next-gen

It's been weeks since the PlayStation 4 event underwhelmed many people. Myself included. But as time has passed, my mind's become clearer as to why, exactly, I was so disappointed. It's a challenge for the PlayStation 4 to overcome, but it's also a challenge of all "next-gen" consoles.

I hate the term "next-gen" as much as anyone else, but that's what happens when you have one piece of hardware sit out on the market for six or seven years while you anticipate what the Next Big Thing will be. "Next-gen&… Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- The Valve Steam Box is coming.

- How HBO will tackle "Game of Thrones" piracy.

- The Last of Us has a unique plotline with clicking mushroom people.… Read more

With 2012's best and most disappointing games now behind us, let's look into the future at what 2013 is set to bring. If these titles stay on schedule, this year is already looking to top 2012 in the first four months alone. That's great news for gamers, but terrible news for our wallets.

We're barely more than a month into 2013 but the list continues to grow. Of course it's worth mentioning that some of these games will probably have release date changes and it's more than likely that a number of titles will … Read more

Help me, please. I'm waiting for the future to arrive.

I feared a lull at this year's E3 before I even got on the plane. Games pushed back, executives claiming no new hardware. "No new hardware" is a mantra I've heard a lot lately, from colleagues as well as from industry insiders. Even from gamers, who certainly don't like the idea of spending up for a new console.

Well...we need next-gen. And it's bound to arrive. But when? Please say soon. I've been patient. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Not content to rest on the laurels of its recently announced A200, Acer today unveiled a new Iconia Tab tablet, featuring a screen resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels (1080p).

Typically, tablet screen resolutions top out at 1,280x800 pixels, but thanks to the faster speed of quad-core processors (Acer didn't reveal which quad-core CPU the new tablet would be using), look for high-res screens like this (and even higher) to become a trend over the next year.… Read more

Just in time for Christmas, France's Aldebaran Robotics has upgraded its Nao humanoid robot, making it better at obeying orders for the big cleanup.

Nao Next Gen is the latest version of the popular research robot, and it's looking more and more lifelike.

The 23-inch droid has been outfitted with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor and two HD cameras linked to a field-programmable gate array for faster processing of both video streams. Intel Capital led a $13 million investment in Aldebaran earlier this year.

It also boasts better speech recognition with a program called Nuance, allowing Nao to pick out individual words in a conversation. … Read more

MIT researchers are working on an algorithm that could help reduce the likelihood of airplane collisions in the sky, part of work to overhaul the FAA air traffic system.

The FAA's NextGen overhaul mandates that by 2020 all commercial aircraft broadcast GPS coordinates, which would be more accurate than ground-based radar.

The system uses GPS data to track hypothetical puck-shaped zones around smaller aircraft to keep them a safe distance apart. Thousands of small aircraft were involved in near-misses over the past decade and there were 112 midair collisions, according to MIT.

Researchers at the MIT International Center for Air Transportation (ICAT) based the system on months of real-world flight data. A chief goal was to reduce the frequency of false collision alarms. They decided to use two alerts: a moderate one when flight paths are converging, and a severe alert when a collision is imminent. … Read more

OK, honestly, this is my last post on E3. While this year's show is over and we've seen both surprises and disappointments, another year looms: and with it, we hold out hope that next year's show can deliver on some unanswerables that this year's show conveniently skipped. At least, that's the way I feel. No show can ever hope to bring everything we expect--mainly, because E3 is only a collection of demonstrations from an industry that's constantly evolving--but as I peer into next year's crystal ball, this is what I hope we find.

Games and reasons to buy the Wii U Nintendo's next console, the Wii U, remains shrouded in mystery, in the middle of a year where Nintendo remains in a larger cloud of uncertainty. The Nintendo 3DS feels like a disappointment, and the Wii is in decline. That touch-screen tablet-of-wonders that Nintendo's hawking is a project with no definitive must-have games or applications, and that will need to change next year.… Read more

Last night's Tokyo announcement of the PSP2, now known as the Sony Next Generation Portable, revealed details that had been previously mentioned in a variety of rumors. To a large extent, those rumors proved correct: no UMD drive, but a 5-inch high-resolution OLED screen, 3G capabilities, front and rear touch capabilities, and--yes--dual analog sticks are all part of the NGP's design.

However, much as with the first announcement of the Nintendo 3DS, a lot of key details are still undefined.

Battery life This takes the forefront, considering the disappointing life of the PSP and PSP Go. The Nintendo … Read more