Sinister gamepad hopes to replace PC gamers' keyboards, leaves the mouse

January 4th, 2014, 01:31 Posted By: wraggster

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Skydieving creator nDreams has PS4, Oculus Rift plans for 2014

January 4th, 2014, 01:21 Posted By: wraggster

Developer nDreams made its name creating items for PlayStation Home, grew to cult fame with the debut of "Oculus Rift experimental-game-demo-falling simulator-game thing" Skydieving, and now hopes to jump into the mainstream spotlight with full-fledged PlayStation 4 and Oculus Rift projects in the works.

"I'm delighted to be able to officially announce that we are working on a PlayStation 4 title, which will launch in 2014," the studio states in a message to its investors. "More details will follow next year, but it's the most ambitious game we have ever created, and we can't wait to reveal more about it – it's going to be something truly special."

While Skydieving was less a game and more a test of the Oculus Rift's capabilities, nDreams sees a bright future for the would-be virtual reality headset. "We're also working on a game for the awesome Oculus Rift. VR is an area of technology that we believe will finally come of age in 2014, and you'll see us investing a great deal of time and money into it," the studio writes. "The technology capable of making VR work properly has finally arrived."

Alongside these big projects, nDreams will continue to create PlayStation Home items, as well as three games planned for release on mobile devices.

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/01/02/sk...lans-for-2014/

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Top 10 gadgets at risk of becoming extinct in 2014

January 4th, 2014, 00:57 Posted By: wraggster

Online retailer Pixmania.com has published a list of gadgets and tech at risk of becoming obsolete.
The list, which was compiled by a panel of experts, revealed that the alarm clock is the most endangered tech as it's being replaced by the smartphone.
Sat Navs are also predicted to be on their way out. Again, smartphones get the blame for this, with many having built in maps and navigation apps.
The third most endangered tech is the iPod dock. With Apple’s latest devices featuring a different connector, users have to buy a new dock or buy an adapter. Many are choosing to use Bluetooth streaming instead.
Here are Pixmania.com’s top 10 endangered technologies:
1. Alarm Clocks
2. Stand-alone sat navs
3. iPod docks
4. Flip cameras
5. Blu-Ray players
6. DVD players
7. The Watch
8. Blackberry
9. TV Remote control
10. Small Portable TVs

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/index.html

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Currys & PC World sites enjoy Christmas sales spike

January 4th, 2014, 00:54 Posted By: wraggster

Dixons Retail's Currys & PC World websites drew record numbers of shoppers on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
The sites enjoyed a 16 per cent increase in year-on-year website traffic from the start of their Christmas sale (from 7pm Christmas Eve to 12am Christmas Day).
The most popular online shopping hour on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was 8pm to 9pm, with the most viewed items including the LG 42-inch LED TV, IS413 Portable Speaker, LG Smart 3D LED TV, Galaxy Tab 3 and the Pavilion Laptop.
Jeremy Fennell, E-Commerce Director at Dixons Retail, said: “British shoppers are savvier than ever, using Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to get the jump on Boxing Day sales, heading online to take advantage of substantial savings on the latest tech and services such as home delivery and click-and-collect.
"Each year we see significant increases in traffic to our websites over these two days."
However, the UK High Street painted a bleaker picture.
Bad weather and more online shopping saw fewer customers buy from bricks and mortar stores in the run up to Christmas 2013.
Shopper numbers were down 5.7 per cent year-on-year in the final week before Christmas Day 2013 compared with a year ago, according to Springboard, with Experian stating footfall was down six per cent.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/index.html

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/index.html

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Intel to show off wearable tech at CES

January 4th, 2014, 00:51 Posted By: wraggster

Chip maker Intel is set to showcase a line of wearable technology at the 2014 International CES show next week.
CEO Brian Krzanich said that Intel has been working on some "groundbreaking" next-gen PCs and tablets.
“Wearables is wide open,” he told Recode.net.
“What you will see at CES is that we are actually going to bring some very innovative wearables to the show that are developed and manufactured here.”
Wearable technology is a much talked about category that looks set to grow in 2014, following the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch late last year.
Juniper Research reckons the market will be worth $19 billion by 2018.
PCR asked members of its Retail Advisory Board what they think of wearable tech like Google Glass and how they think the category will grow over the next 12 months.
“Right now people look at Intel as the PC company," added Krzanich.
"We did a very good job of becoming the PC company over the last 20 years or something. That was a battle worth fighting and winning, but the market moved.”

