Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve been reading about it for what seems like ages, looking over images of the FCC prototype with a magnifying glass, and now Nintendo is showing it off at its E3 press conference. The company that Mario built is trumping up how superior its glasses-free technology is better than others, “a solution that lets you take 3D gaming along with you wherever you go” according to Reggie. The upper screen is surprisingly only 3.5-inches, not the wider that we’d expected. There is a slider on the side that lets you tweak the 3D effect, seemingly enabling you to adjust its depth based on your distance from the screen — or turn it off entirely. As with the current DS, the bottom is a touchscreen, and is not 3D.

That’s what looks to be an analog stick on the side there, as well, that Nintendo is calling a “Slide Pad.” There is a gyro, motion sensor, it’s compatible with DSi games, and has two cameras enabling 3D photos. Nintendo is also talking up partnerships including Disney, games that are said to be playable today, at the show, with one of the highlights being a new Kid Icarus game which looks quite action-packed to say the least — and has better graphics than most of the Wii titles Nintendo has shown thus far. Nintendo has mentioned the 3DS will have the “biggest launch support ever” from third party devs, and a 3D Nintendogs should be a huge seller — if only because it has cats too. Other games include Madden, Ninja Gaiden, Resident Evil, a Batman title, Splinter Cell, and, finally, a Metal Gear Solid entry.

Nintendo is also talking about how the system will seek out WiFi hotspots or other 3DS systems “without you knowing,” which sounds a bit ominous, to be honest. Systems can communicate regardless of which games are being played. It can even pull in new DLC directly from other consoles, all without a monthly fee.

Still no release date or price, but Nintendo is showing off two colors, red and blue, and they’re said to be playable on the show floor. You can be sure we’ll be running there right now.

Update: Complete press release and full list of launch games after the break, including some biggies, like Metal Gear Solid “The Naked Sample,” Madden, FIFA, and more!

Continue reading Nintendo 3DS gets official, includes 3D camera

Nintendo 3DS gets official, includes 3D camera originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on November 24, 2008 by CyberNet.

Windows only
Adobe has struggled with the performance of Acrobat Reader for quite some time, and that’s the main reason I’ve always found myself using the free Foxit Reader. Plus the fact that they’ve always offered the PDF reader as a standalone executable has meant that I can carry around the application on my USB drive. In the end, however, it all comes down to the fact that I can start Foxit in under 2 seconds.

The best part is that they keep making the software better and better. The latest release, Foxit Reader 3.0, includes Firefox support, an improved selection tool, a thumbnail panel, and more. You can find a full list of what’s new here, but these are the ones I wanted to highlight:

• Enticing Multimedia Design
  Now users can not only play multimedia in Foxit Reader, but also are empowered to add, edit or delete multimedia files with the incredible Movie Tool and Sound Tool.
• Thumbnail Panel
  Shows thumbnail images for each PDF page and allows users to quickly view relevant portions of a PDF file. Now users can navigate through PDFs with page thumbnails.
• Layout Panel
  Lists PDF layers in the document, allows users to control the display of some certain content areas.
• Awe-Inspiring Foxit OnDemand Content Management
  This new add-on enables users to organize, share and collaborate on documents and forms online. Users can upload from Foxit Reader or send documents with ease. Advanced features include workflow driven document sharing, revisions of documents, CollabRoom for group collaboration.
• Firefox Support
  With Firefox Plugin, users can view and work with PDF files loaded in Foxit Reader with Firefox web browser.
• Improved Select Text Tool
  Not only used for selecting text, but also enables users to add most types of annotations, including highlight, strikeout, underline, squiggly, replacement, etc.
• Better Annotation Control
  Allows users to align and center multiple annotations on PDF pages, including Notes, Drawing Markups and Typewriter Comments.
• Advanced Toolbar Control
  Completely rearranges the toolbar layout and allows users to easily customize the tools that appear in Foxit Reader.
• Transferrable preferences Settings
  Foxit Reader creates an INI file to save user’s preferences settings so that it can be easily kept and transferred. Users can keep their own settings and don’t have to configure them when Foxit Reader is updated or moved.

