Hasta La Gadget!

Time for some more salacious prognostications about the future, courtesy of the wily folks over at vg247. The team there claims to have obtained internal documents from UK video game retailer GAME that lists the release dates for forthcoming Xbox 360 titles. The listing is headlined by new iterations of Crysis, Call of Duty and Metal Gear Solid, but the highlight for us gadget junkies is at the very end: Yoga Natal, scheduled for an October release. Now, even if this doc comes straight from the horse’s mouth, game release dates are notoriously prone to fluctuation, so let’s not read too much into that October date. What’s intriguing is that Microsoft does indeed seem intent on creating specialist games for its Natal experience, and it may be that they’ll all include Natal in their titles to make compatibility abundantly clear. Or this may be just a big bad April 1-related hoax, we’ll live either way.

[Thanks, Matt R.]

Update: We’ve now also discovered a pulled Amazon listing for Yoga Natal, and we’ve stashed a screenshot of its Google Cache version just after the break [Thanks, Ian].

Continue reading Yoga Natal game appears on GAME retailer’s Xbox 360 release schedule (update: Amazon UK too!)

Yoga Natal game appears on GAME retailer’s Xbox 360 release schedule (update: Amazon UK too!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 03:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to ‘This day in Engadget‘, where we crack open the archives and take a whimsical look back at the memories and moments of our storied past. Please join us on this trip down random access memory lane.

On March 27th, 2009, Microsoft outed the first of a new series of ads called the “Laptop Hunters,” starting off its campaign with Lauren, who wanted a powerful computer for less than a thousand dollars. We poked a bit of fun at the ad (well, mostly we poked fun at Lauren herself), but it signaled that Microsoft was taking on its main competitor — Apple — where it hurt them most: pricing. Of course, this was pre-Windows 7, which proved to be a major success by any metric, but certainly against the much-maligned Vista. Apple later called to complain about the ads — saying that the pricing was no longer correct — and Microsoft updated the ads, though Microsoft COO Tim Cook Kevin Turner had something to say about the size of the price cuts.

Also on this date:

March 27th, 2009: Tesla’s CEO said that model S Roadster wasn’t actually that expensive (and we laughed at him), the iPhone 3G became available contract free, and Palm issued a takedown for TealOS (the fake WebOS for older Palm devices.

March 27th, 2008: NVIDIA drivers took the heat for causing 30 percent of Windows Vista crashes, Microsoft Surface was reportedly headed for consumers in 2011, the PlayStation Network had a major security situation on its hands, the OLPC was lovingly overclocked, and a MacBook Air got pwnd.

March 27th, 2007: The as-yet-unreleased first gen iPhone was waved around at CTIA, AT&T sued NASCAR over a paint job, Netflix founder Reed Hastings joined the board of Microsoft, and Texas Instruments showed of its tiny little DLP projector.

March 27th, 2006: Media snacker Robert Scoble showed off Microsoft’s Auxiliary Display on video, Denmark was reported to be joining forces with France in asking Apple to open its DRM, and photos of the supposed iRiver E10 got shown off.

March 27th, 2005: Sony was reportedly going to be forced to stop selling its Dual Shock Controllers over patent infringement, TiVo was said to be testing banner ads during fast forwards, and Palm’s Tungsten E2‘s specs were finally revealed.

March 27th, 2004: Two men in Italy were banned from ever using cellphones again after using them to harass ex-girlfriends, some Palm video game emulators got shown off, and something called the Simputer finally came into existence.

This day in Engadget: Microsoft unleashes a laptop hunter originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you were watching last night’s episode of The Vampire Diaries (believe us, we were not), you probably saw something a little… strange. Yes, with the opening credits still running, two women (sorry, we have never seen a frame of this show so we don’t know who these broads are) sitting in front of a laptop converse about a runaway teen named Isabelle Peterson or something like that. Unsure of whether or not this suspicious Peterson character was using a fake name or not, the ladies needed… well, they needed a tool that would allow them to search the vast and beautiful world wide web of information. “But where’d she get Peterson? Classmate? Best friend?” the blond sitting at the terminal wonders. “So…” she says, turning to the computer, “… I Binged it.” Wait, what? You Binged it? Hmm… we’ve never heard that one before, though we have to say in this case, it seems like Bing really came through for the ladies, nailing down the information they were looking for with ease. It’s quite an extended piece of advertising, really. But seriously… Binged? Guess it’ll have to do. Video is after the break.

[Thanks, Eva]

Continue reading ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and Microsoft team up, try to add ‘Binged’ to the lexicon

‘The Vampire Diaries’ and Microsoft team up, try to add ‘Binged’ to the lexicon originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A week after becoming a reality, Microsoft’s LifeCam HD-5000 webcam has been given the review treatment by Mobile + Netbook and, while it delivers what looks to be generally excellent quality video, it doesn’t score perfectly high marks. For one thing, this cam does not feature onboard hardware encoding, which resulted in 40 percent CPU utilization for this tester when recording at 720p on a Core i5 750 processor — ouch. This also means that the cam will not be usable for Skype HD, as that service requires onboard hardware encoding. But, other than some slow focus issues, the camera delivered quite good quality and color and, at just $50 MSRP (we’re seeing them for $40 online), it’s still quite a bargain.

Continue reading Microsoft’s budget 720p HD-5000 LifeCam reviewed (video)

Microsoft’s budget 720p HD-5000 LifeCam reviewed (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft has scheduled a “Project Natal for Xbox 360 Experience” press conference at the E3 show in Los Angeles on June 13. But whether it’s a formal announcement or just another explanation of the
technology won’t be known until then.

The news was revealed by by PlanetXbox360 and other gaming publications, which began receiving invitations to the event on Thursday. Microsoft has scheduled another Xbox 360-related press conference for Monday morning, although I would assume that would cover the upcoming lineup of games for the console.

Project Natal, of course, is Microsoft’s camera-based motion controller. In early demontrations, the technology has been extremely impressive, although no one quite knows how Natal will hold up in real-world gameplay in millions of different home gaming setups. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft said that the Natal technology would ship by the 2010 holiday season.

In the meantime, rival Sony has unveiled the PlayStation Move, a combination of a Nintendo Wii-like nunchuk and the PlayStation Eye camera.

I would guess, in true PR fashion, that Microsoft will announce the price for Natal, some bundles, and a few more games that will incorporate the technology.