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...-at-ces/032831

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Eye Tracking Coming To Video Games

January 3rd, 2014, 23:11 Posted By: wraggster

Over the past several years, we've had a spate of new input methods for playing video games. Instead of just pushing buttons, now we can wave body parts around, yell at the screen, or even (weakly) control things with our thoughts. Now, we're adding an eye-tracking sensor bar. It's being created by SteelSeries, but it's based on tech from a Swedish company called Tobii, who built similar tech for cars. 'Inside the device there are two cameras and an infrared light source. The infrared light reflects off your pupil and cornea, which is then captured by the two camera sensors. Throw in a healthy serving of Tobii's proprietary image processing algorithms, and a physiological 3D model of the eye, and you can work out the position of the eye and the direction of the gaze with high accuracy. Tobii doesn't seem to put an exact figure on the resolution/accuracy, merely saying that "within less than a centimeter" is possible.' Of course, the biggest question will be how well it works, but it seems like it could be a useful supplement to normal control schemes. I can see how it would be nice to simply flick your eyes to an icon to do something, or to make it easier to dig through your in-game inventory.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/0...to-video-games

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Xbox One and PS4 sell millions, forget some of their promises

January 3rd, 2014, 22:58 Posted By: wraggster

In operation, the retail PS4 is the slightly louder of the two, though the unlucky few whose Xbox One had a faulty disc drive would say different.

Xbox One and PlayStation 4 both sold over a million units in their first 24 hours on sale. Sony was quick to announce even higher figures following the second of PlayStation 4’s staggered launch dates, thanking players for the console’s 2.1 million sales across 32 markets. Some 250,000 PS4s were sold within 48 hours of its UK launch, the fastest-selling console in the region’s history, putting it dramatically ahead of the 150,000 Xbox Ones that sold in the same amount of time.But early figures are a poor indicator of longterm results. The victor in the opening salvo of this generation was decided not by players’ interest, but by manufacturing; Sony beat Microsoft before the queues outside stores even started by putting more consoles on more shelves across more of Europe and North America. Xbox One has made it to 13 countries and PlayStation 4 to 32. One’s international sales figures weren’t made available with any haste, either – almost certainly for fear of a comparison that could only be unfavourable. Better to keep quiet and remind everyone that One sold out, just like PS4.The next 12 months will be more telling. Even Wii U sold out on its US launch day, after all. As shelves fill up with the second and third waves of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 allocations, a new battle will develop and buying decisions will be guided by early adopters’ first impressions.PS4’s start was on paper markedly worse than One’s, its servers collapsing under the strain of the European launch, despite Sony disabling the console’s code redemption capability and What’s New section, ordinarily populated by updates from friends and Sony’s network. Live, meanwhile, stuttered for an hour the day before One’s release, but stayed up throughout the worldwide launch.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/xbox...t-revolutions/

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Steam, Origin, Battle.net and LoL seemingly downed by hackers

January 3rd, 2014, 22:53 Posted By: wraggster

Assorted hackers have claimed responsibility for a string of attacks that have disrupted a number of high-profile gaming services.
Chief amongst the victims is Steam, which is experiencing seemingly random downtime affecting both the Steam store and the network’s community features.
Also experiencing trouble is EA’s Origin service which is disrupting a number of titles across the publisher’s catalogue – Star Wars: The Old Republic perhaps being the most notable.
It doesn’t end there either – Blizzard’s Battle.net and MOBA giant League of Legends are also suffering.
A handful of various individuals and hackers groups have claimed responsibility for these incidents, most saying they have been caused by DDoS attacks.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/steam...ackers/0126363

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PS4 to "win" console wars - Analyst

January 3rd, 2014, 22:41 Posted By: wraggster

Michael Pachter projects Sony's latest to outsell Xbox One by 30 percent through 2016, publishers focused on core gamers to benefit
[h=3]Microsoft[/h]microsoft.com

[h=3]Sony[/h]

