Retro Stick-On Joystick Turns iPad into Arcade Machine

Pac-Man sucks on a touch-screen. Unless you have a proper joystick to yank your yellow-pizza avatar from the clutches of Clyde and co, then you’ll get bored (and frustrated) in minutes. Help is at hand (or at finger?) from ThinkGeek, in the form of the JOYSTICK-IT, a handsome stick which sticks straight onto a tablet screen.

Press it into place over the onscreen controls and the milled aluminum stick will transfer your jerks and tugs into virtual finger-presses by way of a conductive foam pad beneath. The biggest problem with on-screen gaming button is that your thumb can wander off the controls and leave you stranded just as you were about to perform a slick 180º and leave those dumb ghosts in a heap.

The stick will be available at the end of January, for $25. Stick it on you iPad, lay the tablet down on a too-low table and surround with glasses of warm beer. Congratulations: you now have a perfect replica of a tabletop arcade cabinet. Cigarette burns are optional.

Joystick IT product page [ThinkGeek]

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Sifteo announces early access details for Cubes: $99, Q1, lots of extras

We knew good and well that Sifteo’s Cubits were coming in the year 2011 A.D., but little did we know we’d be seeing an update so soon, and here at CES of all places. The aforementioned company has apparently forged ahead with a name change, officially dubbing the little guys you see above “Cubes.” Those looking to buy in early are certainly in for a treat, as its Early Access Program will bring a discounted rate as well as lots of extra goodies — more for less is hard to beat, you know. At some point in Q1 of this year, $99 will enable eager early adopters to get a trio of the 1.5-inch blocks, 1000 points to purchase games and apps from the online store, a coupon to redeem once the product is launched in earnest, 50 percent off anything in the Sifteo store (up to $200) and a limited edition t-shirt. It’ll be the only chance to snag a set prior to their nationwide release in the fall of this year, and if you’re still wondering just how much fun you could have, head on past the break for the full release. It’s a hoot, we tell ya.

Continue reading Sifteo announces early access details for Cubes: $99, Q1, lots of extras

Sifteo announces early access details for Cubes: $99, Q1, lots of extras originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stick-On JoyPad Upgrades iPad Gaming

The Fling is a stick-on game-controller for the iPad. It comes from Ten One design, the company behind the popular Pogo Stylus that lets you write on your capacitive touch-screen with a pen.

The Fling is made from bendy resin, aluminum and a pair of suction cups. You fire up a game with an on-screen joystick – a first-person shooter or Street Fighter IV, for example – and place the Fling over the top of the touch-controls. Stick it down with the suckers and you’re good to go. The Fling lets you make your moves on a rocking D-pad and transfers them to the screen beneath via the magic of conductivity. And because it’s transparent, you can see the game through its jellyfish-like body.

Here it is in action. Get ready on the mute button, though – there’s loud music.

Neat, huh? And just $25 – not dirt cheap, sure, but certainly no more than buying a decent controller for a regular console. I had moved on to finger-friendly games like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, but the Fling may make me reconsider my abandonment of SFIV.

Fling product page [Ten One via Kotaku]

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Windows XP partially re-created in LittleBigPlanet 2, ups the stakes for gamer ambitiousness (video)

We’ve seen an CHIP-8 emulator and even a virtual CPU built inside games, but we’ve yet to encounter a game recreation of Windows. Thanks to a quartet of industrious LittleBigPlanet 2 beta players, though, we can now finally check that off in our copy of 100 Geeky Projects You Must Witness Before Dying. As the video above shows, major Windows functions they’ve emulated to date include a working start menu and mouse cursor, multiplayer support for a variety of bloatware games, and even the good ole’ blue screen of death. That’s pretty impressive stuff from an ambitious platforming title that won’t officially ship until mid-January. Needless to say, once the full version arrives, we expect to see a working copy of Lion running stat. You heard us folks — we’re setting the bar that high.

Windows XP partially re-created in LittleBigPlanet 2, ups the stakes for gamer ambitiousness (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Jan 2011 12:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is your brain. This is your brain on video games

Sure, you’ve probably seen countless scientific studies involving video games — but have you have you ever wondered what your brain actually looked like while your playing video games? Well, feast your eyes on the image above. That’s an MRI scan of New York Times writer Matt Richtel’s brain that was captured while he played a simple driving game — all in the name of science (and journalism), of course. As Richtel notes, however, that’s just one example of the ways researchers are using such technology to “map the ethereal concept of attention,” and scientists have turned up some other interesting findings as of late. Researchers at the University of Utah, for instance, have found that people’s ability to juggle two tasks begins to drop off in their 30s and then sharply drops in their 40s, which contradicts earlier suspicions that people’s ability to multitask only began to degrade when they’re much older. Some other researchers are still suspicious of those findings, however, and Dr. Gazzaley of the University of California at San Diego is quick to point out that all of this research is still in the earliest stages — he’s expecting some more detailed findings next year when his team expands their tests and begin to incorporate EEG monitoring as well.

This is your brain. This is your brain on video games originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scientists Wield Wiimote To Measure Evaporation

Consumer technology is advancing at such a rate that it is becoming increasingly common for such technology to find its way into various scientific applications. One of the more obvious examples is seen in the benefits high-performance computing has received from consumer graphics cards. We have also seen laptops used to measure earthquakes, and accelerometers such as those found in the Wiimote, iPhone, and other consumer electronics used to measure the flight patterns of the Malayan colugo.

