CES 2012: Razer's Project Fiona is a PC gaming tablet

Razer has announced its latest concept idea, with Project Fiona bringing a gaming tablet with an Intel Core i7 and bundled Hydra-style controllers to the hypothetical table.

Given that its Switchblade got us all hot under the collar last year but has yet to make an appearance, we're holding off on getting too excited by Project Fiona despite a suggestion that it could actually appear in the wild this year.

But the use of the Hydra controllers connected up to a PC gaming tablet certainly appeals – especially with some impressive suggested specs.

Intel Core i7

They include an Intel Core i7 processor – presumably the one being sported by the mass of Ultrabooks – and a 1280x800 display.

There are also magnetometer and accelerometers thrown in to take advantage of its mobility.

The dual-joysticks put us in mind of the upcoming PS Vita, although the PC gaming aspect has us dreaming of Skyrim on the go.

"Adapted from a full featured PC gamepad, Project Fiona's integrated dual controllers coupled with its advanced multi-touch screen are designed to make complex game navigation ergonomic and intuitive without compromising on the portability of the tablet," states Razer.

"You'll be able to carry out headshots and command troops in-game with ease. This first-of-its-kind PC gaming tablet with integrated dual controllers is definitely not for playing casual games about unhappy birds or zombie-killing flora."

So, okay, maybe we are a little excited – especially if the mooted £600 price tag proves to be accurate…

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--aGuXYo1rs

Introducing the Tizen Project

When Intel first announced its intentions to enter the smartphone space it needed an OS that demanded the additional silicon Intel was willing to invest in this market. With PCs Intel had Microsoft Windows, an OS that could seemingly always use more processing power. Newer versions of Windows helped Intel sell newer versions of its processors. There was no analog to that in the smartphone market when Intel first started making noise. It was software and styling, not SoCs that differentiated most Android smartphones early on. Obviously times are changing (hence Intel's recent public commitment to Google) but back then Intel needed a mobile OS that would demand greater performance from its SoCs. Intel settled on Moblin: a version of Linux originally intended to be deployed on mobile internet devices and netbooks.

Intel eventually partnered up with Nokia. With the partnership came a rebrand: Moblin got folded into MeeGo and was given support for smartphones and ARM architectures as well. Unfortunately, market pressure eventually caused Nokia to give up on MeeGo and move to Microsoft's Windows Phone platform. Nokia could have been successful with MeeGo but it's a tough job building up marketshare from scratch with a brand new, unproven OS. Nokia decided to do what it felt was best for the company, although the long term impact isn't incredibly clear.

Intel's close relationship with Nokia pushed away many of its other hardware partners. Nokia's abandonment of MeeGo left Intel alone. With Nokia gone and no other hardware vendors immediately eager to work with Intel, things had to change.

Intel embraced Android and wants to be a competitor in that space. Hardware vendors are back at the table and Intel is expected to finally have a design win in early 2012. I suspect Intel's focus will mostly be in smartphones and it will look to Windows 8 to be the tablet platform of choice.

Where does this leave MeeGo? Intel is focused almost entirely on Android for smartphones and with Nokia gone there really isn't a MeeGo anymore. As a result, the MeeGo Project is pretty much done with and the Linux Foundation has announced its successor: Tizen.

Tizen will pick up where MeeGo left off but with an increased emphasis on HTML5 development. Details are scarce but Tizen APIs are apparently much less rigid and designed explicitly with HTML5 in mind. There will be support for native code as well for applications that require it, but for most everyone else the path to success will be HTML5.

The Tizen project is based on Linux and will reside within the Linux Foundation. The OS is completely open source. Development is led by a technical steering team comprised of engineers from Intel and Samsung.

Why would Intel and Samsung support the Tizen project? To facilitate competition and offer a truly open alternative to Android, iOS and Windows Phone. The support of these two companies doesn't guarantee Tizen will be a success (nor is either likely counting on it), but markets tend to evolve differently when there are open competitors in the mix.

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TouchDroid Project Dies, But Work Continues on Touchpad Android Port

The TouchDroid project, which was created just weeks ago in the wake of HP's Touchpad liquidation sale, has already disbanded. The project's discontinuation stems not from technical problems but because of accusations of code theft by the CyanogenMod team, which has also been working to bring Android to HP's defunct tablet.