After stretches in which Nintendo and Microsoft dominated the console market, Sony is in position to reclaim the sales throne in the coming years, according to Michael Pachter. Over the holiday break, the Wedbush analyst released his industry forecast for the next three years, saying, "we expect Sony's PS4 to 'win' the next console generation," while noting the PS4 and Xbox One should both thrive through the end of 2016.
Pachter projects the PS4 to post cumulative worldwide sales of 37.7 million systems by the end of 2016, 30 percent higher than his expectation of 29 million Xbox One's sold. Bringing up the rear will be the Nintendo Wii U, for which Pachter projected worldwide sales of 20 million units through 2016. He said a "disproportionately high percentage of Nintendo customers play more casual games," which leaves the company vulnerable to competition from mobile and tablet games.
Pachter's projections included a few assumptions about the retail prices of the consoles, specifically that they will experience only modest cuts over the next three years. Pachter expects the Wii U to drop 50 percent to $150 by the end of 2016, but acknowledges a possibility of Nintendo discontinuing production on the console entirely if sales lag. Meanwhile, Pachter expects the PS4 to drop $100 to $299 over the next three years, with Microsoft narrowing the cost gap of the consoles by dropping the Xbox One $150 to $349 over the same period. While Pachter has the PS4 "winning" the console generation (putting quotes around all uses of the word), aggressive pricing from Microsoft could throw a wrench into that prediction.
"We think 'winning' is important to both companies," Pachter said, "and it is possible that Microsoft will reduce Xbox One pricing far faster than we have forecasted. Should hardware prices come down faster than we have modeled, it is likely that hardware and software sales will grow faster."
Regardless, Pachter paints a brighter picture of industry software sales than seen in some time. In the US and Europe, Pachter believes gaming software sales will jump 10 percent this year, 7 percent next year, and 6 percent in 2016. Microsoft and Sony platforms will account for much of that growth, with Pachter expecting the two companies' various platforms to grow by a combined 50 percent in the next three years. As a result, the real winners may not just be Sony and Microsoft, but core gaming publishers as well. Pachter noted that the highest-rated stocks in Wedbush's gaming coverage--Electronic Arts, Activision, Take-Two, Ubisoft, and GameStop--all focus on core gamer audiences.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...e-wars-analyst

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Google Glass has prescription prices announced as device price cut rumoured

January 3rd, 2014, 00:22 Posted By: wraggster

The cost of prescription lenses for Google Glass has been revealed as the price of the smartglasses is rumoured to be set to fall.
Rochester Optical, which has partnered with Google to provide lenses for the device, has revealed that prescription options will begin at $99 (£60), with pre-orders set to open after CES next week.
The lenses will be able to clip straight into Glass following a slight redesign of the Explorer Edition of the system, which Google has begun to offer as a swap to existing Glass owners.
Tinted and transition options will also be available, although more details are yet to be revealed.
The news follows rumours that the price of the consumer version of Glass is set to fall considerably before its launch.
Some analysts have suggested that Google is looking to offer Glass for under $600 (£362) – a reduction of almost $1,000 from the current $1,500 (£905) price tag – with others even predicting a final cost of closer to $299 or $399 (£180 or £241).

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...umoured/032817

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Best Buy's deal of the day discounts Gran Turismo 6, Saints Row 4

January 3rd, 2014, 00:12 Posted By: wraggster

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Grand Theft Auto 5 tops 2013 entertainment charts in UK

January 3rd, 2014, 00:07 Posted By: wraggster

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rpix86 version 0.14 released!

December 31st, 2013, 00:51 Posted By: wraggster

This version has only a couple of game-specific fixes, as I have not worked all that much on rpix86 during my Xmas vacation. The fixes are the following:

Fixed Flashback screen resolution problem. This was quite similar to the BC Racers screen resolution problem, except that Flashback goes to 256x224 resolution, and uses VGA Mode-X graphics mode instead of the MCGA mode used in BC Racers. Thus I needed to make a change that was very similar to the change I made for BC Racers, but this time to a different blitting routine.

