PS3 Controller Officially Called 'Sixaxis' 179
morpheus83 writes "Sony has decided to call the PS3's wireless controller 'Sixaxis' as it has sensors which allow it to sense linear motion along six axes. The Bluetooth controller charges when connected via the USB cable, after a full charge it is good for 30 hours of gaming. It becomes a wired controller when charging so you can continue playing." The Next Generation article also offers some further details on PS3 accessories: "Sony will also sell a memory card adapter used to upload data from PS or PS2 memory cards to the PS3 hard drive. That peripheral will go for 1500 yen ($13) and will be available at launch as well. A Blu-ray/DVD movie controller will also be in the accessory mix, selling for 3600 yen ($31)."
Re:Six axes? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Six axes? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Six? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Blu-ray / DVD accessory (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Six axes? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, if one wanted to be a smartass, one could point out that the axes of rotation do not need to lie exactly parallel to the translational axes. Nobody ever claimed all six axes were orthogonal. Really though, you are picking nits. FTFA they say "six degrees of freedom" which is correct. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to call a d.o.f. an axis in colloquial speech.
How is that suspicious for a summary written by a random user and posted by Zonk? TFA doesn't say that, which is all that matters. We're lucky if a summary (1) isn't a dupe, (2) does not contain glaring factual errors, and (3) has decent spelling and grammar.
Re:Six? (Score:2, Informative)
Time Is not "The Fourth Dimension" (Score:1, Informative)
We might say that the first dimension is described by the axis running between my two feet, perpendicular to the hight of my body. But guess what, my body is in constant motion as the earth revolves and rotates, and as the solar system and even galaxy both move. There can be no specific, universally-accepted "first dimension".
Only in when talking about something localized can we intelligently say something like "the first dimension"--if we have agreed ahead of time what we mean by that. Say we both work at a box manufacturer and we use a piece of software to record the dimensions of boxes. We might be told to always enter the dimensions of the boxes from largest to smallest. Then we can say, "The first dimension of the box is 23 cm." or, "The length of the box is 23 cm." We have defined the first dimension to be "length".
When discussing relativity, it is often helpfull to have graphs to explain things. What is often done is that three dimensions of space* are all represented by one dimension of the graph and time is represented as the other dimension of the graph. We do this because a piece of paper is best at showing two-dimensional graphs. If we were using a 3D graph, we could show two dimensions of space and have the third one being time. These illustrations don't mean that "time is the fourth dimenstion" or anything of the kind. But it is a usefull way of drawing things like light cones and explaining relativistic effects.
Just like at the box manufacturer, it can be helpfull for people who are discussing relativity to talk about some sort of four dimensional space-time, with time as the fourth one of their dimensions. This doesn't make it any kind of "universal fourth dimension" at all. It only makes sense when they are talking amongst themselves because they have agreed to that terminology. Outside of that circle, saying "the fourth dimension is time" makes you look like you're simply trying to sound smart.
* Notice I didn't write "the three dimensions of space" since there are no-preset dimensions. Any three vectors (that are not linear combinations of eachother) can be used as the three axes that define your dimensions.
Re:Six axes? (Score:3, Informative)