Star Wars: The Force Unleashed sports new tech

For the past few years, video games have been all about the graphics. Now, with high-definition game consoles and ever-increasingly powerful PC video cards, some have started turning their attention to a more subtle aspect of gameplay – physics.

With nVidia’s recent acquisition of AGEIA and ATI’s partnership with Havok, PC games are going to be seeing more emphasis on physics processing in the months to come. With a dedicated physics processor, things like particle effects (good for explosions), collision detection (handy if you don’t want to walk through walls and floors) and the way things physically react when interacted with are no longer being handled by the CPU or GPU. Not only does this give you a performance boost, but you get a much more realistic representation of the physical world around us.

Digital Molecular Matter from Pixelux Entertainment, or DMM, is the physics engine used in the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed video game. Unlike previous physics models, DMM simulates flexible, deforming, and rigid objects all at once. The programmer can set parameters for different materials, such as glass, wood, or steel. One impressive demo I saw involved a wooden beam inside a glass box. As the beam was twisted, you could see here it was being stressed. When it finally broke, it splintered as a real piece of wood should. The splinters ejected outward and shattered the glass, not just anywhere, but where the glass was impacted.

I had the chance to play the PlayStation 3 demo version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and even in the demo’s limited scope there is a chance to see some DMM in action. There is a training room where your character uses the Force to throw some heavy objects though a few glass panels. The glass is tempered, so the entire pane shatters and falls to the floor when you hit it. However, depending on where and how hard you hit it, it will break in countless ways. There are steel beams to bend, doors to break through, wires and conduits hanging from the ceiling and plenty of objects (including droids and stormtroopers) to toss about.

The other new engine in SW:TFU is called Euphoria, by Naturalmotion. Euphoria’s tagline is “unique game moments,” and that is exactly what Naturalmotion intends to create here. Character animation has traditionally been done by a series of preset poses, or information gathered from a motion-capture session. With Euphoria’s Dynamic Motion Synthesis, or DMS, animations are generated on the fly. Every character has not only a skeletal structure, but muscles and a motor system that gives him a range of possible movements rather than a few predetermined poses. This means that although a squad of stormtroopers may all come at you with blasters blazing, some may react differently when knocked down. Some may even be afraid to get back up. Yes, Euphoria’s AI can give the NPCs a sense of self-preservation. I have noticed that some stormtroopers even seem to be afraid of heights!

Since Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be the first game to use both of these exciting physics engines, I’ll be eagerly anticipating the release of the full game on September 16th.

 -Jubal Burkhart

New camera captures images in 3D

With all the 3D displays, players and applications being shown at CES 2008, it stands to reason that there would be a device to let consumers capture their own 3D images. Well, the 3D VuCAM from StereoVision does just that, capturing images up to 300 feet away and storing a stereo pair of images that can be recombined in various formats for a 3D effect.

The 3D images can be used with special software to allow editing of the images, which can be either viewed on a 3D-ready monitor, or shown as a red/cyan anagylph for 3D viewing with glasses on a regular monitor, TV, or printed onto paper. StereoVision also sells glasses-free 3D displays, but I didn’t see them at CES so I don’t know how they look compared to the other 3D displays that use glasses.

Like many emerging technologies, the 3D VuCAM is geared toward industrial, law enforcement or other specialized applications, since the initial cost of the product ($1,667) is too high for casual consumers to consider worthwhile. It’s sort of a catch-22 of new technology: if 3D monitors find a consumer base, 3D capture devices will have a market, but without 3D content (besides just a handful of movies) there’s little reason to own a 3D monitor.

Gaming Industry Reaches $18.85 Billion in 2007

Interestingly enough, shortly after my last post on the growth of the gaming industry I got a press release (click link for full statement) with the official numbers:

“Computer and video game software sales reached $9.5 billion in 2007, 28% over the previous year, and set a new record according to final data compiled by the NPD Group and announced today by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). The industry’s economic impact is illustrated further through data showing that Halo 3®, the best-selling title of 2007, took in more revenue in its first day of sales than the biggest opening weekend ever for a movie (Spider-Man 3) and the final Harry Potter book’s first day sales.*

The ESA cited data showing that the industry sold over 13.4 million portable game units in 2007, easily trumping the much-hyped Apple iPhone®, which sold just four million units.

