motion control

We've seen motion-controlled iOS games before, but they usually use the accelerometer. Fuego's River Adventure from Crimson Apps uses the iPad 2's front-facing camera to create a Kinect-like gaming experience.

The concept is simple. Fuego is a young lad with Sideshow Bob hair. He floats down a river, collecting golden orbs, and avoiding obstacles along the way.

You have to prop up your iPad and stand back about 4 to 5 feet. Your ghostly image appears at the top of the screen while you play. This helps you stay in frame.

The body control isn't super-sensitive, so you'll find yourself bobbing and weaving quite a bit. That's also where a lot of the fun comes from. This game should keep the kids out of your hair for at least a few minutes.… Read more

Admit it. There have been times when you've wanted to drop-kick your phone into the next county. But would it be satisfying to use kicking gestures to control your phone? An experimental interface lets you do just that. The idea is to provide an alternative input method when your hands are occupied.

Researchers at the University of Bristol in the U.K. and the University of Manitoba in Canada are developing a smartphone interface that lets you kick to flick, zoom, and navigate menus. The researchers used an Xbox Kinect and tablet to simulate the interface and studied how people do with the kick gesture. A working version would use your phone's camera.

The researchers found that people can reliably kick in five directions and at two velocities, which provides enough variety for useful phone control. (See the video below.)

This could be the first smartphone interface that presents a non-negligible risk of getting you arrested. Kick someone on the sidewalk, and I'm guessing the smartphone-gesture-interface defense isn't going to get you very far with the assault charge.… Read more

Not a month after pulling the plug on future installments in the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero franchises, it appears that Activision may not be entirely done with the rhythm game genre.

Kotaku reports today that Activision has begun work on a new property called Dance Hero. According to the Web site's source, the game will capitalize on the burgeoning motion-controlled dance genre, which has seen recent hits such as Harmonix's Dance Central, Ubisoft's Just Dance, and Majesco's Zumba Fitness.

Activision has not responded to a request for comment.

Read more of "Activision calling up Dance Hero?&… Read more

<bragging>My girlfriend often tells me I'm a great kisser </bragging>, and now those skills could help me become a gaming Casanova.

Artist (and Georgia Tech Ph.D. candidate) Hye Yeon Nam and Sam Mendenhall have created the Kiss Controller, a project that uses snogging motions to control a bowling video game. Setup is relatively easy; one lovebird straps on a headset with sensor receivers, and the other attaches a magnet on their tongue using Fixodent. I can just imagine the odd stare I'll get at the drugstore buying a value size tube of denture adhesive.

To play, the person with the magnet on his or her tongue uses mouth muscles to guide the direction and speed of the bowling ball. As you can see in the video below, centering the ball is a rather tongue-tying experience, while speed is determined by how fast you kiss. Unfortunately, my style of kissing is a little slower and more tender, so I'll have to wait for Romantic Kiss Controller.

The Kiss Controller's primary goal is to elicit the "emotional experience of a kinetic act while users play the game rather than control games with their body." The controller has "not been proposed to the video game industry," but it has gotten a lot of attention in the tech world lately. Sadly, a girl (or guy) is not included with the game.

… Read more

My hands-on impressions of the Nintendo 3DS at this morning's New York press event were largely positive, at least from a hardware standpoint. I'd never seen 3D on the device before, and it's undeniably crisp and sharp. Unfortunately, it also requires your eyes and the device to be held in a relatively stable position to work.

All of this makes me wonder about a potential Achilles' heel in the design of the 3DS, one so obvious yet difficult to solve that I'm curious to see what will become of it. Namely, this: the 3DS is a … Read more

Merry Christmas Eve! CNET social-media expert Caroline McCarthy joins us on this 404 Podcast Yuletide episode where we're wrapping up the year in tech.

The Apple iPad dominated our most-wanted list for the year, but 2010 was a huge year for technology as a whole. From mobile location check-in apps like Foursquare to on-demand video and wireless set-top boxes to motion-control video games and e-books, join us as we recap our personal favorites and reveal what we're looking forward to the most in 2011!

Happy Hanukkah! Tonight is the first of the eight-day holiday, so tune in to the first half of the show as Wilson and I try our best to explain to Jeff what that means.

On today's show we take a look at Dance Central for the Microsoft Kinect, and offer our sincerest opinions on the best printers, scary PC games, and books! Yes, we're actually learning how to read.

Verizon announced its 4G data plans, but it's not going to come cheap. The "Gs" refer to the speed a mobile device can receive and send data, so 4G will enable Web pages, videos, and e-mails to load faster. Carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile already have 4G data infrastructure in place, but don't expect the same speeds on every carrier.

Starting December 5, Verizon's 4G service will cost $50 for just 5GB a day, $80 nets you 10GB of data, and it's $10 per gigabyte if you go over the limit. The company claims that 70 percent of its 38 markets will gain access to 4G on Sunday, and users can connect with a laptop through a USB modem.

Microsoft's Kinect motion controller accessory is already boasting bigger sales than than the Sony PlayStation Move, having reached 4.1 million dollars in sales worldwide since launching three months ago.

Jeff and Wilson were skeptics when they first saw the controller in action, but Dance Central changed it around for the Bakalar house and now they're hooked. And if all goes right with a hack we're working on, keep a lookout for a YouTube video of that on the show. In the meantime, check out this Kinect joyride fail video and let us know what you think!

If there's one thing that I recall more than any other from "Zero Hour," the 30-hour Xbox 360 launch event on November 20 and 21, 2005, it was the sight of dozens of gamers literally passed out on beanbags, their controllers still in their hands.

Despite absolutely frigid conditions, more than 2,000 gamers showed up in Palmdale, an aerospace town about an hour northeast of Los Angeles, for the chance to be among the first ever to play and buy an Xbox 360.

And after those 30 hours, their patience was rewarded: a fleet of Best … Read more

Update at 4:03 p.m. PT: This story has been modified with response from Microsoft.

The first person who figures out how to build an open-source driver for Microsoft's much-hyped new Kinect motion controller could win a $2,000 bounty offered by a leading open-source hardware developer.

Kinect, which launched today, is currently available solely for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and may well someday be extended to the Windows platform. But for New York-based Adafruit Industries, that's not enough.

And that's why Adafruit--led by MIT Media Lab alum Limor Fried and Make magazine Senior Editor Phillip … Read more