Get Foxit Reader 3.0 for Windows

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What, a launch of November 2010 wasn’t specific enough for you? Well, how about a Kinect launch of November 4? Microsoft just confirmed that’s the day, and as of now it’s looking like a worldwide launch. It will drop with 15 titles, including:

• Kinectimals – Nintendogs but with wild and impossibly cute animals
• Kinect Sports – Soccer, bowling, track and field games, a bit like Wii Sports
• Joyride – “Thrill of high speed kart racing, with the joy of controller-free gaming”
• Kinect Adventures – Jumping around and stuff
• Your Shape: Fitness Evolved – most amazing looking fitness game we’ve seen yet, from Ubisoft
• Dance Central – an actual, honest to gosh dance game without stupid pads — from Harmonix

So far Your Shape and Dance Central are looking the best, but Microsoft is still showing us more, and we’re thinking a few of you are going to like that Star Wars game from Lucasarts. Interestingly, no price was announced, meaning Microsoft seems to be waiting to see how many US dollars the competition decides to charge. Your Move, Sony.

Update: We have the full list of 15 titles after the break, courtesy of Joystiq. , which includes a new EA Sports Active.

Continue reading Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360 launches on November 4

Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360 launches on November 4 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You knew it was coming, right? Hot on the heels of getting leaked a wee bit early Microsoft has made official the rebadging of a device desperately seeking a new name: “Project Natal” is no more, replaced by Microsoft Kinect. At a circus- and celebrity-filled affair, MS wrapped everyone in high-tech panchos (pictured after the break courtesy of Joystiq) and then took the wraps off of the new title. Quite a few game demos were shown, ranging from Star Wars to tiger petting, the Kinect interface to the Dashboard was shown (said by some to be Minority Report-like), and a video chat app called, wait for it, Video Chat. Through here you can naturally talk to friends (up to four total people at once was “shown”), and also share photos.

Sadly, no hands-on time was given nor did MS reveal the two crucial bits of information we’re waiting for: price and date. Naturally a holiday release is expected, to give the Xbox 360 a nice sales boost, but we’re hearing price rumors as high as $150. These choice bits of intel will surely be unveiled at Microsoft’s event tomorrow — if someone doesn’t beat ’em to it. The hardware is still looking exactly like the early picture above, shattering hopes of a slimmer design to match new Slim Xbox 360.

Update: We’ve got official photos now, though solid textual info is still scarce. Stand by!

Update 2: So we’re out of the wild, cult-like experience that was Microsoft’s Kinect unveiling. Microsoft still has a lot of details to reveal, but there are a few things we gleaned from watching the demos:

• Almost everything was one person at a time, particularly in the Kinect Sports games. Even a game like beach volleyball or soccer was boiled down to individual “moments” of interaction that get strung together into some sort of competition. Even the running in place games were one at a time, though the river rafting and mining cart games (both with a similar mechanic of jumping and ducking through an obstacle course while picking up tokens) could be played with two people at a time. You can at least play games like volleyball simultaneously with someone else over Xbox Live.
• An interesting mechanic we saw was a second player “jumping in” to a game. In the mining cart scenario, when the second player jumped in it immediately went split screen, while in soccer different players took turns by just jumping into position. Sure, some of this stuff was edited for our benefit, but it seems Microsoft is working to make the introduction of a second player or the switching between players something less button-heavy.
• The Star Wars game was pretty badass-looking — you play a Jedi, rushing down stormtroopers and deflecting laser bolts left and right, wielding a few Force powers, and confronting a certain deep-voiced Sith Lord for a one-on-one duel. Based on the gestures and action we saw, though, it was a pretty heavily scripted experience. Still, there’s no scripting a two-handed light saber grip, and that particular action looked like everything we’ve ever wanted in a Star Wars game.
• The yoga game is actually a pretty smart use of the infrared and joint detection software we espied previously. Positions were “checked” by points on the joint — making it certainly harder to fake the moves on Wii Fit — and it seemed to have a tai chi element to it. Your avatar glowed a more intense red based on your three-dimensional approximation — bright red for hands stretched forward, for example.
• Next up: Kinectimals, a baby tiger pet simulator. You can scratch its ears, snuggle, and teach the little guy to jump and play dead. Adorable? Dangerously so. No one can tell us the developer, but based on the lighting effects, art style, and similarities to the previously-shown Milo, we’d wager a guess that it was Lionhead Studios.
• The Kinect menu interface is about as simple as could be. You wave your hand to control a glowing cursor of sorts, and you push forward to “click” on the element you want. Of course, there’s also a very simplified version of the Dashboard to go along with this control mechanism, so it’s unclear if you’ll be able to do everything via subtle hand waves, but the Twitter, Facebook, Zune and Netflix icons were clearly present.
• The MTV Games-developed Dance Central has some on staff divided — only Ross will actually admit to being interested in playing it. A series of dance moves are presented, including elbow jabs, swinging leg, guitar, “rocking out” (with your hand in the air). The art style is akin to Rock Band / Guitar Hero, and to be fair, this is probably one of those games that can’t be done as well on any other console.

