Hasta La Gadget!

If you still have money to burn after buying a PlayStation 4, an Xbox One (or both!) and games for each, Evil Controllers wants to help with that. The company’s been churning out user-customized Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 controllers for awhile, but now it’s added the DualShock 4 and the Xbox One controller to the mix. For now, the outfit is offering a handful of pre-made designs, but an updated version of its controller creator webapp will be live soon. Aside from some cosmetic flair, the jazzed up products use all original hardware, ensuring you get the factory-made experience. What’s more, the controllers’ arresting designs should help them stand out from your couch cushions. If you thought the vanilla gamepads were pricey at $60, however, you might want to avert your eyes — these start at $85.

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD

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Via: Joystiq

Source: Evil Controllers

An early taste of Microsoft’s next-gen gaming experience arrived today for Windows Phone and Windows 8.1 users in the form of the Xbox One SmartGlass app, and now Android and iOS faithful can get their fill as well. There’s not much you can do with the second screen app as the hardware it’ll play wingman to won’t arrive until Friday, but you can find quick clips of launch titles via the Game Clips feature, courtesy of those who have advance access to the console. If you have a device running Android 4.0+ or iOS 6.0 and above, you can sample Redmond’s forthcoming gaming experience ahead of time at the bordering source links.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Software, HD, Mobile, Microsoft

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Source: Google Play, iTunes

After crossing under the elevated railroad viaduct that bisects a lush Azerbaijani forest from an industrial landscape, a squad of American soldiers gazes out at the valley that lies below. A saw-toothed horizon of half-assembled buildings juts out in the distance. It’s almost peaceful. Hundreds of seagulls chatter lazily overhead, blissfully unaware that the ensuing firefight will leave the seemingly forgotten structures looking somehow even worse for wear. Whole facades crumble under the hellfire of a military attack chopper. A grenade launcher’s explosive payload immediately contradicts the seemingly harmless thud it makes upon exiting the weapon’s chamber. An enemy scrambles for a new safe haven; his earlier hiding place no longer exists. By scene’s end, all that’s left are roiling flames and caustic black smoke.

This scene from the Battlefield 4 trailer was how the world, perhaps unwittingly, met Frostbite Engine 3, the next-gen toolset powering all of Electronic Arts’ non-sports games for the foreseeable future.

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD

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While Sony was content to toy with radical designs for the PlayStation 4’s controller, it turns out Microsoft took a more conservative approach when building the Xbox One’s gamepad. GamesBeat scored a look at the controller creation process and discovered that Redmond was reluctant to tweak the Xbox 360 controller at all since it considers the hardware “best-in-class.” After some pressure from Zulfi Alam, Xbox’s general manager for accessories, Ballmer and Co. decided to explore what changes could be made, and invested over $100 million throughout the course of the effort.

Despite the firm’s aversion to rocking the proverbial boat, it still wound up with more than a few unconventional prototypes — some of which packed built-in displays and cameras. One of the strangest versions included a cartridge for emitting smells, and another featured a built-in projector that could throw out visuals reminiscent of illumiroom. Ultimately, the wackier iterations gave way to the traditional kit that’s heading to stores, as the adventurous features drained battery life too quickly or the company’s “core base didn’t appreciate them,” according to Alam. While we wouldn’t have expected the Xbox One to usher in the age of smell-o-vision, we can’t help but wonder what that future would have looked smelled like.

Filed under: HD, Microsoft

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Source: GamesBeat

The Xbox One’s improved Kinect device is looking like an enormous leap ahead of its predecessor, but getting it there wasn’t easy. Designing it took a joint-effort between Microsoft’s research division and the Architecture and Silicon Management (ASM) shop, according to Redmond’s TechNet blog. It wasn’t enough that the designers had to address the original Kinect’s shortcomings either, adding new features presented plenty of new hurdles to overcome. Take the new sensor’s HD camera upgrade, for example. That wider field of view may make using Kinect in a real living room more feasible, but the enhanced fidelity made it harder for engineers to keep smaller objects (like fingers) from disappearing into the background. The team has outlined some of the camera’s new tricks, like ambient light canceling and an improved color camera, in a pair of demo videos. You’ll find both of those, plus a look at how the Kinect processes 6.5 million pixels per second without the Xbox One missing a beat, at the source link below.

Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft

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Source: TechNet (Microsoft)