Gaming

Like most of the juiciest dirt on the Xbox 360, none

of this is substantiated, but a British magazine is reporting that Microsoft’s next-gen console will not be backwards

compatible (frustrating, but not the end of the world), won’t come with a hard drive (which sort of jibes with what

we’ve heard about MSFT offering an attachable drive), and

that there will be different Xbox 360s tailored to different regions (not sure what that means for developers or why

there would need to be different regional versions).

PC Magazine gives Shuttle Computer a thumbs up for their XP17 Lite LCD, a new, less expensive version of their

XP17 portable display. In addition to being portable and

looking good, it also has solid image quality, with a 1280×1024 native

resolution, 500:1 contrast ratio, and an 8 millisecond response time. On the

downside, it’s more expensive than other 17-inch LCDs (no surprise there), and Shuttle charges you an extra $59 for a

carrying case. C’mon Shuttle, show a little freebie love.

Even after that big stink MS put up about replacing those

14 million some-odd dangerous Xbox cables with the

very safe, very overdone ones with boxes full of circuit

interrupters and bomb-proof radiation shielding, it turns out the issue with fried Xboxes isn’t in the power cable at

all. Actually, the problem lies in the circuits to the power supplies of some units, which wore down unduly and caused

some big problems for the Xbox and Microsoft alike. Did they know? Are they handling the situation properly? We’ll let

the courts sort it out.

We kind of envy all those people with enough free time to pump out all those totally wack fake product mockups that

keep us all entertained (keep ‘em coming, guys!). So is this the

PlayStation 3? Well, no one’s really qualified to say

either way right now, of course, but we’re definitely qualified to say this: we hope not! (Click on for the

unedited image)

[Thanks, DirtHerder]

Although normally military technology is out in front in terms of innovative interface design, a current missile

system interface is actually taking cues from game design. When polled about their ideal method of control for missile

guidance, a group of soldiers basically gravitated towards a highly familiar unit: the PlayStation 2 controller. You

know what that means, young Starfighter — if you’ve got a steady hand at those arcade shooters, you could find yourself

snapped up by the Pentagon.

Frag on without fear of interruption thanks to the GameOptics X1620 USB LCD device. The miracle of this unit is that

you will be able to be on top of your overflowing email inbox and all your parallel chat sessions, plus control your

audio player, view stock tickers, system information, check the weather — all on a 2-line, 16 column monochrome LCD

screen! Designed to shunt away all such distracting transmissions during the course of gameplay, the $49.99 device has

programmable hotkey combinations that promise to help you effectively multi-task without interrupting your gaming

session. Hurry, while supplies last — surely you’ll be ordering a big batch for the entire office?

[Via gadgetry blog]

You know how BenQ announced a couple of months ago that they were coming out with an LCD monitor with a

5-millisecond response time? Yeah, well ViewSonic must have felt a little messed with, because they just threw down

today with two new LCD monitors aimed at hardcore gamers that each have a megafast response time of just

4-milliseconds. Technically the 4-ms is only for “gray-to-gray” (color will do it up at 5-ms), but if you’re tired of

getting any blurriness or ghosting while you’re gaming then you probably already know the importance of response time.

The 19-inch VX924 will have a resolution of 1280×1024, an 800:1 contrast ratio and set you back about $549 when it

rolls out in May, oddly enough no specs specs for the 17-inch VX724 are available at the moment.

The promise of the near view display is there, though prior implementations have been poor. A head-mounted screen

should theoretically provide the equivalent to a very large disply viewed from a few meters away, for immersive gaming

and other virtual reality endeavors. The trouble is, users usually walk away with headaches and nausea instead of a

great gaming experience. EMagin is throwing some

OLED into the mix and hoping that puts them

into the sweet spot with their Z800 3D visor (at right — you’d think a graphics company could put some effort into some

decent hi-res prototype shots, but no). The viewer will include stereovision and headtracking features as well as audio

output and input (via noise-cancelling microphone). The total system cost will be lower than the equivalent near view

with LCD, as well as consuming less power. The USB device supposedly simulates a 105-inch view at 12 feet, at a

resolution of 800 x 600. We’ll believe it when we see it, which won’t be til at least Q2.

People find many creative ways of repurposing their old machines, though few are quite as creative as

creativebastard, who spent a full year converting his old dual 500MHz Mac G4 into a classic arcade-style gamebox. Can’t

beat that canary yellow, nohow.

[Via TUAW]

Well, it looks like Sony’s Pret a PSP show went off

without a hitch, all those designers showing off their accessories, i.e. PSP cases—did we call it or what? (See MJ’s

take on a PSP case at right). We can rest assured that very few people who weren’t given a PSP or paid to design PSP

accessories probably didn’t actually get one, but apparently the PSP Style Park was still packed to the hilt with the

likes of David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Hilary Duff, Nicole Richie, Vince Vaughn, and Owen Wilson, etc. Thank god for

b-list celebs, otherwise who would show up to these things (besides us)?