The newest iteration of the Nintendo DS, the Dsi, has come out of hiding! The company's new handheld gets a 17% bigger screen (measuring in at 3.25 inches), a .3 megapixel camera, an SD memory card slot, and “audio enhancements” like the ability to listen to mp3s, adjust pitch and playback.

The DSi will also feature built-in browsers and a DSi shop. Pricing categories at the shop for DsiWare include Free, 200 points, 500 points, and a “Premium” 800 points. New DSi owners will get 1000 points to spend at the DSi Shop before March 2010. I. Want. It. Now. Get the rest of the story from our brother-in-arms, Kotaku (and click their digg badge above)! [Kotaku]

We are always developing new products. However, since nothing has been announced officially, we are unable to comment at this time.

That's the most softly delivered "no comment" that I've ever seen. But take it as you will. [Famitsu via Kotaku]

Of course, it'll reportedly launch in Japan before it hits overseas, where it'll sell for under 20,000 yen (Kotaku notes the current DS is 16,800 yen). If true, it looks to be another iteration of the current DS, not the dual touchscreen model Kotaku expects in April or May of next year. [Nikkei via NeoGAF via Kotaku]

The DS-DSLR app enables controlled bracketing, custom interval shots, timed long exposures—everything dedicated remote apps do. The DS's unique hardware even allows for a noise-activated shutter control via the built-in mic for snapping a shot the second a balloon pops. So a powerful, instant-on, 218 gram remote that also plays Mario Kart. Not bad at all. [Panocamera via BBG]

At a basic level, they all perform the same function—sensing a disturbance in the force when your finger or stylus or whatever pointy object you've got touches the screen, and then extrapolating that into knowing where you're touching it and relaying that to the software. The differences lie in how each screen detects a touch.

Resistive touchscreens are the ones you've probably put your greasy fingers on more than any other kind, mostly because they're the cheapest and oldest. They're in most touchscreen cellphones, many tablets and the Nintendo DS, to name a very few.

How it works: On the bottom you've got a layer of glass, and on top of that, you've got two more: a conductive and a resistive layer. They've got a sliver of space between them. And on top of that you've got one more layer, which is the one you touch. So, when you push down on the screen, the conductive and resistive layer touch each other, which changes the electrical current running through 'em, and the device can tell from that where your finger or stylus is touching.

Good and bad: While resistive is a good deal cheaper to manufacture at the moment, one downside is that it's hard to do multitouch, because of the constraints and shortcomings of a pressure-based system. Another problem is that the multiple layers of touch technology on top of the LCD block an awful lot of light—think of how much dimmer the DS's bottom screen is than the top one.

Capacitive touchscreens are a bit fancier. They used to be really expensive, but the costs are coming down, so you're seeing them in more stuff, like this touchscreen phone from Apple you might have read about, or Dell's Latitude XT tablet.

How it works: At its most basic level, you've got a layer on top of the actual display panel that has an electrical charge running through it. Since you've got your own electrical mojo going on, when you touch the screen (presumably with your finger), it registers an electrical change. By measuring how much you're mucking up the electrical field and where the biggest disturbances are, the device can determine where you're touching it.

Good and bad: It's far easier to do multitouch with capacitive, and fewer added layers mean more light comes through for a brighter display. Still, because it's all about electrical fields interacting and conductivity and stuff, a hand with a mitten on it will have a hard time making stuff happen, and if you wanna use a stylus, you'll need a special one.

Infrared touch sensing, currently most famously used by Microsoft's Surface table, takes a slightly different approach. Because it works well with larger products, you might end up seeing this one quite a bit, especially from Microsoft.

How it works: Basically, the image on the surface is projected from underneath it, along with infrared light. Also underneath are infrared cameras that can see when the light is reflected by objects (like your fingers or cellphones or whatever), and those images are processed and translated as you move and gesture with pictures and virtual objects.

Good and bad: The good thing about this is that it uses existing technologies that come very cheap; the bad news is that the apparatus itself can be bulky, hence the need for Surface to be hidden inside a table, or at least a large globe. Also, it's sensitive to light, so flash photography or strong sunlight can throw off its game.

