A company called Tactical Haptics demonstrated their new device at GDC 2013 last month. The company was founded by Professor William Provancher earlier this year for the purpose of commercializing haptic feedback technologies. The device, called Reactive Grip, uses four moving sliders on the handle to simulate certain feelings and movements while the user is holding it. For example, when shooting a gun in-game, the sliders move in such a way that the user feels kickback from the gun. When swinging a morning star around their head, the sliders move in such a way that the user can feel the grip twisting…

With over 70 million consoles sold since it was unveiled in May, 2005, the Xbox 360 is one of the most popular game consoles ever created. Many of the fans of the Microsoft gaming device are diehards which is why anticipation of the successor, the Xbox 720, has been building up for years. Rumors, both good and bad, have been circulating for some time, but as the anticipated launch is right around the corner, some of them are starting to become more clear. Here’s a roundup of the five persistent rumors that seem to hold the most credibility. 1. Xbox Live Microsoft’s online multiplayer and digital distribution…

The Pez is strong with this one. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about true geeks over the years, it’s that they love Star Wars in any form. Our patience was tested to its fullest with the most recent trilogy, but we did not waver for very long. Disney and JJ Abrams give us hope, a new hope, so to speak, but until we go through another round of tests of our trust in the Star Wars universe, we have these flash drive Pez dispensers around to keep us busy. According to BitRebels: Another example are these super geeky Star Wars Pez Dispensers that are modded to include a flash drive inside. Etsy artist DHHdesign…

Sony started teasing a big event that they’ll be hosting on February 20th. Much of the blogosphere is buzzing that it may be the announcement of the PlayStation 4. If so, this could be the move that Sony has needed to make for a while. It isn’t that the old platform is outdated. At just over 6 years old, the PlayStation 3 is still technically the state of the art when it comes to pure console play. The Nintendo and Microsoft counterparts have had their share of interesting developments such as the Wii U and Kinect, but neither has been enough to really distance themselves from the competition. Sony has…

Clever. Tasty. Creepy. Hot Pop Factory has been able to make a name for itself by generating creative pieces of jewelry using 3D printers. Now, they’ve used a neat hack with Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect system to scan a person’s head, print it out on a 3D printer, and put it on the top of a Pez dispenser. If you’ve ever wanted to distribute candy through a hole beneath a figure of your head on a stick, this is the way to do it. Check out the video of how they scan the heads through Kinect and some images of the finished results:  …

Play Angry Birds with chop sticks. Browse web pages without a mouse or touchscreen. Sign a document within 1 centimeter with pinpoint accuracy. These are just the tip of the possibilities iceberg for Leap Motion, the gesture-control technology unveiled today in the video below. The San Francisco startup says you can “Say goodbye to your mouse and keyboard.” The accuracy of the device may make that claim a reality for some considering that it’s reportedly 200 times more accurate than anything on the market today and can track the movements of all ten fingers inside a 4-cubic-foot space down to…

It could be a play to increase the number of Internet Explorer users. It could be a differentiator between them and Playstation. It could be both. Either way, Xbox 360 users may soon have a Kinect-driven full version of Internet Explorer available to them for full web browsing in between games of Call of Duty. By applying voice and gesture control, Kinect integration may have people surfing the web while waving wildly and screaming madly. There is no time frame laid out at this point, but expect to hear something before E3 in June. Related articles Rumor: Kinect-enabled Internet Explorer browser…

With any payment plan, you will likely pay more than you would if you bought the product up front. That’s the case with the latest offer from Xbox, but don’t expect people to shy away from the deal that includes a $99 Xbox 360 bundle with Kinect. To get the deal, one will need to sign a 2-year agreement for Xbox Live at $14.99 a month. This makes the total package come to $459 spread out over 3 years. By contrast, if someone paid $299 for the standalone Xbox 360 + Kinect and prepaid for 2 years of Xbox live for $120, they would spend $419. There are bargains available on both the bundle (we found one for $259) and…

The designers at Loft117 and programmer Jason Belmonti have teamed up to tap the Kinect for something that has been suspiciously absent from its ever-growing palette of applications: advertising. Behold the slick, stylish, and interactive ad potential exhibited in this installation, and marvel at what the future might bring. Would you stop and spend more time in front of an ad if you could control the action? Would a slammin’ soundtrack and kaleidoscopic visuals help? I think we can agree that the answer to both questions is a crystal-clear, resonant ‘most likely’. …

I suppose we should have expected it. Those of us who have dreamed of battling as a Jedi with real lightsabers have been waiting for a virtual version (so that we don’t chop off our own arms, of course). Microsoft appears to have attempted to oblige us at E3 with their initial release of a demonstration of next year’s release. While some would say that they “can’t wait,” I’ll have to pass until a better version is made available. It looks bad. It looks boring. It looks like a game that will be a novelty for an hour or less and then retired forever. Here are a couple of videos – the official release and YouTube…