A look at gadget, game and geek happenings in the week ahead.
Microsoft welcomes Kinect hacks, says it’s “open by design”
In spite of the company’s previous claims that it did not approve of Kinect hacking, Microsoft representatives have said the Kinect was left “open by design.”
According to a tweet by Science Friday, Xbox director of incubation Alex Kipman and Shannon Loftis spoke of how they now encouraged people to hack into the Kinect to find new ways of using it.
“Alex Kipman says Kinect interface was left unprotected ‘by design.’ Shannon Loftis says she’s ‘inspired’ by community finding new uses,” read the tweet.
This was in spite of the company telling CNET that it did not “condone the modification of its products” and that the Kinect was built in with “numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering.”
The email was a response to a challenge by open-source hardware group Adafruit, which offered $3,000 to users who could come up with a hack for the Kinect.
‘Angry Birds’ developers talk Android fragmentation
Rovio, the app developer of the highly popular ‘Angry Birds’ mobile game, has now said it has had some difficulties bringing it to Android devices.
Speaking in a blog post, the company has said that despite their efforts, they have been “unsuccessful in delivering optimal performance” when bringing ‘Angry Birds’ to Android devices.
“We are aware that a number of our fans have had trouble running the game on their devices,” Rovio said.
“For example, some older and lower performance Android devices are experiencing severe performance issues.”
Phones which faced these difficulties include the HTC Wildfire, the Motorola Backflip and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini.
Rovio has said it is developing a “lighter solution” for users to run ‘Angry Birds’ on lower-end Android phones and noted it would be lighter in terms of processing power as opposed to having less content.
Sony Ericsson boss suggests games phone reveal – PlayStation Phone?
The CEO of Sony Ericsson has told The Wall Street Journal it may be developing a games-oriented phone with a slide-out controller, suggesting it could be about to reveal the much-rumoured PlayStation Phone.
In the interview, Sony Ericsson chief executive Bert Nordberg said he was aware there was speculation the company would create a smartphone with greater gaming capabilities.
“There’s a lot of smoke, and I tell you there must be a fire somewhere,” said Nordberg.
“Sony has an extremely strong offering in the gaming market, and that’s very interesting.”
The product may also be a phone under the Sony Ericsson brand. Nordberg said the product could be revealed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February.
