On August 5, NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover team will live seven minutes of absolute terror. Until then, however, they are all playing this new Kinect-based Mars Rover Landing game. Or hopefully not, because that would probably make them even more nervous. More »
It’s widely considered a tradition: Microsoft readies a new Halo game, and a new Xbox 360 bundle swings by stores to mark the occasion. The Limited Edition Halo 4 Xbox 360 follows that pattern, with a special (if minor) twist. No one will be shocked by the new Halo-themed artwork or the inclusion of a Halo 4 copy in the 320GB system’s box, but the ring of light on both the console and its two matching gamepads will drop the Xbox 360’s green glow in favor of a distinctive bright blue. At $400, the console arriving November 6th will aim chiefly at the hardest of hardcore sci-fi shooter fans — although murmurs of an upcoming successor console could make the Halo 4 pack an unofficial swan song for Microsoft’s market dominator. Consider the stand-alone $60 special edition wireless controller for a less expensive way to say goodbye.
Filed under: Gaming
Xbox 360 Halo 4 bundle fights new enemies, packs familiar hardware on November 6th originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Jul 2012 10:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Those looking to hone their own olympian body in preparation for this year’s Games can grab Adidas’ miCoach title for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Tapping into both consoles’ respective motion-sensing cameras (and Adidas’ own sensors and units), there are six sports to dabble in, with over 400 different exercises that can be synced with existing miCoach accounts. There’s also a raft of Adidas-emblazoned athletes to take you through those motions. The games are priced up at £21 (around $32) a piece in the UK, but American indoor athletes can expect their version to arrive around July 24.
Adidas miCoach out now on European Xbox 360s and PS3s, connects to cameras and own hardware originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Jul 2012 04:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you’re like us and really want to know what’s going on, then you’ve come to the right place. This past week, Motorola debuted the RAZR V in Canada and the Sony Xperia Ion was spotted at Rogers — curiously, the phone has yet to be formally announced for the carrier. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of July 9th, 2012.
Continue reading Mobile Miscellany: week of July 9th, 2012
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Software
Mobile Miscellany: week of July 9th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 Jul 2012 20:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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ZTE must be onto us, for we love a good mystery. The company took to Twitter to tease “one of the most advanced gaming smartphones,” which it says will be in customer hands just six days from now. With so few breadcrumbs, it’s difficult to determine whether ZTE intends to unveil a genuinely new smartphone, or whether it’s merely hyping the release of a known product. While we’d love to see a brand new device — perhaps based on the Adreno 320 GPU — a plausible argument can also be made for the alternative. During Mobile World Congress, the company announced its flagship phone, the quad-core Tegra 3 Era, and the handset has been completely absent from the radar ever since. While the Era boasts only a 4.3-inch qHD display, it was said to arrive during the second half of this year — might the stars simply be aligning with a bit of marketing fluff? Only time will reveal this gamer’s true identity, but it seems we won’t have long to wait.
Continue reading ZTE teases ‘advanced gaming smartphone’ set for availability in six days
Filed under: Cellphones
ZTE teases ‘advanced gaming smartphone’ set for availability in six days originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jul 2012 23:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The NPD Group’s gaming figures for June have made the rounds, and both Microsoft as well as Nintendo have something to crow about, albeit for very different reasons. Nintendo is the most eager to prove itself and says that the 3DS has hit five million total sales in the US since it reached gamers’ hands in the country. The tally doesn’t compete with the heady numbers smartphone designers are used to, but it’s a milestone for a handheld console whose prospects were dim until a sudden price cut fueled sales a year ago. Before Nintendo lets the 155,000 3DS units it sold in June get to its head, however, it’s important to get context from Microsoft’s own achievements: Redmond shipped 257,000 Xbox 360 units that month and has had the lead among all US consoles for the past year and a half. We’re in the dark on Sony data, although it’s important that just 90,000 Wii units traded hands in the same month — as clear a sign as any that the Wii U can’t come quickly enough for Satoru Iwata and company.
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds
NPD: Nintendo 3DS sales hit 5 million in US, Xbox 360 still claims the console crown originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Amazon must have a lot of free time for gaming during its summer vacation: just a day after unveiling GameCircle as a cloud infrastructure, it’s trotting out Game Connect to make buying game content that much easier. Once it’s integrated into a title, the new platform will let customers buy content in free-to-play games, or subscribe to massively multiplayer online games, directly from their Amazon accounts — no copy-and-paste juggling involved, even if the game account has to be made on the spot. A handful of game developers have already lined up, including Super Monday Night Combat creator Uber Entertainment and World of Tanks‘ Wargaming.net. If you’re engrossed in gaming enough that you’ll need 1-Click to buy virtual goods and MMO renewals that much faster, Amazon has you covered… although you may also want to slow down and relax.
Amazon Game Connect links free-to-play, MMO games to store accounts, turns 1-Click into way too many originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jul 2012 10:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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All right, hotshot — sure, you can trounce your five-year-old niece in a round of Connect Four, but are you ready to do battle with a machine? Łukasz Kaiser of Paris Diderot University in France has detailed a method for teaching computers how to learn relatively simple games like Tic-Tac-Toe, Breakthrough and the aforementioned eternal vertical struggle between checker pieces, using quick videos generally under two minutes in length. “The presented algorithm requires only a few demonstrations and minimal background knowledge,” Kaiser explains, in his paper Learning Games from Videos Guided by Descriptive Complexity, “and, having learned the rules, automatically derives position evaluation functions and can play the learned games competitively.” Kaiser adds, having taken on the world of Tic-Tac-Toe and other relatively simple games that, “there is strong theoretical evidence that it will generalize to other problems.” Now if only we can sum up the world’s issues Connect Four-style, we should be covered.
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Researcher details method for teaching computers to win at board games through short training videos originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink New Scientist | Learning Games from Videos Guided by Descriptive Complexity (PDF) | Email this | Comments
If you think you’re good at board games, you just met your match. Because a computer scientist has developed machine learning software that can watch your playing for just two minutes—then comprehensively thrash you. More »
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you’d like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with “Insert Coin” as the subject line.
With its GameDock, Cascadia Games has a new twist on iOS arcade play — it lets you use your TV and two classic controllers. While retro games are popular on iPhones right now, an intense session can go haywire if your digits start slippping around on the screen, and head-to-head play is literally that if you’re sharing a small device with a foe. That aforementioned situation inspired the GameDock, which turns into a full-blown console when you plug in and pair your iPhone, iPad or iPod using Bluetooth, then connect your TV, along with a couple of USB game controllers. Just like that, you and a buddy are playing big-screen Asteroids, Centipede and 100 or so other iOS games that work with iCade. With 43 days remaining, just shy of 10 grand has been offered toward the $50K goal, so check the source if you want to revel in the gaming days of yore — eye or thumb strain-free.
Insert Coin: GameDock lets your iPhone interface with a TV and controllers, game it old school originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 16:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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