If you're anything like me then your gaming experience is often ruined by "finger trouble" with an unfriendly control system. Many times I find myself shouting "That's not what I meant to do!" as my virtual self writhes in agony on the screen or apologises for accidentally decapitating a friend. That problem may be a thing of the past with the introduction of the EPOC neuroheadset from Emotiv.

The EPOC neuroheadset uses a variety of sensors to detect head movement and brain activity. This information is then transferred wirelessly to the computer where it is interpreted by special software to detect intent (eg moving an object) and emotion. A clear application of this is in VR and in particular virtual worlds.

The Emotiv EPOC SDK will provide developers with three sets of libraries: Affectiv for measuring discreet emotional states, Cognitiv for detecting conscious thoughts and Expressiv to identify faical expressions.

EEG technology is not new and thought-controlled computer interfaces have been seen before. What makes the EPOC special is that it's aimed at the home gaming market and is expected to sell for $299.

Whether or not this particular neuroheadset gains support from game manufacturers it seems likely to be a taste of the future of gaming.

Labels: Emotiv, Entertainment, EPOC, gadgets, gaming, VR

It's game over for the HD-DVD format. Toshiba has reportedly announced that it is admitting defeat in the battle against Sony's Blu-Ray format. Toshiba will cease supplying HD-DVD machines from the end of March 2008, though will continue to offer technical support. There are an estimated one million owners of HD-DVD machines worldwide.

The move is an acceptance by Toshiba that whatever the relevant technical merits of the two formats it has lost the marketing battle. Inclusion of a Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 gave Sony's format a boost in market penetration and HD-DVD has recently suffered high profile rejections from companies such as Netflix.

Labels: Blu-Ray, DVD, Entertainment, HD-DVD, Toshiba

HD DVD has suffered another major blow in the next-gen format wars. The US DVD rental company Netflix has announced that it will be phasing out support for HD-DVD. In the future it will offer only Sony's Blu-Ray format for high definition discs. The company will now be buying only Blu-Ray format for high def DVDs and will phase out support for HDDVD by roughly year's end.

Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix, said:

"We're now at the point where the industry can pursue the migration to a single format, bring clarity to the consumer and accelerate the adoption of high-def. Going forward, we expect that all of the studios will publish in the Blu-ray format and that the price points of high-def DVD players will come down significantly. These factors could well lead to another decade of disc-based movie watching as the consumer's preferred means"

Netflix is the world's largest online movie rental service with over seven million subscribers, so this could be a fatal blow for Toshiba's HD DVD format.

Labels: Blu-Ray, Entertainment, HD-DVD, Netflix

In another blow to the future of Digital Restriction Management (DRM), entertainment giant Sony has joined the other three major labels in making its music catalogue available to buy as DRM-free downloads from Amazon.

Tracks from Sony will now be available to purchase and download from Amazon in standard mp3 format without any of the DRM restrictions that hamper buyers of some music from some other systems such as iTunes.

The deal makes Amazon the first store to offer DRM free downloads from all four big labels (iTunes currently sells DRM free music from EMI and some independents). The one drawback is that the service is currently only available to customers in the US.

That'll change. The music industry has clearly lost the battle to impose DRM on consumers. I predict that the future will see success for those adopting new business models and failure of dinosaur companies that refuse to change.


Photo Credit: mutednarayan (Creative Commons)


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Labels: DRM, Entertainment, More, music

The format wars between the two "next generation" DVD formats - Blu-Ray and HD-DVD - looks like it might be entering the end game. The Blu-Ray Disc Association has just received a massive boost from Warner Bros.

Up to now Warner has been the only major studio releasing movies on both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats. They have now decided to jump off the fence and release films in Blu-Ray format only from the end of May. Warner says that the decision was because around 60% of its high definition sales are already Blu-Ray.

The decision by Warner means that five major studios now back Blu-Ray against only two backing HD-DVD.

So does this mean that the future of HD movie distribution is Blu-Ray? In the short term probably. Howver in the long term I think that almost everyone expects physical media to disappear as a distribution format and remain for backups only.

Labels: Blu-Ray, DVD, Entertainment, HD-DVD, More