It’s hard to believe it’s already Friday again and we at the LanOC offices are packing up our rigs, getting ready for a little LAN gaming this weekend. With the release of a whole mess of games that I am excited about upcoming in the next few days I will most likely be taking any free time I can find and putting it into gaming. For those of you who won’t be out LANing it up this weekend, here is our list of affiliate news for you to check out.

I'm not sure how I missed this before. But we spoke before about EA's thoughts on Steam sales. Valve's Jason Holtman, business development chief, responded back with a wealth of information on why they do what they do and how it works for them. But the best quote that I found from the interview sums up Valves outlook and reasoning. 

 If we thought having a 75 per cent sale on Portal 2 would cheapen Portal 2, we wouldn't do it.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-11-valve-counters-eas-steam-sales-cheapen-intellectual-property-accusation

26 July 2012, Keelung, Taiwan - Lian-Li Industrial Co. Ltd, today announces a silent brushed aluminum ATX supported chassis – PC-B12. The PC-B12 has many features to keep noise down to a minimum, including: a vent on the bottom of the chassis pulling in cool air, a downward facing exhaust baffle and noise dampening foam on the front and side panels.

The front panel of the PC-B12 has no visible vents. Instead of air entering in from the front, two 140mm fans behind the front panel pull in cool air through the 12cm wide (4.7”) intake vent on the bottom of the chassis. Four sturdy aluminum feet with rubber bottoms to reduce vibrations give ample room for air to be pulled into the bottom vent. The rear 120mm exhaust fan has an adjustable downward facing exhaust baffle on the exterior of the case with noise dampening foam that not only bounces the sound waves down, but also directs the hot air towards the floor.

July 26, 2012, Shenzhen, China – Giada's new MI-NAS25 motherboard is aimed as a solution for System Integrators. The MI-NAS25 is designed for network storage and file serving. Built around Intel's NM10 Express chipset and the 10 watt Atom D2500 CPU which is on-board, the MI-NAS25 has 6 SATA ports, offering the best connectivity to NAS (Network-attached storage).

Available in North America through its branch office in August 2012 for the recommend retail price of US$169.95, the Giada MI-NAS25 is driven by Intel's nimble Atom Cedar Trail technology and supported by up to 4GB of memory.

Yesterday we were a little behind working on publishing our review, so today you guys/girls get a double dose of affiliate news. Our friends over at Techgage posted up a nice read - The Android Dilemma - An Open Platform Open to Piracy? @ Techgage

Unlike its leading competitor, iOS, Android is about as open as a traditional desktop OS. As such, piracy is no stranger here, and some developers speculate that the situation is made worse by the fact that it is in fact "open". We analyze that and other thoughts, and try to evaluate whether or not closing Android would solve anything.

It’s a rainy day in northwest Ohio today, but that doesn’t stop the affiliate news from coming in. Today we have a whole list including a good look at the MSI GTX 680 Lightning from over at Hard OCP.

All good things have to come to an end, that’s something to keep in mind today when you get on looking for more amazing deals like what we have seen for the past week and a half. Steam’s Summer Sale officially ends today, although I wouldn’t be shocked if we saw a few more deals today like we have seen after past sales. To help you morn, we have our affiliate news postings from the weekend. This should help keep your mind off things for a little while. Once you are done, load up and put all those new games you picked up to use!

It’s finally Friday and you can almost taste the weekend. We have a couple affiliate reviews to help get you through the day. One is even the same Corsair Vengeance 2000 Wireless headset that we recently reviewed as well. Take a look to see what they thought as well.

Hey guys and girls and welcome to your Thursday affiliate news. I hope everyone’s week is going well and if not, just remember the weekend is almost here!

City of Industry, California, July 17^th , 2012 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announced the conclusion of its Z77 OC Contest hosted on HWBOT.org. The Z77 OC Contest invited the world’s biggest overclocking community to push Intel^® Ivy Bridge processors to the absolute max, with the winners offered an exclusive taste of forthcoming GIGABYTE Ultra Durable^™ 5 motherboards.

July 18, 2012, Chino, California – Genius is pleased to announce a portable Bluetooth speaker with a built-in microphone – SP-900BT. This compact speaker not only allows you to listen to audio or music from your smart phone or tablet at high volumes, but also lets you take phone calls / conference calls hands-free.

Taipei, Taiwan - July 17, 2012 - ADATA Technology Co., Ltd. today announced the start of shipments of the XPG™ Gaming v2.0 Series DDR3 2400G DRAM modules. These dual channel kits are designed and engineered to bring optimum performance to third generation Intel™ Core™ processors and the Z77 platform.

