Week In Gaming - Week of November 6, 2011

Another week, another set of gaming news, so let’s jump right into things!

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Enable Hulu on the HP Touchpad

When the HP Touchpad first launched, many people were excited to learn that Hulu was fully functional on the device. Unfortunately, soon after HP started the Touchpad firesale Hulu blocked access. Thankfully, the webOS community has rallied together and released a patch to once again enable Hulu access on the Touchpad. A jailbroken or rooted HP Touchpad running webOS 3.0.2 is required to install "Hulu Fix."

YouTube

The Microsoft Kinect's Impact and Future

 Microsoft's Kinect attachment for the Xbox 360 was a very anticipated gadget of the holiday season, that had a lot of money put into it. Microsoft had created extensive and enormous advertisements for the Kinect. Every since the demonstration of the Kinect at E3 there has been ample amount of hype put into it. Some critics believed that is was destined for failure and a waste of money. Others thought it was just another Wii. Personally I had no idea what to think. 

 Being a geek, the concept of full body motion tracking liberated excitement in me. Then a part of me could never imagine of playing a video game without a controller in my hand. Of course I had to test this out for myself. I walked into a Best buy later that week to see the Kinect in all of its makeup. 

I must say that the Kinect instantly immersed me with its simple but yet so intuitive user interface. Almost like they only got it right with the Xbox and not the PC. But that is a whole other topic.

Even though I was just playing their basic Kinect Adventures game, it still amazed me with the full body tracking concept. I was actually breaking a sweat in the game. The games were not very complicated, but did not have to be. I had water seeping in places that I was not use to and balls flying all over my body.

The Kinect had graphics that absolutely killed the Wii and overall game play that was ten times better than the PS3 Move.

As for the critics, they were absolutely amazed with what the Kinect was capable of. It only took a few weeks for developers to come out with custom software for their computer that the Kinect was attached to. This software did a variety of things like using it to direct the blind, flying a robot that could maneuver through obstacles, operate a moveable recliner chair that utilized the upper body for gestures.

The Kinect has proven to be much more than a simple accessory for the Xbox 360. The advanced technology built within the sensor itself can provide the grounds for many new dynamic innovations to come. Once the Kinect's SDK beta comes out May 16th, who knows what developers will do.