Doctors at the University of Melbourne recently made an interesting discovery about the Wii Balance Board. It’s actually comparable, in their words, “clinically comparable,” to the $18,000 medical device used to help stroke victims with recovery. The Balance Board costs $99.
Researchers from the University disassembled the board to have a look at its guts, in part to determine just how useful the thing could be. As it turns out, the strain gauges in the Balance Board are good. So good they could save hospitals hundreds of thousands of dollars and given smaller rehab facilities the tools to help a wider variety of patients. “I was shocked given the price: it was an extremely impressive strain gauge set-up,” lead researcher Ross Clark told New Scientist. Clark and his team published a paper verifying the quality of the Balance Board as a medical device.
I did a review a while back for a pair of Gunnar Optiks and was pleasantly surprised at the results. It seems the company has entered the market at just the right time, a year or so before the release of the world’s biggest 3D experience. That’s positioned it well to take on 3D glasses, a sector that is historically plagued by poor aesthetics and a dearth of options for prescription wearers.
The first pair of designer 3D eyewear will be available in Q2 this year, a month or so later for the prescription versions, starting at $90. It’s a big price tag, but they’ll keep you from looking completely ridiculous, and if you’re just buying them for yourself I think it’s a justifiable cost.
In case you need a little more reassurance, here’s Joe Croft, the company’s co-founder: “While typical 3D eyewear is stamped from a flat sheet of plastic, GUNNAR lenses are shaped, formed and cut to provide distortion free optics.”
Today marks the second installment in our 2009 Holiday Gift Guide. If you didn’t stop by yesterday, make sure you get a look at part one. If you need additional holiday advice (no, I won’t help with your in-laws) just leave a comment below.
Livio Radio for Pandora/NPR
The Livio Radio is a great choice for any audio lover you know. The original debuted with built-in Pandora support, allowing users to listen to Pandora in any room of the house. The little screen makes it easy to browse through your favorite stations and you still get your thumbs-up/thumbs-down buttons for encouraging/discouraging specific tracks.
Livio also added an NPR specific radio to its lineup this year, providing access to some 800 NPR stations over a wireless connection. The NPR radio just started shipping this week. You can get either model for $199.99 from the Livio website.
Able Planet Clear Harmony Noise-Canceling Headphones
I reviewed Able Planet’s Clear Harmony noise-canceling headphones earlier this year and fell in love. I’d even pick them over the Bose QuietComforts because you can play music even if your batteries die (no active noise-canceling if that happens, though). These things sound excellent, last forever on a pair of AAA batteries, and tuck away nicely into a hardshell case.
The only thing that may scare you off would be price, but for this kind of quality you should expect to spend a little cash. Get a deal at Tiger Direct for $249.99.
Playstation 3 Slim
Personally, I’m not a Playstation guy. Never have been. Never will be. But I can’t think up a good reason you should follow suit. With the recent size reduction and price drop, the PS3 is looking as good as it’s ever likely to. With the recent release of Modern Warfare 2 and Uncharted 2 Sony’s lineup got a nice facelift as well.
Be sure you shop around for the bundles, though. Some of them are region specific, but Sony is so far behind in the console race that it’s offering crazy deals to get this system into your home. Most everything will run you $299 for the 120GB model.
Samsung BD-P1600
This Blu-ray player is a nice little mashup for all your media needs. You obviously get BD Live support, but you can stream HD movies from Netflix and hook this thing up to your audio system for Pandora, too. And though price may have held Blu-ray back in times gone by, the P1600 is going for $149.99 as a part of Samsung’s Black Friday deals. Check the Samsung website for a list of retailers and other Samsung deals.
Wii Motion Plus
So you’re staying away from Blu-ray this year and you don’t want the PS3 Slim? I’d call you crazy, but Wii Sports Resort and New Super Mario Bros. Wii are plenty to keep you busy through the holidays. Just don’t forget to pick up enough Wii Motion Plus dongles for everyone to play along (with the first title, anyway). The tiny attachment dramatically improves the Wii’s motion-sensing abilities, so your jumper from the elbow can be just as bad as your game in real life.
