By soumya on
12/20/2010
Microsoft is working to improve the accuracy of Xbox 360 motion-sensing add-on Kinect so that it could detect finger movement and hand rotation, Eurogamer understands.
Microsoft's Kinect team is said to be working "very hard" on a switching or compression technology that will allow a greater amount of data to pass through Kinect to the Xbox 360 console.
Kinect features are dictated by firmware so that they can be added and upgraded over time.
The depth sensor used by Kinect is also dictated by firmware – it is currently set at a 30 frames per second limit and a 320x240 resolution limit.
At a 640x480 resolution, however, Kinect could begin to detect fingers and hand rotation – an effective quadrupling of its accuracy.
Read More: EUROGAMER
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By soumya on
12/20/2010
What? It took two full months for someone to make a Kinect sex game? C'mon, porn industry -- you generally move faster than that!
Joking aside (or maybe not), you read that right: There are sex games in the works for Kinect, Microsoft's new motion sensor for the Xbox 360. ThriXXX, maker of such titles as "3D SexVilla2," "Fetish 3D" and "3D Slut," is working on technology for its games that allows people to, um, interact with virtual women through motion gestures and voice commands via Kinect.
"The Kinect controller is astonishing...
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By soumya on
12/20/2010
According to internal VGChartz estimates, sales of Microsoft's Kinect sensor passed the 4 million unit mark as of last week (week ending December 11th). This puts Kinect on pace to sell over 6 million units by the end of the year. Xbox 360 hardware sales have seen a significant lift since the launch of Kinect with around 40% of all Kinect sensor sales worldwide coming via units bundled with Xbox360 hardware - clearly showing that Kinect has been selling outside of the existing Xbox360 userbase.
In the same timeframe from launch, Nintendo's Wii managed to sell 2.9 million units and Sony's PlayStation Move sold just over 900,000 units (camera + at least one Move controller) - less than 1/4 of the sales of Kinect. Despite the shortages experienced by Nintendo in 2006 and despite a far more aggressive marketing push than Sony had with Move and the effect of holiday boosts (which Move did not have in the initial 6 weeks), Kinect still looks to be the clear winner of the "motion wars" at this early stage. A...
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By soumya on
12/20/2010
The feedback and conversation on IE9’s Platform Previews and Beta to date from many different communities has made the IE9 development process, and product, substantially better than previous releases. The discussions around hardware-accelerated HTML5 and same markup with the developer community, for example, have informed many changes to the product. Thank you for using it and providing feedback.
In general, we’ve focused this blog on engineering issues. In this post, still continuing our pattern of transparency, let’s look at the increasingly important topic of privacy online through the lens of a consumer concerned about being tracked on the web. Here is a brief summary (warning, what follows it is long) of what we intend to deliver in the release candidate of IE9.
Today, consumers have very little awareness or control over who can track their online activity. Much has been written about...
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By soumya on
12/17/2010
Microsoft is saying that its Bing search engine now has more than 90 million users and has grown by nearly 50% since its launch a year and a half ago.
At its Bing Summit in San Francisco, Microsoft Senior Vice President of Research and Development Satya Nadella provided an audience of journalists with an overview of the search engine’s current state. He started by pointing to a recent comScore report concluding that Bing now...
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By soumya on
12/17/2010
The first turn-based multi-player Xbox LIVE enabled game recently showed up in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. Search for "Game Chest: Logic Games" and you'll find it. It's not just one game either. The $2.99 pack includes Chess, Sudoku, and Minesweeper. Chess is the only multi-player game, however. It's a turn-based game, so what you need to do is send an invitation to a friend. This will send them an email where they'll be able to start a game with you. The graphics look great and the music is cool. If you want to try out some mobile multiplayer chess gaming with Xbox LIVE acheivements and leaderboards, head on over to the Marketplace right now.
Source: PocketNow...
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By soumya on
12/15/2010
In addition to talking up Windows tablets and slates at the January Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Microsoft execs also are expected to use the conference to give another push to Windows Phone 7. But the first “major” update to the WP7 platform may not hit until August or September of 2011, my sources claim.
In recent weeks, there have been rumors of both January and February “minor” Windows Phone 7 updates. I’m also hearing talk of a major fall update (codenamed “Mango”), which will precede Windows Phone 8 (codenamed “Apollo”), slated for late 2012.
The Mango update is supposedly bigger than the January and/or February update, according to my sources. Mango is more like a Windows Phone OS 7.5 — and may even be named that when it debuts. ...
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By soumya on
12/15/2010
Microsoft has kicked off an open beta of a new multiplayer game called Neosaurs, which it is attempting to propogate virally via Twitter and Facebook.
The open beta commenced on December 9, according to the Web site for the game.
“Neosaurs is a new massively multiplayer RPG (MMORPG) adventure that you can play, right here...
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By soumya on
12/14/2010
Steve Ballmer will once again be making his appearance at CES 2011 and is rumored to be announcing new slate devices with a new interface and may be demoing Windows 8. The rumors speculate that Ballmer will unveil several devices that are supposed to compete with the iPad.
According to the New York Times, Balmer will unveil several devices made from Dell, Samsung and several others onstage. Most interesting in the rumors is the information about a new layered interface to the Windows 7 platform. The insider states, "people familiar with this device said it will run the Windows 7 operating system when in landscape mode, but will also have a layered interface that will appear when the keyboard is hidden and the device is held in a portrait...
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