Xbox One gets game pre-loading starting with Forza Horizon 2 in September
Folks playing games on PC have enjoyed the ability to pre-pay and download games ahead of launch for years now. This console generation, the feature is finally arriving in the living room: Xbox One gets game pre-loading and pre-payments starting with Forza Horizon 2 this September. The news comes from Microsoft’s Gamescom 2014 press conference, and apparently the feature is simply starting with Forza Horizon 2 before expanding to FIFA 15 and other games going forward.
Of course, PlayStation 4 fans have enjoyed this feature for some time now. But hey, maybe you went for Xbox One? Now you’ve got the feature too! Well, soon anyway.
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Microsoft
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Xbox One FIFA 15 bundle coming to Europe September 25
“Woo” indeed… (from the crowd here at Xbox’s press briefing in Cologne ahead of Gamescom). The cause of the outburst? A reference to Germany’s World Cup victory. But, also for the equally soccer-related FIFA 15 bundle just announced. The bundle comes to Europe in September (25th). Who will be in your ultimate team? Peter Schmeichel — legendary goal keeper — on stage threw the UK a bone choosing Bobby Moore. Still, you’ve got a few weeks to think who you might choose. Get at it.
Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft
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EA’s subscription-gaming service launches promising early access to ‘Madden 15’
EA’s all-you-can-eat games service has launched, and there’s a bonus if you’re a fan of American Football. The developer has announced that it’s only those who pay for EA Access that’ll be able to play Madden NFL 15 before its launch on August 26th. Normally, of course, the company would have released a cross-platform demo to stir up demand — but EA told Polygon that the demo was axed to keep developers focused on the main game. In addition to five days worth of early access to the title, EA Access users will be able to play FIFA 14, Battlefield 4 and Peggle 2 to their hearts content, as well as saving 10 percent on purchases of the company’s games. Is that enough for you to part with your cash, or do, like Sony, feel that the service isn’t worth it?
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft
Via: Operation Sports
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Microsoft Research project turns a smartphone camera into a cheap Kinect
Microsoft’s been awfully busy at this year’s SIGGRAPH conference: <embers of the company’s research division have already illustrated how they can interpret speech based on the vibrations of a potato chip bag and turn shaky camera footage into an experience that feels like flying. Look at the list of projects Microsofties have been working on long enough, though, and something of a theme appears: These folks are really into capturing motion, depth and object deformation with the help of some slightly specialized hardware.
Consider the work of researchers from Microsoft Research’s Redmond and Cambridge outposts — they figured out a way to turn a run-of-the-mill 2D camera like the one embedded in your phone or perched atop your monitor into an infrared camera usable for capturing depth data, sort of like a Kinect. The team made working depth sensors out of a tweaked Android smartphone and a Microsoft webcam, and both were able to track a user’s hands and face with aplomb, making them awfully interesting (and relatively cheap) hacks for tinkerers who want to create and test gesture-centric projects without much hassle.
Yet another project saw a team of researchers develop their own RGB-depth camera out of off-the-shelf parts. Why? So they could figure out a way to meld it with software to capture 3D models of people and objects that deform, shift and shimmy in real-time. Imagine holding an inflatable ball in the palm of your hand — it’d be a piece of cake for an RGBd camera to capture it and for modeling software to render it as a sphere. Now imagine squeezing that ball; imagine the bulges and depressions that take shape as your grip tightens. Between their camera and their software, these researchers have managed to create deformable models much faster than before; it might not be long before such objects wind up in your next frag session.
Filed under: Software, Microsoft
Source: Microsoft Research
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Engadget Daily: ‘Minecraft’s’ raging success, Apple’s secret university and more!
Today, we dive into the world of Minecraft, rave in the shower, learn about Apple’s secret education program, don a futuristic motorcycle helmet and more! Read on for Engadget’s news highlights from the last 24 hours.
Filed under: Misc, Apple, Microsoft
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Microsoft teases new camera-focused Windows Phones on September 4th
You won’t have to wait long if you’re hoping for a new round of Windows Phones with powerful cameras. Microsoft has just sent out a save-the-date notice that asks the media if it’s ready for “more face time” at a Berlin event on September 4th, just ahead of the IFA technology show. There’s a Lumia 1020-style camera module not-so-subtly woven into the text, too. While there are no dead giveaways in the teaser, it’s not hard to figure out the references. Our hunch is that “face time” is an allusion to “Superman” (aka the Lumia 730), the selfie-oriented Windows Phone that leaked just a few days ago. The module is slightly more cryptic, but it might be hinting at the aluminum-clad, 13-megapixel “Tesla” (Lumia 830) that reportedly surfaced last month. We’re headed to IFA, so you should expect to hear much, much more about any new Lumias within a few weeks.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Microsoft, Nokia
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What you need to know about ‘Minecraft’
Chances are that if you don’t play Minecraft yourself, you’ve probably at least heard of it or know someone who does. The charming indie game has invaded nearly every facet of pop culture, casting its blocky spell on everything from Legos to feature films and has even been used for tourism. With over 54 million copies sold, Sweden-based developer Mojang made $128 million last year largely thanks to Minecraft and has become one of the most successful game studios in the world. But what actually is Minecraft? We’re glad you asked!
WHAT IS IT?
At its core, Minecraft is a massive, open-ended, first-person game with a focus on exploration and crafting.
Every time you load a new game, the environment is randomly assembled so no two plays will be exactly alike. Unlike most games, Minecraft offers little in the way of directions, or a campaign/story mode to work through for that matter: It’s a free-form, easygoing affair with the player figuring out what they can and can’t do through trial and error (or by scouring a wiki). Think something like Grand Theft Auto‘s gigantic environment, but instead of attempting a hyper-realistic world, everything is pixelated blocks.
Objects in the world are made of gravity-defying, 1 x 1 blocks that can be stacked and manipulated to form just about anything one could imagine, from intricate recreations of Game of Thrones‘ Westeros, to movie posters, and even Game Boy emulators capable of playing the first level from Super Mario Land. Hell, the Danish government has servers running so would-be tourists can check out a 1:1 recreation of the happiest country replete with highways, houses and landmarks.
Minecraft’s official trailer, which now has over 98 million views on YouTube
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though, and we’re sure there are at least a few crazy projects going right now that we don’t even know about.
There’s no score, and no real “end” (though that’s up for debate, and we’d be spoiling bits if we got into the argument too deeply here). In the game’s main mode, you start in a world full of resources (rock, wood, etc.) and are “tasked” with making a life for your character (who’s named Steve). A day/night cycle provides constraints: use the daylight to gather resources and build, with the intent of surviving the night.
The Creeper in his natural environment
Zombie-like creatures roam the land at night, and the only way to survive is by building housing to keep them out. Should that not provide enough challenge, a green enemy lovingly named the “creeper” lives primarily underground, where you mine for resources. Enter the wrong mining cavern and you may end up suddenly exploded. Any resources you’ve got on your person remain where you died until you can go retrieve them. It’s a delight!
The game is available on just about every platform: Android, iOS, Mac, PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with updated versions coming to the PS Vita, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this year. Minecraft was initially released for free as a work-in-progress back in May 2009 and developed by one person, Markus “Notch” Persson. Since then, numerous updates have been released, with the full release coming about two-and-a-half years later in November 2011. Essentially, the public was playing along as the game was being developed under its very fingertips.
WHY SHOULD I CARE?
For starters, single-developer games are pretty rare, and ones that are this successful are even more unique. As a result, Notch has become a bit of a celebrity in the gaming community and now has some 1.7 million followers on Twitter. Minecraft‘s success, however, has had a price. After filing for a trademark for Mojang’s follow-up, Scrolls, publisher Bethesda Softworks (known for the role-playing series The Elder Scrolls, among others), filed a trademark lawsuit over the Swedish developer using the word “scrolls.” It all worked out in the end, but Mojang had to agree to not use the word in subsequent releases.
Winterfell, from Game of Thrones, recreated entirely in Minecraft
Minecraft is also the progenitor of releasing a game to players before it’s done. The concept of PC-gaming platform Steam’s Early Access program practically owes its existence to this, and it isn’t going to stop there either. Sony has admitted that it’s flirting with the idea of releasing unfinished, alpha versions of games on the PS4, too.
Notch’s baby has also had a tremendous impact on video games as a whole, creating an entire genre and style of play. Titles like Rust (which also happens to be a Steam Early Access title), Terraria and the upcoming PS4 stunner No Man’s Sky likely wouldn’t exist had Minecraft not popularized the idea of virtual free-form exploration and building. Even established franchises like Everquest have taken notice, with the next game, Landmark, taking a few pages out of Minecraft‘s customization and crafting book.
The game is also a blank canvas that can be used for just about anything. Sure, recreations of Great Britain are impressive, but even more so is that it’s been used in the classroom as a teaching tool for proper online behavior and collaborative problem-solving. It’s even been implemented to get kids interested in architecture and civics.
A group of kids playing Minecraft Edu at school
WHAT’S THE ARGUMENT?
Getting access to a game before it’s fully finalized might sound like a great idea on paper, but in practice that’s not always the case. There are numerous games on Steam right now under the Early Access banner that are simply unplayable. Whereas Minecraft was free to start, people are paying for these test-builds (which will convert into the full version if completed) in the hopes that eventually the full release will fix the gamut of glitches they’re encountering. The thing is, that’s placing an awful lot of faith in oftentimes unproven developers to finish a game; there have already been notable disasters delisted from Steam, and there will assuredly be more.
WANT EVEN MORE?
If you can put the pickax down long enough, check out Rolling Stone‘s recent profile of Notch that chronicles the effects his youth and father’s suicide had on both the way he designs games and him as a person. Should you want even deeper inside the man’s head, Persson also maintains a personal blog. Still not satisfied? How about booking travel to Europe for this year’s Minecon convention? Better gear up with a Creeper mask and foam diamond-sword ahead of time, though. Or, maybe you haven’t played the game just yet and all of this has gotten you curious to try it out. Well, there’s a super-limited free demo that should give you an idea of what it’s all about before you buy the real deal.
[Image credits: Fortunatemend/Imgur (Winterfell); KJarrett/Flickr (Minecraft classroom)]
Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Gaming, Handhelds, Home Entertainment, Tablets, Software, HD, Sony, Microsoft
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Microsoft’s found a way to smooth out your GoPro shakycam footage
GoPro footage is great when well-shot, but the jittery results from less-talented individuals can induce nausea or seizures. If you’re interested in doing sped-up time lapse shots, however, Microsoft researchers have created an algorithm that makes them video game-smooth. Their technique is not like regular video stabilization, however. Instead, the “Hyperlapse” method first calculates a 3D camera path and rough geometry of the scene. Then it creates a smooth new optimized camera path, which is used to stitch and blend existing frames to create new output frames. The team has created several sample videos as shown below, and we’ve got to hand it to them — despite some artifacts, the final results feel like nearly like flying.
Filed under: Cameras, Science, Software, HD, Alt
Via: Neowin
Source: Microsoft Research
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Windows Phone has nearly twice as many apps as it did a year ago
Windows Phone’s app catalog may not be as extensive as what you’ll find on Android or iOS, but you won’t be hurting for choices any time soon. Microsoft has quietly revealed that the Windows Phone Store racked up over 300,000 apps as of this past June, or nearly twice what it had a year earlier. It had 200,000 apps as of December, so the rate is clearly accelerating — half of its library appeared in the past several months. There are also 50 percent more developers, Microsoft adds, which means that many of the new titles are from first-timers.
The expansion will definitely help if you’re considering a Windows Phone, especially since it includes big-name titles like Instagram and Vine. With that said, there’s still a long way to go before Microsoft fills in all the gaps. A quick look at the store shows that many top apps either come from Microsoft or are unofficial replacements for missing software, like Snapchat and YouTube. The quantity helps, but quality is still an issue — it’s hard to switch from rival platforms when you may have to give up a favorite service or utility.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Microsoft
Via: The Next Web, Engadget Chinese (translated)
Source: Microsoft
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First satellite with high-resolution public imaging launches on August 13th
If you’ve been wondering just when a company would take advantage of the US’ relaxed rules for accurate satellite imaging, you now have a date to mark on your calendar: Lockheed Martin has set the launch of DigitalGlobe’s high-resolution WorldView-3 satellite for August 13th. You won’t see results from it right away, but its creators can start selling extra-sharp pictures (with detail down to the 10-inch level) six months after the craft is up and running. The data should lead to much nicer imagery in online mapping services from companies like Google and Microsoft (both of which are DigitalGlobe customers), although it’s not just cosmetic. Higher-res photos will help track large farms, spot mineral deposits and otherwise deliver a clearer view of our planet that has previously been limited to the government — don’t be surprised if it’s easier to spot landmarks on a map without using markers.
Filed under: Science, Internet, Microsoft, Google
Source: DigitalGlobe
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AIVAnet 