According to the data compiled by the NPD Group, overall U.S. video game console software sales reached $6.6 billion (153.9 million units), computer games sales were $910.7 million (36.4 million units), and a record $2.0 billion (77.5 million units) in portable software sales. In terms of total units sold, approximately 267.8 million computer and video games were sold in 2007.

*These figures are reported by Microsoft, Sony, and Scholastic Inc.—Halo 3 – $170M in its first day, Spider-Man 3’s entire opening weekend – $151M, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ first day sales – $166M.”

And with games not affected by the current writers’ strike or any other Hollywood nonsense, the industry may see further growth from casual gamers looking for quality entertainment that’s lacking elsewhere.

Corinex GameNet turns electrical outlets into wireless ports

By Aaron Burkhart

One of the more practically interesting technologies I saw at CES 2008 was the Corinex GameNet system, which creates a secure wireless network connection using the electrical wiring already in the home. The power-line network is supposed to be faster, more secure and easier to set up than a traditional wireless network and will work on any device with an Ethernet port. Hooking up to the power-line net is as easy as plugging the device to the adapter which connects through any power outlet.

If a home doesn’t already have a wireless network in place, it’s the easiest way to connect devices without running a long Ethernet cord to the nearest available socket, which can be few and far between compared to power outlets. Even with a wireless network in place, a power-line network is more internally secure, since the information is transmitted through the home’s power-lines, which aren’t freely hackable like LAN, WAN, or WiFi. In fact, there might even be some advantages to switching to a power-line network over a wireless one. Data rates are can go up to 200 Mbps, although home power use can affect performance, but the Corinex system has filters to eliminate most noise and interference. Having a power-line network connected to a wireless network would give the best of both worlds.

I’d love to demo one in my own home, but for now I can report that the system worked as advertised at the show, connecting two Xbox 360s even through the show floor’s patchy electrical connections, even as other demonstrators trying to show off wireless devices that day had trouble connecting to the show’s wireless signal. For more information, How Stuff Works has a pretty simple explanation, although outdated to the technology Corinex is using, in which case you can just go to www.corinex.com.

CES not just about the show floor, it also has plenty of schmoozing events

While all the new technologies and devices at CES are exciting to see, I’m having to play catch up on my entries because of my own devices’ quirks and failings; Between the wireless connection not working in my hotel room and my USB drive not being recognized on the press room computers, it’s difficult to get everything up in a timely manner. So, instead of “What I Saw Today” it makes more sense to highlight products of a certain category, which will actually be more posts as I won’t have to try and cram everything into such a compressed time frame and can expound more on everything. Naturally that means I’ll continue to give perspective on CES beyond just the four days of the show.

Anyway, Tuesday night was TigerDirect.com’s 11th Annual Build Your Own PC Race For Charity, where 30 tech journalists construct state-of-the-art PCs using the latest components from event sponsors. Every system goes to a school or charity of the contestant’s choosing, with the fastest participant winning an extra $10,000 for his charity.

Of course, events like this are put on during CES to get extra press attention on the companies involved; Complementary appetisers (such as sushi, duck and foi gras tortellini, beef tenderloin, and such) and an open bar kept journalists happy, while displays of the high-end parts (like the MSI motherboard with four Crossfired graphics cards) provided talking points for the industry reps.

It was also announced that TigerDirect finalized acquisition of CompUSA and would be merging both brands on the Web under TigerDirect’s engine, while all the physical stores will be under the CompUSA brand.

Will Smith, of Maximum PC magazine, won the race at just over 11 minutes.

