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Twitch is raising prices for its ad-free Turbo service
Twitch’s ad-free Turbo subscription plan is raising its price, jumping from $9 to $12 per month in the US. Twitch has offered no feature changes or add-ons to accompany this price hike. The monthly cost for Turbo is going throughout the globe, with an average hike of around 25 to 30 percent.
Twitch now sells virtual gift cards
Twitch's new gift cards can be used to pay for pretty much anything on the platform.
Infiniti's latest engine is a last hurrah for gas-powered cars
Hybrid and pure electric cars may be the future of transportation, but Nissan's Infiniti badge has found a way to make the most out of gas engines while they're still relevant. When the next-generation QX50 crossover arrives in 2017, it'll carry the first-ever production variable compression turbo (VC-T) engine -- a technology that promises to dramatically improve fuel efficiency without compromising on performance. By automatically adjusting the height the engine's pistons reach, the VC-T motor can optimize its compression ratio for the task at hand. It'll lower the ratio if you're mashing the throttle (to prevent premature detonation and make the most of the turbo), but raise it when you're putting around town and need to wring out better mileage.
Motorola Droid Turbo review: better than the Moto X, but only a little
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, Motorola released an excellent flagship phone called the Moto X. Sure, it didn't have the best battery ever and the camera was pretty lousy, but it just oozed charm and didn't leave me wanting for much. Then, just months later, Motorola (with a perhaps little coaxing from Verizon) released a phone that addressed just about all of the X's shortcomings. That, in a nutshell, is the story of the Droid Turbo: Just think of it as the Moto X Plus. But is it really that much better than that other phone we fell for? And will Verizon Moto X owners rue the day they extended their contracts?
Verizon's Droid Turbo is a much-improved Moto X (hands-on)
Verizon's Droid Turbo is a curious little beast: It's a distinct improvement over Motorola's one-time flagship Moto X, but it lacks the sort of geek credentials that have gotten people drooling over the newly announced Nexus 6. That said, we were a little taken with just how seriously Motorola still takes its long-running Droid line, so join us as we take a quick look what's worth knowing about the Turbo.
Netflix's first original animated series to premiere on Christmas Eve
You remember when that ironically titled film Turbo came out this past summer? The one about the snails (thus the irony)? Apparently it was popular enough to warrant an exclusive animated series on Netflix -- the streaming service's first such investment -- and it becomes available on Christmas Eve. Just in time to distract the little ones while you're gorging on nog! On December 24th, the first five episodes of Turbo FAST go live on Netflix in the US, Canada, Ireland, Latin America and the UK, while the rest of the season will go live at unnamed intervals during 2014. As such, we'd suggest meting out those first five episodes sparingly, lest the little ones demand more before more are available.
Netflix signs up Dreamworks for multiple new original TV series, promises over 300 hours of programming
In what Netflix says is its largest-ever deal for original content, it's announced that Dreamworks Animation will provide "over 300 hours of new programming" based on both existing and incoming movies and franchises. Spanning all the territories where Netflix operates, the first series airs next year, following the previously announced spin-off series for Dreamworks' incoming Turbo movie which debuts in December. Following the movie studio's purchase of Classic Media earlier this year, Netflix also promises new content from a stable of characters that includes Where's Waldo, Caspar and Fat Albert, although it hasn't specified any new series for these just yet. Netflix will also show several Dreamworks Animation features in the coming years as part of their premium pay TV window deal, with The Croods, Turbo, and Mr. Peabody and Sherman all signed-up to appear on the streaming service in the future.
Specialized Turbo e-bike reaches the US, offers a speed boost for $5,900
When Specialized's Turbo e-bike launched last year, it was almost too fast for its own good when it couldn't legally be sold in Europe and the US. The American riders, at least, won't be held back now that the Turbo is on sale in their country. The US version costs an eye-watering $5,900, but it can reach the same 27.9MPH peak speed through its combination of pedal power and the 250W of typical output from the electric motor. With that kind of performance, it could almost pay for itself -- who wouldn't want to blow past rush hour traffic in the bike lane?
AMD Turbo Dock promises better performance and cooling for hybrids, we go hands-on (video)
Here's a question we've been asking ourselves for a while: what if the dock for a hybrid tablet could offer not only a keyboard and battery, but also increased performance? Wouldn't that provide the best of both worlds, with long battery life when you're in tablet mode and true laptop productivity when you have a place to sit down? Turns out AMD is on the same wavelength. In fact, the company has already implemented the idea in a prototype device here at MWC, destined to appear in commercial products around the middle of this year. As you'll see if you check out the video after the break, it's built by Compal and includes a 13-inch 1080p display with a quad-core Temash chip, which when combined with its Turbo Dock delivers some serious power -- going from 8 W to 15 W, with extra air flow delivered through the connector to keep it cool. AMD says that the docked tablet offers general computing performance broadly at the level of a full-fledged 17 W Intel Core i3 notebook. Judging from Microsoft's Fish Bowl HTML5 benchmark, we're looking at a gain of 50 percent -- and yes, that's pretty impressive. Next stop, a dock with an extra discrete GPU for CrossFire gaming? Who knows, but it's the logical progression.
