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Joker's crazed lover takes matters in her own maniacal hands in the upcoming Batman: Arkham City - Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC. The gripping addition to last year's phenomenal Batman: Arkham City finds Harley in a darker mood, and apparently she's gotten crafty enough to take down the Dark Knight. The hooded Robin gets to lend a helping hand here when Batman goes missing, and the Boy Wonder wastes no time in showing how nimble he is with that hardy staff. Harley's raging quest for revenge against Joker's reported demise marks the final chapter in Batman: Arkham City, and the story-based DLC comes out on May 29th. A simultaneous release for Batman: Arkham City Game of the Year Edition also includes Harley Quinn's Revenge along with other neat extras designed for a thorough Arkham City experience.

NVIDIA announced new technologies at the 2012 GPU Technology Conference and our roundup includes an article on NVIDIA GeForce GRID and how it might change the face of gaming. We also get to check out the Samsung BD-D6500 3D Blu-ray player, Cooler Master's X6 Elite CPU cooler, Diablo III gaming performance and more.

Cooling
Cooler Master X6 Elite CPU Cooler @ ThinkComputers

Gaming
Diablo III Performance Test: Graphics & CPU @ TechSpot

Optical Drives
Samsung BD-D6500 3D Blu-Ray Player @ Tweaknews

Video
How NVIDIA GeForce GRID Changed Video Games @ Benchmark Reviews

Miscellany
Podcast #202 @ PC Perpsective

Back in March, Epic Games was showing off Unreal Engine 4 behind closed doors and an NDA. Today the studio is opening up a little bit more about the new engine and that we can expect a lot more information at E3 next month. The team over at Wired conducted an interview with Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney about Unreal Engine 4 and just what we can expect from it, and I have to say, it is well worth the read. For starters, Epic has assembled a two and a half minute demo reel that shows off everything UE4 can do for developers. The demo reel has a demon knight in his volcano fortress with a ton of effects (lens flare, bokeh distortion, dynamic lighting, lava flow, environmental destruction, lava, and more) going around, and according to Wired, "it's breathtakingly photo-realistic." While the clip is not yet available, we do have a plethora of screenshots for you to peruse and gawk over. I imagine the clip will be shown during E3, so it looks like we have a few weeks left before seeing it.

As for Unreal Engine 4, Epic Games says it features tools that will allow developers to cut production times in half. This will mean more games can be produced each year if Epic's claims are accurate. The screenshots from the demo reel look amazing, but then that begs the question of just what kind of hardware will be necessary to get all games looking this good. I suppose we will find out in a few weeks.

Finding exact solutions to some problems can be a long and arduous process for humans. Computers can find these answers much faster, but it can require extra power and circuitry. An idea many computer scientists have been thinking about is the use of inexact hardware. Researchers at Rice University, Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, Switzerland's Center for Electronics and Microtechnology, and the University of California, Berkeley have created an inexact computer chip that is many times more efficient than modern exact processors, while still being smaller and using less power.

To ensure data is processed correctly, higher voltages are used in transistors. This puts a bigger gap between a 0 and 1, so it is easier to tell them apart. Additional circuitry is also used for error correction, or dedicated to specific functions that the other circuitry can do, but potentially with errors. By pruning out the extra circuits, inexact chips can be made smaller, which means they need less power, and with confined voltage scaling, even less power is needed.

Of course you do not want too much error, because there is a point at which error makes data useless. However the researchers found that allowing a deviation of just 0.25% could cut a chips energy demands by a factor of 3.5. The die shrink and increase in speed, which the voltage change allows, increase this to a factor of 7.5. This is doubled to a factor of 15 by allowing for an 8% deviation.

Inexact computer chips may not be the thing you or I want in our computers, even with that much performance gain, but there are still places they would be welcome. The researchers are working on tablet computers for use in India schools where there is little electricity and few teachers. By pruning both the CPU and GPU the researchers expect to have the tablets require half the power they normally would, which will allow them to be powered by solar power strips similar to those on some handheld calculators.

