currently in development at FromSoftware in Tokyo, Japan, for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. Dark Souls II will continue a legacy of presenting its passionate fans with the kind of unrelenting challenges that have become a hallmark of the series, while presenting devilish new obstacles for players to overcome.

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Built upon the foundation established by Souls series creator and Dark Souls II Supervisor, Hidetaka Miyazaki, with development helmed by FromSoftware Director Tomohiro Shibuya, Dark Souls II will feature a new hero, a new storyline, and an unfamiliar world for players to survive in, while delivering the uncompromising challenge and ultimate sense of empowerment that players hunger for. Epic battles with gruesome enemies and blood-thirsty bosses await adventurers as they traverse and conquer a devastated world filled with death and despair. Players will also discover a revamped server based multiplayer experience that will put a distinct Dark Souls II twist on the concept of playing and sharing with others. For those with enough tenacity and sheer force of will, great rewards await.

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“There are few games that are as rewarding for players as the Dark Souls series, and Dark Souls II will give every player that steps up to take the challenge a feeling of empowerment that they will never forget,” said Olivier Comte, Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Distribution at NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe. “The game doesn’t accept compromise, and neither do the brilliant people at FromSoftware who will test their own tenacity as well as that of gamers in delivering us another gaming landmark.”

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“This new chapter in the Dark Souls saga presents opportunities for us to drive innovation in gameplay design, develop an entirely new story, and expand the scope of the world in which the player interacts with the game. We have taken these necessary steps with Dark Souls II in order to evolve the overall experience of the Dark Souls series,” says Tomohiro Shibuya, FromSoftware Director on Dark Souls II. “The entire development team is striving to make Dark Souls II an experience that is fresh while not forsaking its roots in presenting players with challenging gameplay. Our goal is to surprise and delight our fans with new experiences and plot twists while enticing new players to join our dark journey.”

More details surrounding Dark Souls II will become available in the months leading to its release. Begin your Dark Souls II journey at www.DarkSoulsII.com or join the Dark Souls II conversation on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/DARKSOULS.

Here are some more pictures:

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Are you interested in Dark Souls II? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

343 Release Halo 4 Update

Here is the Change log for the new patch for Halo 4.

Here’s the full list of fixes taken from the TU Change Log news update on Waypoint,

  • Implemented general stability improvements
  • Fixed glitch where quickly reloading after firing the Boltshot resulted in an instant reload
  • Fixed glitch where sprinting prior to activating the Hardlight Shield allowed players to move faster
  • Fixed glitch where players could throw a grenade and then immediately sprint afterwards to perform a high velocity grenade
  • Fixed glitch where Mantis could fire more rockets without reloading if the machine gun was fired partway through unleashing the charged missile barrage
  • Fixed issue where DLC was unavailable for other profiles on the same console
  • Fixed issue where DLC disappeared after console reboot
  • Fixed issue where players could not unlock Campaign completion achievements when using a rally point other than Alpha for any mission to finish the Campaign
  • Fixed issue where players were not given credit for completion of a Spartan Ops Episode Difficulty Challenge when completing it through Matchmaking
  • Fixed issue where players with 99 or more Xbox LIVE friends could not get File recommendations
  • Fixed issue where loadout configurations were lost if the game was booted and then powered off before passing the “Press START” screen
  • Fixed issue where attempting to upload large films to the File Share under poor network conditions caused the upload to fail
  • Improved time to load variants with separate profiles
  • Fixed issue where moving a profile from one controller port to another after relaunching the game reset loadout settings
  • Improved consistency of random ordnance navigation marker display
  • Fixed performance issues when launching Halo Waypoint from Halo 4