During the Develop conference (via Eurogamer), Sony Europe R&D manager Phil Rogers outlined some possible interactions between the PlayStation Vita and the PS3. The systems are already known to share saves across compatible games, and share some interoperable games like Wipeout 2048, but Rogers discussed some other capabilities, including some not yet seen in Vita/PS3 interaction.

"PS3 can send data down to Vita and Vita can display it," he said. "You could use the unique features [of Vita] - gyroscope, touch front and back - as a control device for a PS3 game." In what could be a veiled dig at the Wii U, he also said that because you can have games running on both systems, each using its own processor, "You're not sacrificing the PS3's CPU to be able to have a rich experience on Vita."

At launch, the Vita will have some cross-platform features, including scoreboards and PSN user data. "For launch we'll also have Remote Play, which does look good on Vita - I saw an early version of it running recently." Remote Play, also available on the PSP right now, allows video of compatible titles to be streamed from the PS3 for play on the PSP. Continuation Play, through which a game can be saved on one platform and played on the other, will also be available early on. The first known game to use that is Ruin.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/02/so...play-together/ ...

Mobile malware is nothing new, especially for Android users who have trained themselves to navigate the sometimes shady back alleys of the Market. The fine folks at CA Technologies came across an interesting new trojan though, that does something slightly more unnerving than max out your credit cards -- it records your conversations. There's no evidence that this has actually found its way into the wild yet, but it's entirely possible that some nefarious developer could capture your calls and upload them to a remote server. Obviously, this wouldn't hold much interest for your traditional cyber crook, but suspicious significant others and corporate spies could have a field day with such capabilities. All we can do is suggest you remain vigilant and maintain a healthy dose of paranoia about any apps on your phone.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/02/n...our-embarrass/ ...

How to get a hefty new hard drive for your Mac without making your other gadgets jealous? Iomega is offering up a solution with the fairly elegant Mac Companion Hard Drive, a two or three terabyte external drive designed with Apple computers in mind that adds a high-powered charging port for your peripherals. The drive also packs additional USB and FireWire ports (no Thunderbolt, guys?), plus a set of four LEDs, which let you know how full it is with a glance. The drives are available via Apple at $195 and $295, for 2TB and 3TB, respectively.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/02/i...ge-and-a-fill/ ...

Nintendo's 3DS takes on Apple's iPad 2 in the 2011 T3 Gadget Awards' Commuter Gadget of the Year category.

The shortlist for the awards has been revealed and has Kinect, Move and Nintendo's handheld competing in the Gaming Gadget category.

Apple sees 15 nominations in T3's shortlist, but is trumped by 18 nods for Google and its Android operating system.

Samsung comes in third with eight spots on the shortlist, while Sony picks up six.
Apple's iPad 2 is up for six gongs, including overall Gadget of the Year, and faces off against Amazon's Kindle for Commuter Gadget of the Year.

Nintendo 3DS is in the running for four awards.

Luke Peters, Editor of T3, said of the shortlist: "This year's voting was incredibly tight in most categories. However, the T3 readers and judges are a discerning, knowledgeable bunch and have selected an excellent shortlist of products that span the entire consumer technology industry."

Winners of the T3 Gadget Awards 2011 will be revealed at the awards ceremony at Old Billingsgate, London on Monday 10 October 2011.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...t-awards-2011/ ...

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary's Kinect functionality isn't going to be something to write home about, if comments from 343 Industries franchise development director Frank O'Connor are anything to go by.

"I don't think it's going to be something that people need to be hyper-excited about," he told OXM. "It'll be cool, but it's not something you'd put on the front of the box.

"I don't want to downplay it," he added, "but I think of it like this - I use voice on Netflix and it's awesome, and that's what this'll be. Something that enhances you overall experience."

O'Connor also reiterated that Kinect support won't "in any way, affect the core gameplay".

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...yper-exciting/ ...

If you've been thinking of changing your Xbox Live Gamertag now is the time to do it.

The latest XBL deal of the week offer enables Gold subscription members to alter their online handle for 560 Microsoft Points (about £4.80), representing a 30 percent saving on the regular price.

You can change it via the Gamertag option in the My Xbox section of the console's dashboard. There's no need to tell your friends either as their friends list will automatically update with your new name.

Microsoft told CVG last week that Xbox Live's last 12 months were its biggest ever in terms of recruiting new members to the service.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...your-gamertag/ ...

EA Sports boss Peter Moore has said good old-fashioned retail remains "a very strong partner" despite today's announcement of an EA Sports 'Season Ticket' subscription service which heavily focuses on digitally distributed content.

