control

E3 2012: Year of the second screen with Xbox Smart Glass and Wii U

Get ready to get your game on. E3 has begun:

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, called E3 for short, has kicked off. It's the big video game conference of the year, and even though the show has just begun, it looks like this is the year of the second screen. Both the Wii U and the Xbox 360 are showing off ways to tie tablet screen interaction with what's on the television, creating a richer game and entertainment experience. You can catch all our continuing coverage of the show at cnet.com/e3.

Nintendo's press conference isn't … Read more

Nintendo unveils new Wii U GamePad

Nintendo unveiled a new Wii U GamePad today that sports a near-field communications reader and that can be used as a TV remote.

The new game console tablet features a 6.2-inch touch-sensitive screen and a fully independent infrared TV remote, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata revealed during a streamed presentation (see below) in advance of this week's E3 game conference. Known mostly for use in electronic wallets, the NFC technology in the GamePad will be able to read and write data from cards and figures.

"Some people will wonder if Wii U is a simple evolution of Wii … Read more

Facebook bulks up admin access with new privilege levels

Facebook is giving page administrators more muscle in deciding how things get done on their pages.

The social network has introduced five different levels of admin privileges, allowing companies to assign specific duties and permissions to individuals without giving everyone all the keys to the page.

A Facebook help center page published today describes the new roles of manager, content creator, moderator, advertiser, and insights analyst:

These updates are geared toward businesses, so that more than one person can work on social media but a primary administrator can still be in charge of who is doing what. Before now, companies … Read more

New windows lost between desktops in OS X

Apple's multidesktop setup in OS X (called Spaces in OS X 10.6 and 10.5, and Mission Control in Lion) is a feature that allows you to place the windows of applications on different desktops for better workflow organization. Part of this feature is an assignment option where you can set a program to always open windows on a specific desktop, which can be an easy way to keep groups of applications organized. While this works for the most part, sometimes errors in this setup can occur, such as windows appearing off the side of a given desktop … Read more

For Silicon Valley VC, a Leap from great advice to big rewards

SAN FRANCISCO--Sitting in the windowless basement level of a nondescript building in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, Andy Miller is doing one of his most essential -- and rewarding -- jobs: helping smart and talented, but young and inexperienced, entrepreneurs navigate the crucial steps needed to move their new company forward. After all, great technology can only get you so far. It takes great business strategy and decisions to build a truly successful company.

Miller, a general partner at Highland Capital Partners who once reported directly to Steve Jobs as Apple's vice president of mobile advertising, is seated … Read more

Leap Motion: 3D hands-free motion control, unbound

Hands-free motion control, a technology pioneered by Nintendo's Wii and later improved upon by Microsoft's Kinect, just took a very big leap forward. Industries from gaming to surgery to architecture, engineering, and design may never be the same.

With the unveiling today of its Leap 3D motion control system, a San Francisco startup called Leap Motion has, well, leapfrogged the state of the art in this young field, giving users the ability to control what's on their computers with hundredth of a millimeter accuracy and introducing touch-free gestures like pinch-to-zoom.

Leap, which comprises both a small USB … Read more

Paralyzed woman moves robotic arm using thought alone

By implanting a 96-electrode sensor the size of a baby aspirin onto the surface of their brains, researchers have enabled two quadriplegic participants to use their thoughts alone to perform tasks with two types of robotic arms.

The BrainGate implant -- and the resulting Jedi mind tricks -- may be sort of anxiety-producing to some. But the smile on the face of the woman who hadn't been able to serve herself coffee in 15 years put a fine point on the progress the technology is affording.

"One of our participants was able to do something that, when all … Read more

Netflix's video player gets revamped

Netflix began rolling out a new fandangled video player for PCs today. Besides beefing up the playback with added options, information, and video accessibility, the video service also redesigned the control bar to be more user-friendly.

There are a handful of notable new features to the video playback. First, the control bar has different options that include access to subtitles, previews of the next episode, and previews to the whole season (if users are watching a TV show). If users click on the previews to the whole season, a box will pop-up that lets them watch previews from within the … Read more

Microsoft bolsters parental controls with Windows 8

Microsoft aims to give parents more control over their children's computer use on Windows 8 with a new feature announced this week.

"With Windows 8, you can monitor what your kids are doing, no matter where they use their PC," Microsoft's senior program manager for Family Safety Phil Sohn wrote in a blog post. "All you have to do is create a Windows user account for each child, check the box to turn on Family Safety, and then review weekly reports that describe your children's PC use."

With these controls and weekly reports, … Read more