That does it for this year’s holiday gift guide. Check back later in the week for a Black Friday Roundup including my favorite deals from the major retailers’ holiday ads. Happy Holidays from everyone at Gadget Teaser and Bullz-Eye to all of our readers and fans.
Do you ever look back on your first iPod and get a little tear in your eye? Do you lovingly remember the first time you took the original iPod Shuffle to the gym? Yeah, neither do I. I wasn’t all that taken with the iPod until the third generation to be honest. But for the early adopters out there, Apple has a special treat.
As TUAW points out, Apple currently has first-gen iPods and iPod Shuffles up for sale. Granted, they’re refurbed, but I still think it’s kinda cool. In case you’re wondering, that is indeed the iPod model with the physical scrollwheel and individual buttons surrounding the wheel. They’re claiming it’s 5GB iPod for $129 while the original Shuffle will run you a jaw-dropping $99.
Now I’m all for getting a little cutesy with old products, but $99 for the Shuffle that came with a lanyard? Come on, now. That’s just absurd.
In a press release that is absolutely rife with ridiculous allegories between gaming and physical battle, Logitech announced two new products today. When you’ve got “sweat on your brow, and it’s way too late to turn back,” or “when victory is on the line,” you’ll soon be able to thank your new mouse and headset for pulling you through tough times.
The new mouse is a revamp of the current G5, an industry standard for hardcore gamers. The new mouse, dubbed the G500, has most of the updates you would expect with a new mouse. They’ve reshaped the body for more support, added on-the-fly dpi adjustment, and given the mouse a “battle-worn” makeover so your disheveled appearance will look marginally less like you crawled out of your basement for the first time and more like you crawled out of Castle Wolfenstein’s basement…where there was a computer…with a really neat mouse. The coolest part of the mouse is that it comes with 27 grams of weight that you can add or remove from the body to fine tune the feel of your mouse. That’s actually one of my pet peeves in finding a new mouse – most are just way too light.
Logitech claims to be releasing an industry first with the new adjustable, behind-the-head headset, the G330. The band behind your ears can be adjusted for a custom fit and the new phones feature a silicone headband and pivoting ear pads for improved comfort. At the core of the headband is a steel spring design to “withstand the wear and tear of furious battle,” better known as a trip across the room when that 14-year-old wipes your raid again. You’ll also get inline volume control and microphone muting.
The new gear has separate release dates. You can get the headphones later this month for $50 and the G500 in September for $70.
Of course by “ate” I mean “deleted without warning” and by “Amazon” I mean “another in the growing list of evil companies who can’t get their digital rights straight.” The suit, which is a class action, is being brought by Justin D. Gawronski, a 17-year-old from Michigan who lost his notes on George Orwell’s 1984 when Amazon went and pulled the book from all of its Kindle devices.
While I am glad to see someone taking legal action on the matter, it’s a little absurd that it was a 17-year-old who had to do the deed. I would hardly call losing your summer reading notes a serious injunction, but then, what really could be in this situation? The most serious part is simply that Amazon did it, and they shouldn’t have. Now it’s up to the courts to decide if that has any reasonable legal implications. My guess is they’ll simply say, “no.”
Yesterday, Two days ago (damn you Time Warner), I covered the hub of your college life – your desk. While I may have harped on just how much work you’re going to be doing, there’s also plenty of time for fun in college. This edition of Pimp Your Dorm is designed to help you have a little, and to do so in style.
Today we’re focusing on that part of your dorm room that’s sure to get plenty of attention – the entertainment system. When I say system, I mean the part of your room that’s dedicated to producing various forms of visual and aural entertainment. Whether it’s music, movies, or a little gaming you’re after, this guide will have your room set as the center of attention.
TV This is where entertainment starts. Your TV selection is important, because it can provide you with benefits you might not otherwise see if you went with that cheap all-in-one from Wal-Mart.
