Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 3rd Jun 2009 08:31 UTC
The E3 is underway, and with OSNews having a renewed casual interest in gaming, I figured I'd summarise the news around the big three console players, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. Microsoft probably had the most interesting news to give us, Nintendo suffers from a severe case of milking the cow (and who would blame them), and Sony repackaged the PSP, announced a few games, and gave the promise it would come with motion sensing technology at some point in the future too.
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RE: I prefer Sony's solution
by Verunks on Wed 3rd Jun 2009 10:28
in reply to "I prefer Sony's solution"
Member since:2007-04-02
yeah, microsoft natal looks cool but doing everything without a controller isn't that great, I can see it well for casual games but not for hardcore, on the other hand sony mixed the good of the two worlds, having both a camera and a controller you can do almost everything, the archer and sword demo was really impressive and accurate
RE[2]: I prefer Sony's solution
by l3v1 on Wed 3rd Jun 2009 12:56
in reply to "RE: I prefer Sony's solution"
Member since:2005-07-06
Same thoughts here. It'd be funny to watch someone play a good FPS this way for 3 hours. Just what I felt in regard to Wii controls, it just limits the kinds of games one can create for it. It would be great as an additional control mechanism, just don't make it exclusive.
BTW, they just invented "air driving", you can add that to the list just below air guitar. I won't add further comments on that 
RE: I prefer Sony's solution
by grabberslasher on Wed 3rd Jun 2009 17:39
in reply to "I prefer Sony's solution"
Member since:2006-02-09
Do remember that Natal can actually do everything the Sony demo can; they could easily write up a demo that registered different objects in your hands (like the Sony glowing wands).
It's quite possible that future controllers (with buttons!) will be able to work *with* Natal to create some awesome games.
RE[2]: I prefer Sony's solution
by thebluesgnr on Sun 7th Jun 2009 07:39
in reply to "RE: I prefer Sony's solution"
Member since:2005-11-14
RE: I prefer Sony's solution
by JrezIN on Thu 4th Jun 2009 01:21
in reply to "I prefer Sony's solution"
Member since:2005-06-29
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the project natal demos, the one that impressed me most wasn't the control-with-your-movement ones, but the Milo demo... thats when we really start to interact with games.
I wonder what a Fable/FallOut game using this technology would be... or even MMO games streaming your expressions through your character.
Really impressive stuff that opens a lot of precedents.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/15/13 23:03 UTC
"During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.More News »
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Member since:
2007-07-11
I've seen all three press conferences/presentations/ whatever.
MS Project Natal impressed me! But I'll judge it when i test it, not grabbing something kind of annoys me - it's like that stupid sensation of not having a real keyboard on my iPhone. It may be me, but it annoys me.
Speaking of motion controls, I like what I saw from Sony. It works, it's not PR stuff and a well made video. It actually works, and you're grabbing something...
I'll get to test both ways, since luckily I own both systems.
Let's see what the software part brings us.