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The first day of EGX 2015 saw Valve’s Chet Faliszek take the stage in an attempt to try and clear up confusions some people might have on virtual reality and what it is.
The talk started with a little history lesson on Valve’s development of their own virtual reality technology beginning back in 2013. They also experimented with augmented reality technology around the same time, before eventually beginning to push more for the virtual reality when HTC entered the picture. Of course, the two are currently working together on the HTC Vive headset and controllers.
There was then some talk about the Vive, specifically what Valve had done to make sure that it was the best it could be. The cables connected to the headset were explained by saying that so far wireless hadn’t developed enough to give a consistently high enough bandwidth for the video so wired connection was still needed to provide the best experience. Valve hope that they should be able to hit somewhere around the region of 90FPS on a high-end computer this way. Audio was talked about, with 3D positional audio and binaural audio being mentioned. For the Vive simulated binaural audio is being produced to help players position the sound in the ‘world’ around them, through use of filters.
A lot of time was spent talking about the ‘input’ into virtual reality though, with Faliszek saying that the reason Valve, Oculus and Sony have all developed similar means to bring the hands into the virtual world being because the technology used was already around in a sense with the WiiMote (although he stressed it wasn’t actually a WiiMote) being in use as well as the traditional controllers that most gamers are familiar with. It’s simple to pick up and failure of a task is understandable for the player, they realise how it happened. However while eye tracking is being looked into, Faliszek doesn’t think proper full-body tracking will become a proper input for a while yet.
Finally the one thing we were told to take away from this talk was that VR didn’t need a full-size room to work, right now developers should be working to minimise the space needed and also to minimise any disconnect between natural movement input and the visual movements to stop motion sickness. Faliszek said that there should no longer be any excuse for VR to make players motion sick anymore.
When you talk about operating systems right now, mostly you’re talking about Windows 10 and the upsides and downsides of Microsoft’s latest offering. However that doesn’t mean that others aren’t doing well in their own ways and right now Linux is looking good with the number of games on Steam that support it at 1,500 which is an all-time high.
Of course, that’s nowhere near the ones that are only-compatible with Windows (13,621), but it is a step in the right direction with Steam offering the ability to narrow down game selection by operating system. With Kickstarter and Greenlight both going strongly and the indie game scene going from strength to strength the number of games that work for the penguin logoed OS are only set to increase in future, which can only be a good thing. The fact the Steam Machines that will be releasing soon work on a Debian-based SteamOS GNU/Linux operating system won’t hurt that number increase either.
If you follow let’s players on Youtube or Twitch there’s a fair bet you’re familiar with the name of Elgato. Their capture devices are used by a lot of Youtubers with high subscriber counts because they perform well with a number of consoles. Now Elgato have just released their latest device – the HD60 Pro.
The main features of the HD60 Pro are that it is compatible with all the latest consoles, and is able to stream directly to Twitch or Youtube in 1080p at 60FPS with little latency. This on top of something called Flashback recording which allows you to go back in your latest gameplay and record something after the fact – brilliant for those times when you’re playing and something amazing or hilarious happens out of the blue. There’s also some very nice videos available on Elgato’s Youtube channel telling you how to install the device in case you need instructions; very useful.
Specs:
Interface – PCIe x1
Input – PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 & Wii U (unencrypted HDMI)
Microsfot built up the launch of Windows 10 for a long time and the release has so far been fairly good. There’s a lot of happy customers although quite a few reports of people having problems with the automatic updating, the ‘spyware’ and some programs no longer working have also been reported as well.
Now Microsoft have announced that there’s going to be some “exciting news” about Windows 10 devices to tell, and they’ll be sharing it in New York on October 6th at 10AM EST. What this actually means is unknown, but guesses are already flying around as people try to pinpoint whether this has anything to do with PC, Xbox or mobile – and if it has any meaning for gamers.
All we can do is wait for October 6th and tune in to find out what Microsoft have got to tell us.
If you’re one of the small group of people out there who owns a smartphone running Windows Phone 8 or 8.1, or a computer running Windows 10, you probably recognise Cortana. Effectively Microsoft’s answer to Siri and Google Now, Cortana is Microsoft’s answer to a voice-operated assistant that lets you speak to your phone to have it perform tasks for you, such as setting reminders, finding out things you need to know, or messaging contacts.
Though developed for Microsoft’s own devices, Microsoft of late have been very eager to expand the reach of Cortana and turn it into the personal assistant behind ALL your devices. To that end, the company has also released Cortana as apps for iOS and Android. But while these app-based versions of Cortana might allow you to message people with your voice or look up information from the internet, it’s not really integrated with Android or iOS. There’s only so much the developers can do when they don’t control the operating system.
However, a new announcement from Cyanogen suggests that this could change.
For several years now, a team of developers have made waves with a fork of the Android system known as Cyanogen. Cyanogen’s original intention was to take what was good from stock Android systems and modify the rest, to create a system that gives control and customisability over how their smartphone looks and works back to the actual user. Cyanogen has since become a corporation – of which Microsoft is a key investor – and the system has become a standard mobile phone OS in its own right, with Cyanogen OS becoming the original system of choice for the OnePlus One and many other phones; with the older Cyanogenmod remaining the tool of choice for replacing stock Android and installing Cyanogen to traditional Android-powered phones.
Cyanogen’s desire to put control back in the hands of the user has put the system regularly at odds with Google’s ethos; and Cyanogen has ditched many standard Android services for equivalents, either home-grown or ran by competitors such as Microsoft. And now, the company has revealed that it’s working with Microsoft to integrate Cortana into Cyanogen- kicking the traditional Android voice assistant, Google Now, out onto the street.
It’s not clear exactly how this will compare to the assistant on other platforms, but Cyanogen hints that it could offer better control over third-party apps than rivals like Google or Apple’s Siri. You could tell Spotify to play specific songs or playlists, for instance. We should not have long to wait to find out how well this pairing works, however – Cyanogen have claimed Cortana will start in her new role from the very next Cyanogen OS release.
