Sony said its motion gaming answer to the Nintendo Wii will be called PlayStation Move, a set-up that will bring one-to-one motion control using a PlayStation Eye accessory and new motion controllers.
Sony executives revealed the new name and showed off demonstrations of the system in action at a press event during the Game Developers Conference. There is a bit of a me-too feel to PlayStation Move, coming more than three years after the launch of the Wii. But the demos showed that Sony is serious about this space and it’s got some interesting ideas for high definition motion control.
“Nothing has ever been this precise, responsive and ultra-sensory,” said Shuhei Yoshida, Sony’s president of worldwide studios. “It has the potential to breathe new life into many well established game genres.”
Before we get to impressions, some details. The system is on track for a fall release and will come in a couple of packages. Consumers can buy a PlayStation Move controller by itself if they have a PlayStation Eye already or they can buy the two in a starter kit that should come in less than $100 and will also include a game. Sony will also be bundling the whole system with a PlayStation 3. Exact pricing will come later.
Sony showed off a range of games including a pair of fighting titles that featuring some of what you’d expect, punches and sword thrusts. In both demos, players used two controllers which are necessary to capture the movement of both your hands. It looked precise though how much better than the Wii with Wii Motion Plus, it’s hard to say.
More interesting were some casual games that folded in augmented reality features. In one game, you see yourself onscreen and your controller becomes a number of tools, from a tennis racket to a paint brush or fan, which you use to manipulate on screen objects.
Another game called EyePet lets users play with an augmented reality pet, which only exists on screen. You use the controller to interact with it in front of you as if it’s a real animal and you can see the results on screen.
The system can be made to work with existing games. Little Big Planet was updated to allow two players to play with one using PlayStation Move while the other used a traditional six-axis controller. The Move player can manipulate objects and help the other player get through puzzles.
The upcoming SOCOM 4 will also be fully playable with PlayStation Move. For that game, you’ll also need a Move subcontroller, which is a controller with a joystick, like a Wii nunchuk.
Sony is getting support from all the major independent software publishers and will definitely have more to show off at E3 this summer.
Sony has an opportunity here to offer an HD version of the Wii and use it as a way to lure people into the PlayStation 3 market. The PS3 is still more expensive but now with motion control, it’s got an even fuller offering for consumers.
For all its promise though, Sony will have to really market this thing to get it selling. You’re going up against the Wii, which is already synonymous with this space. And most users will have to spend not just $100 to get the starter kit but they’ll most likely have to buy at least one more controller. And if they want to play games like SOCOM 4, they’ll need a subcontroller too. This could start to add up.
Don’t forget Microsoft will also be releasing Project Natal by the end of this year. And that does without controllers, which will be appealing to some non-gamers who are intimidated by controllers.
But this much we know, this holiday season is going to be very competitive, with all the console makers duking it out with motion and gesture-based gaming solutions. Is there enough of a market for all these motion systems to do well? We’ll find out soon enough.
Thats right people! We have now recieved strong evidence about what is bound to be ‘Video Call’ capability for the next
generation iPhone. The proof is actually a screw up by a UK phone provider called O2. They recently just updated their phone plans and is now listing a ‘Video Call’ plan that costs the same as their voice call service. You can check this out via attached image or look it up on their site.
Knowing this, it is pretty obvious that the next generation will include a front facing camera, along evidence from the latest iPhone SDK images. For more information about that, click here.
The long anticipated Apple tablet called the ‘iPad’ has been announced today by Apple that it will be available for pick up on April 3rd. According to their Official Website, you can pre-order one of these bad boys on March 12th.
What do you think of the iPad? Do you think it will be another revolutionary device, or just a big iPod Touch? Leave a comment below.
The MacBook’s built-in iSight camera and microphone are awfully convenient for Skype phone calls and iChat video conferencing, but a more sinister potential use came to light this week with the allegation that a suburban Philadelphia school district used iSight cameras to spy on students at home. The FBI has launched an investigation to determine whether federal laws were broken.
The investigation follows a lawsuit filed in the U.S. Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleging that the Lower Merion school district misused the MacBooks’ Webcams, based on an incident where a vice principal accused a student, Blake Robbins, of illicit drug use in his home. His parents asked for evidence, to which the vice principal responded that they had pictures from Robbins’s Webcam.
How exactly did the school district get access to students’ Webcams? Well, Lower Merion installed security software on the Macs it issued to 2300 students, but never disclosed the possibility that they could be remotely monitored for audio and video input—which could be illegal under federal and state laws governing topics like wiretaps and computer-instrusion.