I’d highly recommend the Samsung LN26A450. A 26-inch TV isn’t huge, but it’s also not going to break the bank. Frankly, your dorm room is going to be small, so sticking with a smaller TV is probably a good thing. The unit comes with 3 HDMI inputs to take advantage of the 720p resolution, which will also make the smaller image seem crisp enough that you won’t care. Most of the time this baby will run you a cool $500, but B&H has used models listed for just $349.99! Even if you have to pay full price, remember that you want quality. I replaced two TVs in three years at school because I was cheap. Total cost? Almost $450. Pay the money up front and you won’t have the headaches later.
Receiver You need something to push your audio, right? Right. Again, don’t skimp and try to save the extra $40-50 here. Spend that money now and you won’t have to consider upgrading down the line.
I’d recommend the Onkyo TX-SR507. It’s a 5.1 receiver, which is just about perfect for most dorm rooms. With the right speakers you won’t be taking up too much space and you’ll still get great sound. Dorms are certainly not the optimal place for a home theater, but you can make do. I also like that this receiver runs HDMI audio and video, so there’s no screwing around with a optical ports. More on this later. TigerDirect has the Onkyo Receiver for $344.
Speakers Every time someone brings up “reasonable speakers” I point them to the Polk RM6750. It’s a 5.1 system with a full-size woofer (none of that short-throw crap that’s going fart every time you watch the opening sequence from Fellowship of the Ring) and reasonably sized satellites. The woofer has a built in amp, too, so you don’t have to worry about your receiver trying to push too much bass. Pair with that Onkyo you’ll get great sound for movies, music, and any game you might want. $208 from Amazon.
Game System Speaking of games, it’s time to discuss your system of choice. I realize that for most gamers this is a matter of deeply personal interest. You don’t want me telling you what to do. I won’t. I’ll tell you what I would do and why.
Were I headed back to college I’d be looking at a new 360 with the Jasper chip (this guide from Anandtech will show you how to identify the Jasper chipset). The chip is cooler, faster, and supposedly more reliable, meaning you won’t have to worry about the RRoD. The 360 also sports a larger installed base than the PS3, which gives you more options for getting some quick game time on the hall. There’s nothing like coming back from class on a rainy day to the sounds of Halo booming from three or four rooms. Trust me, it’s what I did for four years. The 360 Elite comes with HDMI, which is perfect for your setup (and again, no optical ports necessary). Your games will look great and so will the rest of your media.
That’s another great reason to get a 360. It’s really the best for moving content from your computer to your home theater. You can watch your movies, TV shows, and listen to your music with the fidelity of your full system.
For the die-hard PS3 fans, this setup is perfect for you, too. Again, HDMI support, a great sound system, and a TV to make your Killzone games look crisp and vibrant. Either way you go, I’m sure you’ll be happy.
Cabling I’ll leave you to find your own cabling, with just one caveat – buy cheap HDMI. I know I’ve spent the majority of this guide encouraging you to spend some cash, but in some cases that’s just not necessary. HDMI cables can get ridiculously expensive and it’s usually for no benefit. Rick Broida over at The Cheapskate posted a 3-cable deal for just $10 a while back. By all accounts consumers have been just as happy with their three dollar cables as people who spend $30-40 for a single six-footer.
That should do it for our entertainment edition. Check back tomorrow (internet going to the crapper notwithstanding) for the final edition of Pimp Your Dorm Room: Everything Else. I’ll be covering the little things that will make your college life easier, more enjoyable, and make your dorm more like a home.
It’s really becoming a year among years for Apple. The super-trendy company was once a sleeping puppy in a den of wolves, quietly wooing customers to the questionable promise of a more stable lifestyle. Since then they’ve released the Kleenex of the MP3 player market and turned tens of millions to the iPhone. Just three months ago their app store hit 1 billion downloads and just this month the store had its first birthday.
Today marks another milestone for your favorite fruity company. According to an Apple press release, the app store has reached 1.5 billion downloads to date. We already know Apple’s iPhone as host to the fastest growing development community in the world, sending coders on a rite of passage with dreams of hitting it rich. Those quasicultish seekers have made more than 65,000 apps available in 77 countries around the world.
