The New Xbox Experience That Almost Was [Nxe]

Design studio Gridplane was hired by Microsoft to come up with a new user interface for the Xbox 360 (what eventually became dubbed The New Xbox Experience). Here is their work. Many screens look like little more than an enlarged, green-filtered version of the original 360 dashboard, but the company developed an "immersive 3D environment" (probably seen in that first shot) to navigate much of the system. My favorite screen is actually the simplest—where all of your games span your television. Screw the folks with tiny displays who'd have to squint. I have a big TV.


[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]

Don't snag your ball on the spikes in Scriball - Time Waster

As with a lot of good Time Wasters, the concept behind Scriball isn't rocket surgery (to quote Don Cherry). Your goal is the green circle, and your mission is to guide the yellow ball onto it.
Things are complicated ever-so-slightly by your means of locomotion. You've got two ways to make the ball move: click to jump or draw a line by dragging your mouse.
See how long the line is in the screenshot? That's about all you get to work with. Imagine guiding the yellow ball by dragging around an overcooked spaghetti noodle two inches long, and you have the general idea. Getting the hang of Scriball's physics can be a wee bit frustrating, but it doesn't spoil the fun.
I'm sure you can guess from looking, but here's a quick PSA: just like in real life, keep your ball away from the spiky things. They'll make your ball explode.

[Via: Download Squad ]

2eleven introduces souped-up foosball table

It's not quite as elaborate as some foosball tables we've seen, but this new rig from 2eleven will no doubt attract its fair share of attention nonetheless and, unlike some of those other units, it's actually pre-built. While there doesn't seem to be a complete breakdown of all its intricacies, the table does come equipped with some LED score displays, a pair of LCD displays apparently intended to display advertisements, an automatic ball lift mechanism and, yes, cup holders. Of course, those accommodations for ads would seem to suggest that this one isn't exactly intended for home use, but we're guessing at least a few folks out there will find a way around that.

[Via: Be Sportier ]

Sony ushers in change, hope with upcoming PS3 2.60 firmware update

Sony just dropped some details on its upcoming 2.60 firmware update for the PS3. The big thrust of the update is a new Photo Gallery app, which can sort by various EXIF data, but also the actual content of the image itself, including colors used, number of people in the photo, how old they are, and facial expressions they used when you pulled out your powdered-blue Kodak to take a few historical snapshots. Naturally you can build slideshows with music and the like. Sony's also adding with this update guest access to the PlayStation Store and DivX 3.11 support. If that's not enough magic to get you riled up, Sony's also pushing out a PSP update, firmware 5.03 that addresses "security vulnerabilities" (we wonder what that could be?) and some stability issues. There's a video walkthrough of the PS3 update after the break.



[Via: Engadget ]