Update 3: Video of family gameplay and media playback control added after the break. Come on, what else are you going to do until its November retail launch?

Continue reading Microsoft Kinect gets official, Video Chat announced

Microsoft Kinect gets official, Video Chat announced originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Jun 2010 23:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on November 13, 2007 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

When preparing the Daily Downloads a few weeks back I came across a nifty little program for Windows called Pitaschio (note that it’s spelled differently than pistachio the nut). It caught my attention not only because it was freeware, but also because it didn’t require any installation. Those two ingredients are pretty important when it comes to making a good first impression on me.

After I got it up and running I began diving through the manual to figure out what all of the options do. Believe me, at first it doesn’t seem like there is all that much to configure since there is less than 30 checkboxes, but don’t let that deceive you. That’s just a sign that it’s a well developed application.

Click to Enlarge

–Snap to Windows (Magnetic Edges)–

Pitaschio is almost like the FreeSnap application in that it makes it possible to better organize your windows. Pitaschio doesn’t offer quite the features that FreeSnap does, but one strong point is that it has a configurable snap-to-window option. This turns the edges of every application into a “magnet,” and when an edge of a window comes close to another edge they will naturally be attracted to each other. It thereby makes it easy to align multiple windows side-by-side.

There is also a “place window only in screen” option that I like. With it enabled you will not be able to drag any windows outside of your screen’s perimeter. If you enjoy being able to move your windows off the screen you’ll want to disable this setting because it will get annoying rather fast.

–Keys & Shortcuts–

The mouse shortcuts are one of the things that I fell in love with first. With them you can assign commands to various mouse operations that you normally wouldn’t use in Windows. For example, I have Pitaschio setup so that when I hold down Shift and right-click on the Title Bar of a program it will minimize that particular window:

Click to Enlarge

In all there are about 25 different commands that you can assign mouse shortcuts to, and all of them are pictured above. Some of the operations you can perform with the mouse shortcuts include:

• Start the screensaver or turn off the monitor
• Shutdown, hibernate, logoff, restart, or put the computer in standby
• Open your Documents, Recycle Bin, Control Panel, Task Manager, or Display Properties
• Adjust the transparency of the window
• Minimize to the System Tray or minimize to the Taskbar
• Center the window on your monitor
• Rollup a window to just the Title Bar:
  
• Maximize the height and/or width of a window

–Window Size & Position Manager–

This is similar to the AutoSizer application that we mentioned a few weeks back. You can specify the starting position of an application, the window size, and even how transparent you want the entire window to be.

A screenshot of the window manager is to the right, and I’m sure you can see just how powerful this feature can really be.

–And More–

I’ve covered a lot of great stuff in this article, but that’s really only about half of what Pitaschio is capable of doing. Take a look at some of the other things you may find useful:

• Disable keys that you don’t use, such as Insert, Windows Key, Caps Lock, and more. I’m actually surprised that keyboards still have a Caps Lock key, and it was nice being able to turn it off completely.
• “Allow extended rename” makes other versions of Windows behave more like Vista when trying to rename a file, assuming that you have file extensions shown. When you rename a file it will select just the filename, and not the extension. Vista already does this, and I recommend disabling it if you’re using Vista because it can cause some unwanted side effects.
• Autoraise windows as you hover over them. This will bring a particular window to the front if you just hover over it with the mouse, instead of requiring a click.
• Adjust the volume of the speakers using the scroll wheel on your mouse.

There are also some features that are only available through right-clicking on the System Tray icon for Pitaschio

• Clean the mouse/keyboard. How many times have you wanted to clean your mouse or keyboard, but you don’t want to inadvertently do things on the screen. Pitaschio will let you disable one or the other so that they can be cleaned.
• View stats on how far you move your mouse and how many times you press each key on the keyboard. This doesn’t really have a purpose, but it’s interesting to see.

When I tried Pitaschio out for the first time I didn’t expect too much from it, but after using it for a few days it quickly became one of my favorite freeware applications. I run it on all of my computers, and it’s painless to setup since there is nothing to install.

Pitaschio Homepage

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