More, more, more!! There are some \way more advanced touchscreen technologies that aren't yet in wide use. The surface wave acoustic system uses tranducers and reflectors that detect if the ultrasonic waves being sent between them are disturbed (absorbed, actually), meaning something is touching it. Upside is that no metal crap in the panel means 100 percent brightness and awesome clarity. But apparently dust and crud can affect it, so not good for anywhere dirty.

Sharp and others have released prototype touchscreens with optical sensing tech built directly into the display. They are sensitive enough to detect your finger rubs right down to the pixel. Besides making multitouch easy, it can also double as a scanner because of the whole optical deal. Right now it's for small screens like phones—it can scale to notebook size, but not any larger. Of course, they, like infrared, can be affected by undesired light fluxuations.

Mary Lou Jepsen—the engineering honcho behind OLPC's original XO Laptop and founder of the Pixel Qi LCD development firm—told us recently she is pushing for in-cell touchscreen tech, which would make touchscreens cost the same as regular LCDs and be the same thickness, since touch sensitivity would be part of the LCD's own matrix. The issue is that it'll only work with devices specifically coded to use it; it's not a plug-and-play touchscreen like you could order online for your home DIY fake iPhone. If you're wagering that this secret sauce will help achieve the impossibly low pricetag on OLPC's next baby, the XO-2, you win a cookie.

And that's just about everything you need to know about touchscreens to get by. Resistive and capacitive are the major two to know for now, though you might start hearing a lot more about the other ones soon enough.

Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about touching, feeling or screening to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line. Top image from David Nguyen, featured in this Giz Photoshop contest.

He also goes on to say that it's almost as strong as a PlayStation 2 and an Xbox 1 at launch. Think back to the games you played on the PS2 and Xbox. Now think of the games you're playing on the iPhone. Doesn't quite match up, does it?

It's strange to us that Carmack is throwing out so much hype for Apple, seeing as he's got a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with the company.

The verdict is also out on whether Apple has a concrete grasp of gaming, the id co-founder said. The company's reception to criticism has also been counterintuitive, which has led to its relationship with id being something akin to a roller-coaster ride.

Apple essentially kisses his ass when they need him to show up for one of Steve Jobs' keynotes, but then throws him the cold shoulder the second he passes judgment, Carmack said.

[Apple Insider]

Previous Carmack coverage

The R4 is sold all over the place in Akihabara, the nerd district of Tokyo, and the employees at stores there have already noticed an uptick in sales.

The rush in demand has been amazing. These devices always sell well. But this weekend should be staggering, don't you think?

Yes, I do think. So if you're on the fence about getting one or just discovered their existence thanks to this lawsuit, now seems like a pretty good time to jump on board. For, uh, homebrew games only, of course. [Kotaku]

But how good is the iPhone in terms of being a game console? How good are the tilt controls for accepting input for programs that you to make small adjustments with the phone in 3D space? Here's what the same developer from EA said to better help you conceptualize its accelerometer. "Think of it as a loose analog stick...you get lots of random data." Developers need to create smoothing algorithms in order to take random data points and interpret them into a curve which can then be used as movement info. Think about the Wii Remote before the MotionPlus add-on in Wii Sports Baseball. Remember all that jiggling your bat did? Yeah, this is that.

After collecting them all, he reset his goal and sold most of them to collect only sealed games, ones in their original blister pack or rare versions (like the special edition Super Mario Bros. box he spent $1200 on). They've also got a pretty sweet gallery retrospective of the Game & Watch that's definitely worth checking out on this lazy weekend. [DS Fanboy]

To get the levels back on another DS, just play it back over your computer's speakers and hold up the DS mic to it—the mic will grab the sound and the game will change it back into level code. If only Nintendo didn't make their online system so horrible to use, the developers wouldn't have to resort to archaic methods that are pretty much on par with tin cans and strings. [Kotaku]

The DS version of Spore is already a very different, much smaller game than the truly galactic full-scale universe you're getting on the Mac and PC. It's like Spore Lite. And the iPhone version is even simpler than that—it's basically just the "spore" stage of Spore, totally top-down and 2D, extremely simple. In a way, it's just a glorified version of the cellphone games that people who'd pick up a DS or real portable gaming system would totally ignore. There's no crossover or competing audience with the DS version—it's basically just a distraction, and that's what most games on the iPhone will be.

