The big story of the seventh generation of video games (that would be the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo Wii) is not the ongoing battle to have the fastest processors, the highest-definition picture, or the ability to play the next generation of home entertainment video discs. While those things have been prominently featured, the real innovation that has everyone talking is the motion-sensing abilities and the revolutionary control system of Nintendo’s little console that could, the Wii.
Andrew Fentem, the mad genius inventor of the Fentix Cube, does the Wii one better. The Fentix Cube is a borderline magical, touch-sensitive gaming device that responds to touch and rotation to allow you to play games in three dimensions, with none of the lag that normally plagues touch screen technology. For example, on the Cube prototype, you can play a Rubix’ cube game, Pac-Man, or on his large flat-panel prototype, a game of light-based air hockey that’s just as fast and hard to follow as the actual game.
The revolutionary thing isn’t just that it responds to touch. My Nintendo DS will do that, after all. The revolutionary thing is the level of touch response that Fentem’s technology allows. Most touch screens will only read one touch at a time, but Fentix’s systems handle multiple touches, and even allow the dragging of objects across the display like the click and drag function of a mouse!
Fentem has more ideas that just the Cube. Indeed, that’s simply his attention-getter. As he says in his interview with Gizmodo:
One of the reasons for publicizing the cube was to attract investment for the development of other gadget technologies that I’m currently developing – gadgets promising even better fun/dollar ratios.
Judging by the traffic on my website and the positive global reaction to the Fentix Cube, this exercise seems to have gone reasonably according to plan.
Just call him the Dr. Frankenstein of fun, the Dr. Caligari of touch screen technology, and possibly, the Merlin of air hockey.