Our congrats to Apple. May your useful apps continue to improve and your frivolous apps continue to make us scratch our heads as we look at the download counts.
The folks at PocketGamer.biz recently took a look at the iPhone gaming situation to come away with some cold, hard data about what people are buying and why. I’ll spare you the full report (really I just don’t want to leech all the credit here) and focus instead on some of the more interesting details.
For standards, PG took a snapshot of the top 100 applications and then broke down the results by price, price by rank, games by publisher, and source (new IP, console port, music, movie, etc.).
Pricing was actually different than you might think. While most of the top 100 came in the $.99 category (36 titles), second place went to the $4.99 bracket with 20 titles. But that’s just number of games for each price bracket. Obviously since they are top 100 these are games that are getting downloaded a lot, but how much do the games get played after downloading?
If you look at price by rank, the top 10 games average just $1.89/download. At 11-20, the price drops to $1.19. Of course there are a load of factors that could contribute to the rankings. Are people really playing these cheap games more or are they just deleting them more often and so being prompted to rate more of these games?
Perhaps the most useful statistic, at least to industry developers, is the rate of new downloads and the desire for new IP. Of the top 100 games, 40 were released in June or July (this likely includes a few updates). Another 22 were April or May releases. As for IP, 52 of the top 100 are fresh content, designed just for the iPhone.
If you’re downloading games, where does your allegiance lie? Are you a bargain shopper, only buying apps that are cheap or on sale? Or do you look for the best IPs from hot developers, regardless of price?
Shortly after arriving at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, Sony Corp CEO Howard Stringer had some strong words regarding recent price reduction requests from Activision CEO Bob Kotick.
“He likes to make a lot of noise,” Stringer said. “He’s putting pressure on me and I’m putting pressure on him. That’s the nature of business.” Stringer’s remarks come in response to an interview with Bob Kotick in June, in which Kotick mentioned Activision might seriously consider dropping the PS3 as a platform if costs didn’t come down.
Stringer says the decision to maintain the PS3’s current price comes down to simple logic. “I (would) lose money on every PlayStation I make – how’s that for logic.” Well meeeOW, Mr. Stringer. Sounds like Activisions concerns may have touched a vein. Still, Stringer remains confident that the market will rebound.
Can Sony remain financially stable in our global return from recession? A lot of developers seem to think no, as more publishers join the list clamoring for a price cut. Maybe this is just Stringer’s way of staying quiet until he can drop the PS3 Slim bomb on the world, and that’s when the price would come down. Even with a price cut, though, there’s still the increased cost for console developers on the PS3. If Sony can’t reduce development costs, no amount of logic will work Stringer out of the hole he’s in.
Smartphones used to be the domain of supergeeks and tech professionals – people who needed or desperately wanted the functionality of a full computer in a tidy mobile platform. As the devices became more popular and the desire for on-the-go web capabilities grew you could almost smell the storm coming.
Then the iPhone came out and sold millions, spurring competitors to make their own touchscreen wonderphone. We’ve now got the Blackberry Storm, the HTC G1, the Palm Pre, the Nokia N97, and the Samsung Jet, all running on a different operating system. While the manufacturers tout the hardware features that make their phone the best (physical keyboards, a screen that clicks, a camera with a flash), consumers are starting to look to the software that runs the phone, and the applications they’re finally able to install, to make a decision.
Apple has been most successful with third party application sales and support due to their App Store, which opened in mid-July, 2008. Since release, the App Store has seen more than a billion application downloads and now showcases more than 50,000 third party applications. From games to translators, finance tools to ereaders, the Apple App Store has an app for almost anything, leaving its competitors lagging far behind.
It’s taken nearly a year for competitors to get their mobile application stores up and running, time during which Apple has continued to lure consumers with the promise of a robust app catalog. As Business Insider points out, consumers aren’t just investing in a phone, they’re investing in a platform, with application quality and quantity as a major component of that investment. In a similar article, BI adds that time users spend with applications is replacing time spent on the web. Apps like Yelp allow users quick access to restaurant reviews, where before they would have been using Google.
