DATUM Mar. 2014 | Page 14

Datum 2014 Five Technologies That Will Change the Future of Gaming THENDRAL .J.P B.Sc CT (G1) - IV Everyone's seemingly squirming under the pressure to introduce the next great leap in interactivity, but a handful of engineers and developers have already made serious headway towards reinventing the way we'll play games in the years to come. Here are five of the most promising and revolutionary technologies that may one day find their way into our PCs, consoles, and mobile devices. LEAP MOTION CONTROLLER The Leap Motion Controller may share a few similarities with Microsoft's Kinect, but its form factor and approach to gesture controls are quite different. It's small, reasonably priced at $69.99 and designed to track minute finger or stylus movements at a threshold of .01 millimeters. Though the Kinect is capable of tracking your entire body, its strict lighting and relative-orientation requirements are a major turnoff for most customers, and in turn, developers. Leap Motion's tech eliminates these barriers, and while it may only capture hand/finger movements in its current form, that in itself is an invaluable capability rife with potential. Most Leap Motion demos take place at a desk in front of a PC monitor, but there's no reason the designers couldn't simply extend the cable or implement wireless functionality to adapt it to consoles and coffee tables. EYE TRIBE Eye Tribe's goal is to integrate hands-free controls into devices such as cell phones, tablets, and feasibly, gaming devices like the 3DS or Vita. While tracking retina movements isn't groundbreaking in itself, it has generally been too expensive for consumers and too large for manufacturers to embed in their products. Eye Tribe was more than happy to upend these notions at CES 2013, demoing its external and embedded retina-tracking solutions running on Windows 8 tablets. In the video above, CNET's Bridget Carey takes on Fruit Ninja, deftly slicing citrus and berry alike. Retina tracking may not be suitable for every type of game, but once the tech establishes itself as a must-have bullet point for hardware manufacturers, it's only a matter of time before we start to see new game types and mechanics designed around its unusual functionality. 10