Will games on the iPhone be better than most other cellphone games? Probably. It has the juice, the platform and the controls. But it won't knock a DS or PSP out of your bag by any means. It's just not the same space. [Forbes]

[Colors, Wired How To via Lifehacker]

The big N anticipates it will shift 28.0 million DS units from now till March 2009, which is a reduction in the numbers sold in the previous year, where 30.3 millions units made their way to sweaty palms everywhere. Personally, I think Nintendo have their figures wrong; it'll be 28,000,001 units, as I left my DS on a flight I took yesterday. Life sucks. [Associated Press]

- Two patchable dual-oscillator analog synth simulators: - Four-part drum machine that uses sounds created with the analog synth simulator - Six-track (analog synth x 2, drum machine x 4) /16-step sequencer - Delay, chorus and flanger sound effects available from the mixing board - Three note-entry modes: touch-control screen, keyboard screen, matrix screen - Real-time sound control mode via touch-control screen - Exchange sounds and songs and play multiple units simultaneously through a wireless communications link

I suspect the same types of people who think it's cool to wear gigantic boots and trenchcoats in summertime. Well, to each his/her own, I suppose. $120 and and an admission of being a creepy person is all it'll take to make your favorite portable gaming device a scaly freakshow.
[Gizmodo Japan]

We know; you are not to sure why, but you want one. We are experiencing the same mixed emotions at this point in time. Luckily, all you need is some glue, a knife, some basic office supplies, Jun's PDF instruction kit and you are on your way. Apparently, it will take 1.5-hours to make, but be warned; your fat, blubbery fingers will probably make this project next to impossible. Stress levels are likely to increase to fist-through-LCD-screen type proportions. For the sake of the LCD, give this one a miss, we beg you. Against our best advice, you can hit the link for the detailed how to. [Tekenstein, PDF Instructions via Technabob]

It is, in fact, the same unit as the red-and-black DS Lite. Given that it takes something like two to four weeks after packing to hit shelves, Bashcraft suggests mid-to-late Feb. for D-Day. I so wish I didn't already have a black one, which is already a slab of aesthetic satisfaction. [Kotaku]

As you can see, he took the original design and added a whole lot of the iPhone and the PSP. Looks quite good to me, even while it still has some unresolved issues, like the hinge, which can't be like the MacBook because it will block the shoulder buttons. Still, a very doable, even slimmer form factor than the Lite which can perfectly fit all the not-so-crazy features we thought could make it to the next revision of the Nintendo portable console.

And before the anti-Apple camp gets up in arms, let's not forget that the original DS got redesigned with a clear inspiration on the Apple's all-white, all-shiny, all-simplicity iPod design. People didn't think the same could be done with the original DS and look what happened with the Lite.

Some more thoughts from the "buts" that people claimed about the first 2D mock-up:

"But the screen on top should be the same size"
Not necessarily. For compatibility, you can play original DS games letterboxed. Even new games could retain exactly the same format and keep backward compatibility if you want. The top wide-screen, however, could be used very well in most games. But specially, for media playback.

"But the it should be a totally new concept. Nintendo broke the rules and will do it again in the next generation"
That may be true, but the True Next Generation is years away. It took decades for Nintendo to change the paradigm of the original Gameboy to the Nintendo DS. Until the latter arrived, the first went through many iterations, each adding more things: smaller package, more power, color, backlighting, etc.

They milked the cow until it was dead. Then, they reinvented themselves with the DS. The next DS will be an evolution of power and features, not of basic concepts. It works great now, it sells like crazy, so you don't need to change it dramatically just yet. Nintendo just needs to keep the distance with the PSP and that will be it.

"But it will be too expensive to make"
Like I said in the original mock-up article, given the sinking prices of current components thanks to the proliferation of smartphones like the iPhone or multimedia players, a DS 2 with shaved corners, better screens and built-in multimedia playback will be very doable in 2008. Granted, it may not take this shape, but it will happen sooner than later.

"But it doesn't have Advance cart compatibility"
With downloadable games coming to the DS and dirty-cheap Flash RAM prices, the next version of the DS will probably have Virtual Console emulation, just like the Wii. Why deal with hardware when you can have it all in software?

