Imagine a gaming world that doesn’t end with the edge of your television. Think about what’d be like if the edge of your TV was only the beginning and the world continued around you. Sounds like the stuff of sci-fi that you remember reading about in Fahrenheit 451, right? Well the team at Microsoft is trying to bring this fiction to reality.

At CES yesterday, Microsoft revealed its concept behind Illumiroom. Self described as “Peripheral Projected Illusions for Interactive Experiences”, Illumiroom looks to change the way players experience gaming by transforming the room around them to match watch appears on screen. Using the Kinect and a projector, the system scans the room and projects images in ratio and aspect to what is going on on-screen. Field of vision is extended as well as the motion of objects on screen. The unique design and geometry of every room is taken into effect to not just appear as a prerendered design but one manipulated and created in real time.

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Of all places to see the latest trailer for Guillermo Del Toro’s latest Pacific Rim, most people wouldn’t expect the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But, low and behold, that’s where it came from. Much like the trailer explains that everyone looked to the skies for aliens only to find them underwater, this trailer surprised everyone when it was premiered at an electronics show, of all places.

There isn’t much explanation needed for Pacific Rim. The premise is simple but still something that if you are a fan of The Flickcast you’ll most likely love. Giant robots versus giant monsters. There’s a reason that certain film franchises are still so beloved over a half a century old that people keep revisiting them. People like big monsters and if they aren’t fighting other big monsters, people want to see big robots kicking their butts.

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I find it funny that even with everything happening at CES in Las Vegas this week one announcement from Apple about an event next week and the entire tech news world shifts forces to them. Sorry CES, nobody seems to care all that much about you.

To what event am I referring? Well, as I mentioned last week, Apple was rumored to be planning an education-related event for sometime in January. As you can see from the pic above, they’ve now sent out invitations to said event and it’s definitely scheduled for the 19th of this month.

Now that we know the event is education-related does that mean Apple is announcing a new textbook initiative with major publishers to bring school books to the iPad? I think it might. I also think we might see a bit more during this event such as new publishers added to the magazines available in the Newsstand app as well as some new publishers added to iBooks.

Sadly, I would doubt Apple will also announces a new iPad next week. I think they will wait on that one for another month or two. Of course, whatever happens we will find it all out come January 19. Should be interesting.

With 2011 in full effect, so has begun Con season. While so far it has been mainly industry and media events like Toy Fair or this week’s Game Developers Conference, the big boys like C2E2, San Diego Comic-Con and the New York Comic Con are all just around the corner. And while most of The Flickcast have earned our geek merit badges (as well as Foursquare badges) by surviving numerous conventions, we realize not everyone has had the chance to experience the Con world like we have.

The world of conventions can even be a little intimidating. While shows like Wizard World can be good day trips where someone can just go in and out, others like San Diego are week long vacations that take some actual time and planning. To help prepare Con goers, we have put together this post loaded with advice for both new and veteran geek adventurers.

Know Your Con

As mentioned before, some cons are large epic events while others can be treated as just quick day trips. When picking your Con, make sure you know which of these two categories it falls into. Don’t expect to see San Diego Comic-Con all in one day.

It will be damn near impossible to spend any decent amount of time at every booth that catches your interest if you are only there for one day. Plus, you won’t have any time for autograph signings, panels or other con events as you will just be rushing through to see a little of everything but not having enough time to really enjoy any of it.

On the same token, smaller shows like ComiCONN, a local level show with only a hundred or so booths, don’t have nearly as many special events going on, or fellow con goers to wade through. Planning a full weekend around the con alone might leave someone looking for more to do.

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After some time off for various reasons the team is back together for an all new episode of The Flickcast. On this week’s show, Chris and Matt talk about a whole slew of new and recurring topics.

Some of those topics include their “Best Of” from 2010, some of their favorite things from the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Verizon iPhone and what the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas really smells like. They also made some new picks this week including Matt’s pick of the indie comedy Barry Munday and Chris’ pick of the new NBC series The Cape.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook or via email.