We already know the PSP Go is a ripoff. It’s essentially a minor upgrade over the current hardware at a premium price. In the UK things are even worse. Our friends across the pond are looking at prices as high as £230 (approx. $380), which is nearly double the price of the current generation mobile gamer.
Whether it’s the price, the hardware, or just an utter lack of interest, UK retailers are showing zero, yes, zero pre-orders, and they’re not happy. The problem comes with the margins on hardware retail, which are historically small. Now that the PSP no longer supports UMD drives, the only justifiable revenue stream comes in the form of Playstation Network cards, which can be purchased in $20 and $50 increments in the US, but remain unavailable in the UK.
Sony’s banking on mobile software delivery for games instead of your typical physical media with the PSP Go, and it’s already got retailers wondering if they should bother with the new device. Seems like a lot of people share that sentiment where Sony is concerned. Will they listen, or just continue to frustrate retailers and developers out of doing business together?
Tired of that painted cardboard tube you’ve been sliding over your Wiimote? Wish you could play homerun derby as Anakin? This fall you can ditch the cardboard and intimidate your fellow batters with…these plastic Star Wars peripherals.
We’re talking about the lightsaber/blaster you see pictured at right, the newest official peripherals to be licensed by LucasArts and Nintendo. The lightsaber comes in colors for Anakin or Yoda, while the blaster comes with some super nifty customizable stickers. YAY! Nothing like throwing stickers on your laser rifle from the future. Who’s a badass? You are, my friend. You are.
The rifle is built just like other rifles for the Wii, with a holster for both the Wiimote and the nunchuk, giving you double triggers and the necessary movement controls. Did I mention the stickers?
No word yet on pricing, and no one’s mentioned whether the lightsabers actually light up (and kill your Wiimote batteries), but I’d guess yes on the lighting and $25 on the price. Someone please make a hilarious video with these.
The latest in iPhone news (and I know there’s been a lot of it this month) comes from id Software. You may know them as the creators of games like Doom and Wolfenstein and the upcoming Rage. iPhone users will be getting introduced to, or reacquainted with, id over the next year.
id co-founder John Carmack told Joystiq today that he is “passionate about the benefits of the iPhone,” and that his company has a lot of fun porting their titles. He also says it doesn’t require a lot of focus, at least for an established IP like Doom. But there is more to come from Carmack and company, who recently announced their buyout by ZeniMax, parent company to Bethesda.
“I’ve got a slate of iPhone titles, I expect to have an iPhone release every two or three months for the next year,” said Carmack. He made it clear that the benefit isn’t necessarily the money, but rather the level of commitment. When a game doesn’t cost millions of dollars to make and market, it’s a lot less pressure on the development team, which Carmack views as a good thing.
I’m glad to see a major developer taking the iPhone into serious consideration. Titles like Myst have recently been ported as well, but how about some new IP? Personally, I’d love some.
When you’ve taken a company from $10 million yearly revenues to nearly $200 million quarterly revenues, you can pretty much say what you want. If your new company also happens to be worth some $16 billion, you can also say those things to whomever you like, even if it happens to be Sony.
That’s exactly what’s happening between Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard’s President and CEO (that would be the $16 billion company), and Sony. Kotick has apparently been frustrated with the fees Sony charges for what he thinks may be a dying platform.
“I’m getting concerned about Sony; the PlayStation 3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don’t make it easy for me to support the platform. It’s expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better. Games generate a better return on invested capital on the Xbox than on the PlayStation,” Kotick says. “When we look at 2010 and 2011, we might want to consider if we support [PS3 and PSP].”
For those of you keeping track at home, that’s next year. As in, six months from now. And if Activision sees fit to pull the plug, who’s next? Other developers have voiced issue with Sony licensing fees and the difficulties of developing on their hardware. Would EA see fit to cut ties?
