Last year, Gibson Guitar Inc. filed a suit against Activision's Guitar Hero for allegedly violating patent rights. About a year later today, a U.S. District Court in the Central District of California has finally given out its decision, holding that the music game franchise does not infringe on a 1999 Gibson patent, which simulates musical performance using a 3D headset display and stereo speakers. Read more in the full article.

It was roughly a few weeks ago that Emotiv was able to introduce their EPOC neuroheadset to the whole world.

Now we got wind that the company is looking for candidates to be the beta evaluators for upcoming brain-controlled gadget. Find out the details after the jump!

Gamers who are looking for a unique perspective into their video gaming habits will definitely get a kick out of Emotiv Systems' Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset. This unique gaming accessory allows you to control in-game characters using the neuron signals transmitted by your brain. Other details about this neat gadget can be found in the full article after the jump.

Headplay is probably every couch potato's dream. Imagine a TV. Now imagine being able to take it anywhere and everywhere you go (except perhaps in the shower), and being able to watch movies or play games on it anytime you want. That's the concept for the new "Personal Cinema System" device, Headplay.

Headplay is a head-mounted device; basically, a TV you wear on your head. You can connect it to your gaming consoles, your DVD Player, your iPod, your PC, and maybe your Betamax player if it hasn't choked on dust yet. If it has a video out function, Headplay can most probably display it. You can also plug in a memory stick and Headplay can run the media files - movies, videos, and images - with its own built-in player.

Once you're behind the lenses of Headplay it's pretty easy to just relax and go dead to the world around you. It's nothing but you and the screen, with the stereo sounds blocking off everything else. It's like your own movie screen inside your living room.

To read the complete review of Headplay - what it is, what it does, how it plays on Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, and Nintendo' Wii on it - click on the link for the full article.

 

Over every platform imaginable, games in GameStop are being offered for a lower price during the week June 8-14, at your nearest Gamestop outlet. With everything from coupons for free items or increased trade-in credit, they are also slashing prices off on Microsoft's Age of Empires III and its expansion, The War Chiefs.

Gamers on the Xbox 360 can now own Midway's Hour of Victory with a free Plantronics X20 headset when they reserve the US$ 59.99 title. DS owners can hope to avail of freebie collectible cards of Spectrobes once they purchase a copy of the game, while PlayStation 3 gamers can avail of a free t-shirt when they reserve a copy of Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

Be reminded that these deals are subject to certain conditions, so don't forget to read the fine print.

Who wouldn't want that right? But don't get your hopes up just yet, this is just a rumor that someone from IGN's Insider forums have dropped on us. Apparently, this person has been right about the speaker in the Wii controller, so let us all hope that lightning strikes twice. Here's what the "insider" had to say on the forums:

•  …voice communication will be via wireless, head-mounted microphones…
•  Some peripherals for the DS will be compatible with Wii and vice-versa.
• Many Nintendo first party games (specifically games designed for a younger audience) will feature a new system currently being developed by Nintendo called ‘voice to text communication.’
• The system works using an advanced voice recognition system which Nintendo has been developing for several years. When a user speaks the sound is converted into on screen text and sent to the other players. However, rather than just plain text being sent the system also picks up the tone, pitch and volume of the voice and translates that into colour, font size and character set. For example, if a player shouts ‘I win’ loudly into the microphone the on screen text may be all capitalized, and in a large red font; conversely if a player speaks quietly the font may be a pastel shade and smaller.
• This system also allows online voice communication to be easily censored by the user.

We have all been witnesses to how the Wii transformed beautifully overnight - from that next-gen console with a weird name to the most-talked about commodity in the gaming business. But occupying a high place in the popularity race isn't all peaches and cream, because amidst the good things and reviews being said about the Wii, there has been some far fetched rumors and backfence talks that have surfaced. Call it free publicity, call it a fake. But all these just goes to show how popular the Ninty next-gen console has become.

QJ reader badam told us (thank you!) about how a videogame website apparently found a post on Nintendo's forums which talked about undisclosed info about the Wii. The said post was quickly removed (and most likely the poster was slapped with a long IP ban) and there is no concrete evidence to prove them, but since people love to speculate, we'll give you something to talk about. It is up to you to decide if the rumor is farfetched or possibly true. Let us know through your comments, for now here are some of them gossips.

- The full scope of the Wii controller details has yet to be revealed by PixArt and Nintendo. The post said that "although I cannot elaborate any further let me say that the Nintendo should show that the movement in 3D space will allow experiences outside of just the TV screen. And it's not 3D projection related."

- The first game that will be shown to the public that demonstrates the full scope of Wii controller potential will be Dragonball Z Budokai 4.

- The post also talked of how Nintendo first showed the controller at Tokyo Game Show late 2005. "They were very hesitant to show it full usage. I will allow one more clue to my finding that the Wii controller can function exactly as we all have seen demonstrated WITHOUT the sensor bar. So ask yourselves, why need a sensor bar?"

- The sensor bar was in all actuality in no use at E3 2006. What is will allow hasn’t been shown yet.

- According to people who are working close to everyday events at Nintendo R&D, Nintendo Wii specifications were far and away developed solely for that machine.

-  There were also reports with regards to IBM and ATI. The two were rumored "to have been working on Broadway and Hollywood for quite some time now...Wii’s specs could go up or down at this point in the CPU/VPU departments. Apparently Nintendo has spent quite a lot of money having IBM and ATI fabricate many iterations of Broadway and Hollywood. Which range from a 3.4GHz-730MHz Broadway CPUs, and 1.2GHz-553MHz custom ATI/Nintendo Hollywood VPU. From what we hear Hollywood is key to the Wii’s power...The initial estimates we got concerning final hardware spec was Broadway at around 1.5GHz and Hollywood at 555MHz."

 - There is also word that Nintendo has big plans for the Wii headset. Apparently Nintendo wants to shy away from having the headset only for online capability. They are wanting to go further. Having the headset of course include a microphone for use in games is a given. But there was also talk of a late to launch release of this “gyroscopic headset” that would be supported by the sensor bar as well. The headset would be somewhat sensitive to movement that could be translated into the game.

 -We earlier reported about the Nibris development for the enigmatic psychological horror, Sadness. Although in our report the publisher's name was not mentioned, the rumor mills have been pointing to Majesco as the possible publisher. Nibris has also allegedly received Wii development kits.