RSS Feeds
Games
Sony's PlayStation Home Expands Beta This Summer, Goes Open Beta Autumn 2008
Posted by Jason Chen at 4:01 PM on April 22, 2008
PlayStation Home, the long-awaited PlayStation 3 social networking app, is finally going to see open beta starting Autumn 2008. Before that, if you're one of the few lucky users chosen by Sony, you'll be able to participate in the closed beta expanding some time in Summer 2008. No other real features have been announced lately, but if it's still kept all the details announced back at GDC 2007, there's going to be customisable avatars, modifiable living and common spaces, accomplishment galleries and lots of branding/third-party products. It's basically a Second Life that doesn't suck, and isn't full of (as many) weirdos.
A recent patent filing by Apple Inc. entitled Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere indicates that Steve Jobs' next 
3Dconnexion's SpaceNavigator, a rubber-capped multi-axis metal dial meant mainly for 3D design, has been put to even better use as a pan-dimensional controller for Second Life. The video says it all: watch as Beast, one of the "Lindens" who works at Second Life's founder company, demos movement of his avatar on both land and in the air, and even use SpaceNavigator side by side with a mouse. It's perhaps even cooler in build mode, where you can twist, push, pull and tilt—basically have free range of motion—when doing heavy construction. The SpaceNavigator is already available for US$60, and works with Google Earth, Adobe Photoshop and a bunch of CAD and GIS apps. It will be available in Second Life at release 1.20. More detailed info below.
Since it's April 2nd, we guess this news is legit. Samsung has announced that they've developed a Second Life client for their mobile phones, allowing their users to jack...in anywhere in the world. And while at least a little technically impressive, we're wondering what drove Samsung to support a game that's been noted to have an extremely small user base. While millions have registered, those who actually "play" Second Life are few and far between (only about 250,000 accounts). Samsung, when people said "wow" to your idea, you probably should have double-checked their punctuation. [
A brain-computer interface (BCI) system has been developed by the Keio University Biomedical Engineering Laboratory that allows a Second Life avatar to be controlled simply by a user's thoughts. By using a electrode-equipped headpiece that receives signals from the brain's motor cortex which is connected to a EEG machine, the thought- moving data is sent to the BCI system.
