You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Earlier this week Valve teased the free, gaming-oriented and Linux-based SteamOS and the PC-console hybrid Steam Machine. It soon completed the establishment of the fundamentals of its living room invasion by unveiling the Steam Controller. As with the Steam Machine, the controller is Valve’s attempt at bringing the best of PC and console gaming together.
The Steam Controller doesn’t seem to have biometrics or gaze tracking capabilities – two features that Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has cited as desirable input options – but one look at it and you can see that it’s still quite different from most gamepads. For starters, instead of a d-pad or analog joysticks, the controller has two high-resolution trackpads. Valve added “super-precise haptic feedback” to trackpads in the form of weighted electro-magnets. The feedback will be used not only to add tactility to the trackpads, they can also be used to provide other in-game cues and can even function as speakers. How about that?
Chris Remo of developer Double Fine claims he was able to test a prototype of the controller a few months ago and said “…the cursor pads worked amazingly well.” When asked if the haptic feedback helps, Remo said, “Yes, it makes it feel like you’re actually operating a real physically mechanical device, not just a touchscreen.”
Perhaps Remo was actually referring to the trackpads in the second statement that I quoted, but the controller does have a high-resolution touchscreen. It’s the small square at the center of the controller. When you touch the screen, an overlay of the touchscreen’s display appears on your TV or monitor, so you won’t have to look down at the controller while playing. Makes you wonder why they even made it a screen right? Then again, it could be used to display data that should be kept hidden from other players. Take that Lambert!
Aside from its touch-friendly input options, the controller also has good old buttons. There are a total of 13 standard buttons – four face buttons at the corners of the touchscreen, three narrow rectangles below the touchscreen, four shoulder buttons and two rear buttons – but because the two trackpads and the touchscreen are also clickable, you have a total of 16 buttons. The image below shows a sample key binding setup for Portal 2. Note that the touchscreen is divided into four buttons in the setup.
What makes this controller extra special in my opinion is that it has a “legacy mode” that fools your Steam Machine or your desktop computer into thinking that the controller is a keyboard and mouse. This makes it compatible with all Steam games, which is why the diagram above indicates the mapped keyboard and mouse buttons and not just the functions. Finally, Valve promises that the controller will be hackable, and that they will provide tools to help people mod the controller.
If you’re interested in owning or building a Steam Machine but don’t want to use the Steam Controller, don’t worry. Valve says you’ll still be able to stick with your trusted keyboard and mouse combo.
Valve will pick 300 lucky Steam members to participate in a closed beta. The beta testers will be given both a prototype Steam Machine and Steam Controller. The prototype controller that Valve will distribute to the testers will be wired and have no touchscreen, but the final version will be wireless and have the aforementioned touchscreen. Check out the Steam Machine FAQ page if you want to know how to apply for the closed beta.
Valve has made its third announcement this week, after first announcing the SteamOS and the Steam Machines. Today it has announced the Steam Controller, which will be used to control the Steam Machines. Steam Machines are basically modified PCs which will allow people to play games on their TV, while competing with conventional consoles like the PlayStation and Xbox in the process. Steam Controller looks like a normal controller, except that its not. It has two clickable trackpads with resolution which “approaches that of a desktop mouse.”
The controller has been designed to work with all past, present and future Steam games. So titles which weren’t built with controller support will be playable as well, they’ll be fooled into believing that the they’re being played with a keyboard and a mouse. There’s a high resolution touch screen in the center of the Steam Controller. The entire screen is clickable, so it acts as one large button. It can also be programmed by developers using the API to use it as a scrolling menu, radial dial and to provide secondary information like a map. The controller also has haptic sensors which offer “super-precise” haptic feedback. According to Valve, not only do the sensors relay physical information, they’re also capable of playing audio waveforms and function as speakers. Valve Steam Controller has 16 buttons which game developers can configure according to their needs. The API will be provided for free to developers when Steam Machines beta goes live later this year.
Valve Steam Controller Announced original content from Ubergizmo. 
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The third of three binding announcements has been made this week surrounding Valve’s big move toward living room gaming: SteamOS, Steam Machines, and now the Steam Controller. This machine is a next-generation solution to the relatively stagnant state of gaming controllers in the market today, working with two large trackpads, haptic feedback, and a touchscreen […]
This week gaming company Valve made public a new operating system based on their game collection and environment: SteamOS. As Steam continues to be a central part of the gaming community here in 2013, dominating the world of digital distribution of games the world over, SlashGear took the opportunity to speak with one of the […]
SteamOS is on the horizon – an operating system based in Linux made to run on a variety of devices called Steam Machines. The gaming company known as Valve suggests that their Steam Machines will become “a powerful new category of living-room hardware”, having been created by a wide variety of manufacturers and working with […]
Those wishing to get in on the SteamOS environment early will be glad to hear Valve announcing their next step in the process towards final release- Steam Machines. What was once code-named Steam Box is now Steam Machine, and the prototype is coming up quick. While Valve will be working with a wide variety of […]
This week the gaming-centric company known as Valve has announced plans to release SteamOS, a living room-aimed operating system that will be free to download and free to license. This operating system is based on Linux architecture – similar to how Android is a Linux-based OS – and the company intends on expanding well beyond […]
Ben Heck’s Steam box will soon be a legitimate Steam Box. The avid PC gamer can build his Steam Box, the console gamer will be able to buy a Steam Box, everyone can have a Steam Box! That’s all in the near future – hopefully not in Valve Time – with the announcement of SteamOS, a free Linux-based operating system “designed for the TV and the living room.”
According to the teaser page, Valve has progressed far enough with SteamOS Valve to have “achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing”, and now they’re working on “audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level.” Valve also claims that developers are already working with the standalone operating system, with “hundreds of great games” already running natively on SteamOS. In the event that your favorite game doesn’t have a SteamOS version, Valve says you’ll be able to stream a game from a PC or Mac running the Steam client to the machine running SteamOS.
Valve also said that they’re working with media providers to tie in to Steam and SteamOS. Add in Big Picture mode, cloud syncing and the propensity of Steam to drop prices like it’s hot and you could have an all-conquering entertainment machine.
Can Valve finally bring about the rise of the PC-console hybrid? A machine with the idiotproof user interface of a console, but with the futureproof software and hardware options of the PC? Is Valve saving Half-Life 3 for the SteamOS? The bastards?
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
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