Microsoft unveils new $150 Xbox One Elite controller

Microsoft unveils new $150 Xbox One Elite controller—and we’ve held it

LOS ANGELES—Microsoft's press conference included the unveiling of a surprising new piece of hardware: a "pro" Xbox One controller coming to stores in October. The new Xbox Elite Controller earns its classification—though perhaps not its $150 price tag—with a huge number of tweaks and options.

What has changed? A lot, and much more than the updated standard controller. For starters, this controller has four "paddle" buttons on the back, which replicate other normal buttons. They're reachable by middle and ring fingers—meaning Microsoft has finally replicated third-party offerings that let players keep their thumbs on the joysticks at all times.

The paddles are also removable and replaceable, as are the controller's d-pad and twin joysticks—meaning players can switch between concave and convex joystick tops to suit their preferences. The Elite controller will ship with a total of three joystick-head options, along with two lengths of paddle and two types of d-pad—and they'll all come in a handsome carrying case, which will also include a "high-speed" USB cable. Like the updated standard controller, the Elite controller also includes a 3.5 mm headset jack. It will also be compatible with Windows 10.

The heavier controller benefits from a soft-touch plastic paint top-coat—whose "two-shot process" of manufacturing supposedly means that none of its materials will fade in color—along with a new steel construction that, combined with a low-friction resin, guarantees a "zero wear" joystick. Microsoft engineers who spoke to Ars bragged that the "zero wear" claim was actually vetted by the company's legal brass.

The other major hardware difference is a "hair-trigger" dial that lets players adjust how far they must press on the two trigger buttons before the system recognizes the presses as full. But this little tweak is only the beginning of the Elite controller's crazy sensitivity options.

Read More

Comments

How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It

Sometimes what we hide is more important than what we reveal. Especially, documents with sensitive information, some things are supposed to be ‘for some eyes only’. Such scenarios are quite common, even for the more un-secretive among us. You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets. Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document? That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste. We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process. Open the docum...

Build Your Own Awesome Personal 3D Avatar with Avatara

Do you use social networks and want to build your own awesome 3D avatar? Maybe you want to send someone a cute cuddly image of yourself (kind of)? Or maybe you have your own ideas of what you would do with an Avatar… Well look no further than Avatara which I discovered from the MakeUseOf directory . You can create 3d avatars out of pre-set up templates or create your own from scratch. To start, visit Avatara’s homepage . You will see this screen: Click Get Started to umm, get started! That will take you to this screen: You see that you can build your own Avatar using an uploaded head shot like the Obama one above (just an example, guys). Or roll with one of their awesome avatars. I chose to start with a blank avatar by clicking Start with a blank avatar at the bottom of the screen. That takes you to here: I clicked on the filter at the top and told it to filter out everything but male characters and then I saw this: I rolled with Buck and continued. You need to click Select...

Ex-Skypers Launch Virtual Whiteboard Deekit

Although seriously long in the tooth and being disrupted by a plethora of startups, for many years Skype has existed as an almost ubiquitous app in any remote team’s toolkit. So it seems apt that a new startup founded by a team of ex-Skype employees is set to tackle another aspect of online collaboration. Deekit, which exits private beta today, is a virtual and collaborative whiteboard to help remote teams work smarter. The Tallinn, Estonia-based startup is headed up by founder and CEO, Kaili Kleemeier, who was previously a Head of Operations at Skype. She and three colleagues quit the Internet calling giant in 2012 and spent a year researching ideas in the remote team space. They ended up focusing on creating a new virtual whiteboard, born out of Kleemeier’s experience collaborating with technical teams remotely, specifically helping Skype deal with incident management. “Working with remote teams has been a challenge in many ways – cultural differences, language differences, a...

Kiran Upadhyay

Search This Blog