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Amtrak to roll out high-efficiency trains with regenerative braking (video)
Some of us look at electric trains as efficient transportation almost by definition, but that's not entirely true when they consume a lot of power and give little back. Amtrak is about to strike a better balance now that it's close to receiving the first of 70 high-efficiency Siemens ACS-64 trains destined for routes across DC, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania. Each engine centers on a regenerative braking system that can recover up to 5MW of energy, much of which goes back to the power grid. The machinery is smarter, too: it can self-diagnose problems and mitigate the impact until repairs are possible. Commuters won't immediately notice the difference when ACS-64 trains reach the rails between this fall and 2016, but there should be important behind-the-scenes savings. Amtrak reckons that the new vehicles could lower energy consumption by 3 billion kilowatts in the long run, which might help both the company's bottom line and local utilities.
Lian-Li designs a moving train PC case, makes plugging in a challenge (video)
Lian-Li is a fan of odd-looking PC cases, but the boxes have usually had a tendency to remain stationary. The CK-101 takes away that one certainty: the design stuffs a fully functioning PC case with hard drive bays, a slim optical drive and USB 3.0 ports into an on-the-move model of a steam engine train. There's more than a few questions about how it works -- including whether or not it needs a battery to stay rolling, and just what's generating the 'steam' -- but it's already apparent from the video (below) that wired peripherals won't be much fun if you're chasing your computer down the tracks. There's a chance that Lian-Li will be selling a considerably more fixed-in-place version; we'll know more when the CK-101 is shown off at Computex in early June, where there will also be a show-specific, SUV-like Q15 case to sate your appetite for very literal car computers.
First, and last, look at Red Faction: B.E.A.S.T.
Looking for another new "core" third-person shooter for the Wii? We suggest you look in an alternate universe where Locomotive Games was not shut down. The developer was working on a new entry in THQ's Red Faction series, called Red Faction: B.E.A.S.T., for the Wii. Their last project prior to this was the Wii version of Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed.It seems that after the cancellation and the studio closure, somebody released a bunch of character renders and video footage of the unannounced game and sent it to Unseen64. The video is a bit, uh, YouTube-quality, but it clearly shows some pretty nice lighting effects as well as the destructible environments that are Red Faction's trademark.%Gallery-42384%
