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Posts Tagged ‘camera’

Inventing excuses after losing, dying, or in general just playing like crap is a time-honored tradition among gamers. We’ve heard them all — teammates who don’t pull their own weight, cheaters, tons of lag, screen glare, and worst of all, faulty or unresponsive controllers.

So here’s the bad news: Razer’s Onza TE will make covering up your ineptitude with hardware-based justifications even less tenable. But don’t panic. The good news is you might not have to make as many.

At just $10 more than Microsoft’s standard-issue wired controllers (and the same price as the wireless versions), the Onza TE is … [Read More...]

Do you need gigabytes or performance? Laptop upgrades or a screaming new gaming PC? We walk you through what you need to know to pick the right storage solution for your PC.

Storage. Always needed, often overlooked.

Often lost in the buzz surrounding the latest DirectX 11 GPUs and hexacore CPUs is the ability to actually store and retrieve your stuff. Your applications, games, photographs, digital music and everything else lives on your hard drive. But that boring old rotating magnetic disk just doesn’t seem exciting or high tech – even though the technology in a hard drive is actually … [Read More...]

Metro 2033 was many things – atmospheric, frightening, jaw-droppingly gorgeous – but it wasn’t perfect. Enter Metro: Last Light. 4AGames is going all out with the sequel to its underground hit, and it’s dropped a whopping 12-minute gameplay demo to prove it. To be sure, this demo’s a bit heavier on the slow-mo gunsplosions than 2033, but 4AGames assures us that the final game will still pack just as many gritty, grimy sense-engulfing moments of pure immersion as its predecessor. So then – no longer burdened by that burning question – grab some popcorn, sit back, and consider building a … [Read More...]

Pretty impressive—if you don’t like email, apps, or games

For the record, the Maximum PC Lab keeps both feet planted squarely in the present tense. We don’t believe anyone should buy hardware based solely on its future potential. So what then to make of RIM’s nascent and decidedly half-baked Blackberry Playbook? Unless you’re 1) a Blackberry owner, 2) don’t care about apps or games, or 3) a devoted BB fanboy, the answer is: not much.

By the time you read this, it’s possible that the Playbook might be more complete via OS updates. The release version, however, omitts some basic … [Read More...]

Mothers, lock up your gamers. The PlayStation phone has arrived.

And while it’s a bit on the chubby side, we think that, for Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play, big is beautiful.

You could almost call the Xperia Play the shorter, fatter cousin to the svelte Xperia Arc, which Sony Ericsson once described as the “world’s thinnest smartphone.” At .62 inches, the Play looks positively bulky compared to its Xperia-line relatives — a veritable Jan Brady to the Arc’s Marcia.

But Sony Ericsson had to … [Read More...]

Your Windows Phone 7 device is officially obsolete. At a press event in New York this morning and several media events around the world, Microsoft cut the ribbon on its next generation Windows Phone mobile platform codenamed “Mango,” which introduces “more than 500 new features to push the boundaries of the smartphone experience.”

Before we jump into Mango and it’s many new features, let’s put some worries to rest. Yes, your Windows Phone 7 device is yesterday’s news, but don’t toss it in a river just yet. Not only would that be environmentally irresponsible, but Microsoft is making the Mango … [Read More...]

Undeniably attractive and super skinny, Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Arc is ready for a career as a runway model.

This fashionable specimen measures a mere 0.46 inches thick at its thinnest point, the middle of the concave arc that runs vertically down the back of the phone. It manages to make my iPhone 3GS look almost obese in comparison.

Slimness is a virtue in devices, as it reduces that embarrassing Visible Phone Line in your pocket. But premium phones usually have a bit of heft to them, and in that respect, the Xperia Arc feels a little too thin. Flimsy, even. … [Read More...]

The Veer is ridiculously small. Almost Zoolander ridiculously small.

When you first grip the thing in your hand and try out the keyboard, you think, “Oh man, this is never going to work.” But after a few initial typos, it’s actually not that bad at all.

At 3.25 inches long, the Veer is tiny, stealthy and unassuming. It’s so small, it’ll even fit in the coin pocket of your jeans. The back of the black model has a rubberized texture that keeps your brain from mistaking it for a large, smooth pebble.

The 2.6-inch touchscreen is minuscule compared to giant … [Read More...]

When the Kinect first launched last November, gamers were (to put it charitably) a bit skeptical. Here was a device with incredible technological potential, and the most impressive game that came out with it was a dance simulator.

Still, the Kinect has become a bona fide hit, selling more than eight million units in the first 60 days alone and being named the “fastest-selling consumer electronics device” of all time by Guinness World Records. But more importantly, the software problem has been solved. Not by Microsoft, whose Kinect releases have been few and far between, but by the ever-growing legion … [Read More...]

From January 4th through April 7th, Windows asked filmmakers from around the world to show off what Windows 7 and Windows Live could do. The contestants were asked to submit a short video that spoke directly to students with the chance to win over 20,000 in prizes. The Grand Prize was huge: a trip to the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC for 2, a special screening of their film and $8,000. With these stakes on the line, videos flooded in and in took an agonizing few days to choose the top finalists and one grand-prize winner.

Grand Prize: Detention by … [Read More...]

Life is filled with important choices. Chocolate or vanilla? Ketchup or mustard? Heads or tails? Choice is awesome – it’s what makes life interesting & personal.

You know what’s even more awesome than choice? Not having to choose. That’s exactly the concept behind the new Acer Iconia Tab W500. Rather than having to choose between a slate PC or a traditional laptop, the W500 gives you the convenience of both via a powerful slate PC that “docks” into a portable, attachable keyboard. It’s an interesting, unique take on multi-touch computing.

The 10.1” Iconia Tab W500 goes on sale starting today … [Read More...]

“They have been training their whole lives to save the world,” said Jane McGonigal, world-renowned game designer and author, in reference to the students who participated in the Microsoft Imagine Cup.

For one member of the winning Software Design team, his solution not only stands to change the world, but to also affect his day-to-day life. David Hayden, the team captain from Arizona State University, was born legally blind. He used his first-hand experience struggling to see the teacher and take notes simultaneously as inspiration to create Note-Taker.

Note-Taker is a system that enables low vision students to take notes … [Read More...]

Boy, are my Instagram friends going to be jealous. Now, when I share a photo using my favorite Lomo-Twitter mobile app, my photos are going to look sharper, crisper and better than everyone else’s.

Why? Because I’m not using the crappy camera on my phone. I’m using a nice prosumer camera with an Eye-Fi Mobile X2 card in it. Every time I press the shutter, my photo transfers wirelessly and directly to the phone in my pocket. From there, I can add whatever fancy, appy goodness I want, and share it on the internet.

Eye-Fi has been making waves for … [Read More...]