Project Shield
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Plex for Alexa will get the party started with your voice
It seems like Amazon has been adding new Alexa skills nearly every day lately. The latest trick is voice control for the popular home media streaming server Plex. Just use your voice to ask Plex to bring up any movies or music you have stored on your home (or cloud) media server. Once enabled, all you need to do is ask Alexa for your favorite movies, TV shows and music, provided you have them all on a Plex-connected media server. The skill works on the Amazon Tap, Echo Dot, Echo, Fire TV and on newer model Fire tablets.
Nvidia Shield ups PC streaming to 1080p, adds button mapping options
A new update for the Nvidia Shield drops today and aims to build on the foundation laid by last month's substantial update. Arguably the biggest feature in the December update is 1080p streaming of supported PC games to your television. With a bluetooth controller, Nvidia Shield owners can play Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, Battlefield 4, BioShock Infinite, Borderlands 2, Skyrim and any of the 63 as-of-now supported PC games in all their intended 1080p, 60 frames per second glory. In addition to the streaming, there is now a greater range of Gamepad Mapper options for customizing controls. With these new options, Nvidia Shield users can transfer any motion controls – such as tilting the device – to the thumbsticks or any other physical button on the Shield. First-perspective games can now have movement mapped to the thumbsticks, much like how other first-person games are presented on consoles. The introduction of these new control options has necessitated the need for community curation, as Nvidia is introducing a rating and sharing system for custom control schemes alongside this update. Users can browse, rate and share custom controller-mapping profiles, which should help cut down on the time required to create and employ these setups.
Daily Roundup: Surface 2 review, Google's Project Shield, LG's Chrome OS fixation and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Google's Project Shield helps small websites stand up to DDoS attacks
Yes, it shares the same codename as NVIDIA's portable Android console, but Google's Project Shield has nothing to do with gaming -- it's all about helping the little guy. Created in response to a Google Ideas request -- a think tank that provides tech solutions for social issues -- made by Middle Eastern activists, Shield aims to allow small site owners to "serve their content through Google" in order to withstand malicious DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks and not go offline. It's a critical initiative for areas of the world that don't exactly thrive on free speech; where political unrest and social injustice can be better communicated to a global audience from special interest sites. Currently, the initiative is in a closed, testing phase, so interested parties will need to hit up the link below for an invite.
Nvidia Shield shipping on July 31 to hands near you
Nvidia's Android-powered handheld gaming system Shield will ship July 31, Nvidia announced. The system was originally expected to launch June 27, but shipment was pushed back to July due to a mechanical issue found during the console's QA process. Our hands-on time with the Shield found some similarities to the Xbox 360 controller, with a little more bulk than a PlayStation Vita, thanks in no small part to its 5-inch, multi-touch, 720p display. %Gallery-188227%
NVIDIA Shield drops by the FCC, gets ready to fill pre-orders
Eager to get your mitts on NVIDIA's first Tegra 4 device? Cast your jealous eyes upon the federal government -- they've already got one. NVIDIA's Shield gaming handheld dropped by the FCC to get its label approved, betraying its original code name, Project Thor, in the processes. Hardly a surprise to see the device passing federal muster, of course, as it's slated for release at the end of next month. Unfortunately, the filings don't reveal any hidden goodies (that is, no cellular radio), just a standard WiFi antenna. Still, if label location drawings and test reports are your thing, check out the FCC link below.
Nvidia Shield pre-orders open early (as in, right now)
Nvidia canceled its forced wait time to pre-order an Nvidia Shield, allowing anyone to commit to the $350 Android handheld as of now. The Nvidia Shield is available for pre-order directly through Nvidia or through select retailers: GameStop, Micro Center, Canada Computers and New Egg. The Nvidia Shield – previously known as Project Shield – is a handheld gaming console powered by Android. It has a five-inch retinal multi-touch screen capable of 720p, 16GB of internal storage and can stream your PC games, granted you have a GTX 650 GPU or better in your PC.
