Sony: Emotion Reading Video Games Coming
Sony’s executives believe that in ten years’ time, video games will have the ability to read more than just player movement.
“Having a camera being able to study a player’s biometrics and movements [is possible] so perhaps you can play a detective game that decides whether you’re lying due to what it reads from your face,” said Mike Hocking, a senior director at Sony Worldwide Studios. “In ten years’ time I’d like to think we’ll be able to form a map of the player, combining other sorts of sensory data together, from facial expressions to heart rate.
“You can see how, over a period of time, you can form a map of the player and their emotional state, whether they’re sad or happy. Maybe people in their social network can comment on it. The more accurate that map can become, the more we can tailor it to the experience.
“There’s potential of mixing stereoscopic 3D with augmented reality, so you’ll combine the two perhaps on a headset, so you’ll be bringing the real world into the game-play. That’d be very exciting I think.
“Also I think there’s great potential for driving forward games and education. Games have a tremendous opportunity to educate as well as entertain.”
Top 5 Failed Gaming Consoles
3Do
Year of Release: 1993, stopped production in 1996
Summary: Spearheaded by EA co-founder Trip Hawkins, Panasonic's foray into video game entertainment was the first game system to use CDs for content delivery. The resulting increase in data storage allowed developers working on the system to blaze trails in the realm of 3D graphics, getting game visuals that much closer to being able to portray the real world.
Virtual Boy
Year of Release: 1995, discontinued in 1996
Summary: With near-total dominance in the handheld gaming market until the iPhone's release and the best-selling home console ever in the Wii, Nintendo's not a company known for its stumbles. But, when the House of Mario chased after the virtual reality craze of the 1990s, it notched its worst fail ever.
Pippin
Year of Release: 1995, Discontinued in 1997
Summary: Apple's ill-fated foray into gaming, the Pippin was released in the U.S. in 1996. The Internet-capable console so slow that it positively chugged, proved an undisputed embarrassment for the computer giant. With meager processing power and a high price tag, it's no shock the company abandoned Pippin like the illegitimate child of gaming world it was.
Phantom
Year of Release: Never went on sale (Announced in 2002, Delayed pending further funding in 2006)
Summary: In theory the Phantom Entertainment Phantom sounds like the perfect console. Not only can it read and play PC games, virtually creating a massive library of developed product, the Phantom used a direct download content system so there was no need to go to the store and pick up the latest game. It's the future of where we're heading with computer programs so the details of the Phantom were definitely ahead of their time, except that it was never released. Although it was supposed to come out as a direct competitor to the Xbox 360 in 2005, besides a prototype console that was seen in May 2004 the system was never released. Too bad: It received first place in Wired's Vaporwares 2004.
Dreamcast
Year of Release: 1998 in Japan, 1999 in the US; New consoles discontinued in 2001, Refurbished consoles discontinued in 2006
Summary: Widely acknowledged as ahead of its time, the Sega Dreamcast was the first console to be able to plug into the internet with a built-in modem. It took CDs instead of cartridges like the standard today, and it's still possible to find new games, albeit they're typically fan-programed freeware releases. It also marked Sega's sixth and final home gaming console release, as they have no plans to follow up their failed system.
3D Gaming Console – Nintendo 3DS
Yesterday Nintendo announced a new handheld game console, tentatively called the Nintendo 3DS. Details on the new system have been very thin, but the big feature is that it will feature 3D graphics without requiring the user to wear glasses. Other than that, we know that it will be backwards compatible with DS and DSi games and that Nintendo is planning on shipping it in Japan by March 2011.
Let the speculation begin! How is this thing going to do 3D? There are already a couple of games that do this kind of thing. Back in February there was a bit of a splash when a download-able 3D 'Find the object' game was revealed for the DSi in Japan. This game used the camera on the DSi to do some rudimentary head-tracking. As you move the DSi, the image being displayed changes subtly, creating the illusion of 3D (see embedded video below). Today on Kotaku Stephen Totilo pointed out a system used on the iPhone and Android phones to achieve a similar effect using the accelerometer. Totilo suggests iPhone users download WordFu to see this in action; I can add that Android users can see it in Labyrinth Lite (there may very well be other examples). Both are free apps.
The DSi has cameras, which means the 3DS will have to have them too if it's going to be backwards compatible. We've also heard rumors that the "next DS" will have tilt-sensors better than the iPhone. With either the camera or tilt-sensors either of these 'faux 3D' systems would work. But since we've seen the DSi do this already, it doesn't seem likely that the new hardware will rely on the same old trick.
Enter our friends at Engadget, who uncovered some details from Japanese newspapers. If they're right, the Nintendo 3DS will incorporate parallax barrier LCD screens from Sharp (see also this explanation of dynamic parallax barrier screens). This is the same technology used in a few "3D Laptops." The system works (in layman's terms; I'm not an engineer) by showing a different image depending on viewing angle. A camera tracks the user to determine where his eyes are, and the angular difference required to see the two images is small enough that each eye is seeing a different image. In crude terms, think of those lenticular images you used to find in boxes of cereal. Look at them from one angle and you see Dr. Jekyll. Till the image and he becomes Mr. Hyde. Imagine if each eye could see a different facet of the image; you could do 3D that way.
There was also some talk of a 3D control stick and vibration technology. Earlier rumors mentioned the next Nintendo handheld would have a Tegra chip inside but there's been no confirmation of that coming out of Nintendo.
One last thing we do know: we'll get more details at this year's E3 in June, if not before.
Your Life = One Big Role Playing Game? (Video)
Games are all around us, be it in video or 'real life' form.
Carnegie Mellon professor and ex-imagine-eer Jesse Schell lays out a vision of the future in which our lives become.. essentially.. one big RPG.
In all seriousness -- watch the video. It's rather mind-blowing.
U.S. Airforce’s New Super Computer
Got a lot of spare cash lying around? If you can afford couple thousand Playstation 3s, you can build your own super computer.
An article by Mike Smith
No doubt the Air Force purchasing department gets some odd requests from time to time, but we'd love to have seen the grin on the face of the officer tasked with procuring some 1,700 PlayStation 3s
for a USAF facility in Rome, NY.
Before you complain about your tax dollars being spent on toys, the machines aren't for gaming. Instead, the facility -- an Air Force research lab -- will join them into a parallel-computing cluster that, when complete, will number well over 2,000 PS3s.
The supercomputer -- snappily monikered "500 TeraFLOPS Heterogeneous Cluster" -- will be put to work playing 2,000 simultaneous games of God of War III
. Wait, no. Among other things, they'll be attempting to simulate the way the human brain processes information and how it pulls off the remarkably difficult task of recognizing the content of images.
"Humans can routinely do these things, but a computer struggles to do it," the facility's computing director Mark Barnell told Stars and Stripes. "In a general sense, we are interested in making it autonomous."
The cluster won't be as powerful as a regular supercomputing rig, but it will be cheaper and more environmentally friendly: it'll consume as much as 95% less electrical power and shut down unused machines when the cluster isn't running at full capacity.
Deals & #@%*
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