Gaming Rage

A team with members from Microsoft, the University of Toronto, and the University of Washington have developed an interface that uses electrodes to monitor muscle signals and translate those into commands or button presses, allowing a user to bypass a physical input device and even control a game or application while their hands are full. The video demonstration shows somebody playing Guitar Hero by making strumming motions and tapping his fingers together, a jogger changing his music without having to touch the device, and a man flexing a muscle to open the trunk of his car while he carries objects in both hands. The academic paper (PDF) is available online.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

written by Soulskill \\ tags: Games, hardhack, Video Games

negRo_slim writes “Who knew the N-Gage was still kicking? Well apparently it still is — however, it looks like 2010 will be the end. From the announcement: ‘While the N-Gage.com site together with the N-Gage Arena and other community features will remain in operation throughout 2010, the Ovi Store will be the new central place for all the mobile games that Nokia and other publishers offer from this point forward. We will no longer publish new games for the N-Gage platform.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

written by Soulskill \\ tags: cellphones, Games, Video Games

A recent Notice of Inquiry from the FCC is looking for opinions on how the “evolving electronic media landscape” affects kids, and whether the FCC itself should have more regulatory control over such media. The full NOI (PDF) is available online. “FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski included a statement with the NOI in which he noted that ‘twenty years ago, parents worried about one or two TV sets in the house,’ while today, media choices are far more widespread for children, including videogames, which ‘have become a prevalent entertainment source in millions of homes and a daily reality for millions of kids.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

written by Soulskill \\ tags: Games, government, Video Games

Jon Stokes at the Opposable Thumbs blog relates his experience using Google Wave as a platform for Dungeons and Dragons — the true test of success for any new communications technology. A post at Spirits of Eden lists some of Wave’s strengths for gaming. Quoting: “The few games I’m following typically have at least three waves: one for recruiting and general discussion, another for out-of-character interactions (’table talk’), and the main wave where the actual in-character gaming takes place. Individual players are also encouraged to start waves between themselves for any conversations that the GM shouldn’t be privy to. Character sheets can be posted in a private wave between a player and the GM, and character biographies can go anywhere where the other players can get access to them. The waves are persistent, accessible to anyone who’s added to them, and include the ability to track changes, so they ultimately work quite well as a medium for the non-tactical parts of an RPG. A newcomer can jump right in and get up-to-speed on past interactions, and a GM or industrious player can constantly maintain the official record of play by going back and fixing errors, formatting text, adding and deleting material, and reorganizing posts.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

written by Soulskill \\ tags: Games, Google, Video Games

lbalbalba writes “This morning, Nintendo announced the third upgrade to the DS family, the DSi LL (or DSi XL). It will be released in Japan on November 21, one year after the DSi debuted, for ¥20,000 (approx. $220). The LL’s main improvement is the size of its screens, which have been increased from 3.25″ to 4.2″ with a moderate increase to the size of the chassis. The device also includes a much bigger stylus, which looks to be the size of a ballpoint pen, and battery life has reportedly been increased to five hours at maximum screen brightness.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

written by timothy \\ tags: Games, Nintendo, Video Games

lbalbalba writes “This morning, Nintendo announced the third upgrade to the DS family, the DSi LL (or DSi XL), will be released in Japan on November 21, one year after the DSi debuted, for ¥20,000 (approx. $220). The LL’s main improvement is the size of its screens, which have been increased from 3.25″ to 4.2″ with a moderate increase to the size of the chassis. The device also includes a much bigger stylus, which looks to be the size of a ballpoint pen, and battery life has reportedly been increased to five hours at maximum screen brightness.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

written by timothy \\ tags: Games, Nintendo, Video Games

waderoush writes “Physicist Shahriar Afshar is famous as the designer of the ‘Afshar Experiment,’ a study first described in 2004 that called into question Neils Bohr’s observation that it’s impossible to observe light’s wave-like properties and its particle-like properties at the same time. Not surprisingly, the idea met with widespread resistance in the physics community. While he waits for the controversy to settle down, Afshar himself is taking a detour into the video game world. He’s now the president and CTO of Immerz, a Cambridge, MA-based startup building an ‘acousto-haptic’ interface that drapes over a gamer’s shoulders and turns video game sound into (literally) chest-pounding vibrations. Xconomy was allowed to test the device, and has the full story behind Afshar’s unusual journey and the company’s hopes for enhancing PC and console gamers’ experience of action/adventure/first-person-shooter titles.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

written by Soulskill \\ tags: Games, Video Games

eldavojohn writes “Game Politics makes note of criticism over leaked footage from the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 release. (Spoiler warning.) Footage shows the player engaged in killing civilians with terrorists (relevant video begins at about 1:50, second source in case of DMCA). Several game sites are asking if this is taking things too far. Probably just advertising at work, but the footage is indeed controversial — the question remains whether or not it is out of context.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

written by Soulskill \\ tags: Games, Video Games

sleeponthemic writes “Developer 2D Boy has posted the final results of their ‘pay-what-you-want’ experiment, selling their World of Goo game for an unrestricted price. After coming to the attention of Slashdot, a further ~26,000 sales were recorded, bringing the total to 83,147. Note that publicizing crucial mid-sale statistics — such as the revelation that ~17,000 people chose to ‘donate’ $0.01 — seems to have affected the average donation, which increased from $2.03 to above $3 by the end of the week.” They also show some interesting charts which break down the average donation by operating system, saying “We were expecting the average price paid to be highest for Linux users and lowest for Windows users, but the gap was larger than we thought it would be.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

written by Soulskill \\ tags: Games, Money, Video Games

itwbennett writes “‘There was a lot of talk yesterday about an article in the Japanese publication Nikkei which claimed that Nintendo was readying a new iteration of its DS line of handheld gaming systems,’ writes blogger Peter Smith. ‘The report claims the new unit will have 4″ screens (the current unit has 3.25″ screens) and is designed for older gamers who have trouble seeing the small screens of the current DSi. This new model is otherwise identical to the existing DSi and will ship by end of year in Japan.’ As an ‘older gamer’ himself, Smith calls on Nintendo to stop this annual upgrade madness and do something truly innovative for a change, and he calls on gamers to put some pressure on Nintendo and not buy the new DS.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

written by Soulskill \\ tags: Games, Nintendo, Video Games