Netflix and DreamWorks to launch original show for kids in December
While Netflix is trying to lure in the grown-ups with the launch of House of Cards, it's not leaving kids without their own choice of original material. DreamWorks plans to follow up the July release of its animated movie Turbo with a Netflix-only series, Turbo FAST, in December. The episodes will arrive on the service roughly in line with DreamWorks' 2013 slate of movies, including Turbo. Young viewers may well be happy, but Turbo FAST and the larger DreamWorks deal could be that much more satisfying for Netflix itself -- they're potential foils to Amazon's multi-show plans that could keep some subscribing families from jumping ship.
Twitch goes premium with Turbo: no ads and priority support for $9 a month
Twitch has been a popular destination for video game-voyeurs for some time. Now, to boost its bottom line and please the more ardent ad-haters out there, the service is rolling out a premium tier of service dubbed Twitch Turbo. For $8.99 per-month customers not only get to avoid being bombarded with product pitches, they'll also enjoy an enhanced chat tool with custom emoticons, colors and a special badge identifying them as a paying subscriber. Not to mention priority customer support. Those who don't want to cough up a monthly fee can still watch all their favorite e-sport broadcasts for free, so don't get all panicky. The launch follows recent moves by the platform to expand support to Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and promises to support OUYA when it starts shipping. Hit up the source link to sign up for yourself.
Raspberry Pi's new turbo mode boosts performance by roughly 50 percent, doesn't void warranties
Giving a Raspberry Pi extra voltage is a quick way to squeeze out additional processing power and void its warranty, but the folks behind the tinker-friendly board have devised a turbo mode that boosts performance by roughly 50 percent while keeping warranties intact. After studying the effects of temperature and voltage on the hardware's lifespan, the team found that dynamic overclocking and overvolting doesn't affect the Pi's health appreciably. As a result, speeds can be pushed from 700MHz to 1GHz only when additional horsepower is needed, and things are reined back in when the CPU grazes 185 degrees Fahrenheit (85 degrees Celsius). Benchmarks show the extra computing oomph makes the Pi 52 percent faster on integer, 64 percent speedier on floating point and 55 percent snappier on memory tasks. The new mode is available in the latest firmware update, which also includes temperature and frequency widgets, better analog audio, improved USB performance and support for WiFi dongles out of the box. For the technical nitty-gritty and more details on the upgrade, hit the source link below.
Visualized: the history of the Formula 1 car in 60 seconds (video)
Formula 1 car technology has come a long way since it first hit the asphalt banks 62 years ago. It's been hard to convey the sheer amount of change in a succinct way, but Rufus Blacklock may have nailed it in exactly one minute. Abstract versions of the cars show us the progression from the bullet-shaped cars of the 1950's through to the low-slung, wing-laden beasts we know today. If the clip is a little too F1-fast, there's also an infographic that details exactly when certain technology changes came into play, starting with the first wings in 1968 through to modern (and at times controversial) introductions like KERS in 2009. Click past the break for the video, and check out the relevant source link for a quite literal big picture.
Specialized Turbo e-bike is too fast and furious for the western world (video)
While not quite the fastest commercially available e-bike in the world as some have suggested (as far as we can tell, that claim belongs to a DIY kit out of Taiwan by a company called Cyclone), the Specialized Turbo is still a speedy little beast. In fact, it's fast enough to find itself on the wrong side of the law both here in the US and across most of Europe. The 250 W rear hub motor is powerful enough to get this guy up to about 28 MPH, or 8 MPH over the legal limit here in America. It's the other features, though, that make this guy particularly interesting. The frame has integrated LED head and tail lights, regenerative braking and the 342 Wh battery can be juiced in just two hours from an outlet. There's even a backlit display that lets you monitor charge and assistance level, as well as standard bike computer stats like speed, distance and time. Oh, and it even supports ANT+ for wirelessly connecting with your existing accessories. The Specialized Turbo is expected to land in some European nations in May for €5,499. Check out the video after the break to see it in action.
Archos 80 G9 Turbo slate shipping now, Ice Cream Sandwich on board
Archos has been pushing out an array of slates ranging from kid-friendly to Prime contenders, leaving you with a plethora to choose from. One of which, is a souped-up variant of that 80 G9 we showed you a while back. The Archos 80 G9 Turbo ICS, to call it by its full name, is now ready to leave its warehouse status behind and head toward your front door. Perhaps, its main selling point is the ICS treat it brings along (shockingly, this inclusion is still a relative rarity), but it's also packing a 1.5GHz OMAP4 CPU, a 720p front-facing shooter as well as an 8-inch, 1024 x 768 display. Additionally, the G9 Turbo comes in two flavors: 8GB and 16GB, both priced at around $310 and $380, respectively. Folks looking to snag one of these turbolicious tabs can head over to the source link below.
