Month: September 2016

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In an effort to stop developers from artificially inflating review scores on Steam, Valve has changed the system so that reviews written by users who received a game via a developer- or CD-distributed licence key will no longer count towards the review rating. The change will also affect reviews from Kickstarter backers that receive a Steam key as part of their backer rewards.

The Steam review system was updated in May so that an overall review rating (positive, negative, or mixed) is displayed at the top of each game page. The idea was to better show the current state of a game, particularly as more of them enter early access and evolve over time. Unfortunately, Valve claims that many developers have been abusing the system by giving out keys to friends or paid-for review services in order to bolster the overall review score.

"The review score has also become a point of fixation for many developers, to the point where some developers are willing to employ deceptive tactics to generate a more positive review score," wrote Valve in a blog post.

Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora Media, speaks during an interview in October 2015. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg (credit: Bloomberg / Getty Images)

Spotify and Apple Music may have another competitor soon—Pandora announced it has reached new licensing agreements with two of the biggest labels in music, Sony and Universal Music. It also acquired licenses from Merlin Network, a company that represents indie labels. The third major label, Warner Music, is not on board with Pandora yet. These new agreements will make it easier for Pandora to launch new streaming services, including a rumored $10 per month on-demand music service to rival Spotify and Apple Music.

As far as the licensing agreements go, the company describes it as a "win-win partnership between Pandora and the music industry." However, the absence of Warner Music is noticeable, and some reports suggest that today's announcement is meant to put some pressure on the label. A source told Billboard that Warner Music is, in fact, in talks with Pandora and close to completing a deal.

The new licenses that Pandora has will make it easier for it to offer paid streaming services that can match the music libraries of Spotify and Apple Music. Pandora could be launching two new services before year's end: the aforementioned $10-per-month service and a $5-per-month service that is more limited but also includes the company's existing free Web radio service.

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Backpack PCs for virtual reality gaming were all the rage at this year's Computex in Taiwan, but it looks like MSI is the first of that early batch to have a finalised product. Dubbed VR One, MSI's backpack PC looks nothing like the prototype, with the garish red design dropped in favour of a slimmer but altogether more "l33t gam3r" angular look. There is zero chance you are going to look cool with this thing strapped to your back.

On the plus side, MSI claims the VR One is the thinnest and lightest VR backpack around, weighing in at 7.9lbs (3.58kg). That makes it lighter than even HP's already svelte Omen VR backpack, which weighs in at 10lbs (4.5kg). The VR One is designed for use with the HTC Vive, and includes all the relevant connections and power sockets for the Vive's many, many cables and boxes. It'll also work fine with the Oculus Rift.

Inside the VR One is an "overclocked" Intel Core i7 CPU (likely the 6700K), along with an Nvidia GTX 1070 graphics card, which is more than enough horsepower to deal with pretty much any VR game you throw at it. MSI hasn't revealed any other specs, but there's likely to be at least 8GB of DDR4 RAM inside and an SSD (moving parts and jumping around do not pair well after all). I/O consists of headphone and mic jacks, HDMI out, mini DisplayPort out, USB Type-C/Thunderbolt 3, and four USB 3.0 ports.