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Kinect Review: Are games just the beginning?

A lot has been made of Microsoft’s Kinect, the new motion detection system for the Xbox 360. It has lead many to draw comparisons to the gesture controls seen in Minority Report, and go so far as to say that it may even change the face of computing in the future. That’s high praise indeed, but what does it mean for gaming right now?

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Unboxing Boxee Box – initial impressions

After what seemed like forever, Boxee Box by D-Link finally hit retail shelves on Wednesday, and being a big fan of the software, I made sure I was there to get one.  I didn’t have the official RGB Filter HD camera on hand, so I fired up my point n shoot with 720p, to give you a look at it, and the much anticipated remote with QWERTY keyboard built into it.  I was going to call this one “A look at what’s inside the Boxee Box box, when unboxed”, but…

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Gamercamp Lv2 starts tomorrow

Like the title says, there’s only one day left until Gamercamp Lv2 kicks off tomorrow morning at 11 am.  The 2 day festival of gaming, in it’s second year, will feature gaming presentations, the Saturday night 1UP bash and a whole lot more.  You can get your tickets right here.  Instead of trying to sum it all up myself, here’s the official poster of events, followed by a write up from event organizers Mark Rabo and Jamie Woo. Saturday doors open at 10:30am and presentations get started at 11am. We’ll…

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Windows Phone 7 sputters into Canada

Though the title seems damning, it isn’t a judgement on the OS itself, but of the seeming lack of availability of Windows Phone 7 handsets on it’s North American launch day.  Last week we reported Telus being the first to pull the trigger on pricing for Windows Phone 7 devices, and with launch day coming to a close, it appears they’re the carrier that made the biggest deal of the launch.he first 100 people to the Telus store in Toronto’s Eaton Centre also got a free Xbox 360 Slim 4GB…

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Boxee Box confirmed features

As a long time Boxee software user, there’s a reason I’m looking forward to the new Boxee Box built by D-Link and designed by San Francisco design company Astro Studios.  The diminutive media player designed to play internet and local content to your television is more expensive than the cheaper players like the Asus O!Play Air and the WD Live TV HD, but cheaper than a HTPC.  Boxee, with it’s XBMC pedigree, has an unprecedented level of codec support, only bested by a dedicated Windows PC setup, and the user…

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What the CRTC taketh, the CRTC giveth (to Bell)

It was only two months ago that the CRTC made a surprisingly positive ruling in helping innovation in the Canadian internet marketplace, though I was somewhat skeptical.  In August they announced that incumbent DSL and cable providers, aka the big guys (Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw, Videotron), had to provide 3rd party ISPs with access to their networks, at a price level of 10% above cost.  Part of this reasoning was in the ruling itself… Agreed that a duopoly of telephone and cable retail Internet access services is insufficient, and that…

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HTC Desire Z launches on Bell November 3rd

Bell is the exclusive Canadian carrier for the new HTC Desire Z, an 800Mhz Android phone running the 2.2 Froyo version of Google’s operating system, and promises to bring up to 14.4 Mbps in download speeds.  One of the standout features of the phone is the landscape QWERTY keyboard.  Besides the keyboard, which appears up to the high standards of HTC, the phone will have a unified email application for all those who have been waiting for a merged email inbox to make life easier.  It will also support HTCSense.com…

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Warren Spector Epic Mickey Interview

At the recent Epic Mickey event, we talk with legendary game designer Warren Spector about the process of game development, and in particular about his underlying philosophy on player choice and consequences, regardless of setting.  In that regard, one of the points in Epic Mickey is to make sure that each choice the player is given actually does have consequences in the game. A choice without consequences is really kind of a waste of development effort and it’s a waste of players time.  Why do it? If there’s no consequence…

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Jessica Rabbit drawn in two minutes

While attending the Disney Epic Mickey event, we had the opportunity to talk to the developers, including Warren Spector, whose interview is coming up tomorrow.  That’s not what this video is about however.  At the event, they had artists on hand doing paintings and sketches, and while going through the footage I found this video of one of the artists doing a sketch of Jessica Rabbit, which he cranked out in under two minutes.  Unfortunately, as of this writing we don’t have the artist’s name, and we’ll update this as…

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Minecraft hits 500,000 in sales prior to Hallowe’en update

[ED Note: Minecraft has now racked up over 1,000,000 sales.] Minecraft, the indie sandbox game from Markus “Notch” Persson, has racked up 500,000 units sold as of about an hour ago, according to the real time counter on the top of the Minecraft home page.  As of this writing it’s sitting at 500431. Though the game was first released back in July of 2009, the game, which is still in alpha stage, has seen a surge of popularity in the gaming community since late summer of this year. Minecraft is…

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2 million Dead Rising and counting

No, the zombie apocalypse isn’t on us yet.  Dead Rising 2, developed by Blue Castle Games for Capcom, has sold over 2 million copies since its release last month, which puts it on track to outsell its predecessor by a fair margin.  I’m ashamed to say that as a zombie fan I have yet to play the sequel, which gives players a chance to destroy the undead in a number of creative ways, including making their own weapon combos by duct taping such disparate items as chainsaws and paddles together….

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Acer announces new Aspire Predator

For those interested in full sized gaming rig that looks like it means business, without the the near $2000 starting price, Acer has announced their Aspire Predator.  Think of this as the baby Predator, the little brother to their high end rig they announced back in the summer.  The new Predator has many of the same core internals, but helps keep the cost down by getting rid of the 3 graphic card option, though it does sport available PCI E x1 slots. It’s also a slightly smaller, more subdued case,…

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