There's a good chance you have been trapped in an elevator or on a bus with someone talking on their phone. This can be annoying, depending on how loud the person is and what they are talking about. Researchers at Tel Aviv University were curious about what smartphone users think about situations like that, and privacy in general.

Of almost 150 participants, roughly half were smartphone users with the other half using regular cellphones. Despite both offering mobile communication, the different devices lead to different responses and behaviors. Smartphone users are 50% more likely to not be bothered by someone nearby talking on their phone in public, and 20% less likely to think they are bothering someone when on the phone themselves. While this makes some sense as the smartphone users may be more use to this behavior, smartphone users are also 70% more likely to think their phone provides them with a great deal of privacy.

Unsurprisingly, the smartphone users also described themselves as 'lost' or 'tense' when they are without their phone. Regular cellphone users however, have more positive feelings towards being without their device, describing the experience as 'quiet.'

The researchers believe some of this information, and that they are still collecting, should be used to redesign public spaces in the future. As the use of these areas change it stands to reason so too should the areas.

The server issues that have been troubling Diablo III since launch are well known, which has prompted Blizzard to issue an apology on the subject. Blizzard posted the apology on the Battle.net forums, where it says launch preparations "did not go far enough." The studio has been optimizing and fine tuning the servers since May 15th, and everything should be running smoothly now. There will be some maintenance periods to ensure all regions can connect without issue and Blizzard will continue to monitor server activity. Blizzard wants to make sure everything is running properly and there are no more widespread server problems, so it will be delaying the launch of the real money auction house beyond the expected May 22nd start date. The studio will provide a future update when it is ready to go ahead with the real money auction house. Blizzard is sorry the server issues prevented some people from enjoying Diablo III, and thanks everyone for their patience.

There's a good chance you have been trapped in an elevator or on a bus with someone talking on their phone. This can be annoying, depending on how loud the person is and what they are talking about. Researchers at Tel Aviv University were curious about what smartphone users think about situations like that, and privacy in general.

Of almost 150 participants, roughly half were smartphone users with the other half using regular cellphones. Despite both offering mobile communication, the different devices lead to different responses and behaviors. Smartphone users are 50% more likely to not be bothered by someone nearby talking on their phone in public, and 20% less likely to think they are bothering someone when on the phone themselves. While this makes some sense as the smartphone users may be more use to this behavior, smartphone users are also 70% more likely to think their phone provides them with a great deal of privacy.

Unsurprisingly, the smartphone users also described themselves as 'lost' or 'tense' when they are without their phone. Regular cellphone users however, have more positive feelings towards being without their device, describing the experience as 'quiet.'

The researchers believe some of this information, and that they are still collecting, should be used to redesign public spaces in the future. As the use of these areas change it stands to reason so too should the areas.

Facebook received some less than ideal news earlier this week when it was revealed that General Motors would be pulling $10 million worth of ads from Facebook from a total a $40 million. A survey conducted by marketing agency Greenlight found that 44% of respondents would never click ads on Facebook. Only 3% of those polled said they regularly clicked ads on Facebook. This comes before the IPO of Facebook which happens tomorrow and is expected to value the company at more than $100 billion. The company is in the unique position that it can use the information you provide to produce targeted ads. I have never intentionally clicked a Facebook ad, but the "Find girls in your area that like Slayer" ad was very tempting.

Corsair has announced a contest to go along with the latest Vengeance Cup, the Vengeance Cup Sweepstakes. Up for grabs are five Vengeance 2000 Wireless 7.1 gaming headsets, which have an MSRP of $149.99. To enter, all you need to do is like the Corsair page on Facebook and click the "Enter Sweepstakes" button. Five winners will be chosen after the deadline date of May 21 and will be notified by e-mail.

Corsair has announced that its Gamer Series of power supplies has received upgrades to boost power and cooling efficiency. The boost in energy efficiency grants the Gamer Series 80 PLUS® Bronze certification, which means that the Gamer Series operates at up to 85% efficiency under normal loads. The PSU will also be able to maintain fanless cooling operation at low load levels, providing the user with a much quieter system when it isn't being taxed. The new Gamer Series power supplies will be available at 600W, 700W, and 800W. All Gamer Series power supplies come with a three year warranty.