Opera 11.10 launched with company's 'most expensive ad ever'
Opera has always been the little browser that could, and the company is now embracing that spirit more than ever with its new ad campaign for the just-released Opera 11.10. To that end, it's launched a new ad campaign that it proudly boasts is its most expensive ever -- a record-setting $8,517.26, including a hefty $1,500 that they splurged on some "trendy Swedish clothes." Of course, the browser itself is the real story here and, while it's an incremental upgrade, it does boast a few fairly big new features, including support for Google's new WebP image format, a "SpeedDial" for your favorite websites, and a turbo mode that promises to compress and load web pages faster when you're on a slow connection. Just how does that work? We'll let Opera's Christen Krogh explain in the no-expenses-spared video after the break.
Intel Turbo Boost is MIA on new 13-inch MacBook Pro? (update: negatory)
If you were expecting your new 13-inch MacBook Pro's Core i7 CPU to Turbo Boost its way north of that default 2.7GHz clock speed, we might suggest discontinuing your anticipation. Two separate reviews of the laptop are reporting the curious case of its Core i7-2620M processor failing to automatically overclock itself the way it should. Intel's dual-core chip is capable of a maximum speed of 3.4GHz, but reviewers weren't able to get it any higher than its stock setting while testing Apple's latest 13-incher. High temperatures were identified (north of 90C / 194F) as the likely culprit, with Notebook Journal also finding its machine throttled down to 798MHz due to heat dissipation issues. PC Pro theorizes that Apple intentionally disabled the Turbo Boost functionality on this particular MBP model in order to preserve your lap and your pride from being scalded by melting components. That would make sense to us, and hey, it's still a fast machine, just not Turbo fast. [Thanks, Markus] Update: AnandTech's findings contradict the above, with Anand asserting that "there's absolutely no funny business going on here, the dual-core 2.7 is allowed to hit its maximum frequencies." Seems like we'll need to keep digging to get to the bottom of this one. Update 2: We've confirmed with Apple that there are no specific hardware or software limits to block the Turbo Boost function, however we've also discovered, through less direct sources, that the company is providing new low level software tools to diagnose cooling issues with the 2011 batch of laptops. Ergo, the speed limits that PC Pro and Notebook Journal encountered might have been caused by inadequate heat dissipation, which arguably is no less troubling than an Apple-mandated de-Turbo-fication.
The technology of the Porsche 911
Regardless of industry, there are few brands more iconic than Porsche. And, of all the car shapes that have sprung from clay over the years, few are more evocative than the classic 911. It started in 1963 looking like a slightly stretched Beetle -- which it wasn't much bigger than. It's considerably larger and heavier now, having lost much of its design purity in the ensuing 40-odd years. Still, its same basic shape and layout remain: bug eyes up front and boxer motor in the rear, slung between the back wheels. Today's 911, also known as the 997, has been around since 2005 and is about due to be replaced by a new model. This means it's at the top of its game, available in a dizzying array of flavors that include the sporty Carrera, sunny-day cruisin' Cabriolet, all-wheel drive powerhouse Turbo, all leading up to the mind-blowingly fast, twin-turbo 911 GT2. That car is as devoid of creature comforts as it is of apprehensions about sending you flying sideways into a tree. Screaming, probably. These varying trim levels offer juicy bits of tech like active center differentials, launch control, and double-clutch gearboxes. Join us as we explore the race-ready bits of technology that make these cars faster and safer on the road and then take them for a spin around Barber Motorsports Park to see how it all comes together.
AT&T USBConnect Turbo and Velocity are carrier's first LG and GPS modems, respectively
Location-based services have finally melted our brains to the point where we're completely useless without immediate and constant access to Google Maps or a reasonable facsimile -- we couldn't fold a paper map if we tried, and even if we could, we'd spend an hour looking for the pulsing blue dot. That's why we're so delighted to hear that AT&T has finally outed its very first GPS-enabled USB modem, the USBConnect Velocity from Option, that includes a so-called Option GPS Control Panel for injecting your whereabouts into popular services like Yahoo and Bing (Google, curiously, isn't mentioned). The other newbie to the lineup is the USBConnect Turbo -- AT&T's very first modem from LG -- with an "ergonomic design" and versatile connector for even the most awkward ports (MacBook, we're looking straight at you). Both devices will be available on the 7th of the month; the Turbo will be free on contract after rebate while the Velocity comes in at $29.99.
'Turbo' movie trumps Natal, Sphere and Wii MotionPlus
We talked about the trailer for Turbo back in April, and now director Jarrett Conaway has put the entire short film up on the web for maximum watchability. While it's a short film, it manages to make a movie about video games look like ... a movie about video games (and not some overblown Bay-gasm). It also stars Justin Chon, one of the bit players from this weekend's mega-money-making New Moon, though he's thankfully not playing an emo crybaby in this. Conaway describes his film as "The Karate Kid meets Tron," but it actually feels more like The Wizard updated with tons of CGI. Except there's no Nintendo Power Glove in it. But don't fret, there are gloves in this short film. And they definitely have some power. Check out all of Turbo after the break. Conaway is hoping to make a full-length version of the film soon, which means you could see Turbo: The Video Game of the Video Game Movie at a store near you.