17 July 2012, Keelung, Taiwan - Lian-Li Industrial Co. Ltd, today announces a tall, slim brushed aluminum EATX supported chassis – PC-X2000FN. The PC-X2000FN keeps DIY builder's hardware neat and organized in the interior with its three separate compartments, while having a sleek, elegant feel on the outside thanks to the one-piece front panel with no visible vents on holes.

It’s hard to believe we have already made it half way into this week. Now that I picked up the expansion pack in the steam summer sale, Tropico 4 seems to make all of my extra time vanish. I better hurry and finish up our affiliate news for the day before I get sucked back in! Enjoy

The steam sales continued all weekend, I hope everyone picked up a game or two to play at the LAN this fall. To help your pocket book I have listed out all of our affiliate reviews to keep you distracted.

July 12, 2012, Chino, California – Genius announces their newest addition to their GX Gaming Series today - Lychas HS-G550 Foldable Gaming Headset. This GX Gaming Series headset allows gamers to listen to the sounds of the battlefield in one ear while still being able to hear their teammates sitting next to them thanks to the individual volume controls on each ear cup.

Ideal for LAN parties and competitions because of its individual volume control, the Lychas is easy to carry around with its swivel ear cups and foldable design. When both of the ear cups' volume is turned up, the GX Series' Lychas not only provides clear and accurate audio for a tactical advantage in any combat situation, but the large 50mm drivers also prevent distraction from background noises.

The in-line control box lets gamers easily tweak the master volume and mute the microphone in-game. Mounted on the left ear piece, the omni-directional microphone can be simply rotated out of view when not in use. The adjustable headband fits comfortably on any gamer.

Smooth, stable connections are guaranteed with the GX Gaming Series' headsets. The Lychas gaming headset does not take up valuable USB port space. Instead, the Lychas has an anti-corrosive gold-plated 3.5mm jack ensuring longer-lasting, high quality connections.

July 13, 2012, Shenzhen, China – Giada, a brand of Shenzhen Jiehe Technology Development, Co., Ltd, today announces the i53 Mini PC. With full HD 1080P video, high connectivity, support, and an attractive design, Giada's new book-sized i53 Mini PC is an ideal choice for home entertainment, web browsing, and document writing.

With the Steam Summer Sale in full effect some of you will need something to keep yourselves busy while waiting for the next flash sale to pop up. Once you are done reading our write up of the Lian Li PC-TU200, here is a full list of reviews from our affiliates. Enjoy!

Motherboards

Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 Intel Z77 Express @ techPowerUp

ASRock Z77 Extreme6 Intel Z77 Motherboard Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Video Cards

Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 3X OC 2GB Graphics Card Review @ eTeknix.com

Custom NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670/680 Round Up: EVGA, ZOTAC, MSI, Gigabyte, ASUS @ HotHardware.com

NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table @ Hardware Secrets

AMD ATI Chips Comparison Table @ Hardware Secrets

Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 FleX Review @ Neoseeker

Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition TOXIC 6GB Video Card Review

Cooling

Corsair AF and SP Series Fan Review @ OCC

Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro and Performer CPU Coolers Review @ Hi Tech Legion

Arctic Freezer i30 CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets

Case

Corsair Vengeance C70 Gaming Case Review @ Neoseeker

Xilence Interceptor Pro @ techPowerUp

BitFenix Prodigy Review @ Vortez

Lian Li PC-V700-B Mid-Tower Chassis Review

SilverStone Grandia GD08

Storage

MyDigitalSSD BP3 256GB mSATA SSD Review @ RWLabs

Western Digital My Passport 2TB Portable Hard Drive Review @ Techgage

Western Digital My Passport 2TB: high capacity portable disk

Input Devices

Roccat Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard Review @ Legit Reviews

Roccat Savu Mid Size Gaming Mouse Review @ eTeknix.com

Thrustmaster T-Wireless Duo Pack PC/PS3 Controllers Review @ Madshrimps

Audio

Corsair Vengeance 2000 Wireless Headset Review @ Neoseeker

Other

Everything You Need to Know About the PCI Express @ Hardware Secrets

ASUS O!Play LIVE HD Media Player @ Benchmark Reviews

Get out your wallet now, its time for the steam summer sale!!

Microsoft has uncovered a bug in the gadget functionality in both Vista and Windows 7. Everyone should take a look and lock things down to prevent any issues in the future!

 

Just two weeks before researchers are to disclose bugs in Windows "gadgets" at Black Hat, Microsoft acknowledged unspecified security vulnerabilities in the small pieces of software supported by Vista and Windows 7.

http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=99EE71D0-E5E6-393E-2C655E54C5E87660