Nvidia Shield: Joystiq goes hands-on
The Nvidia Shield arrives next month for $349.99, and yesterday I got to sit down with the final version of the hardware. The first thing I noticed was the heft: bulkier than a PS Vita, but no less comfortable. Where the PS Vita sacrificed bigger buttons for smaller form factor, the Nvidia Shield takes a lot of inspiration from the Xbox 360 controller. In fact, the left and right triggers feel identical to the Xbox 360 and, more or less, so does the d-pad. The one big difference from Microsoft's gamepad is the symmetrical analog sticks.%Gallery-188227%
Nvidia Shield launches in June for $350, pre-orders open May 20
Nvidia's Project Shield – now officially dubbed Nvidia Shield – will launch before the end of June for $349.99, Nvidia has announced. Pre-orders for the Tegra 4-powered Android handheld will open on May 20, through select online and brick-and-mortar retailers: New Egg, GameStop, Micro Center and Canada Computers. Those on Nvidia's Project Shield notification list can pre-order starting today. With the price and pre-order date, Nvidia announced five new games coming to the platform: Broken Age and Costume Quest from Double Fine, Flyhunter: Origins from Steel Wool Games, Skiing Fred from Dedalord Games and Chuck's Challenge from Chuck Sommerville's Niffler, who you may recall of Chip's Challenge fame. The Nvidia Shield is running Android 4.2.1, sports a 5-inch retinal display capable of 720p and has 16GB of internal storage, expandable through a SD card slot on the back. Other hardware features include a built-in mic and GPS, plus a mini-HDMI out in the back. The Shield is also capable of streaming games from your PC, granted you have a GTX 650 GPU or better in there. All Nvidia Shields will include two free games: Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 and Expendable: Rearmed. We'll have a hands-on video with the final Nvidia Shield and some impressions up soon.%Gallery-188227%
Burn Zombie Burn coming to Project Shield
Burn Zombie Burn, a dual-stick shooter released on PS3 and PC, will also be coming to Nvidia's Project Shield, the new Tegra-powered Android handheld device due around Q2.And this highlights the difficulty with covering weirdo devices like this one. When a game is said to be coming to Project Shield, that could mean a special Android version optimized for the device ... or it could technically mean the PC version can be streamed to the device. Which means that pretty much every PC game could have a similar announcement.In this case, it's a specialized Android version, although we suppose there would be nothing stopping you from streaming the PC version as well.
Project Shield getting 'Real Boxing' support
Vivid Games, publisher of mobile games such as Gyro, is lending its support to Nvidia's Tegra 4-powered Android handheld, Project Shield. Namely, Vivid Games will bring its iOS close-combat game Real Boxing to Android and include support for the system's physical controls.The boxing game first launched on iOS devices in November 2012, and included a career mode that tasked players with stat-boosting mini-games and over 30 fights for three different championship titles. Vivid Games doesn't have any information (such as a release date) listed for the port, but Project Shield is expected to ship in Q2 of this year.
The Daily Roundup for 01.07.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Nvidia unveils Android gaming handheld powered by 'world's fastest mobile processor'
Graphics powerhouse Nvidia is entering the portable gaming market with Project Shield, an Android handheld fitted with the company's newly unveiled quad-core Tegra 4 mobile processor. Shield, showcased by Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang at this year's CES, resembles a PS3 or Xbox 360 twin-stick controller but attached to a flip-top 5-inch 'retinal display' multitouch screen with 1280x720 HD resolution at 294 dpi. The Tegra 4 chip it contains, which Nvidia claims is the world's fastest mobile processor, offers effectively six times greater visual output than its Tegra 3 predecessor, as found in Microsoft Surface tablets. Nvidia tells our friends at Engadget that the device is expected to ship in Q2 of this year. One crucial factor which remains undisclosed is the price.Shield also has 38 watt hours of batteries, which translates into 5 to 10 hours of gameplay or 24 hours of HD video, and a bass reflex audio system with a greater signal-to-noise ratio than the iPhone 5. In addition to the standard audio jack, Shield has a microSD slot, a micro USB port, and an HDMI port that Huang demonstrated with an LG 4K resolution HDTV. Shield's 'console-grade' analog sticks are joined by a d-pad and a standard quartet of buttons, as well as triggers and bumpers.Huang also demonstrated a few games from Nvidia's Tegrazone store being played on the device, followed by a brief run of mega-mech battling in Hawken. Next, Huang detailed how Shield can wirelessly stream from a PC across a local network to Shield, using this to play Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Assassin's Creed 3 on the handheld. As Engadget reports, there was perceivably very little lag. The demo also showed Shield accessing Steam on the PC, with Huang underling the ease with which Big Picture Mode can be used via Shield to bring Steam games to HDTVs.You can watch the full CES demonstration of Project Shield on Nvidia's Twitch.tv page. It's roughly 40 minutes long, and begins at around the 2h02m mark.
