Hasta La Gadget!

UC Davis’s Oliver Kreylos has been responsible for two of our most impressive Kinect hacks yet. He was one of the first to get proper 3D video out of the thing, following that up by pairing up two of the cameras, one to fill in the gaps of the other. You might have thought he was just playing around but no — oh no. There was a method to the madness and his ulterior motive has been revealed: 3D telepresence. This is what he’s been working on all along and he has an early version operational, using the output from two Kinects in a remote office to beam a 3D representation of another person to his display, which he can navigate around (and through) using a Wiimote. Meanwhile, the viewer can see the position of Oliver in real-time, a virtual camera floating around and enabling them to maintain eye contact despite her not actually looking at either physical camera. That demonstration is embedded after the break along with a somewhat fanciful follow-up in which Kreylos engages in a rather… protracted lightsaber battle against the forces of evil.

Continue reading Two Kinects join forces to make 3D telepresence, enable virtual light saber battles (video)

Two Kinects join forces to make 3D telepresence, enable virtual light saber battles (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on April 29, 2008 by CyberNet.

Any Grand Theft Auto fans out there? If there are, you already know Grand Theft Auto 4 (GTA) launched at midnight last night and you probably already have your hands on a copy of the game. For the first time, the game launched at the same time for two platforms, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In some cities, like New York, people were in line waiting for the game’s launch before midnight. There was so much anticipation surrounding this game and high expectations were set. From the sounds of it, the game has exceeded those expectations, and all around, people are extremely satisfied with this version of the popular game.

Of course the game wasn’t able to launch without any controversy. The game itself has been a big controversy and always has been because of the violence and the nature of the content (carjacking, prostitutes, etc.). Controversy aside, this game has received absolutely stellar ratings from reviewers. Take a look at some of these scores which we gathered from Wikipedia:

• Official Xbox Magazine – 9.5/10
• Official PlayStation Magazine – 10/10
• GameSpot – 10/10
• Electronic Gaming Monthly – A+
• Game Informer – 10/10
• GameSpy – 5/5
• GamesRadar – 10/10

Metacritic offers a compilation score of about a dozen reviews and the PS3 version received a perfect 100% while the Xbox 360 version received a 99%. Clearly GTA will be a success for the publisher, Take-Two Interactive Software (their shares rose 3.4% ahead of the midnight launch) who is being sought by Electronic Arts . It sure helps to be launching the game on two platforms at the same time, doesn’t it? Some analysts have predicted that the opening week sales will be about $550 million and that by the end of the year, 10 million copies of the game will have been sold. To put that number into perspective, Halo 3 which was another huge video game launch, brought in $300 million during the first week of sales.

If you managed to get your hands on a copy of the game, let us know what you think…

Source: Reuters

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In most circumstances, we’d argue a self-illuminating controller crisscrossed by bright bands of orange is a couple of notches over the top, but when it’s Tron you’re talking about, it all makes sense. This latest peripheral for the 360 is up for pre-order now at $39.99 and comes prepackaged with the smugness of knowing that each one sold will be part of a very limited 250-unit production run. It’s officially licensed by Microsoft and arriving at snowy doorsteps some time later this month. A less exclusive blue brother should be joining it soon as well, in case the current hue’s not quite to your liking.

Xbox 360 gets a limited edition orange Tron controller, because wired gamers need love too originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The future is a sexy, sexy place. You can thank ThriXXX for that–at least in part. The adult entertainment company has hacked everyone’s favorite new Xbox 360 controller for a new, sexy, um, hands-on experience.

The company hacked the Kinect to make it work with its own brand of adult simulation games. At present, the hack only really seems to work with the hands. ThriXXX is working on adding full body support for–well, use your imagination. Or don’t. I mean, you’re at work, for god’s sake.

ThriXXX is offering a patch for an alpha version of the hack early next year. Joystiq has a video of the thing in action. We would have embedded it, but our bosses wouldn’t let us.

This one’s strictly for the record, the one that documents failed aesthetic experiments. Microsoft’s Albert Penello has been cornered for an interview by the British Official Xbox Magazine — mostly to discuss the console’s five-year anniversary — and their discourse touched on the ill-fated frontal accessory for the original 360. Penello admitted that although “faceplates were what everybody wanted to do” five years ago, they pretty much fell flat in terms of retail success, which led Microsoft to kill them off pretty quickly. We can’t say we ever developed strong feelings either way about these plastic prettifiers, let’s just be happy that Microsoft’s latest console peripheral probably won’t be subject to similar mea culpa admissions five years from now.

Microsoft admits ‘failure’ with Xbox 360 faceplates, says nobody bought them originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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