Steam

If You Use Steam, Valve Might Be Tracking Every Website You Visit

Here’s a fun fact: If you use Steam for your games—let’s face it, you do—there’s a chance Valve’s Anti-Cheat System been taking a look at all the websites you visit and sending a list back to home base. Why? No one knows for sure. The discovery comes by way of SHG_Nackt who claims to have…

13 Steam Boxes, Ranked

Last night, Valve announced and showed off a collection of 13 different third-party Steam Boxes at its CES event. What Valve didn’t do was rank them for you. We’ve taken the liberty of handling that, based on criteria that’s almost entirely arbitrary. It’s worth noting that we haven’t actually used any of these Steam Boxes;…

Hands On With the Steam Controller: Gloriously Bizarre

Valve had a CES event tonight, and though there was neither hide nor hair of a finished official Steam Box, Steam controllers were on hand for the trying and man they are weird. But in a way that makes me hopeful. The first thing you’ll notice when you hold a Steam controller is the way…

Looks like SteamOS (along with the 300 some prototype Steam Boxes won by lucky beta testers) are going to be headed out into the wild this Friday. Brace yourselves though, it sounds like SteamOS is going to need some tinkering before it works. [Valve]

Here’s Your First Look at Valve’s Prototype Steam Box

Details have been dribbling out bout the Valve’s new push into living room gaming. First we got the announcement, then the specs, and now the first prototype boxes are showing up in the wild. https://gizmodo.com/valves-first-piece-of-hardware-is-a-steam-box-prototyp-1385903248 Engadget got a look, and it’s a strikingly minimalist box, but a pretty large one. Of course, it’s worth noting…

Here’s the First Footage of Valve’s Wacky Steam Controller In Use

When we first saw Valve’s thumbstick-free controller specially made for use with Steam, we had some questions about how it would really work in action. Now, we at least know what it looks like. There are still a lot of questions to be answered about how it feels, and a select few have had the…

Report: Valve’s Steam Machines Will Be Powered By AMD Too

Earlier this month, Valve released specs of its prototype Steam Box units and holy hell they were impressive. The eagle-eyed would have noticed that it was a purely Intel party—turns out it won’t be that way for long. Speaking to Forbes, Doug Lombardi, from Valve, has explained: “Last week, we posted some technical specs of…

Steam Is Getting Its Own Crazy Joystick-less Controller

Valve has been announcing up a storm this week, first with its own operating system, and then with its own hardware. Now we’ve got the third and final piece of the puzzle: a controller. And man is it crazy. https://gizmodo.com/steams-got-its-own-operating-system-now-1371883607 No, those are not joysticks, but they are dual trackpads, and look where the buttons…

The Steam Box Is Real, But It’s Not Just From Valve

Valve made a big splash on Monday when it announced SteamOS, its own gaming-flavored Linux operating system, but SteamOS was just one announcement in a trio. The second one’s here and yes, it’s a Steam Box. https://gizmodo.com/steams-got-its-own-operating-system-now-1371883607 Just like we heard way back when, Valve’s Steam Box initiative isn’t a one-size fits all deal; Valve…

Can Valve create the perfect game machine and win against MS and Sony?

Steam is the most popular electronic desktop game distribution method in the planet. So popular that its developers think it will be a great idea to make a Steam Box, a custom gaming and media PC that will connect to your TV and compete with the Xbox One or the PS4. One of the steps…

Steam’s Got Its Own Operating System Now

After a forever-long countdown to a three-tiered announcement, Valve has rolled out phase one of its plan to take over your living room: SteamOS. What many thought was going to be a Steam Box console is for now in fact a Steam platform, one that will be available for hardware manufacturers to implement at will.…

This Solar Sanitizer Will Bring Safer Surgery to the Developing World

Modern medical techniques, specifically stringent sterilization practices, have led to a dramatic drop in the number of post-op infections—assuming the facility has the necessary electricity and equipment to do so. However, in the remote regions of developing countries like India, neither of those is guaranteed. But that’s where Rice University’s new solar steamer comes in.…

You can now pre-order the Piston Steam Box for $900. That’s $100 off its (eventual) retail price.

Your official Steam client for Ubuntu has arrived.

Meet Piston: Valve and Xi3’s Steam Box Love-Child

The Steam Box (or Steam Boxes, more likely) has been a long time coming, and today, the Xi3’s Piston is leading the charge. While the details about Piston specifically are few and far between, we got a look at her and boy is she pretty. https://kotaku.com/gabe-newell-living-room-pcs-will-compete-with-next-gen-5966860 The first of what will probably be many, Piston…

Here We Go: Valve-Backed PC Hardware Will Be Shown Off This Week [Update: It's Code-Named Piston]

Let the Steam Box speculation begin. Valve is investing in computer hardware, and they’re showing it off this week. A company called Xi3Corporation is developing the hardware (whose chassis you can see above), which they say is designed to play Steam games on big-screen TVs. They say they’ve received an investment from Valve, and that…

That time Michigan J. Frog mated with a headcrab and gave birth to singing, dancing hell-spawn

Feast your eyes and ears on Michigan J. Protocol, a brief but excellent Half-Life/Michigan J. Frog mashup created by The Steam Community’s Zachariah. The Canadian-based cinematic designer produced the short for “Critter Week,” a machinima challenge geared toward showcasing all the nightmarish creatures of the Half-Life video game franchise. The challenge is being hosted in…

You’re Being Lied To: Windows 8 Isn’t Bad for Gaming

Windows 8 is a threat to computer gaming. It’s a “catastrophe,” if you listen to Gabe Newell at Valve, or heads at a bunch of other major gaming companies. But the thing is, even though everyone in video games is yelling about Windows 8, they’re not actually yelling about, well, gaming. https://kotaku.com/gabe-newell-wants-to-support-linux-because-windows-8-i-5929067 So what’s actually…

Now at SkyMall: Pseudoscience

SkyMall’s Ionic Cleansing Facial Steamer boasts it “…rejuvenates and refreshes skin…” via “…steam molecules that are 1/8,000 smaller than normal water molecules….” These super tiny steam molecules supposedly allow more moisture to penetrate your skin leading to all sorts of awesome benefits. Just one problem: steam is just vaporized water, so it can’t be smaller…

America’s Last Steam-Powered Saw Mill

In 1938, Ralph Hull founded a mill in the rural Oregon Coast Mountains. Lacking enough current to even light the workshop, Hull used steam power to supplement his energy needs. And today the mill still does—as the last steam-powered commercial sawmill on the continent. Hull-Oakes Lumber cuts about 18 million board feet (43,000 cubic meters)…