After the TouchDroid team posted a video showing off the Touchpad running a touch-enabled install of Android 2.3, the CyanogenMod team accused TouchDroid team members of stealing code from the CyanogenMod port and passing it off as their own. In the end, the TouchDroid team gave the CyanogenMod team credit for its work, posted a dump of what they had done up to that point and declared that the team was "no longer actively working on a port" of Android to the Touchpad.

Meanwhile, the CyanogenMod team's work continues, and appears to be going well - at this writing, the only major component that doesn't appear to be functioning in their port is wi-fi, and at this rate I'd expect that to be fixed soon. In the meantime, you can read the Android Police report for a full description of the chat transcripts, forum posts, and tweets through which this drama unfolded.

Source: Android Police

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F.E.A.R. Project Origin Mini-Review

Being a huge fan of F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon), and horror based shooters and and games in general, I was really looking forward to playing F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin. The reality of it though was I simply never got around to it up until about 2 months ago. I just did not have the time. Playing too many different games at once. Once I did play F.E.A.R. 2 though, I was quite upset with myself for letting it fall between the cracks. Something I will not let happen to F.E.A.R. 3 once it's released.

F.E.A.R. broke a lot of new ground and was simply a beautiful game to play and to look it. It was one of the few horror games I placed on the same pedestal as Doom, my all time favorite horror FPS game series. It actually felt like you were playing a movie. All you had to do was put on your headphones, crank them up, turn off the lights, and play! I must have played through F.E.A.R. a good half a dozen times since it was released. I also had a good deal of fun in its multiplayer.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin is simply a wonderful sequel and one that takes its story to a whole new level. It's more immersive, has more of a scare factor, impressive visuals and graphics that take of advantage of today's more powerful computers, and the gameplay is just fantastic. Once I started playing I did not want to stop.

Now I am not going to go too much into the story of the game since I don't want to ruin it for those who may not have played it yet. What I will say is kudos to Monolith and WB Interactive for a great story that have some awesome twists and turns and an ending that, I must say, I was not expecting.

This game is best enjoyed the same way as any good horror game or movie, alone in the dark, with the volume cranked up. This game has a very immersive environment, feels like a Hollywood action horror film, and has more "scary" moments that the original. Your going to run into Alma a lot more, and she is going to get a lot closer to you. Your also going to run into more supernatural activity that will pose more of a threat to you than it did in the original, and with the games updated engine, it looks very impressive. The new engine being the Lithtech Jupiter EX with modified Havoc Physics.

This game is a must for any fan of the series or fan of horror shooters in general. Even if you never played the original F.E.A.R. you can still get the idea of the story, and if you get lost, you can always just Google it. heh

This game actually has relatively low requirements considering what it puts out. Only listing a Pentium 4 2.8GHz or equivalent CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 256MB GeForce 6800 or Radeon X700 as the minimum needed to play. To be honest though, the game is a 1000x time better when it's played on a modern dual+ core system with a HD 4000 series video card or equivalent video card, and at least 2GB of RAM. That way you can crank it all up to max and really enjoy the game as it was intended.

I actually did record some of my gameplay and threw it all together in a video. It's nothing special, just a lot of gameplay. However, there are SPOILERS in the video so considered yourself WARNED. Do not watch this video if you do not wish to see any spoilers. It does contain the ending of the game!

• http://www.own3d.tv/video/25126/

The video would be embedded here in the blog entry, but at the moment, own3D seems to be having issues with their player and off-site streaming. As soon as it's corrected, I will embed the HQ video here.

Anyway, this is a fantastic game in just about every aspect, and one that will have me playing it again I am sure in anticipation of F.E.A.R. 3!



Rated: 10/10

NVIDIA's Project Kal-El: Quad-Core A9s Coming to Smartphones/Tablets This Year

NVIDIA just dropped a bombshell. Not only is its third generation Tegra architecture, codenamed Kal-El, back from the fab but it's up and running Android after only 12 days. Kal-El will begin sampling soon and NVIDIA claims you'll be able to buy tablets based on it in August of this year, with smartphones following before the end of the year. 

The SoC race just got a lot hotter, read on to find out what we know about Project Kal-El.

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