Podcast: Download

With just a month away from its release date, Marvel vs. Capcom 3: The Fate of Two Worlds is still dropping announcement bombs all over the fighting game world. With members of the final roster still to be revealed, Capcom announced two new characters this past weekend at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Making her debut to the Capcom fighting genre is Jean Grey, better known as Phoenix. With the power to literally rip worlds in half, the Phoenix force is considered one of the strongest entities in the Marvel universe. Now, the Phoenix comes to the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 arena with the cosmic power to take on man and immortal alike. Take a peek below at the new footage of Jean Grey in action, including her hypercombo Dark Phoenix finish.

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Tech writers love to compare each and every new tablet computer that hits the market to Apple’s wildly successful iPad. And it makes sense, considering Apple’s device is truly the one to beat within the tablet niche. With almost a year under its belt and millions of sales, Apple is unlikely to yield its advantage in this important product sector anytime soon.

With that said, Motorola’s just-announced XOOM Tablet ($TBA), might just be the device to do it. Billed as the first 4G LTE upgradeable tablet, the specs speak for themselves:

• 10.1-inch widescreen HD display
• Dual Core 1GHz processor
• Android “Honeycomb” software
• 1080P HD Video Content Support
• HDMI out
• Forward-facing 2MP camera for video chatting

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Yesterday during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Verizon unveiled a bunch of upcoming devices built for its 4G LTE network. Some of the devices include smartphones, tablets, laptop computers and mobile hotspots. Here’s a quick rundown of each 4G device covered during the announcement, compiled by the folks at BGR:

• HTC ThunderBolt – HTC Sense 2.0, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 4.3-inch WVGA display, 8-megapixel camera with HD video recording, DLNA capability, video chat support

• LG Revolution – 4.3-inch touchscreen, Android 2.2, video chat, mobile hotspot support (up to eight devices)

• DROID Bionic 4G – Android, video chat, rear-facing 8-megapixel camera, 4.3-inch display, HDMI connectivity, dual-core 1GHz processor, 512 DDR2 RAM

• Unnamed Samsung Smartphone – Android 2.2, 4.3-inch Super-AMOLED Plus display, 1GHz processor, rear-facing 8-megapixel camera with LED flash, video chat

• Motorola XOOM tablet – 10.1-inch display, Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS, 1080p HD video, front-facing 2-megapixel camera for video chat, 5-megapixel camera with video capture, mobile hotspot capability (up to five devices)

• 4G LTE-enabled Samsung Galaxy Tab – 7-inch TFT display, Android 2.2, 1.2GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor, rear-facing 5-megapixel camera, front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera

• Novatel MiFi® 4510L Intelligent Mobile Hotspot – 3G and 4G LTE compatibility

• Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot – 3G and 4G LTE compatibility

• Compaq CQ10-688nr – 10.1-inch display, Intel Atom N455 processor, up to 8.5 hours of battery life, multi-format digital media card reader, webcam and multiple connectivity options

• HP Pavilion dm1-3010nr – 11.6-inches, HP CoolSense Technology, up to 10.75 hours of battery life, 320 GB of storage, multi-format digital media card reader, HDMI port, Dolby Advanced Audio and GPS for mapping and navigation

Click through to check out the full press release from Verizon. But take note, its pretty massive.

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As the Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas this week you can expect many announcement over the next four days. Among the first is Motorola’s announcement late yesterday of a new DROID device featuring a dual-core processor, Android OS and designed for the Verizon network.

Dubbed the DROID BIONIC, the handset features a 4.3-inch qHD display, dual-core 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, Wi-Fi, HDMI-out with mirror mode, 1080p playback, 8 megapixel rear-facing camera, front-facing VGA camera, and an LTE radio. With LTE being the forefront of Verizon’s wireless push these days we can expect more announcements like this.

Heck, maybe we’ll finally get that Verizon LTE iPhone we’ve been dreaming of? Could happen. Won’t hold my breath though.

The device will be available “early” in the second quarter of this year. Click through for the full release from Moto.

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