Google invests $12 million in the unofficial VR app store SideQuest
Google Ventures shakes hands with an unofficial alternative to the Meta Store.
Game over for Google’s streaming game service Stadia
Google abruptly shuts down Stadia. (Source: Google) Google is shutting down Stadia, its cloud gaming service that it launched in 2019. The service will remain live for players until January 18, 2023. Google said it will refund all Stadia hardware, software, and add-on content purchased from the Stadia store and Google Store. The company expects those refunds will be … Read more
Online gaming has been coming; has it arrived?
We’re working remotely, playing remotely, and changing the computer landscape. Most digital gaming is an all or nothing proposition: you win, you lose and you blame your equipment. Now, some kinds of gaming are getting to be even more like real life. It’s still win and lose but people will be blaming some entity in the cloud instead of a … Read more
Google doubles down on Stadia; expands its catalog
It’s a big season for gaming news. As it turns out, pandemic season is always a big season for gaming news. Google, not always the most communicative of companies, has made an impressive effort to clarify the options for its Stadia gaming platform and along the way is in the process of relaunching Google Chrome. Stadia has emerged as a … Read more
Can LetinAR deliver lightweight consumer glasses?
If AR glasses are ever to become common accessories for daily life and work, they are going to have to be lightweight, comfortable, and indistinguishable from prescription or sunglasses. For those glasses to be really useful, they’re going to have to be powerful—able to deliver a blended view of digital information with the real world. LetinAR, a Korean company, says … Read more
2019 Game Tech Review
There was one thing that was truly revolutionary in gaming in 2019, the Google Stadia launch.
What if we all recorded each other all the time?
What if everything you said and did and everything you saw and heard was recorded? What if everybody you encountered was recording as well? Do you think you or they would behave differently? The idea has been posited by science fiction writers including William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Bruce Sterling to name a few favorites and by contemporary commentator Shoshana Zuboff in her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.
Google’s IBC 2019 keynote: YouTube has changed media forever
The European head of YouTube, Cecile Frot-Coutaz gave Google’s keynote presentation at IBC 2019. Six longstanding broadcast industry organizations which include standards bodies, professional engineering representatives, trade associations, and research organizations manage the IBC. They are the IABM (broadcast and media suppliers), BTS (IEEE Broadcast Technology Society), the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology), the Royal Television Society, the SCTE … Read more
The death of text: new announcements from Google I/O
The weather wasn’t the best, but they came to learn. Developers at Google I/O learned that security is the new cool. (Source: Google) It’s been clear for a long time that Google doesn’t see itself as the company that helps people find things. Not anymore, at Google I/O, Sundar Pichai told the audience that Google wants to be the … Read more
Facebook, Google, HP, and Varjo’s new VR headsets
Facebook now offers three Oculus VR head-mounted display (HMD) systems, a revamped Rift S, all-in-one portable Go, and the latest, a gaming HMD, the Quest. Facebook’s VR HMDs For reference, a can of tomato soup weighs about 350 g so wearing a VR HMD would be like strapping one and a half cans of soup to your head, how long would … Read more
Imagination Technologies NNA Update
Imagination technologies have given us a more detailed look at how its PowerVR Series 2NX inferencing accelerator benefits from the variable bit depth quantization that is its unique feature. The AX 2185 core is the only one of these accelerators (as well as the later generation Series 3 devices) that we know to have been put into production; an IMG … Read more
Google Pixel Visual Core
In a world where much of the burden of smartphone differentiation rests on the quality of the camera, Google’s otherwise unremarkable Pixel 2 has been praised as one of the best cameras out there. This distinction comes in part from the inclusion of the Google-designed ‘Pixel Visual Core,’ a companion chip intended to “make it so your Snapchat pictures don’t … Read more