Walyou

Liquid-Cooled Corsair Bulldog Is the Perfect Barebone PC

Posted: 01 Jun 2015 08:00 AM PDT

Just when it seemed that barebone PCs are out of fashion, Corsair announced Bulldog, a water-cooled barebone computer intended for gamers.

It’s not unusual for gamers to build their own computers from scratch, as they are well-aware of what piece of hardware goes where. However, barebones represent a great way of skipping a few steps in the whole “Build a PC” process, especially if the cases they come in are attractive. Corsair has plenty of experience in creating not only good looking, but also highly functional PC cases, so it figured that launching a barebone PC would be the next logical step. Enter Bulldog, a reasonably priced barebone that comes in a compact body, proving that gaming machines don’t need to look like a monolith.

Since it’s scheduled for a Q4 2015 launch, Bulldog will most probably include a motherboard based on Intel’s upcoming Skylake chipset. In other words, support for up to 32GB of DDR3 and DDR4 RAM is provided, along with USB 3.1, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 audio and built-in Wi-Fi. AMD fans won’t be neglected either, but the motherboards and chipsets to be used are currently unknown.

As seen below, Bulldog will feature a Hydro Series liquid CPU cooler, which means that users won’t have to mess around with tubing, pumps and all of that. This cooling solution not only keeps the CPU’s temperature down, but it’s also quieter than air coolers. Should you want to also water-cool your GPU, Corsair will provide a DIY cooling kit for $99.

A fully modular 600W SFX power supply is also included, to make sure that gamers use just the right amount of cables, without any unnecessary air-blocking clutter.

Also coming with Bulldog is Lapdog, a lap desk that enables you to play games from the comfort of your couch. This accessory even has a built-in USB hub for charging phones and powering USB headphones or mice.

Both Bulldog and Lapdog will be launched in Q4 2015, for $399 and $89, respectively. You would still have to spend some extra for the CPU and RAM, but considering that what you are left with is a great degree of freedom, I’d say that it’s worth it. I’m not a big fan of the Lapdog, but the Bulldog gaming barebone PC would definitely make a great addition to any gamer’s living room.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Cars case mod that brings the family together, or the BETA desktop PC mod by Peter Husar.

Icaros VR Home Gym Provides a Change of Scenery

Posted: 31 May 2015 12:43 PM PDT

What if no two workouts were the same, simply because the surroundings looked different in each and every one of them? If this is what motivates you, the VR home gym may be just your thing.

No matter how modern the interior of a gym looks like, it’s still dull if compared to the great outdoors. Another issue is born from that comparison, as not all of us have the time to go outside in order to exercise, not to mention that finding a remote area got more and more complciated nowadays. German design firm HYVE believes that its virtual reality home gym could change the way you work out for ever.

“Lots of people sign up in gyms or sports clubs, but quit after a few weeks. [Their] most common excuses are ‘no time’ and ‘too boring,'” explained Johannes Scholl, HYVE’s senior innovation designer and exercise enthusiast, in an interview with The Creators Project.

“On the other hand, there are lots of people who love gaming on consoles, smartphones and PCs that have a guilty conscience when they realize they have spent their entire weekend on their sofas.”

“The huge advantage of our system is that the information of your visual sense, coming from the VR headset, is in line with the other senses,” added Scholl.

HYVE collaborated with animation studio Lumacode to create realistic environments for people to work out in. The virtual reality generated by the Icaros VR system is so believable that people’s brains are actually tricked into believing that they are not just sitting in a room.

“When you are doing a steep descent in VR you are also doing it in reality, blood rushes into your head and you are sucked into the virtual environment. This enables people to stay in virtual worlds longer, without getting ‘simulator sick.'”

Icaros will be the subject of a crowdfunding campaign this summer, according to its developers. Assuming that this contraption will indeed be commercially available, some of us will actually have the chance of exercising on different planets, or at the bottom of the ocean, if that’s what they prefer. Luckily for them, the crushing pressure or the lack of an atmosphere won’t be part of the scenario.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the way Virtuix Omni turns running on virtual fields into fitness, or the FeelReal VR mask and Nirvana VR helmet that bring olfactory and tactile stimuli to virtual reality.