Hasta La Gadget!

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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So you like Samsung’s NX10 pseudo-DSLR camera, but can’t quite reach up to its price point? Good old uncle Sammy is looking out for you with this here budget-friendly model — the NX5 replaces the AMOLED display with a standard 3-inch LCD, but looks to be keeping all the other important features. That means you’re still getting an electronic viewfinder and that 14.6 megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor — which collected plenty of review approbation — inside a compact body, plus the same selection of NX-mount lenses to choose from. A €699 ($855) launch price might not seem like a great deal, but we’ve found its elder brother retailing for $619 on Amazon.de together with a kit lens, so expect prices to tumble downwards shortly after this shooter’s release in late June.

Continue reading Samsung NX5 becomes official little brother to NX10 hybrid DSLR

Samsung NX5 becomes official little brother to NX10 hybrid DSLR originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was about a year and a half ago that Microsoft decided it could do QR codes better, that any universal coding system needed a dash of color, and launched Tag. Now, the roughly one billion Tags that users have printed have been made a little less illegitimate, with Microsoft bringing the service out of beta and taking the opportunity to toot Tag’s trumpet a bit. The codes have appeared in 20 million magazines so far and have recently been deployed to create a sort of tour for geeks in Amsterdam (no word on whether our own international man of mystery is featured). Meanwhile America’s cultural hub, the Mall of America, has been similarly bestickered to “enhance customer engagement,” but based on our previous experiences at that bastion of commercialism we’re thinking scooters and foot massages might have been more effective.

Microsoft Tag comes out of beta, promises free colorful codes for all originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 May 2010 13:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s hard to differentiate yourself in the netbook world nowadays — pretty much every manufacturer is trudging along the same Pine Trail, with the same one, maybe two, gigabytes of RAM and 160GB to 320GB in storage. So ASUS, the original gangster of this sector, is aiming to wow consumers with a scintillating 13.5 hours of autonomous use courtesy of its 6-cell 63Wh battery pack. The EeePC 1015P and 1015PE differ only in aesthetics, with both sporting 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 screens and Atom N450 processors. No, that’s not going to break any performance records, but if that longevity number proves true, we suspect there’ll be plenty of eager buyers out there. Price and availability haven’t yet been revealed, but ASUS doesn’t usually keep us waiting so look out for these in the very near future.

ASUS makes EeePC 1015P and 1015PE official, endows them with 13.5 hours of battery life originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 May 2010 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes, good people of Engadgetland, we finally have an official spec sheet for the eagerly awaited Incredible handset. A 3.7-inch OLED touchscreen leads the way, with an 800 x 480 resolution, which will offer the full Google Experience on Android version 2.1. That sounds remarkably like a refashioned Nexus One to us, even down to the 1GHz Snapdragon chip inside, but where the Droid Incredible differs is in its inclusion of Sense UI (à la the Desire) and an 8 megapixel autofocusing camera. We’re also seeing GPS and 8GB of integrated memory — expandable to 24GB via MicroSD cards — on this list, which can be found in its entirety at the source link below. Not long to wait now.

[Thanks, Henry]

Droid Incredible specs confirmed on Verizon site originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 02:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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