As compelling a case as Kotick might put together, he seems a bit blind when it comes to ideas for saving Sony. In this same interview, Mr. Kotick suggests Sony consider things like the upcoming skateboard controller for a new Tony Hawk title. Are peripherals really what’s slowing the company? I could be wrong here, but how does adding a peripheral, which will probably be available on the other two consoles, help PS3 sales? How does that cut back the fees Kotick so loathes? And what of development? PS3 will still cost more per title for the same game, so where’s the benefit?
In running Sony into the ground is my guess. Kotick’s suggestion leads one direction – further marginalization of the PS3. If they keep releasing the same games and the same peripherals as everyone else, they’ll keep getting beat, for all the reasons Kotick cites early on. Then he doesn’t have to make the tough decision because every developer would leave with him.
For now you can rest assured Activision is still making plenty of money off Sony, but I’d bet other developers share some of Kotick’s thoughts, if not his fervor for making them public. Will Sony respond, or is Kotick just a blowhard? Sound off in the comments.
A couple guys at Asobitech have put together a PC case mod that instantly set me to drooling.
As you can see from the pic, their mod takes shape in the form of an old SNES. Using the guts from an Acer Aspire A150 they hacked together a fully-functional PC into a UK SNES case. It’s not just the case mod, though, it’s that they have fully supported connections coming through the controller cables. These guys have also managed to turn an old cartridge into a slot-loading DVD drive that you can eject with the SNES eject button. Yes, it’s that awesome. According to their site it’s coming to eBay soon.
I’ve been spending the last 2 weeks with Sprint/Nextel and Boost Mobile’s Motorola Stature i9 and I have to say, I’m impressed. Motorola chose to fight two stereotypes with this phone. Whether these stereotypes are real or perceived, Motorola has to convince the world they can develop a phone as good as or better than the RAZR and at the same time, develop a phone for the Nextel market that looks great, sounds great, and can do more than just push-to-talk. I can honestly say that I think they’ve been able to do both in the Stature i9.
Look and Feel:
This is the slickest and most beautiful phone I have seen for the Nextel market. The exterior shines with its glossy finish while at the same time feeling very comfortable in the hand. It’s a little heavy weighing 4.7 ounces but in a good way. The weight and overall sturdiness of the phone makes it feel safe enough to take to a job site while the look and feel make it seem nice enough to show off to the execs.
The exterior display is nice. Measuring 2”, the QVGA screen can handle most of your immediate needs like playing music, using the still and video camera, and checking on your recent calls. All of these functions plus making calls and using push-to-talk can be accomplished by using one of the 13 exterior keys. Now, I know what you’re thinking, 13 exterior keys sounds a bit messy and hard to manage. Well thankfully, it’s not. Motorola has utilized Motorola’s innovative ModeShift technology to use those 13 keys. When you press the smart key, 4 keys become illuminated on the exterior screen that were not there before. These keys help you navigate the menu and choose your selection. Choose My Music, for example, and a different set of 7 keys are illuminated to help you navigate your media. The interface is smart and works well.
The interior is sleek. Maybe too sleek. The display measures 2.2” and is also QVGA. The keypad is a little too flat for my taste. While the keys do illuminate nicely, I expect a little more feel from my keypad. Menus are simple to navigate and familiar if you’ve ever owned a Motorola phone.
The back is made up of a soft material that feels comfortable in the hand and doesn’t feel like it will slip. Not much else to mention on the rear of the camera other than the 3.1 MP camera with a flash. But more on that later.
Form and Function:
Now on to the fun stuff. Let me first say that this is a great push-to-talk phone. It looks and feels great in the hand. It feels sold enough that it will take a drop and be fine. It also looks nice enough to take out on the town. However, if you’re buying this phone to be the best media phone you’ve ever owned, you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m not saying the media functions on this phone are bad, they are far from that, it’s just that it needs to be put into perspective. If you’re looking for a top notch push-to-talk phone that does media well, I’ve got a phone for you. If you’re looking for a top notch media phone period, end of story, perhaps you should move your search elsewhere. So with that in mind, let’s talk about the goodies.
