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Best of CES 2015 Awards, Disruptive Tech: Energous WattUp
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-629182{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-629182, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-629182{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-629182").style.display="none";}catch(e){} We like our wireless routers here at Engadget, but a wireless router that can charge your devices too? And one that can do so, well, wirelessly? If that sounds like a pipe dream, well, it isn't. Energous' WattUp solution promises to do exactly that. No longer would you have to plug in your laptop or charge up your smartwatch when you're in the house. Seems like an innovation winner to us.
Daily iPhone App: House of the Dead Overkill - The Lost Reels is gross but innovative
There are some really excellent apps arriving on the App Store tonight (including Firaxis' great Haunted Hollow), but before we tackle that new crop, I did want to mention this app, released last week by Sega. House of the Dead, if you're not aware, is an arcade shooting game, where you take on a whole haunted house full of zombies and demons with a light gun (and usually a friend, if you're playing in an arcade with quarters). House of the Dead: Overkill was a version of the game that came to Nintendo's Wii system a little while back, and this version, sub-subtitled The Lost Reels, is a revamp of that game, made specifically for iOS devices. Now, this game is gross, and if you've not into gory zombies and bad guys (and girls), then you probably won't get much out of this -- like I said, stay tuned for Haunted Hollow and a few other big releases tonight. But the main reason I wanted to mention this one is that it has one of the best control schemes for a first-person shooter on the App Store I've ever seen. Most FPS games don't end up quite making the jump over to a touchscreen interface without stumbling. There's two routes devs have gone so far: Either they just go all-in on clumsy and not-so-precise virtual controls, or they try something really nuts (Zynga's The Drowning and Industrial Toys' Morning Star are two upcoming FPSes with innovative control schemes). House of the Dead does have a pretty lame virtual control scheme, if you want to try things that way, but the game also has an accelerator-based control scheme, and that one's really fun. You tilt your iDevice around to guide your target, tap to fire, and the whole thing actually feels very intuitive. It's one of the best ways to play a game like this I've ever seen implemented on iOS. Unfortunately, the rest of the game is kind of a mess. To stay under the download size limit, Sega has cut off a lot of the in-game dialogue and cutscenes that made the original Overkill as charming as it was, and while the game costs $4.99, you actually have to buy extra levels and content via in-app purchase -- why Sega chose to do these things the way they did, I have no idea. Honestly, I can't really recommend this one at full price, though it's worth a try for a buck or two. All that said, however, that control scheme is very impressive. If someone can lift that scheme out of this game and put it in a game worth playing, I'd really appreciate that. House of the Dead: Overkill: The Lost Reels is available right now.
James Ohlen hits back against critics, defends SWTOR's innovation
Star Wars: The Old Republic Game Director James Ohlen isn't surprised that the game's received the flak it has from a segment of reviews and fans. In a candid interview with Eurogamer, Ohlen addresses both the issues of being a "big target" for critics and the claims that SWTOR's lacking innovation. For the most part, players and critics have praised the game, Ohlen shares, and BioWare is seeing an "exceptionally high" desire among its playerbase for continued subscriptions. But was BioWare prepared for the backlash as well? Ohlen says it was: "We knew that there was going to be people who wanted us to fail. But that's just the nature of the game. If you're going to build a huge game and try to go out to a lot of people, you're going to have people who just react poorly." He does push back hard against claims that SWTOR failed on the innovation front, stating, "We wanted to take the lessons that have been developed in that genre over years and years and years and basically refine them, much like other companies do with other genres. So, I don't know, it's just the way it is, but I don't see us as not being innovative. We're actually a lot more innovative within the MMO space than comparable games in other spaces like the first-person genre, the action genre -- games like that."
Viking Modular's SATADIMM jacks an SSD into your memory slot
Explaining the differences between DRAM and non-volatile storage is about to get that little bit harder, thanks to Viking Modular. The company's decided to "borrow" the DIMM form factor for its latest enterprise SSD offering, equipping it with a 240-pin array to draw power from your spare memory slots. Of course, you'll still need to hook up a SATA cable to get data flowing to this SSD -- at a very respectable 260MBps for both read and write -- but we must admit we're in love with the very idea of it. This new design offers another option for consolidating storage right onto the motherboard and should help case modders yearning for ever-slimmer enclosures. Alas, the SATADIMM is only available to enterprise and OEM clients for now, but we can't think of any reason why it won't test the consumer waters as well -- if not by Viking, maybe someone else? [Thanks, David]
Sony Ericsson concept phone is as clever as it is unreal
Looking for some innovation to go with your porridge this morning? How about this fan-made flip phone concept that pivots vertically and horizontally? You can use it as a standard old clamshell, with the lower of the two displays acting as your number pad, or you can rotate it down to pair the screens into one snazzy widescreen panel. That's all there really is to it, but it seems like such an ingenious idea to us -- maintaining the slimline dimensions that some think are crucial to phones, while offering the generous screen size that we all want. Hit the source link to see more of this "Sony Ericsson" FH concept.
Nintendo Wii takes Engadget Awards
Nintendo Wii Fanboy is related, in an odd sort of second-cousin once-removed kind of way, to the hyper-popular Engadget, which like totally everyone reads all the time forever. As such, their annual Engadget awards are nothing to sneeze at, and so we look with great pride (we helped, after all) at their selections for 2k6. Let's take a glance at the honors: Reader's Choice: Most Innovative Peripheral Reader's Choice: Game Console of the Year Editor's Choice: Game Console of the Year Reader's Choice: Gadget of the Year (!!!) Editor's Choice: Gadget of the Year (!!!) Yeah, that's right. That means the Wii pretty much wins at life. It's quite a series of awards, but which console will take home 2007? It may come down to one showdown: Halo 3 vs. Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Which will suck up more of the average gamer's free time? Bring it, Chiefy.
Mobile controller concept fits like a ... sleeve?
Tired of tapping at tiny, ergonomically suspect buttons to play your favorite mobile phone games? How about putting on a sleeve and flexing your muscles instead?Last September, mobile developer Arto Holopainen posted about a proof-of-conept case study for using two sets of EKG sensors to control a Snake game via muscle flexing. Now, Holopainen has expanded the concept with a wearable sleeve that translates flexes into standard mobile phone commands.Holopainen sees the device being used for muscle rehabilitation or as an aid to disabled phone users, but we can't stop picturing a subway car full of hapless passengers flailing about to control their games of Bejeweled. Better yet, maybe someone will adapt the device for a line of specially-designed bodybuilding games. Who has the rights to the Lou Ferrigno license?[Update: Fixed typo in Holopainen's name. Thanks Hakobus.][Via QuicklyBored]
