A new Kickstarter project is making waves, by proposing an open-source, hacker-friendly platform using Android as its backbone. "OUYA" merges the "satisfying" experience of a console with the developer-friendly nature of the Android marketplace. The project is seeking nearly a million dollars in funds, but it's already managed to reach more than half its lofty goal within just a day. The project's goal is $950,000, a figure it's likely to hit. It's been less than a day, and it's hit more than $590,000. That's no doubt because the higher dollar amounts, $95 and $99, offer the console itself as a reward. So far, the project hasn't outlined any stretch goals, but they seem likely. The funding will go towards converting the prototype to production models with approvals from regulatory agencies, development kits, production orders, and possibly some first-party game development. It also claims that games will be required to offer a free element, be it a demo or the full game with microtransactions. OUYA has already specified its technical specs, including a Tegra3 quad-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of flash storage, an HDMI connection, and Android 4.0. The controller looks fairly standard for consoles, with eight action buttons, two analog sticks, a D-pad, and the addition of a touch pad.

Turtle Beach, pioneers and market-leaders of the gaming headset category, and Major League Gaming (MLG), the world's largest competitive video game league, today announce a multi-year product and marketing partnership under which Turtle Beach will develop the official headsets and audio equipment of Major League Gaming. The first official products offered under this partnership will be MLG versions of the all-new Ear Force XP7 and Z7 MLG Pro Circuit Programmable Surround Sound Headsets for console and PC play, along with the Ear Force TM1 Tournament Audio Mixer.

Slated for release in Fall 2012, working prototypes of these exciting new game audio products and others from the Turtle Beach line will be available for preview in Turtle Beach's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) booth; Los Angeles Convention Center South Hall #2447, from June 5 - 7, 2012. MLG Pro Players will be on hand to help introduce the new products, with appearances in the Turtle Beach booth daily from 2-3 p.m. PT.

Noise reduction specialist RotoSub and renowned quiet cooling fan manufacturer Noctua today announced a strategic partnership agreement for the development and commercialisation of PC fans with integrated Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). A first prototype of a Noctua fan with integrated RotoSub ANC technology will be shown at Computex Taipei next week.

Active Noise Cancellation (also referred to as Active Noise Control or Active Noise Reduction, ANC) is the technique of using sound waves to reduce noise by means of an effect called phase cancellation or destructive interference. Lars Strömbäck and Mårten Oretorp from RotoSub have invented a system (RotoSub Active Noise Control, R-ANC) that allows a fan to emit the sound signal that cancels out the original sound of the fan and thereby greatly reduces the overall noise emission.

Canon Inc. today announced that the Company is developing a 30-inch, 4K resolution industrial video display, a prototype of which will be exhibited from April 16 to 19 at the NAB Show 2012, the world's largest international digital event for audio, video, film, broadcast and communications, held in Las Vegas.

The prototype to be displayed will provide support for cinema and other video editing processes while also responding to film production needs for consistency and reliability through proprietary Canon high image-quality technology. While detailed specifications and pricing have yet to be finalized, Canon aims to commercialize the display before the end of 2012.

A team of scientists at the MPQ realizes a first elementary quantum network based on interfaces between single atoms and photons. Whether it comes to phoning a friend or to using the internet - our daily communication is based on sophisticated networks, with data being transferred at the speed of light between different nodes. It is a tremendous challenge to build corresponding networks for the exchange of quantum information. These quantum networks would differ profoundly from their classical counterparts: Besides giving insights into fundamental questions in physics, they could also have applications in secure communication and the simulation of complex many-body systems, or they could be used for distributed quantum computing. One prerequisite for functional quantum networks are stationary nodes that allow for the reversible exchange of quantum information.

A major breakthrough in this field has now been achieved by scientists in the group of Professor Gerhard Rempe, director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and head of the Quantum Dynamics division: The physicists have set up the first, elementary quantum network (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature11023, 12 April 2012). It consists of two coupled single-atom nodes that communicate quantum information via the coherent exchange of single photons. "This approach to quantum networking is particularly promising because it provides a clear perspective for scalability", Professor Rempe points out.

