In Michael Lewis’ excellent nonfiction book Flash Boys, about the world of high-frequency trading, millisecond advantages translate into millions of dollars. Not quite as much money is at stake in the world of competitive online gaming, but as anyone who has even played a casual game of Fortnite will know, gaming rewards reaction times. The faster, the better.
To help with this, a Canadian startup called Brink Bionics has developed a device called the Impulse Neuro-Controller, which can, it claims, detect mouse clicks before your finger has even clicked the button in question.
It does this via a fingerless, sensor-sporting glove that’s reminiscent of the iconic Nintendo Power Glove from the 1980s. It can reportedly pick up on the electrical signals sent by a person’s muscles as they start to contract at the advent of a mouse click. This information is then processed by special software and interpreted by your gaming rig as a click. In doing so, it can save a reported 80 milliseconds of clicking time.
“This is the first time that the human nervous system has been leveraged to optimize performance for gaming and e-sports in real time,” creator Erik Lloyd told Digital Trends. “It’s the first step toward futures portrayed in games like Deus Ex or Cyberpunk, where you can walk into a store and purchase technologies that can optimize your natural abilities through neural interfaces.”
Lloyd said that Impulse changes the way peripherals operate, transforming them from reactive devices that respond to mechanical movements to proactive ones that respond to intentions. He likened the gaming advantage as being equivalent to jumping from a 30 frames-per-second (fps) monitor to a 60 fps one.
For those interested in getting their hands on Impulse, there’s an Indiegogo campaign that lets people pledge their cash to secure a unit. While there was a Kickstarter campaign late last year, Lloyd said they set up the Indiegogo for “anyone who missed our initial campaign.” The units are advertised at $177 Canadian dollars, approximately $140 U.S.
As with any crowdfunding campaign, you’ll want to be aware of the risks inherent ahead of ordering. But, if you do, shipping is estimated to take place in May 2021.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.