Filed under: Computers

When Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise’s ‘Minority Report’ conquered theaters in 2002, the tech community went wild, not over the special effects used to make Cruise seem less like a stark-raving looney tune, but over the futuristic, motion-controlled computer interface he used in a few of the movie’s key scenes.

Now, it seems were on the verge of making a million nerd dreams come true. At this week’s TechCrunch40 expo, an exclusive, invite-only gathering of 40 technology startups, a company named Extreme Reality showed off its 3-D Human Interface product. The software uses a simple everyday Web cam to translate your movements into on-screen controls such as zooming, tilting, panning and cursor movement.

The above video shows the technology being used to play video games and move windows around in Windows XP. Though not shown, the demo at TechCrunch40 also showed the software navigating Google Maps.

While the thought of flailing our arms around to control a Windows computer is definitely less than appealing, we’re salivating over the future that this technology promises to usher in.

From Crunch Gear

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• Sneak Peek at Next-Generation Surveillance
• The Future According to 1967
• Real Life ‘Back to the Future’ Tech!

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Panasonic has unveiled the HDC-SX5 and HDC-SD5 High Definition camcorders that are extremely portable. In fact, the latter has been dubbed the “smallest palm-style 3CCD full HD camcorder in the world”. Strangely enough, both devices don’t shoot 1080p, which leads me to wonder where the “full HD” compliment comes in. The HDC-SX5 is the cheaper of the two, and comes with a couple of recording choices - SD cards and regular DVDs. As for the slimmer HDC-SD5, it uses only SD memory cards as the storage medium of choice. The Panasonic HDC-SX5 and HDC-SD5 will retail for $900 and $1,000 respectively.

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Filed under: Gaming

Well, it didn’t take long for Microsoft’s Surface to trickle down into the fast-paced world of card gaming (ala Magic). Feast your eyes on the next device your children will be shoveling money into like it’s going out of style, a new Square Enix (makers of Final Fantasy) and Taito collaboration called The Wheel of Eternity. The card-based RPG appears to function much in the same way that Bill Gates described Surface’s object recognition properties as working, “sensing” cards which are placed on the game area, and reacting to their status, movement and arrangement. There’s no word on when or if this game is coming to the states, but with kids’ unnatural obsession with card games (particularly those of a Japanese ilk), it seems likely this will be popping up on these shores before long.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Videos and Screenshots

We’ve become so adjusted to expecting lovely almost-exposed breasts in our Soul Calibur IV stories, that the above Tokyo Games Show video of so many characters fully clothed is incredibly jarring. We expected Namco Bandai to show off in the video that the game would feature slow-mo stripping as the characters get hit. It’s actually worth noting that these are over-dressed. Come on, there has to be a clothing balance.

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…and not only that, but he’s put up a pretty funny youtube video (I know! I know. It’s a video.)

Unfortunately, it’s the only one he’s made. Now: google your friends from school! They might be off being clever behind your back!!

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Filed under: Deals, Rumors, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), Stocks to Buy, Cramer on BloggingStocks

Today’s important stories from TheStreet.com: You Ask, Cramer Answers, Cramer’s ‘Mad Money’ Recap: Three Must-Go CEOs.

How do you play Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) here? How do you play the takeover chatter and the earnings chatter — the so-called better-than-expected coming?

I would play it with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). The story on Yahoo!, from Pacific Crest, is an earnings story, the price of search going up — at least that’s how people are talking about the positive call. Believe me, if pricing is going up for Yahoo!, it must be soaring for Google.

Now, I also believe that Google’s hiring has slowed and the company is getting more rational. The departure of George Reyes as CFO might help, as he seemed to have no check whatsoever on the gross margins and head count. With revenue up and expenses even flat, you are going to have a monster hit with Google, which never really got crushed, even though the shorts told me over and over again that the quarter was awful.

As for the takeover chatter for Yahoo!? Now that eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) has moved up a great bit, a deal for Yahoo! makes a lot more sense than it did at $32 for EBAY and $30 for Yahoo!. Plus Yahoo! has all of that cash and securities on the balance sheet, which could translate into $11 a share.

Should they do it? Yes. Will they do it? I think they are finally on a roll, why muck it up?

So, bottom line — the way to play Yahoo! is Google!

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Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com’s sites and serves as an adviser to the company’s CEO. At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned.

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Filed under: Audio/Video, iPod

Details are scant, but Gizmodo is speculating that October 16th will see the launch of Microsoft’s Zune 2 media player, which is believed to be pictured above. Gizmodo claims to have obtained this image and information from a source who acquired it from Microsoft marketing materials.

Here’s what’s being predicted: There will be a hard-drive based Zune, just like the original, except in an 80-gigabyte size — a full 50-gigabytes meatier than its predecessor. You’ll browse your media using a “squircle” button instead of the original circular navigation button. Also arriving is a mini Zune, which uses flash memory for storage instead of hard drive, much like the iPod Nano. The smaller Zune is believed to be coming in four- and eight-gigabyte sizes.

On the surface, it doesn’t look like much has actually changed on the Zune. Let’s hope Microsoft has at least improved the player’s Wi-Fi capabilities, or Zune will become even more of a footnote than it already is.

From Gizmodo

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• Price Cut for Zune. Phone in the Works.
• Microsoft Sells One Million Zunes
• Make Money With Your Zune

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I wonder why Chinese manufacturers can’t seem to come up with designs of their own but instead want to copy existing form factors on the market and come out with something that would fool even the seasoned eye at a glance. The ONDA Honey VX878 looks suspiciously like the iPod Touch and comes with a 2.4″ 260k color touchscreen display and support for AVI, MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC, APE, TXT, LRC, JPG, and BMP media formats. A microSD memory card slot is available for you to store all your media, and battery life stands at 15 hours for continuous audio playback. The price? A mere $55 along with some embarassment as you place this beside the real iPod Touch.

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PlayStation 3’s social MMO Home has been delayed until Spring 2008, according to Kaz Hirai during the Tokyo Game Show press conference. A previous progress report from an anonymous beta tester gave the indication that development was behind schedule, so we’re not too surprised. However, we would love to know if any updates have been implemented in the last month, if anyone in the notoriously secretive beta would like to speak up.

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