In a recent paper in Water Resources Research, a team reports on the use of the Wiimote to measure evaporation. Natural evaporation rates are an important part of the water cycle; estimates of evaporation are required for weather forecasts, flood forecasts, and water resource planning, among other things.

One of the common means of measuring evaporation is simple enough: you set out a pan of water and measure the change in water level over time. Unfortunately, automated measurement typically requires a pressure transducer to accurately measure the water level, and those costs hundreds of dollars. The use of the Wiimote has the potential to substantially reduce the cost of measurement.

The methodology is simple enough. The Wiimote tracks the four brightest points in a near infrared image. Ordinarily, these four points will be the four Wii IR LEDs used to determine where the Wiimote is pointing. However, by affixing IR reflectors to a float in the water pan, the researchers were able to track the water level. This sounds simple enough, but these pans are often themselves floating in natural water bodies, and the combination of the two is likely to make waves.

To test the sensitivity of their technique to waves, the team used a small wave generator. A low-flow pump was used to change the water level. They found that even with substantial wave activity, they were able to measure changes in the average water level to within one millimeter.

However, they did find a slight bias in their absolute estimate of water level during wave activity. They hypothesize that this is due to a lag in the rates of rise and fall of their float that could be fixed with a modification. Using the Wiimote’s accelerometer to measure motion of the entire pan could also improve accuracy.

While I have to admit that I found this paper a bit mundane for what it was, the idea of using cheap sensors to measure environmental fields is one I find fascinating. For example, I wonder if the XBox 360’s depth-sensing Kinect camera could be used to measure particles such a large snowflakes in a wind field.

A first-order calculation suggests that its depth pixels are a few millimeters across for nearby objects, but it is not clear that the method it uses to calculate depth will work for small, fast-moving objects. Still, a $150 3D Particle Imaging Velocimeter would be a huge win. Environmental problems are prone to high time and space variability, and anything that can lower the cost of measurement has the potential to increase the number of measurements one can make.

The scientific community isn’t alone in getting excited about this tech. Its promise is also consistent with IBM’s recently-released Next 5 in 5 YouTube video: their prediction for the five innovations that will change our lives in the next five years. IBM predicts that simple sensor networks based in cell phones and laptops will be increasingly used to map environmental events. In addition, a large Department of Transportation project called IntelliDrive envisions using embedded sensors in cars to monitor environmental conditions.

Chime in below with your own ideas for scientific usage of consumer technology.

This story was written by Ethan Gutmann and originally published by Ars Technica on Dec. 28.

Photo: ginnerobot / Flickr


We know you didn’t get this Steampunk Etch-a-Sketch for Christmas, but you probably want it now, don’t you?

What you’re looking at above is a real, actual object found in the material world. It’s an Etch-a-Sketch so modified, as to look like a glorious leftover from a bygone era that never was. What era, you ask? Oh, the Victorian era — so named for the United Kingdom’s longest reigning monarch — with a great dash of fancy added into the mix. We’re talking alternate history, people! A history so wonderful, so beautiful, that a lowly red plastic Etch-a-Sketch could end up both complex and inordinately heavy looking. Made by an industrious youth as a Christmas gift for a chum, we couldn’t imagine a better way to make this boring old gadget look so jolly well festive. Hurrah!

We know you didn’t get this Steampunk Etch-a-Sketch for Christmas, but you probably want it now, don’t you? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 15:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gizmodo’s Gift Guides for Last Minute Shoppers [Gift Guide 2010]

Your tree is looking a little bare around the bottom, and you have, like, one day to complete your Christmas shopping. (Nice one!) Don’t worry, we’ve got your back with gifts for every possible* personality type. More »

C64x, A Commodore 64 with Blu-ray, USB, HDMI

A Commodore 64 with a dual-core Atom processor, 2GB memory, NVIDIA Ion2 graphics and a Blu-ray drive? Have I woken up in some fevered (but still awesome) alternative reality? Or is it nearly Christmas (wait…)?

In fact, this is the C64x, an updated version of the venerable 8-bit 1980s favorite. An array of USB and memory-card slots, along with HDMI, VGA and DVI-D ports round-out the specs. The body has been faithfully reproduced, and Commodore has even put proper Cherry-brand switches inside the keys for that old-style clackety-clack sound and super-positive key-clicks.

The C64x can be treated just like a regular (albeit retro-styled) PC, but there’s a hidden trick for nostalgia-freaks: in the boot menu, you can choose to boot the thing in C64 emulation mode, letting you play all the old games of your youth.

Commodore is just teasing us right now: the price and launch date have yet to be announced. Lets hope the answers to “when?” and “how much?” are “soon” and “cheap.”

C64x [Commodore]

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Sega Toylets lets you game with your boy bits (video)

Sega, the once proud innovator of console design, is back in the gaming hardware business! Only not in the fashion you might think. The company has just rolled out a trial of its Toylets system, which embeds a pressure sensor into otherwise innocuous urinals and gives life to every bad piece of joystick-related innuendo you ever heard. Four games are available right now, to be enjoyed through a display mounted at eye level, including one where the intensity of your delivery helps blow a girl’s skirt up and another that offers (asynchronous!) multiplayer competition. The latter game matches you against the previous dude to have used the porcelain repository, thereby finally providing Japanese men with a measurable way to settle pissing contests. It’s official: we’re moving to Japan.

Continue reading Sega Toylets lets you game with your boy bits (video)

Sega Toylets lets you game with your boy bits (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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