Launching today for PS3 and Xbox 360 in North America, and for Xbox 360 only in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, it offers subscribers early digital access to full games, 20 percent off DLC, free premium web content and other features for $24.99 / 2000 MS Points (about £17.30) a year.

It could be seen as the first major step away from retail distribution methods for EA, but Moore insists retail remains important to EA Sports.

"With regards to our ability to look at this as a full service... we still see retail as a very strong partner here," said Moore in chat with Industry Gamers. "There are still millions of people who go through the doors of the GameStops of this world every single day and they're the core consumer we're looking at."

He went on: "But we're going to learn a lot in the next 12 months. This is about understanding what the consumer likes, understanding the price points so we can do some price elasticity testing on this and making sure what we're delivering is what the consumer wants... we'll see how we evolve this program in the coming years."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...trong-partner/ ...

If you play multiple games via Valve's Steam service, you'll have probably noticed it repeatedly installing what would appear to be the same version of DirectX over and over again. Annoying, right? Blame Microsoft.

Valve has pointed the finger in a lengthy explanation of why Steam is required to perform these repeated installs, pissing off PC users obsessed with running a streamlined OS in the processes.

"There are over 40 different versions of the D3DX library for D3D9 alone, and many more for D3D10 and 11 as well. Each game that uses the D3DX helper library is linked to a specific version," said Valve (thanks Destructoid).

"We can't stop, it's required due to a bad versioning/packaging scheme as well as bad redistribution licensing terms on the D3DX libraries," they added, but said there are small changes Steam can make to improve the situation.

"Steam could be smart enough to know if an exactly matching version of the dx installer is already downloaded and share that content so you don't download it with each game," they said, but went on to admit that "any improvement to avoid duplicates isn't an immediate priority, but we may be able to improve it slightly in the future".

Here's the full statement for those of you who want the nitty gritty details:

"Running [the DX installer] is not a matter of making sure your overall DirectX install being up-to-date. Microsoft has a helper library with D3D called D3DX. You'll find binaries for this like d3dx9_43.dll in your Windows\system32 folder. There are over 40 different versions of the D3DX library for D3D9 alone, and many more for D3D10 and 11 as well. Each game that uses the D3DX helper library is linked to a specific version. As such the game must run the correct D3D installer version that it was specifically compiled with to ensure the binaries exist. Even if a later version of the binary is already installed, that version cannot be used, and even if your DirectX install is up-to-date because you've run a more recent version of the installer that is not guaranteed to have installed all previous versions. Even worse, if a version is installed for x86 it doesn't guarantee the same version is installed for x64, so 64 bit and 32 bit games may need to run the same exact installer version but targeting different platforms when run.

"Furthermore, Microsoft's licensing terms prevent anyone from distributing the files directly, the only way to distribute them is to run the installer, that's also the only supported method from Microsoft to check that the correct version installed. Trying to manually check for the correct versions is extremely complicated because there are numerous files that must all be present and individual system configuration options like dll search paths complicate the situation.

"In addition, the dependencies and required checks may change in each new version of the D3DX runtime. The code to check correctly and repair broken installs all exists in the installer and running it is a guarantee that the correct binaries will exist when you run the game and prevents lots of bad cases where a game would fail to launch with an obscure error if a windows install was either missing the correct version or somehow corrupted in the past.

"Games which don't use the D3DX helpers (such as Source engine games) don't require running the annoying installer on first launch as they only depend on major d3d9/10/11 versions being installed. However, games that do use D3DX must run it as it's the only way Microsoft has allowed for distributing and checking the version info on the files.

"So that's why we do it for lots of game installs. We can't stop, it's required due to a bad versioning/packaging scheme as well as bad redistribution licensing terms on the D3DX libraries.

"The one thing that could be made better on our side is that Steam could be smart enough to know if an exactly matching version of the dx installer is already downloaded and share that content so you don't download it with each game. Since the installer is relatively small compared to most game installs that wouldn't be a huge win though and requires a good deal of new complexity for partners in how they package up their games and manage installation dependencies.

"You'd also still end up with lots of different versions of the installer, since as discussed above they are often targeting different D3DX versions and as such are all required. As such any improvement to avoid duplicates isn't an immediate priority, but we may be able to improve it slightly in the future."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...t-dx-installs/ ...

"At the end of July 2011, Microsoft can say that Windows XP finally fell below the 50 percent mark. In other words, Redmond's decade-old operating system is now used by less than half of all Internet users."

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/08...Falls-Below-50 ...