In Real Life

Think L.A. Noire Has Impressive Facial Animations? Check This Out

It’s true that work that Team Bondi has done animating the faces of real life actors in Rockstar’s L.A. Noire is nothing short of astounding, but Janimation’s facial recognition technology creates virtual faces so real you can almost smell their stinking breath.


May 6, 2011
In Real Life

Kinectimals Creator Sets His Sights On Building The $25 PC

David Braben, whose Frontier Developments studio has delivered Elite, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, LostWinds and, yes, Kinectimals, has now created Raspberry Pi. It’s not a game, it’s a working, Linux-based PC on something not much larger than a standard USB memory stick.


May 1, 2011
In Real Life

Here’s How You Handle Looking And Turning In A Motion-Control FPS

Head- and eye-tracking will be the next big breakthrough in motion-controlled gaming. Forza Motorsport 4 will deliver it via Kinect. But for first-person shooters, we’re still stuck controlling our look with our arms, an act as unnatural as it is inconvenient. Some University of Texas students have whipped up a solution for that.


April 9, 2011
News

White Light Technology Could Make 3D Awesome – Without Glasses

The current generation of holograms are generally monotone creations, requiring a single colour laser to construct. However, Japanese researchers have devised a new type of hologram technology that could be just around the corner.


April 6, 2011
News

World Exclusive First Look Under The Hood Of The Next Unreal Engine

You’ve seen the sexed up trailer showing what games based on Epic’s Unreal Engine will look like in the coming generation. Now join Kotaku and Gizmodo for the world’s first peek at the tools and technology that will be used to create some of the biggest games on every platform from PC to iOS in coming years.


March 31, 2011
Nintendo

3DS’s 3D Is Easier To Understand Under Microscope

We can toss around terms like parallax barrier to describe the Nintendo 3DS 3D effect all day long, trying to explain how the system alternates lines of pixels to trick your eyes, or we could just show you.


March 15, 2011
News

Kinect Aids In $US4m Research Into Mental Disorders

The University of Minnesota has saved more than $US100,000 in research funds by using the Xbox 360 Kinect to aid in research on the diagnoses of mental disorders in children, according to a Minnesota Daily and AP report.


March 11, 2011
PC

Want To See What A Hacking Attempt Looks Like?

Contrary to the 1995 movie Hackers, breaking into a computer system does not involve colourful cartoon characters. The act can be accurately represented visually, however, as proven in this excellent video created by Ben Reardon of Dataviz Australia.


March 5, 2011
News

Keyboard-Friendly Robotic Hand Presses All The Right Buttons

One thing ever fledgling robotic killing machine needs is a good pair of hands, deft enough to type but strong enough to choke the life out of its victims. Virginia Tech’s DART is a good start.


February 24, 2011
News

The World’s Smallest Computer Wants To Be Inside Of You

With computer technology forever striving towards smaller and smaller form factors, it was only a matter of time before engineers created the first millimetre-scale computer system, ready for implantation in the human body.