| 67 Pictures That Defined E3 2014 Posted: 16 Jun 2014 02:45 PM PDT  E3 2014 pictures: games, cosplays, booth babes and hardware
E3 2014 came to a close last week and if you didn't have the pleasure of attending, we've got you covered with a plethora of pictures. Below you'll find photos of everything from booth babes to the interesting booths they represent. In addition, there are a smattering of cosplayers, hardware news, and more. What did you think was the coolest thing about E3 this year? Let us know in the comments below! |
| Steam OS to Power Handheld Posted: 16 Jun 2014 11:31 AM PDT  Steamboy will arrive next year
Update: When we asked Valve to see if they were involved with the development of the Steamboy, the company simply responded by saying, "We have no idea what this is." The original story is posted below: To say the proliferation of smart devices has adversely affected the sale of dedicated handheld gaming devices would be a gross understatement. A new handheld console at this stage, it would seem, makes absolutely no sense. Well, to a company called Steamboy Machine Team thinks it makes perfect sense. At the recently concluded Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the company announced the world's first Steam OS-running handheld games console. Scheduled for release sometime during 2015, the 5-inch device will pack: a quad-core chip, 4GB RAM, 32GB internal storage and a 16:9 touchscreen. "SteamBoy won't be as powerful as other announced Steam Machines in the same way [the] Nintendo 3DS or PS Vita performance is not comparable to Wii U or PlayStation 4," the company told The Escapist. "However, it will be possible to play the majority of current games in Steam." Let's hope it will fare a bit better than the Windows CE-running Gizmondo did back in 2005 — that is, of course, if it manages to avoid getting scrapped like the Panasonic Jungle. Follow Pulkit on Google+ |
| Oculus Rift Founder Believes 30 Frames Per Second is a Failure Posted: 16 Jun 2014 10:26 AM PDT  Palmer Luckey says VR gaming needs to be at least 60 frames per second
If you're pulling 30 frames per second in your game, it's playable, though you don't want to dip much below that. Oculus Rift founder Palmer Luckey has a different number in mind for virtual reality. According to Luckey, VR gaming needs to be in the neighborhood of 60 frames per second -- at 30fps, he considers it a failure and calls it a bad artistic decision. His opinion isn't necessarily limited to VR gaming, either. "Virtual reality is going to need much higher frame rates than consoles," Luckey told LinusTechTips, according to PCGamer. "Although even for consoles or traditional PC games I don't think 30 frames per second is smart. It's not a good artistic decision, it's a failure." Luckey went on to say that you see diminishing returns between 90 and 120hz, adding that in the foreseeable future, VR gaming will likely end up somewhere in that range. You can hear more of what Luckey had to say in his interview below: Image Credit: Flickr (Derrick Coetzee) Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Printeer 3D Printer for Kids and Schools Halfway to Goal on Kickstarter Posted: 16 Jun 2014 10:00 AM PDT  A neat way to introduce kids to 3D design and printing
Now that 3D printing is knocking on the door of mainstream audiences, the goals should be to get the price of entry down, and to introduce the technology to kids. Mission Street Manufacturing is aiming at the latter by taking its Printeer 3D printer for kids and schools to Kickstarter, where it hopes to raise $50,000. At the time of this writing, Printeer has solicited nearly $28,000 in funding with 23 days left. "Toys such as Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Legos, and K'nex have been at the center of children's playrooms for generations. But what about now? In a digital age, when technology skills are some of the most important a child can learn, is there a way to bridge the gap between the screen and the physical world? Now there is. 3D printing is tailor-made for today's curious, tech-savvy kids. And that's why we've made Printeer," Mission Street Manufacturing explains on its Kickstarter page. Using Printeer and an accompanying app for Apple's iPad, kids can create objects for 3D printing. According to Mission Street Manufacturing, the software is incredibly easy to use and can be learned in about 30 seconds -- there are no intermediate steps between design and 3D printing. Mission Street Manufacturing has already partnered with local schools in California to bring Printeer to after-school programs and in-classroom demos. The point of the Kickstarter campaign is to expand Printeer's reach "into schools we've never heard of, in towns and cities across the country." Printeer sports a clear case to prevent accidental contact with heated or moving parts. It has a removable platform for extracting finished parts and usee non-toxic PLA plastic filament. Moving parts like motors, pulleys, betls, and sliders are visible so kids can see how they interact. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Microsoft Flips the Switch on Developer Channel for Internet Explorer Posted: 16 Jun 2014 09:39 AM PDT  Following in the footsteps of the competition
If you want to know what the next version of Mozilla's Firefox browser will be like, you can opt for the beta or even Aurora release. The same is true of Google's Chrome browser -- there are different channels, including Stable, Beta, Dev, and Canary (the only one that runs parallel to the others without any tweaking). But what about Internet Explorer? Taking a page from the competition, Microsoft today announced the release of the Internet Explorer Developer Channel, a fully functional browser designed to give web developers and early adopters an early look at the web platform and upcoming features. Like Google's Canary build for Chrome, IE Developer Channel can run independently of IE11, so you can take a test drive into the future without giving up your daily (stable) driver. The Dev build is supposed to have all the same features as IE11 too, and of course new ones that are still being worked on. Speaking of which, you'll find an enhanced debugging experience in the Dev version, along with richer analysis capabilities, improved navigation with more keyboard shortcuts and a new header notification, and more. For gamers, the Dev build also offers support for the emerging Gamepad API standard that lets you use JavaScript to add gamepad support to web apps and games. You can try it out now by attaching an Xbox 360 controller. Microsoft promises this is the first of many more Developer Channel releases. In the meantime, the first one is available now for both Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 customers running IE11. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Leak Suggests a 5.7-inch QHD Display Posted: 16 Jun 2014 09:00 AM PDT  Move over, LG G3, and make way for Samsung's Galaxy Note 4