Fixed Flashback Sound Blaster detection. The game did not set the Sound Blaster sample playing speed at all (which left the speed at zero), so the game never got an IRQ at the end of the playing buffer. Thus the game failed to detect the presence of the Sound Blaster card. I fixed my SB reset routine to set the default 22kHz sample playing speed, and this allowed Flashback to detect the Sound Blaster card properly.
Added game-specific hack for Lemmings AdLib detection. The game used a short delay loop waiting for the AdLib 80ms timer to tick, but this delay loop was so short that it took less than 80ms to run, and thus the game failed to detect the presence of an AdLib card. The fix was actually a pretty nasty hack, I simply check that if the running executable is called "VGALEMMI.EXE", I change the length of the AdLib tick to be practically zero instead of the default 80ms. This allows Lemmings to detect the AdLib card (as long as you select the VGA graphics mode when starting Lemmings).
I also spent some time debugging the horizontal scrolling problem in Commander Keen 1, but this is quite a difficult issue to solve. The problem is caused by synchronization issues between these five events:

The game setting the VGA Start Address register, which will take effect only after the next vertical retrace period.
The game setting the VGA pixel panning register, which will take effect immediately.
The game updating the screen contents between the vertical refresh periods.
rpix86 blitting the screen contents immediately after the actual hardware vertical sync has happened (gles_swap()).
rpix86 reporting the current vertical sync state to the game.
The biggest problem here is that the game needs to know the exact moment when the screen becomes active after the vertical sync period, but sadly that is the exact time when the game thread is not running! The Linux operating system runs the graphics blitting thread immediately after the hardware screen vertical refresh has happened and the gles_swap() call has updated the screen contents. So there is no way to run the game thread exactly when the game thread would need to run for the scrolling to be smooth. Faking the vertical sync end to happen at some other time works fine in many games, but not in games that need to do something exactly at this time.

Fixing this properly would need some completely different approach to the problem. DOSBox does all the timing internally with no regard to the actual physical screen refresh, but I don't want to go that route. I will continue looking into this problem in the future, but I don't know yet when or whether I will get it fixed.

http://rpix86.patrickaalto.com/rblog.html

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FIFA rules New Year and Christmas charts

December 30th, 2013, 23:19 Posted By: wraggster

The FIFA 14 comeback is complete, as EA's football title is Christmas and New Year No.1.
The game's initial launch sales were lower than its predecessor – FIFA 13 – which remains the fastest-selling FIFA game to-date.
But FIFA 14 has now overtaken it and is on track to become the biggest selling FIFA game ever.
Of course, the game's bundle with Xbox One has helped significantly.
FIFA 14 took the top-spot from Call of Duty: Ghosts last week to become the UK's Christmas No.1 – which will upset bookmakers who were convinced Call of Duty would be the festive chart topper.
And it has stayed at its position in today's New Year chart.
Call of Duty: Ghosts has to settle for No.2, ahead of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which has climbed in sales in recent weeks and has never slipped out of the Top Five.
Talking of Top Five, GTA V has crept back into the upper echelons of the UK charts, the game is on-track to be the UK's best-selling game ever.
It's been a blockbuster end of the year for the UK games industry, with next-gen console sales approaching 1m in the territory alone.
NEW YEAR TOP 20

1. FIFA 14 (EA)
2. Call of Duty: Ghosts (Activision)
3. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft)
4. Battlefield 4 (EA)
5. Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar)
6. Need for Speed: Rivals (EA)
7. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (Warner Bros)
8. Just Dance 2014 (Ubisoft)
9. Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition (Microsoft)
10. Gran Turismo 6 (Sony)
11. Batman: Arkham Origins (Warner Bros)
12. WWE 2K14 (2K Games)
13. Forza Motorsport 5 (Microsoft)
14. Killzone Shadow Fall (Sony)
15. Skylanders: Swap Force (Activision)
16. Knack (Sony)
17. Football Manager 2014 (Sega)
18: Disney Infinity (Disney)
19. Dead Rising 3 (Microsoft)
20. Aliens: Colonial Marines (Sega)