Bill Gates’ farewell keynote at CES 2008

In Bill Gate’s last keynote (after a self-mocking video of what his retired life will be like) he highlight three main points of focus: high-def everywhere, video and audio, incorporated into every screen A/V device; services automatically built into devices (as the CEA state of the industry brought out as a trend yesterday), and natural user interfaces, like touch, voice or other ways to interface besides keyboard and mouse (showing off the table-top Surface screen interface to customize a snowboard).

Robbie Bach, President of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, said that gaming on Windows and Xbox is far greater than on the PS3 and Wii combined, and that Xbox-live membership hit the 10 million subscriber mark.

Other presenters showed Microsoft’s attempts to break into the social networking market, with Zune Social and Windows Live, which don’t have much new to offer besides Microsoft integration.

Bach also, showed Windows Mobile on phones and how voice commands could purchase movie tickets, show movie trailers (and no doubt ads) and more.

The presentation ended with a 3D visual interface demo, a little Guitar Hero 3 and an on-stage appearance by Velvet Revolver’s Slash.

Nothing groundbreaking overall, but Bill did his best to entertain.

Sony Press Conference at CES 2008

It was standing room only at Sony’s CES press conference, and the electronics giant announced new models and innovations in its products as well as several new product lines and partnerships.

Quick highlights (which will all be expanded on when I see everything firsthand during my booth tour Wednesday:

New advancements in Bravia TVs (with new wirless conection products), Walkman video phones (and the stylish new z555 designer phone) Handycam HD hybrids (with 8 GB internal memory, 3′ DVD and memory card storage options, and under-$200 internal Blu-Ray drives for PCs.

New products:

Sir Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony corporation, personally introduced the OLED (organic light emitting diode) television, an 11-inch screen that’s only 3mm thin with a 27-inch prototype on the show floor starting tomorrow.

Rolly, a small egg-shaped music player that spins and moves to the beat of the music either downloaded to it or streamed through bluetooth; cute, with more appeal than other ;”dancing” MP3 players;

Mylo, a PSPish mobile device that seems like an iTouch competitor;

Other prototypes, like a screen that has four times the pixels of full HD will be shown at the show as well.

New partnerships with Ford, McDonald’s, and CBS Interactive were announced as well. Continued expansion of Blu-Ray was highlighted also, with recent news of Warner Bros. going exclusive to Blu-Ray being seen as another step to growing its already 2 to 1 lead over HD-DVD.

Once I get on the show floor and see everything in person, there will be much more to report., with photos.

CEA industy forecast; CES Unveiled

Steve Koenig and Shawn DuBravac, CEA analysts, gave their presentation on the state of the consumer electronics industry Saturday. They saw four overall trends for this year: the “going to 11″ approach instead of stopping at 10 (pushing products to be one notch better as consumers demand more and adapt to new technologies faster); the 360 degree solution approach (combining content, services and devices in innovative new ways, such as digital cameras that can wirelessly download to a computer or upload to a photo sharing site); evolving distribution methods for content (getting the songs and videos from the PC, iPod, etc. to effortlessly connect to the home theater system); and redefining mobility (as content, GPS capabilities and more functionality are demanded of mobile devices, which are hardly just phones anymore).

They also said that even though there might be an economic slowdown or slump in other areas, that shouldn’t affect the consumer electronics sector, as consumers seem to be slowing in buying homes and other household purchases (like appliances, commonly called “white goods”) but putting that money into consumer electronics purchases. That also explains why companies like Maytag will be incorporating more features like digital photos on the door to replace the refrigerator magnet, showing more of the 360 degree solution trend.

Shortly after, hundreds of media representatives lined up to enter the CES Unveiled showroom to preview some of the innovative new products that will be at the CES. Some of the showings were more innovative than others, and I picked a few standouts:

Both the InternetVue by Addlogix and the Moxi by Digeo went with the concept of evolving distribution, wirelessly transferring content throughout the home. The InternetVue is a wireless receiver that takes PC content to any display it’s hooked to, whether playing downloaded movies from laptop to TV or slideshows from laptop to projector. With one of these hooked up in a classroom, students with laptops giving presentations could simply transmit from their seats when it’s their turn without any cabling or network hassles.

The Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR takes the 360 degree approach to content and distribution, acting as a digital video recorder, cable box replacement, DVD player and wireless distribution point, accessing digital media on a PC or using a Moxi Mate to share programs between different rooms in the home from one source. It can also be connected to an external hard drive for more capacity. While the Moxi’s capabilities can be done with a couple of properly-equipped and networked computers, it’s a simple out-of-the-box solution for the average consumer.

A lot of the products showcased were about simplicity, such as the design of Kreative Power’s Powramid surge protector. It’s nothing new technology-wise at all, but its innovation is all in the shape and form. It might not get an immediate “wow” reaction, but its space-saving design, widely-spaced outlets, hold-down knob for easy plug removal and its safety switch cover combine to make it a product with a lot of value.

Yoggie Security System’s Gatekeeper Pico was named the “Best of Innovations 2008 – Computer Accessories” for CES by combining user-friendly simplicity with lots of benefits. It’s a USB-sized mini computer that acts as an all-in-one security solution for PCs, with firewall, anti-virus and spyware protection and more. By taking all the security functions to a separate computer, it allows it to act before your computer is ever affected, and can’t be corrupted by any programs that would bother Windows. It updates itself (without annoying reminders) for a “set it and forget it” security solution. Best of all, by taking all the security off the computer, all those performance-eating software applications can be removed, increasing the PC’s speed. Having had several viruses (I hate Brontok) slip through my defences recently, I can appreciate the value of having an independent watchdog monitoring my system.

Iqua’s purely solar-powered Bluetooth headset was interesting, as was SanDisk’s solid-state drive laptops, but more on those later, since more announcements on those fronts are anticipated later in the show.

Everything’s gone wireless, green

Technically, CES 2008 hasn’t started yet – the hands-on exhibits start Monday, with just press conferences today and tomorrow – but companies are already announcing all the new products and technologies they’ll be displaying. Wireless and green technology are still at the forefront; the newest wireless announcement is that Westinghouse Digital will be showing the “world’s first wireless HDTV” and other wireless screen technologies that will help reduce the clutter of wires behind modern home theater systems.

Better Energy Systems will be showing its Solio line of hybrid solar powered chargers, which store energy during the day to recharge other devices’ batteries later. Other green technologies and programs will be showcased in a special section of the showfloor. The Consumer Electronics Association, which produces the CES, is also incorporating sustainable practices in connection with the show, by reducing energy consumption, recycling efforts, and improving efficiency of operations, according to Gary Shapiro, CEA president and CEO. At last year’s CES, the CEA launched mygreenelectronics.org, a resource for informing consumers of how, where and why to recycle their old electronics.

 CES Unvieled, a sneak peak to the press of the show’s highlighted products is tonight, so there will be a lot more to report on as the events get underway.

CES preview continued: wireless power

Wireless technology is going to be a big theme at this year’s CES, as almost everything is going wireless these days, including the power supply. Fulton Innovation will be showing its eCoupled technology, which can wirelessly charge devices without needing different adapters, to power an enabled laptop computer. According to the press release, this technology can be used for almost any electrical device:

“To demonstrate the versatility of eCoupled technology, Fulton Innovation will display wireless power in action with a variety of additional devices, including low-power applications like the Apple iPod and Microsoft Zune; to medium-power applications like the laptop; to high-power applications like an electric frying pan, George Foreman grill and food processor.”

Even better, is that Fulton Innovation claims the eCoupled technology actually saves power by only drawing what it needs, unlike most plugged-in devices that continuously draw small amounts of energy even when not turned on.

Most of the announcements of new products to be showcased at CES are of the “bigger/smaller, faster, better” variety; and although a 1 TB disc or 32 GB flash drive are pretty cool, new concepts like wireless power really expand what’s possible.