Fans of the phablet form factor -- smartphone/tablet combination -- might have a tough choice to make in the near future. For one, there's the LG G3 with its 5.5-inch quad high-definition (QHD) display, 2.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, 13MP rear-facing camera, 2.1MP front-facing camera, and removable 3000mAh battery. And then there's Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Note 4, which may end up with a 5.7-inch QHD display, according to leaked documents. The folks at GSMArena rounded up a handful of sources that paint a picture of the Galaxy 4's panel, including import data into India. It appears that Samsung started testing a pair of Galaxy 4 devices in an Indian R&D center some three months ahead of when the company plans on announcing the device. The shipping records for those tests show a 5.7-inch display. They also reveal that the price will be the same as its predecessor, the Galaxy Note 3. Other details aren't as readily available, though there's some speculation that Samsung may opt to release two versions -- one with a traditional flat display, and a second SKU sporting a curved OLED screen. Image Credit: Flickr (Kārlis Dambrāns) Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Kantar Predicts Online Sales of Packaged Goods Will Reach $53 Billion by 2016 Posted: 16 Jun 2014 08:24 AM PDT  Retailers slow to adopt online shopping risk becoming obsolete
If you were to gather 10, 20, or even 50 people into a room and ask those who have ever shopped online to raise their hand, it wouldn't be surprising if everyone lifted an arm. Certainly the majority of hands would go up in most cases. Even so, it's still relatively early in the e-commerce game -- according to a new report by a Kantar Worldpanel, online sales of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) will reach $53 billion by 2016. That represents a hefty jump of $17 billion (or 47 percent) on the current $36 billion being spent online, the firm says. Kantar came to its conclusion after an in-depth analysis of the purchasing habits of 100,000 shoppers in ten of the biggest FMCG markets. Kantar believes Asia will be the next major growth market, noting that South Korea will continue to lead the way. At present, 55 percent of shoppers in Korea buy online, a figure that's not matched by any other country in the world. "Although online only makes up a small share of FMCG sales at the moment, all countries are witnessing considerable growth. The future belongs to retailers and brands that see the bigger picture and leverage the opportunities provided to broaden their target markets. Being a slow adopter has the potential to significantly damage sales and erode market share," said Stéphanie Roger, Global Shopper and Retail Director at Kantar Worldpanel. Kantar's report suggests that barriers preventing retailers and brands from making a bigger push to online channels are mostly perceived rather than based on how consumer actually behave. One of the biggest perceived barriers is that having an online presence will cannibalize in-store sales and lead to less brand loyalty. Kantar's research shows the opposite is true for both cases. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive 1TB, AMD FX-6300 Vishera, and More! Posted: 16 Jun 2014 06:18 AM PDT |
| Kinect Far From Dead, Insists Xbox Marketing Honcho Posted: 16 Jun 2014 12:11 AM PDT 
Says Kinect will remain a key part of the Xbox One experience The original Kinect, despite its commercial success and popularity among hackers and enthusiasts, was mostly a disappointment from a purely gaming standpoint. To make matters worse, Microsoft decided to foist the Kinect 2.0 on gamers by bundling it with the Xbox One — even if it meant giving rival Playstation 4 a substantial price advantage right at the outset. But with the move beginning to threaten Xbox One's prospects, the Redmond-based company finally relented and began offering a $400 Kinect-less SKU a few days back. As a result, a big question mark now hangs over the Kinect's future. Our sister publication TechRadar recently caught up with Yusuf Mehdi, chief marketing and strategy office at the company's Xbox division, and asked him about the future of the motion-sensing peripheral. Here's what he had to say when asked if Kinect was going to remain a key part of the whole Xbox One experience: "Yeah, I think Kinect is going to continue to be integral. So it works at three levels [voice commands, dedicated games and games that benefit from certain features]. That continues, and we keep making improvements, perfections, and the progress on Kinect v2 has been pretty huge." He then proceeded to talk about why the company eventually decided to unbundle it: "The other part is the reason we un-bundled it, and it was a tough decision because we have all of our game publishers, and there was a question of, well, do you lose dev innovation because people can't rely on it being there, versus if we have a new opening price point that's $100 cheaper, can you get a lot more people to come to the Xbox One? And in the end we decided that the latter was the best thing to get, to focus on the customer and to broaden the audience for the developers." Follow Pulkit on Google+ |
| Google Maps Android App Breaches 1 Billion Downloads Mark Posted: 15 Jun 2014 10:37 PM PDT 
Only the second Android app to do so Seeing as how Google's many apps are a staple on most Android devices, it's not surprising that some of the most downloaded apps on the world's most popular mobile platform come from the search engine giant's stable. It was only last month that it became the first company to have an Android app with over 1 billion downloads, and now it has two. The Google Maps Android application, which debuted in late 2008 and became the first app on the platform to reach the 50 million downloads mark in 2011, has now amassed over 1 billion downloads, making it only the second app to do so after Gmail. With many other Google-developed apps, including Search, Text-to-Speech and YouTube, not too far behind, we expect Android's 1 billion downloads club to remain an all-Google affair for quite some time to come. Follow Pulkit on Google+ |