An analysis of how MacBooks could be used this way was posted by a security researcher writing under the (presumed) pseudonym of Stryde Hax. According to Hax, Lower Merion used LANRev software (recently rebranded Absolute Manage) to implement both the system lockdown and remote access on the MacBooks. LANRev includes camera, screenshot, and IP location tracking in its monitoring as an antitheft tool.
Lower Merion spokesman Doug Young claimed that this antitheft tracking was used 42 times when laptops were reported stolen, and led to the recovery of 28 of them. He said the policy of using Webcam shots only for devices reported stolen was never broken, but he couldn’t comment specifically on the Robbins case.
That contradicts anecdotal evidence compiled by Hax, who searched message boards used by Lower Merion high school students, and found many reports of iSight cameras powering up, as indicated by a brief flicker of the LED light next to the camera. Some students even put tape over their iSight cameras to prevent them from operating, but most were assured by the district that the light was a “common MacBook glitch.” The LANRev software apparently disabled the cameras for all other uses; students were unable to use PhotoBooth or video chat, so apparently most of them believed that the camera did not work at all.
The stock Mac OS X system does not allow the camera to be accessed remotely. The LANRev software, however, hacks the system to make this possible. While your iSight camera can be activated remotely if you allow SSH access or Screen Sharing in your Sharing system preferences, in most cases you’ll see activity on screen when this occurs. In all cases, the LED light indicates when the iSight is turned on; however, there is no equivalent indicator for the audio microphone.
If the MacBooks were used—or even could have been used—as remote spying devices, the implications, ranging from privacy issues to possible child pornography, are disturbing. In addition to the FBI investigation, Lower Merion will presumably decide on its own whether community standards were broken as well.
You may not know it or not, but Google is taking over the world. Soon we may all be speaking Google’s geeky language. But really, who new Google could be anything else but a search engine.
Well, the people behind Google’s crazy ideas must of though they could. Far beyond it’s powerful search engine Google is playing the technology game. And they are not leaving without a fight. Well then, what brought Google to this point? I’ll tell you a few of the things.
Buying YouTube. Releasing the Nexus One (Google Phone). Gmail, Google Buzz, and Google Wave has thrown them into the social media category. There high speed browser, Google Chrome, has crushed other leading browsers. And them becoming an ISP (Internet Service Provider) has put them head to head with many companies. Not to mention Google now has the power to buy and sell energy.
With all this in there hands it is unimaginable what Google can do. There is many companies out there who want what Google have but just can’t get them. Google Ads is one of the largest online advertising forms on the web. With this ad program there current revenue is around 32 billion dollars. Enough to basically do whatever they want.
Soon before you now it peoples lives are going to be revolving around Google. For example you get up in the morning and check your Gmail account using Google as you ISP. Then you will search for direction to your new job using Google Maps and find out the companies revenue with Google Finance. Then you will drive to work on your Google Electricity powered car and get lost. So you will sue the Internet on your Nexus one to find the directions again. Then when you come home you can relax and watch some YouTube video while reading you Google buzz updates.
So that is a one day example of how Google could be in your every day life. That is how Google is going to be taking over the world.
A developer with the name of 9to5Mac has just discovered some very exiting evidence in Apple’s newest SDK. The evidence shows to “indicate that there will be video calling on an iPxxx device.”
The evidence includes some iChat like icons which is supposedly there to accept and decline video requests. There were also some system strings found that read things like “Accept Video Chat” etc.
People have wanted video chat capabilities since the iPhone 3G made its debute, and this evidence might be what the users have been waiting for.
Thanks for watching! Check out my other videos on reveiws for apps for Macbook and iPod Touch and tutorials!
This is a must have app for every Mac owner. This app cleans unnecessary files from your Mac. Clean My Mac will clean Caches, Logs, Language Files, Universal Binaries, Development Junk, and Extensions. This app doesn’t just keep you Mac clean and give you more disk space, but it also have a very nice interface. It also has a feature that will delete all files from an application that you don’t need anymore. Since I started using it February 1, 2010 I have cleaned up over 8.37 GB of space for important files! Like I said before everyone that has a Mac NEEDS this app.
Google is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make Internet access better and faster for everyone. We plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We’ll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.
Thanks for watching! Check out my other videos on reveiws for apps for Macbook and iPod Touch and tutorials!
Want to get that signature T- Pain or Kanye West auto effect using nothing but GarageBand??? This quick tutorial will show you how to take your crap voice and put it in tune.
No plugins needed!!! If you have Apples Garage Band in OS X you have everything you need.
Click On The Link Above For The Video, For Some Reason I Cannot Embed A Video Into My Post.
Thanks for watching! Check out my other videos on reveiws for apps for Macbook and iPod Touch and tutorials!
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