Fortunately, we had correspondents on the floor at E3, reporting back on the two biggest announcements relevant to Computing Unplugged readers: the new Nintendo DS and Playstation Portable devices, shown in Figure A.

FIGURE A

Here you can see the Nintendo DS and Playstation Portable. Get out yer VISA, Marge! Click picture for a larger image.

The Nintendo DS
The Nintendo DS (which stands for dual screen) is notable because it has, uh, dual screens. In addition to the second screen, the DS has touch-screen input, voice recognition and wireless communication.

Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo unveiled the highly anticipated Nintendo DS in Hollywood, as shown in Figure B.

FIGURE B

It's always fun to watch the formal announcements. Thanks to Bob Riha, Jr. for the excellent photo. Click picture for a larger image.

Nintendo tell us why these features are important:

Two screens offer two perspectives on the action at once. The touch screen could make accessing items, moving characters or navigating menus as easy as a tap or drag on the screen. Voice recognition could let players simply tell the game what they want it to do. Chat software will let users transmit text messages, handwriting and even drawings to one another. And wireless functions could link players in the same room  or across the country.

There's still a lot that hasn't been answered, but so far, we know the device will offer two slots and 802.11 WiFi (although Nintendo hasn't specified which 802.11 they're using and claims to be using their own specific protocol).

The benefits of the dual screen include:

In a racing game, drivers might see their own vehicle's perspective on one screen and an overall track view on the other. In a role-playing game, the action could take place on the first screen while the second provides a reference for a player's tools inventory. Game play also could use both screens at once, offering a giant boss for heroes to defeat. In the future, games could be created allowing users to play games on one screen while text messaging other DS users on the other.

Nintendo is claiming that their touch screen moves the device into the PDA world, allowing users to do PDA-like things, including writing on the lower screen (which itself has a tougher film cover), as shown in Figure C.