CHRISTMAS TOP 20

1. FIFA 14 (EA)
2. Call of Duty: Ghosts (Activision)
3. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft)
4. Battlefield 4 (EA)
5. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (Warner Bros)
6. Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar)
7. Just Dance 2014 (Ubisoft)
8. Need for Speed: Rivals (EA)
9. Killzone Shadow Fall (Sony)
10. Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition (Microsoft)
11. Gran Turismo 6 (Sony)
12. Batman: Arkham Origins (Warner Bros)
13. Skylanders: Swap Force (Activision)
14. WWE 2K14 (2K Games)
15. Forza Motorsport 5 (Microsoft)
16: Disney Infinity (Disney)
17: Animal Crossing: New Leaf (Nintendo)
18. Football Manager 2014 (Sega)
19: Angry Birds: Star Wars (Activision)
20: Aliens: Colonial Marines (Sega)


http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/fifa-...charts/0126315

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Capcom plans for 2014: Fighting games, Ace Attorney and a classic IP

December 30th, 2013, 22:22 Posted By: wraggster

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Raspberry Pi Car Deck

December 29th, 2013, 00:13 Posted By: wraggster


You can get all sorts of cheap car stereo decks from China, but where’s the fun in that? [Sentcool] is an IT specialist and electrician, and he decided he wanted something a bit more unique for his car — so he built this awesome Raspberry Pi car setup!
He’s using a Raspberry Pi Model B R2, a standard LCD car display (from China), a small 12V audio amplifier and an NF filter. The image above is from the first test of all the components together. He originally wanted to use a touch screen, but thought it might be too expensive for the project, so instead he’s carefully soldered switches onto some ribbon cable for the Pi’s GPIOs. Don’t you just love stripping ribbon cable?
From there it was just a matter of creating a nice wooden face plate and jamming everything into the center console of his car. It looks pretty good although the buttons could use some work — Don’t worry though, [Sentcool] is already thinking about upgrading it.

http://hackaday.com/2013/12/27/raspberry-pi-car-deck/

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Video Games Charity Raises Over $10 Million

December 28th, 2013, 00:45 Posted By: wraggster

Gaming for Good, a charity established and fronted by celebrity gamer Bachir 'Athene' Boumaaza, has this week passed the significant milestone. At time of writing the group's tally stands at a tame $10 million. It works like this: game publishers donate games to the charity, without asking for profit. Regular folks buy points, which can then be exchanged to games on the website. Finally the money used to buy the points goes to charity. So in one way they're really just buying games, but instead of the money going to publishers, it's going to a good cause. Money raised is going to the international charity Save The Children, where it can be used on health programs in Malawi, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/1...ver-10-million

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DCEmu/Emu64 and DealExtreme Giveaway Winner Announced

December 27th, 2013, 23:27 Posted By: wraggster



At the start of December DCEmu along with Emulation64 announced a joint giveaway thanks to DealExtreme. The prize is a 248 FC Games Classic Video Game System w/ 2 Wired Gamepads and also a KO G6000 Ultrathin 4.3" Touch Screen MP5 Game Console.

Entries for the Giveaway ended on the start of Xmas Day, via the DCEmu Blog our new site for reviews giveaways and more, i can announce the randomly chosen winner is JessicaTogaliya, enjoy this later than planned Giveaway announcement.

Thanks to all who entered and those who used the new comments system over at the DCEmu Blog and a big thanks again to DealExtreme for kindly donating prizes for the Giveaway.

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DCEmu/Emu64 and DealExtreme Giveaway Winner Announced

December 27th, 2013, 23:27 Posted By: wraggster



At the start of December DCEmu along with Emulation64 announced a joint giveaway thanks to DealExtreme. The prize is a 248 FC Games Classic Video Game System w/ 2 Wired Gamepads and also a KO G6000 Ultrathin 4.3" Touch Screen MP5 Game Console.

Entries for the Giveaway ended on the start of Xmas Day, via the DCEmu Blog our new site for reviews giveaways and more, i can announce the randomly chosen winner is JessicaTogaliya, enjoy this later than planned Giveaway announcement.

Thanks to all who entered and those who used the new comments system over at the DCEmu Blog and a big thanks again to DealExtreme for kindly donating prizes for the Giveaway.

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30C3: 30th Chaos Communication Congress

December 27th, 2013, 21:47 Posted By: wraggster

Just a friendly reminder it is soon time for the 30th Chaos Communication Congress (30C3) which takes place at the Hamburg Congress Center (CCH) in Germany as usual on December 27th to 30th, 2013. The Congress offers lectures and workshops on a multitude of topics and attracts a diverse audience of thousands of hackers, scientists, artists, and utopians from all around the world.

http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?na...ticle&sid=3272

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