Hasta La Gadget!

There aren’t many mass production options on the market when it comes to glasses-less 3D displays for Nintendo’s forthcoming 3DS handheld gaming console. And according to early leaks from Japan, the special Nintendo 3DS display is supposedly built by Hitachi and Sharp using a parallax barrier system. So guess where this new 3.4-inch, 480 x 854 pixel display is likely headed? While Sharp doesn’t say for sure, it’s a good bet that this parallax barrier 3D LCD will be fronting the user interface on the 3DS. Unlike the 3D displays you’ll find in modern 3D HDTVs requiring the viewer to wear active or passive glasses, Sharp’s display uses a parallax barrier system to create a sense of depth by using a series of vertical slits in an ordinary LCD to direct light to the right and left eyes. The panel offers a 500nit brightness, 1,000:1 contrast, and is available with or without a touchscreen. A non-touchscreen version of the display goes into mass production before June but there’s no specific mention of the touchscreen timeline (but we imagine it won’t be far behind). In other words, we could have a Nintendo 3DS on the market before the holidays. Just saying. Guess we’ll find out for sure at E3 in June.

Update: Akihabara News went eyes-on with the display and came away impressed with the colors and brightness. Better yet, it says, “Sharp succeed to do what Sony and Panasonic does with 3D Glasses!” Well, that sounds hopeful.

Nintendo 3DS to feature 3.4-inch Sharp parallax barrier display? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Apr 2010 01:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re one of the many scientists and researchers using a PlayStation 3 as a cheap alternative to a supercomputer, you’ll want to steer clear of Sony’s latest firmware update.

Sony will offer a software upgrade on April 1 that will disable the “Install Other OS” feature that was available on PS3 systems prior to the slimmer models. The feature allowed users to run Linux on the console. Now, Sony says “security concerns” have forced it to remove the functionality.

Users who get the latest OS version will lose access their older data after the update, says a Sony spokesperson.

The PlayStation 3 has emerged as a favorite among researchers looking to create homebrew supercomputers on the cheap. When clustered, the PS3’s Cell processor — developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba — can rival the power of a supercomputer, say some researchers.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Physics Professor Gaurav Khanna, for instance, created a step-by-step guide to building a supercomputer using the PS3 that could potentially reduce the cost of general computing research.

Stanford has a Folding@home initiative where PS3 users can sign up to use their machine as part of a distributed computing project that simulates protein folding.

PS3 users not choosing to upgrade to the latest version will pay a price. They will lose the ability to sign into the online PlayStation network, chat or play Blu-ray discs that require the latest version of the operating system.

But if you are trying to model the effect of gravitational waves or molecular dynamics, you probably won’t miss those features much, anyway.

See Also:

• Astrophysicist Replaces Supercomputer with a Cluster of Eight PS3s
  
• Review: Custom Built Gaming PC Performs Like a Ferrari
  
• Microsoft, Cray Unleash $25K Supercomputer

Photo: (William Hook/Flickr)

It’s somewhat hard to believe that Sony as a whole turned 60 just under 4 years ago, and since then we’ve seen the PlayStation turn 15, the PlayStation 2 turn 10 and the PlayStation 3 celebrate its first. Today, the outfit’s PlayStation Portable (or PSP, in shorter terms) is gettin’ down on its fifth birthday (while our own bionic Thomas Ricker parties on his 482nd), with the North American debut happening on March 24, 2005. To date, over 17 million of the iconic handhelds have been sold, over 820 titles have been created for it and an all-new, UMD-free version has come along to dazzle those who are champing at the bit to ditch physical media. The platform as a whole still has a ways to go before it catches the Big N and its Game Boy / DS line, but hey, the millennium is young.

Continue reading Sony’s PSP turns 5, may very well live forever

Sony’s PSP turns 5, may very well live forever originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Been to the gym lately? If not, then let this be your new motivation. What we’re looking at here is a purportedly forthcoming Xbox 360 motherboard redesign that takes aim at slimming down the portly figure of Microsoft‘s console. Sure, there’s a small chance that this diet could be the work of a scarily talented console modder, but it’d still be a near-impossible task to work in what appears to be a CPU / GPU combo chip (pictured after the break) under that greatly reduced heatsink. Note that there’s also an extra SATA port at the top left corner. Perhaps this is the “Valhalla” revision that we’ve all been waiting for? On a related note, Microsoft is currently hiring a Motherboard Design Engineer for the Xbox 360 Console Development team, with such saucy tasks as “specifying, designing, implementing and verifying the mother-board and other various sub-system boards that make up the XBOX 360 product line.” Feel free to sign up if you think you can hack out a better motherboard.

Continue reading Xbox 360 ‘Valhalla’ motherboard leaked on Chinese forum?

Xbox 360 ‘Valhalla’ motherboard leaked on Chinese forum? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The cosmos must clearly have approved of Microsoft’s actions over this past month, as today we’re hearing the Xbox 360 broke out of its competitive sales funk to claim the title of “month’s best-selling console” … for the first time in two years. Redmond’s own Aaron Greenberg describes it as the best February in the console’s history, with 422,000 units sold outshining the consistently popular Wii (397,900) and the resurgent PS3 (360,100 consoles shifted, which was a 30 percent improvement year-on-year). In spite of the happy campers in Redmond and Tokyo, the overall numbers for the games industry were down 15 percent on 2009’s revenues, indicating our collective gaming appetite is starting to dry up. Good thing we’ve got all those motion-sensing accessories coming up to reignite our fire.

NPD: Xbox 360 wins US sales war in a downbeat February originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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