[Gizmodo and Phil Nolan]

We hate to burst your bubble but Joystiq has provided some convincing evidence that the recent video showing a DS version of Mario Galaxy was a fake —albeit a very good one. It appears that a shorter, more stable version of the was posted on a video-sharing site by a user with the handle psycho3ler. That is the same guy behind the infamous Nintendo ON hoax video from 2005. So yeah, there will be no Galaxy for the DS (for now) —but you probably already saw this one coming. We are used to having our hopes and dreams crushed. [Stage9 Video and Nintendo On Video via Joystiq]

The car systems, which will are now going into development, will be able to determine whether or not the driver was doing anything dangerous or erratic, and control for that or even act to prevent that kind of behavior.

There might be a system that uses both climate control and navigation to make sure the drivers stay alert, for instance. The system might automatically slows the car down if it senses an irrational punch of the gas pedal. There's no mention of the opposite, however. You know, the system that speeds the hell up when it determines that you've just merged onto a 75mph freeway and you're only doing 34. [SMH]

• Things were looking up for the Wii at the start of the year after it completely sold out during the holidays—but it still managed to lose to the Xbox 360 in overall sales due to the fact that there weren't enough units available.

• Gut-check time for Nintendo as the first modchip became available in February. Would its laissez-faire attitude toward piracy on the DS and Wii continue to bite Nintendo in the ass? After all, there was little incentive to not mod your Wii since there's no punishment, like withholding Xbox Live service from pirate users for. Someone could just disconnect a system from the network and run all the free Wii games he likes.

• More bad news for Wii owners when Nintendo announces that there will be no third-party online games until the end of the year. This might seem to doom the Wii to the fate of the GameCube—great first-party support and yet utter lack of third-party support—but that doesn't seem to be the case. Third-party developers and publishers are falling over themselves to get stuff on the console that , at least in Japan, has already passed the GameCube in lifetime sales.

• Along with third-party software manufacturers, hardware manufacturers were also getting in on this motion-sensing gravy train. The Nyko Wii Party Station is only one of many Wii accessories we saw this year.

• Although Wiis were selling faster than they could make 'em, E3 brought a big upswing in interest as Nintendo unveiled the Wii Fit. Emphasizing a focus on casual gamers while still playing lip-service to hardcore fans, Ninty showed yet another clever means to get people who don't normally play games into its corner. It's still working, though the Wii Fit won't be out 'til the spring.

• The Xbox 360 finally bowed down to the Wii in overall sales in September, despite having been on the market about a year longer.

• Showing that this Christmas season will be as strong as the last for the big N, the DS set a game console sales record for Thanksgiving week at 653,000 units purchased.

• And, to top everything off, there's the fact that Wiis are still very hard to find. Not only is it the most talked about Christmas item for two years running, it's been the most talked about year-round item as well.

So here's how Nintendo did. Sales are phenomenal for both the Wii and DS, even while features were fairly few and far between. Sure, it announced DS Demo downloads and a upcoming developer channel for homebrew-ish games, but they aren't here now. And speaking of games, once you get past the first-party titles for the Wii like Super Mario Galaxy and every other game that has Mario in it, the library looks a bit thin. The DS, however, looks as strong as ever.

A Exhibits positive self image (Strong sales)
B+ Seeks help when appropriate (Let third-party developers in)
B- Focuses on task at hand (Interesting games, though not enough of them)
C Doesn't play well with others (Weak online support; friend codes are a joke on both Wii and DS)
C Tendency towards truancy (Hard to find in stores)
B+ Shows adequate attention (They're ramping up production, they promise)
B+ Makes responsible choices (Didn't can Manhunt 2)
A- Finishes required tasks (Got Mario Galaxy out the door)

Overall: A-

The concept has been around for years, but is only being released now due to a 3 year struggle with Nintendo for approval to manufacture the device. Why Nintendo dragged their feet on this one is a mystery. Do they have something against kids with juvenile diabetes or what? All that aside, the device is now available in Australia for around $260. Plans are in the works to make the Glucoboy available worldwide in the near future. [Product Page via Next Gen via Joystiq]

With a .7 second look, both man and beast are on even ground, but with a 0.4 second or 0.2 second (!!) peek, the college kids got owned, completing it 40% of the time compared to the chimps' 80%. One thing's for sure— taking this test probably didn't help the college kids with their self esteem. While not as funny as a chimp working a typewriter while smoking a cigarette, the video above of brave Ayumu doing his thing is pretty damn amazing. Get that chimp a stylus!

And if you want to be impressed, see the next video, showing the chimps memorizing the digits after the mere peek.

[AP]