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Social x-ray glasses can decode emotions, make your blind dates less awkward
You may consider yourself a world-class liar, but a new pair of "social x-ray" glasses could soon expose you for the fraud you really are. Originally designed for people suffering from autism, these specs use a rice grain-sized camera to pick up on a person's 24 "feature points" -- facial expressions that convey feelings of confusion, agreement and concentration, among others. Once recognized, these signals are analyzed by software, compared against a database of known expressions and then relayed to users via an attached headphone. If their date starts to feel uncomfortable, a blinking red light lets them know that it's time to shut up. Rosalina Picard, an electrical engineer who developed the prototype with Rana el Kaliouby, acknowledged that her algorithm still needs some fine tuning, but told New Scientist that the glasses have already proved popular with autistic users, who often have difficulty deciphering others' body language. No word yet on when these social specs could hit the market, but they'll probably make us even more anti-social once they do.
Apple posts WWDC 2010 keynote stream
Apple has posted the stream of yesterday's WWDC keynote by Steve Jobs. During the keynote, Jobs unveiled iPhone 4 along with many new features of iOS 4, including the FaceTime video conferencing feature. Jobs also announced the iMovie app for iPhone and iBooks with PDF support. When Jobs was showing off the iPhone 4's new Retina display, there were some technical issues due to the number of people in the hall using mobile Wi-Fi hotspots. It was a slightly embarrassing -- and awkward -- moment for Jobs, but as you can see from the keynote stream, no editing of said moment was done, and you can replay the awkwardness in all its glory. As of the time of this writing, the keynote is not yet available in the Apple Keynotes Podcast series on iTunes, but it should be added shortly. Update: It's there now.
A less-than-graceful keynote
We've seen the keynote in 60 seconds, and we've seen the "only the adjectives" 'approach before. Here's a slightly less complimentary way to show off the keynote, though, with all of the "ums," "aahs," and other interjections that popped up during the iPhone OS 4.0 keynote a while back. Far be it from us to make fun of Mr. Steven P. Jobs, of course, but something funny like this actually shows off how good he really is at doing it right. Seeing him up there on stage with his turtleneck and jeans, all enthusiastic about whatever "magical and revolutionary" device they've cooked up this time, is half the fun of a new Apple product announcement. If Steve were any less eloquent and smooth than he is, you might end up with something like this: a guy desperately trying to put a few words together about his new product. It's not nearly as effective, but it's much funnier. [via MacStories]
Luc Bernard confirms Mecho Wars hitting DSiWare, WiiWare
Amid an awkward (and drunken) confession that his life is in shambles following the end of his marriage, developer Luc Bernard confirmed Mecho Wars will release on WiiWare and DSiWare. Described as "similar to Advance Wars but with RPG elements," Mecho Wars had already been revealed as a WiiWare release.Mecho Wars will hit the iPhone app store and WiiWare first with a DSiWare release sometime after. No official release details for the dev's second title were mentioned in the YouTube confession. So far the game looks interesting and we extend well wishes to Bernard in the middle of his personal crisis. The first footage -- of the still-under-development title -- can be found after the break.[Via GoNintendo]
C-list celebrities + Gamespot party = Awkward
The latest episode of Glitch in the System makes it horribly obvious that the "celebrities" attending Gamespot's E3 bash had no idea who was hosting the party. That street probably goes both ways because, straight up, we had to Google almost every single one of the "celebrities" that we saw in the video. Check out the cringe-inducing footage o the red carpet interviews after the break.PS: Thanks again to the 300+ people who attended -- or used astral projection to attend in spirit -- our Joystiq E3 meet-up. Watching something like this makes us appreciate you all even more.
One Shots: An awkward moment
Today's Lord of the Rings Online One Shots comes to us from Maerlin of Brandywine. We really aren't quite sure what to make of it, save that this NPC giant apparently didn't read our column yesterday on the best ways to (discreetly) handle virtual romance! There again, we wouldn't have such a strange screenshot to share with you today if he had. As Maerlin told us:I was traversing the Misty Mountains when I came upon a Giant and his pet. I quietly excused myself and ran as fast as I possibly could in the other direction. I hold this picture as blackmail whenever I have to pass through this particular Giant's territory.We don't know if we'd have had the courage (or is it the stomach, perhaps?) to snap this particular screenshot, but it certainly gave some of us a good chuckle. If you're feeling brave, and would like to show off some of your blackmail photos, or just fun and funny things you've seen in your game of choice, then send those screenshots in to us here at oneshots@massively.com! Without your screens, we have to pilfer the screenshot folders of the staff here -- and they get really edgy when we go near their screenshot folders for some reason... %Gallery-9798%
Rock fans uninterested in Harrison's PS3 auction
Marketing is all about knowing your audience -- what they'll respond to and what will turn them off. Going by that metric, it seems Sony's Phil Harrison wasn't quite a marketing genius at a recent rock concert.Paul Rose, a.k.a Edge magazine's "Mr. Biffo," recounts on his blog the somewhat embarrassing tale of a Harrison-led PS3 charity auction in the middle of a Marillion festival in Holland. Harrison, who's apparently a friend of the British rock band, reportedly took over the auctioneering duties from the band's keyboardist, raising the bidding price from just above €100 to the €600 retail price as he did. What followed was a debacle that Rose calls "one of the most awful things I have ever witnessed." According to Rose, Harrison was only able to get one bid out of the awkwardly silent two-thousand-plus strong crowd. What's more, Harrison reportedly "became increasingly desperate as it grew clear that everyone just wanted him to go away, and nobody was going to indulge his tasteless attempt at publicity."It'd be easy to spin this as an example of the PS3's high price hurting it's saleability, but really it's just another example of marketing tone-deafness of Sony's part. These people were there to hear a rock concert, not to hear a marketing pitch from a Sony executive who wants them to throw down €600+ for a game system on an impulse. Sometimes, you just have to know when people don't want to be sold to.
