As already posted over at Gametactics, Microsoft are upgrading the Xbox 360′s controllers by allowing you to transform the D-Pad from a disk to a more raised cross.

The change happens with a simple twist, and apparently allows you for more defined 4 directional selection without accidentally selecting a diagonal direction unless you really want it to. Yes, some people are just picky. They also have taken the strange design decision of removing the colours from the buttons, instead requiring you to refer to the letters or remembering which one is the yellow and which is the blue. Major Nelson explains more with this video:

The US and Canada will get it from November 9th for $65, whilst Europe and anywhere else will get it early next year.

If you had your own giant robotic arm, a love for racing and way too much time and money on your hands, I’m sure you would do the same as the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. And by “The Same”, I mean “turn the robotic arm into the world’s most awesome arcade simulation of F1 Racing ever”. Cue the video:

It was developed in order to try and simulate proper F1 conditions without having to put millions of pounds worth of car onto an excessively expensive race track and risking life and limb. Really, I think it was more an excuse to be put on the end of a robotic arm and moved about, and quite frankly it’s not hard to imagine 8 of them networked together down the local arcade.

Now… what happens when you crash in-game…?

[IEEE Spectrum]

While we normally don’t post random YouTube links on Gametactics and then copy them over to TechMamba, this one caught our eye which claims that you can get an old lady to give you one heck of an earful and then she instantly kills you. The video claims it is from the PlayStation 3 version and is in the Underpass level.

Some comments on the Youtube video say they did it after a dozen tries only but we’ve pretty much calling this one fake.

Edit from Malcolm Owen: I don’t think this is a real bug. A quick search on Youtube turns up empty except for this video, the old lady that appears in-game shares her accent with the video makers, we can’t quite see whom gets the claim for the kill, and the video ends with a promotional URL featuring the word “film”. I have serious doubts that this is real…

Google have decided to up the possible resolution of YouTube to 4K video (That’s 4096 x 2304 pixels, or 8 times larger than my desktop) to support future high resolution cameras and higher bandwidth internet connections that we will have in the year 2525…

If you were to go to any of the videos on this playlist, you will be able to select “Original”, which is what Google got as the original resolution of the video. Of course, you can use it for lower resolutions than 4K which happen to be higher than 1080p, but no-one really cares about that.

You will have issues playing the video if you are on a slow connection (except if you can stand the buffering, in which case I suggest you get cable or DSL) and you will not be able to view the glorious full resolution version without a stupidly high end display setup (I dread to think the multi-screen layout some people will try to watch this) and your computer may balk at the idea of doing this much work, but if you feel brave (or at least want to see if your processor starts to die), then feel free to check out the playlist.

[YouTube Blog]

Microsoft formally named the Xbox 360′s motion controller without the Wiimote, dubbing it the “Kinect”. I’m sure there’s a decent marketing reason for it, but it doesn’t spring to mind immediately. Anyway, Justin managed to get a “Behind The Scenes” video of it from E3 which he posted on sister/brother/cousin site E3coverage.com

High Points – It makes a Skeleton, Voice Recognition and putting a ring on it.
Low Points – My bank manager suddenly feels the need to cry…

[E3coverage.com]

Swiss tech show “Einstein” has decided to answer the age old important question “Does the reorientation on the iPad and iPhone work whilst in a zero gravity environment?”

Yes, they chose to answer this earth-shatteringly important question by getting into the “Vomit Comet” (a plane following an elliptic trajectory to create moments of freefall, or a sense of no gravity in relation to immediate surroundings) and spinning the wonder-slate around to see what happens.

What seems to happen in the video is that it does respond maybe once to the force of the spin, but for the rest of the time it remains oblivious to where the floor should be.

Expect NASA to launch a Kindle to the ISS to see if books are still readable soon…

[via Padgadget]

UK broadcasting giant the BBC sent their reporters over to CES to see the latest and greatest in gadgetry. However, they ended up with more than they bargained for…

Firstly, they were given a demonstration on how indestructible a hard drive from iosafe was. It was set on fire, soaked, dropped and crushed by a digger, yet still allowed the data to be readable after a little extracting from the remains. Given the BBC’s own video and also reports elsewhere such as bit-tech.net, I’m pretty amazed it survived through all of that.

The Beeb’s second triumph was over another product billing itself as unbreakable: the XP3 2.0 from Sonim. They said that if anyone managed to break the phone at CES, they’d get one for free. Cue BBC reporter dunking it in a fish tank, then proceeding to introduce the screen to a fish tank for a few seconds. Amazingly, he broke it on camera, with the CEO standing right next to him. Props to Bob Plaschke for taking the bad news well, although in their favour, the phone probably got hammered by every technology journalist in the city, so the single failure is probably acceptable.

Wouldn’t mind getting one for those times I head home to the farm…

[BBC 1, 2 and bit-tech.net]