Tuesday, July 24, 2012

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Project Holodeck and Oculus Rift hope to kickstart every gamers' VR dream for $500 (video)
Jul 24th 2012, 00:48

Project Holodeck and Oculus Rift hope to make every gamers' dream a $500 reality via Kickstarter video

Star Trek: The Next Generation may be coming to your living rooms soon courtesy of some hot new Blu-ray pressing, but one of the most compelling pieces of the technology shown on that series still remains elusive: the holodeck. Don't get down, sunshine, because we might soon be making our first, tentative steps into a virtual courtesy of Project Holodeck. It's underway at USC's School of Cinematic Arts as well as the Viterbi School of Engineering and starts out with a pair of Project Oculus glasses. These glasses, which were shown off at E3 by none other than John Carmack, cram a 1,280 x 800 display into a pair of glasses that present a wide, truly immersive field of view. Pair that with a PlayStation Move for head tracking and a Razer Hydra controller and you have the beginnings of a proper virtual reality environment.

An early concept of what the complete system might feel like can be found after the break, a couple of people acting out a sequence from Skies of Arcadia, which could be called a spiritual inspiration for the first game designed for Project Holodeck: Wild Skies. In it, two people "pilot a massive airship through a exotic world of floating islands" -- though whether they look as kawaii as their Dreamcast predecessors remains to be seen. When you might actually get your hands on the system is also unknown, but one piece of the puzzle, the Oculus Rift glasses, are said to be hitting Kickstarter any day now -- for an anticipated price of just $500. Bat'leth and copy of Workin' out with Worf not included.

Continue reading Project Holodeck and Oculus Rift hope to kickstart every gamers' VR dream for $500 (video)

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Project Holodeck and Oculus Rift hope to kickstart every gamers' VR dream for $500 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jul 2012 20:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Galaxy Stellar pops up in Verizon docs, might light up our skies soon
Jul 23rd 2012, 23:59

Samsung Galaxy Stellar pops up in Verizon docs, might light up our skies soon

Having launched an all-out blitz on the high-end of US smartphones, Samsung must be eager to conquer the mid-range as well. A Verizon rebate list finding its way to Droid-Life has the previously unknown Galaxy Stellar showing up amongst the carrier's more budget-minded smartphones for a $50 discount sometime between now and an August 19th expiry date. There's little we can definitively attach to that starry-eyed name so far, although we have our hunches: first and foremost is that it's the Jasper, the Snapdragon S4-touting spiritual successor to the Droid Charge. It might alternately be the even more mysterious SCH-i415, which just showed up at the FCC this weekend and could be a world-roaming sequel to the Stratosphere (SCH-i405) with CDMA, LTE and GSM all rolled into one. Whether the Galaxy Stellar is one of these two devices or something entirely off of the map, there's a strong indication between this, Sprint's mystery SPH-L300 and the slightly more tangible Galaxy Reverb that Samsung will leave no CDMA corner unturned in the near future.

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Samsung Galaxy Stellar pops up in Verizon docs, might light up our skies soon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jul 2012 19:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Must See HDTV (July 23rd - 29th)
Jul 23rd 2012, 23:26

2012 London Summer Olympics
The Summer Olympics kick off this week in London, and you'll want to have your TV, computer and mobile devices at the ready. This time around NBC has made the laudable step of promising every sport will be available for streaming live on the internet, however the Opening Ceremony TV broadcast on Friday will be tape delayed until the evening. Hit the NBCOlympics.com site to sign in with your pay-TV account for streaming access and grab the necessary apps, as well as see full listings for every sport, the action will actually get started on Wednesday with a slew of soccer matches, so make sure you don't miss anything.
(All Week, NBC & Online)

Star Trek: The Next Generation Season One
The full remastered first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation debuts on Blu-ray this week, and as we've seen from the clips and teaser release earlier this year, the quality is top notch. Whether or not the first season of adventures with Picard, Riker, Worf, LaForge and company is worth buying is your decision, although the current Amazon price of $60 for the six-disc set doesn't seem terribly prohibitive.
($59.99 on Amazon)

Alphas
Last week we said goodbye to one excellent sci fi series in Eureka, and this week one of our new favorites Alphas comes back on the air. An X-Men-style drama focusing on people granted with super abilities of various types teaming up to take on evil doers the plot is familiar but managed to mix things up a little during the first season, we'll see if season two can keep the excitement going.
(July 23rd, Syfy, 10PM)

Continue reading Must See HDTV (July 23rd - 29th)

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Must See HDTV (July 23rd - 29th) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jul 2012 19:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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