Video Games & Gaming

HD DVD RIP, Long Live Blue-ray!

February 21, 2008

The HD DVD vs. Blue-Ray high-definition DVD format war is over. In case you missed it, Toshiba made a statement saying, "it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders." As a result, Amazon and other online retailers have been having a fire sale trying to offload the Toshiba HD DVD players. You can pick one up for $79 or less.

In a further humiliation, according to TechRadar.com, instead of being listed as HD DVD players, they are now being displayed as upscaling DVD players.

Posted in Home Entertainment, Video Games & Gaming, Video Hardware & Software

Skype on Sony PSP

January 2, 2008

Rejoice! Skype on the Sony PSP may be unveiled this week at CES. Sony's CES page seemed to "leak" the details (click the PSP controller graphic on their site). The Sony PSP doesn't have cellular data connectivity so you'll need a WiFi hotspot to use this.

Posted in Home Entertainment, Skype, Video Games & Gaming, Video Hardware & Software, VoIP

GPS + Google Android = Wi-Fi Army

January 2, 2008

Wi2P Entertainment is developing a gaming application called Wi-Fi Army that combines GPS tracking, WiFi, cellphone, and a cellphone camera that allows you to play a game of "GPS laser tag" against other players. They claim to have used Android's ability to control a phone's GPS receiver to create the Augmented Reality game called Wi-Fi Army. You use your phone's GPS, WiFi, and Google Maps to track your opponent and shoot him. Though instead of using a laser to nail your opponent you use your camera's phone to take a picture of him.

The game figures out whether you've hit your opponent or not by recognizing the picture of him when you upload it to the Wi-Fi Army web server. Facial recognition obviously.

Posted in Android, GPS, Google, Mobile Phones, Video Games & Gaming, VoIP, Wireless

VoIP on the Nintendo DS Video How-To Guide

September 18, 2007

Just last week, I wrote about how pjsip's open source embedded SIP stack and media stack (written in C) was used to power VoIP on the Nintendo DS using the SvSIP client. Well, the pjsip blog now has a post including a Youtube video that shows how it's done. I'll include the video embedded here as well, but go check out the post since it includes overall impressions of the "VoIP on Nintendo DS experience"!

Posted in Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Video Games & Gaming, VoIP

Microsoft XBox 360 - No Linux for You!

September 4, 2007

Microsoft quietly released a security update to the XBox 360 that closed a security hole that enabled hackers to load Linux onto the XBox 360. Essentially, the hack used a method to inject data into non-privileged memory areas, allowing a hacker with physical access to an Xbox 360 to run arbitrary code such as alternative operating systems with full privileges and full hardware access. Sorry Linux fans, Microsoft closed this security hole.

No Linux for you!

Posted in Home Entertainment, Linux, Microsoft, Video Games & Gaming

Sony takes on Apple

September 4, 2007

Sony must be reading my blog, since just last week I suggested Sony take on Apple by offering a universal multi-media device that does gaming, mobile calling, video playback, MP3 music, and GPS navigation. I jokingingly called this hypothetical Sony device the Sony PlayStation Multimedia Video GPS Phone - or Sony PSMVGP for short. I knew Sony would be the perfect company to take on Apple and especially that juggernaut known as the Apple iPhone, when I said, "Sony, an expert in electronics, TV screens, and gaming, is the perfect company to take on the Apple iPhone."

I explained last week, "Sony If Sony were smart, they'd come out with a Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) with built-in GPS, GSM cellular service, and wireless Internet functionality. This hypothetical device would blow away the Apple iPhone.

Posted in GPS, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Mobile Phones, Video Games & Gaming, Video Hardware & Software

Windows Live Messenger Now works with Xbox LIVE

May 9, 2007

Beginning today, Xbox LIVE, the most popular online gaming network now works with Windows Live Messenger on the Xbox 360. We knew this was coming, but this is exciting news nonetheless. Now you can VoIP or IM your XBox gamer buddies as well as your non-gaming Windows Live Messenger buddies. I wonder if Yahoo! Messenger users will be able to communicate as well, since Microsoft and Yahoo have an IM federation pact.

Posted in Home Entertainment, Microsoft, TMCnet, Video Games & Gaming, VoIP

Scramby disguises your Voice over IP voice

March 14, 2007

RapidSolution Software has a cool add-on product for VoIP and online games called Scramby, which "scrambles" your voice to sound like Darth Vader, an evil warlock, an android, child, and many more voices. Scramby is a vocoder add-on for VoIP softphone clients, such as Skype. It can work with any VoIP softphone application or any Windows sound application for that matter.

Essentially, it allows users to use distortion effects to give their voices another sound or personality, and to add background noises and "fun-sounds" into the audio stream like a nuclear explosion or Terminator's "I'll be back".

According to RapidSolution Software, players of Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) and Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) usually communicate with each other using headsets and VoIP technology like Teamspeak. With Scramby, players are able to alter their voices to take on the voices of the characters their game figures represent.

Posted in Android, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Video Games & Gaming, VoIP

PlayStation Phone Home

March 7, 2007

Not to be outdone by the Xbox 360 online community, Sony is launching its own world for the PlayStation 3.

According to this report, it looks like PlayStation Home will take Second Life and sent it places that it has never been before.

(Hopefully those avatars will look more likelife -- sort of like NBA Live 07 instead of Backyard Basketball.)

The large scale beta is scheduled to live next month, with the "new world" launched later on in the fall.

Will we all soon be living in virtual worlds? Aren't some of us there already?

Posted in Video Games & Gaming

Commodore: Back to the Future

March 6, 2007

Holy Batman!

Yes indeed, it's too good to be true, but one of the classic computer hardware manufacturers has come back from the digital grave as the manufacturer of "high specification" gaming computers.

Yes, we're talking about Commodore, which launched the best-selling personal computer of the late 20th century some 25 years ago. Commodore's C64 defined the early computer games experience for millions of people worldwide -- and the whole computer experience for that matter.

Posted in Video Games & Gaming

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