IBM scientists today will report on a prototype optical chipset, dubbed "Holey Optochip", that is the first parallel optical transceiver to transfer one trillion bits - one terabit - of information per second, the equivalent of downloading 500 high definition movies. The report will be presented at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference taking place in Los Angeles.

With the ability to move information at blazing speeds - eight times faster than parallel optical components available today - the breakthrough could transform how data is accessed, shared and used for a new era of communications, computing and entertainment. The raw speed of one transceiver is equivalent to the bandwidth consumed by 100,000 users at today's typical 10 Mb/s high-speed internet access. Or, it would take just around an hour to transfer the entire U.S. Library of Congress web archive through the transceiver.

University of Utah engineers designed a new kind of video game controller that not only vibrates like existing devices, but pulls and stretches the thumb tips in different directions to simulate the tug of a fishing line, the recoil of a gun or the feeling of ocean waves.

"I'm hoping we can get this into production when the next game consoles come out in a couple of years," says William Provancher, an associate professor of mechanical engineering who is in Vancouver, British Columbia, demonstrating the new game controller with his students March 5-7.

Samsung announced EyeCAN, a pointing device (mouse-replacement) for people that are physically-handicapped. The device is a glasses-mounted solution that precisely tracks eye movements, allowing the user to move the mouse pointer accurately. The user needn't use a single muscle to click on anything that they see on their computer screen. Samsung announced the EyeCAN today as a working-prototype, with plans to start selling it to the general public later this year, priced at roughly 50,000 Won (US $44).

PowerColor is designing a non-reference Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, complete with its own PCB and cooler designs. For the cooler, PowerColor is designing an updated version of its Vortex II cooler featured on some of its older high-end graphics cards based on Radeon HD 6900 series GPUs. The cooler design is your typical aluminum fin-stack heatsink to which heat is fed by four 8 mm thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes. Ventilation is handled by two 80 mm fans, the frames of these fans are threaded and can be twisted to adjust the distance between the fan and the heatsink, adjusting its air-flow.

PowerColor also has a custom-design PCB to go with it, only the prototype pictured has no Tahiti GPU sitting on it, but PowerColor at least has a board design of its own at hand. The PCB draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, a CHIL-made controller handles voltage regulation. The VRM consists of a 9+1 phase design with a few other miscellaneous power domains. Those chokes appear to be slightly more cost-effective compared to the CPL-made ones featured on AMD's reference PCB. IR directFETs are replaced by cost-effective yet durable DrMOS chips.

Yesterday, we reported on Intel's embarrassing gaffe at demonstrating racing game F1 1 2011 running on a prototype ultrabook with an Ivy Bridge processor, where it was really just a video. Since then, AnandTech has seen that game play on an Ivy Bridge notebook just fine, but the best proof has come now, where they got hold of the actual ultrabook at the centre of the controversy and tested it with that game. The result? It works just fine, like we suspected. It looks like Intel just need a little PR makeover, is all. Video proof follows.

That Dodgy Intel Ivy Bridge DX11 'demo' at CES 2012 (UPDATED)

Word has been flying round the internet about Intel's dodgy Ivy Bridge DX11 'demo'. Intel's Mooly Eden, VP, PC Client Group was attempting to demonstrate a racing game on a prototype laptop - 'ultrabook' - fitted with an upcoming 22 nm Ivy Bridge processor with a racing wheel attached and allegedly rendering DX11 graphics. However, as is very apparent at the start, it's actually a video, because the control panel for the free VLC video player pops up for a few seconds. Eden then 'drives' a car and after a few seconds puts up one hand and then the other, because as he says "they are driving it from backstage". However, there was no one driving the game "backstage", as it was just a video and Eden doesn't say anything about this at any point in the presentation.

This gives conspiracy theorists lots of ammunition, as perhaps the game was actually played on a high powered desktop PC with NVIDIA or AMD discrete graphics cards? What game was it? Eden doesn't say. "IB can't really do these graphics!" they cry and so on. Sure, man 'didn't' go to the moon, either... However, we believe that while yes, there was a bit of deception going on, it was nothing more than a white(ish) lie. Why? Because Ivy Bridge comes out in April and people aren't going to forget this demo. They will immediately put IBs DX11 graphics to the test with similar games and if it doesn't deliver, Intel will have a lot of egg on its face. Here's what Intel had to say about this demo in an official statement: