Alienware’s ‘Alpha’ is a half-step toward Steam Machines
When PC gaming juggernaut Valve announced its Steam Machines initiative in Fall 2013, it was unveiled as such:
“Entertainment is not a one-size-fits-all world. We want you to be able to choose the hardware that makes sense for you, so we are working with multiple partners to bring a variety of Steam gaming machines to market during 2014, all of them running SteamOS.”
Not long after, at CES 2014, Valve revealed a full line of Steam Machines from 14 different companies. Chief among them was Alienware, Dell’s gaming PC arm, which showed a teensy $550 box called the “Alpha.” Alienware was a standout not just due to name recognition, but because the company proposed a launch window for its “game console”. The Alpha won’t ship with any of the promises of the Steam Machines initiative: no Steam OS and no Steam Controller. Valve’s delayed both, but Alienware’s pushing on nonetheless with a fall launch.
That’s all to say one thing: While the Alpha is still a “Steam Machine” in size and horsepower, it isn’t a Steam Machine. The Alienware Alpha is a weird gaming PC.
Alienware held an event last week in New York City to show off the Alpha. We were given time to play games on the system, sure, but the focus of the event was on the custom operating system that Alienware’s built to get around the fact that Valve’s initiative isn’t ready.
According to Alienware, Valve president Gabe Newell sees the Alpha as the “ideal Steam Machine.” It’s hard to see how, at least at the moment: It runs Windows 8.1, it ships with an Xbox 360 wireless gamepad, and it requires a USB-based wireless dongle to make that gamepad function. Alpha is $550 — $50 more than the most expensive new game console — and it’s lacking in the horsepower department. Which GPU is inside? A “custom” NVIDIA Maxwell GTX. How about processing? Handled by an Intel i3.
In so many words, the Alpha is roughly as powerful as the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, only it costs more and is nowhere near as accessible.
THE ALPHA UI
In place of Steam OS, Alienware’s got a custom user interface that allows you to skip the Windows 8 desktop. It’s non-ironically called the “Alpha UI,” which is fitting given how vacuous it feels. We weren’t actually able to use it; instead, Alienware guided media through a slideshow of its features. Those features are sparse: play games, adjust a small handful of settings, and a button combination that helps players escape the pitfalls of playing PC games.
Ever go to play a Ubisoft game, only to have the UPlay dialog box pop up? Not such a big deal if you’re sitting right in front of your computer, keyboard and mouse in-hand, but quite a frustration if you’re playing a PC game using a gamepad from your couch. The Alpha gets around this issue by offering a kill command for offending software.
Ever play a Steam game that advertises “partial controller support?” Alienware reps say they’re working with Valve to test every single game and update all those listings. For now, however, workarounds like the kill prompt will have to do.
Let’s be clear: the Alpha is a system of workarounds. No Steam OS? Alienware built a bare bones OS to shepherd consumers from a Windows 8 experience to Steam’s living room-friendly Big Picture Mode. No Steam Controller? Alienware’s straight up buying Xbox 360 wireless gamepads and dongles to ship a controller with each Alpha.
Unfortunately for Alienware and folks excited for the Alpha, another word for “workaround” is compromise. Alienware says you’ll be able to upgrade to Steam OS and the Steam Controller whenever Valve’s got those ready. For now, though, the Alpha feels undercooked — a rushed product which serves Alienware’s bottom line and little else. We’re reserving full judgement until we’ve got a final unit this November when it ships to customers, but color us worried as of late Summer.
Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Software, HD, Dell
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‘Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’ is getting a custom Xbox One with 1TB of storage
The long-running relationship between Microsoft’s Xbox consoles and the Call of Duty brand is expanding into hardware: a custom Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Xbox One is in the works for this holiday. Better yet, it comes ready for all that downloadable content you’re going to buy, packing a one terabyte hard drive internally. And what about Kinect? No Kinect, sadly. We say “sadly” because the bundle costs $500. Which is to say, “It costs the same amount as an Xbox One with a 500GB hard drive and a Kinect.” Sure, you get Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and you get a custom Xbox One with a larger HDD, but will $500 still be too much for mainstream folks who haven’t picked up an Xbox One just yet? We’ll see when it arrives on November 4th.
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Microsoft
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There is a white Xbox One console and gamepad coming this October
The rumors are true: there is a white Xbox One game console on the way, and it’s arriving alongside Xbox One-exclusive Sunset Overdrive. And the console isn’t the only white bit, as there’s a white gamepad coming too. It’ll cost $400 when it arrives this October, and it comes with the standard 500GB of storage and the aforementioned gamepad. The bundle appears to come without Kinect, though we’ll be sure to ask Microsoft as soon as this Gamescom 2014 press conference is over.
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Microsoft
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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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Steam’s game recommendation tags are now ready for everyone
At a loss as to what to play next after finishing all the games you bought in that last Steam sale? Don’t fret — after months of beta testing, the service’s tagging feature is officially ready for prime time. Visit a product page and you can browse tags to see other games you might like in a similar vein, no matter how vague the criteria. Click “sci-fi” when checking out Space Marine and you’ll see loads of futuristic titles; choose “Warhammer 40K” and you’ll see more specific recommendations, like Space Hulk. You can create your own tags as well, although you’ll want to use discretion. Valve is both consolidating tags that have a similar theme and getting rid of tags that aren’t really helpful — as much as you might want to label bad purchases as “junk,” you’ll have to resist the urge.
Filed under: Gaming, Internet, Software
Source: Steam
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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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Dropbox for Android finally gets a smarter search system
With cloud storage options becoming as numerous as actual clouds peppering the sky, it’s nice to see app developers hunkering down to make serious improvements. That’s exactly what the folks at Dropbox did with their latest Android app update — it packs the ability to preview documents (perfect for all those lengthy, similarly titled PDFs you’ve got kicking around) but the biggest draw here is the app’s much-improved search system. Need to find a pesky file hidden in a certain folder? That’s a cakewalk now. Hazy on the exact name of the photo you’re looking for? The app suggests filenames while you peck out your furtive queries, and highlights potential matches while you type. If anything, the only sore spot here might be the brief wait involved: the update hasn’t hit our devices just yet, but Dropbox says it’ll trickle out into the wild over the next few hours.
Source: Dropbox
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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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It’s official: Brits love weather apps
In days past, you couldn’t call yourself a true Brit unless you’d waited for the six o’clock news to end in order to catch the weather forecast for coming week. These days, however, more people than ever are pulling out their phone and launching an app. The BBC is keen to reinforce our obsession with unpredictable climates and mobile phones, announcing today that the BBC Weather iOS and Android apps have become its fastest-growing mobile properties, with over 8 million downloads since their launch just over a year ago. According to the Beeb, users love to whip out their mobiles first thing in the morning (7am being the most popular time), with Friday the most popular day, as people attempt to plan for the weekend ahead. In the near future, the BBC says it will add detailed weather warnings to the app, giving you an even firmer excuse for staying indoors with the cats.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Software
Via: BBC Media Centre
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AIVAnet 