gadgets
Console heaven
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ast November, Valve introduced PC customisability to consoles with its Steam Machine: a customisable, open console system running Linux-based SteamOS, backed with the amazingly hassle-free Steam gaming store and DRM system. Steam Machines can bring your PC gaming to your HD TV, or keep it on your PC, and as the hardware is the standard PC fare, Steam Machines can be bought from several companies and are customisable and upgradeable. Maingear’s Drift/X99 is a premium offering, with a price of $1,500 for the lowest spec model with a one-year warranty to up to a breathtaking $9,400 for the top of the range with all the bells, whistles and doodads: i7-5960X 8-core Haswell-E, 32 GB DDR4, Titan X 12GB, three 2TB Samsung 850 EVO SSDs, dual OS (Steam and Windows 10 Pro), a custom paint job, a three-year warranty and a funky suitcase to carry it. All of which makes the Maingear Drift/X99 possibly the most impressive console ever. Maingear Drift/X99 $1,500-9,500 www.maingear.com
Lens capture
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f a Steam Machine is too old hat for you, perhaps a trip into bleeding-edge territory is more your speed: Microsoft is taking pre-orders for its HoloLens Development Edition. The glasses promise to be a strange new direction for computers and gaming, mixing reality and computer graphics, with the added bonus of making you look like a crazed drug addict in the depths of a bad trip to onlookers. The glasses are a self-contained x86-based system and have 2GB RAM, 64GB storage, Bluetooth 4.1, USB 2, six cameras, four microphones, 802.11ac WiFi, an ambient light sensor and movement detection systems combining gyroscopes and accelerometers. They project 16:9 images with over 2,500 light points per radian. All that tech means the battery life is about two to three hours of use, but you can run them plugged in. There’s also a bluetooth clicker for interaction. As a pre-requisite, you have to sign up to become a Windows Insider, and shipping starts on March 30, so there may be a wait involved. Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition $3,000 https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us/development-edition
Nuclear Arctic trip
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his last is not a gadget, but it’s so cool (no pun intended) we think you’ll let it slide: a 14-day trip to the North Pole. Can it get much more interesting than that? Why, yes, yes it can: for example if the trip is on the largest nuclear-powered icebreaker in the world. Yes, you saw that right: you make the trip to the pole on the Arktika-class NS 50 Let Pobedy (50 Years of Victory). The ship was started in 1989, but abandoned and construction did not restart until 2003, with her maiden voyage in 2007. The ship also has Zodiacs and a helicopter for access to difficult to get to sites. The cruise starts at Murmansk, goes to the North Pole and stops off at Franz Josef Land on the way back. North Pole Trip $27,000+ quarkexpeditions.com
Issue ONE 2016
45