Despite the short list of Palm Pre apps available from the app catalog, plenty of folks are choosing Palm as their smartphone provider of choice. As soon as the application dev kit gets out, hopefully the list will continue to expand, including some new games.
In the meantime, take a look at this homebrew fix from a guy known only as Sargun. He’s managed to port Doom (at least the open source version, PRDoom) to the Pre, bringing demonized, gun-riddled hell to Palm’s newest release. Sargun used DirectFB to load the graphics through the Pre framebuffer and says getting the hack to work is fairly trivial.
If you’ve got some time on your hands, and decent geeky ninja skills, you should be able to get this (nearly) fully-functional game to your Pre without much trouble. I hope you also sport some TINY thumbs. The controls look…unwieldy at best.
Hailed (by Apple) as the fastest iPhone ever made, a lot of attention has been paid to the new processor and RAM specs in the iPhone 3GS. Those new specs will certainly translate to a faster phone, but most likely marginally so, noticeable only within apps that do a lot of algorithm munching. What’s likely to be truly impressive on the 3GS is the new graphical capabilities that come from the Power-VR SGX GPU inside the phone.
Hubert at Ubergizmo, who used to program for Nvidia, gave a quick breakdown of the improvements we could see in iPhone gaming, and they’re pretty damn impressive. As the article notes, the new GPU offers improvements in two traditional aspects of development. First, it allows more triangle processing per second, and second, it gives a serious boost to the number of pixels that can be modified per second.
More than the hardware, though, is the options the new GPU will offer developers. The new chip gives coders access to some of the same principles used when developing games for the Xbox 360 or the PS3. Haven’t seen many shadows on the iPhone? They’re coming. So is bump mapping, normal mapping, light mapping, and multi-textures, making it possible to render complex 3D environments with an unprecedented sense of realism.
While people complained that this iPhone release was an evolution rather than a revolution, the changes to the GPU will be revolutionary for the hand-held device, making gaming the real breakout feature of the 3GS. I was unimpressed by the game demos at WWDC. Hopefully that wil change when developers have had their new kit for a few months.
Last night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Xbox’s Creative Director for Project Natal, Kudo Tsunoda, showed up with a prototype Natal to demo in front of a live crowd. It’s very cool to not only see the Natal in action, but to see it played by people who are obviously not directly connected to the device’s development (or completely in control of the demo).
The demo starts with the breakout style game shown at E3. Control looks a little laggy, and there’s definitely a bit of a learning curve. Kudo could play just fine, but both Jimmy Fallon and John Krasinski whiffed their first swing at the ball. One of the first things Fallon noticed when he stepped up to play was his hair, which changed from Tsunoda’s shoulder-length mop. Pretty cool, even if his exclamation sounded more than a little scripted.
The second demo showed off Burnout: Paradise, a game Microsoft has adapted to Natal just to showcase the precise control capability of their new peripheral. As you’d expect, Kudo took off without a hitch and flew through the streets. Fallon, on the other hand, maintained reasonable control for all of four and a half seconds before blasting into walls. All four people for the demo jumped in and out of the “driver’s seat” fairly smoothly, though the Natal did take a moment to recognize foot placement for putting the pedal to the floor.
So what of the red suits? It’s hard to say whether everyone threw on the Beastie Boy jumpsuits as a theatrical gimmick or because it made them that much easier for Natal to read. My guess would be the second. No one wants to demo the hottest news in the gaming world just to watch it flop live.
In any case, this is the first we’ve really seen Natal debuted by “consumers,” and it’s at least good to see that it works, even if the situation was constructed on Microsoft’s terms. Hopefully as development continues we’ll get to see more elaborate demonstrations in less controlled environments.
Doctors at the University of Melbourne recently made an interesting discovery about the Wii Balance Board. It’s actually comparable, in their words, “clinically comparable,” to the $18,000 medical device used to help stroke victims with recovery. The Balance Board costs $99. 
