According to Siliconera, SCEA is experimenting with laughter as a controller.

"The application picks up metadata, which includes laughter recorded by the microphone and a user’s expression from the camera," says Siliconera.

Both the camera and the microphone are linked to the PS3 which identifies the user and his emotions, and transfers the data over the network.

One example Sony gave for detecting emotion was "two individuals give each other a ‘High Five.'"

They would identify boredom if a user is “looking away from the presentation, yawning, or talking over the presentation.”

Who knows if anything will ever come from this, but if nothing else it's interesting.

Houston Alexander possible for Sept. 18 bout against Sherman Pendergarst at Adrenaline MMA IV

UFC light heavyweight Houston Alexander (8-4) could be making a quick pit stop before returning to the UFC as the Nebraskan has been slotted to face Sherman Pendergarst (11-14) in the co-main event for Adrenaline MMA IV from the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Sept. 18.

In spite of the upcoming bout, Alexander remains under contract to Zuffa.

The hard-hitting radio DJ was relatively unknown to the masses until he burst onto the scene with two destructive performances inside the Octagon, taking out top contender Keith Jardine in his debut back at UFC 71: “Liddell vs. Jackson” in May 2007 and then crumbling Alessio Sakara at UFC 75: “Champion vs. Champion” less than four months later.

“The Assassin,” however, quickly returned to Earth — practically crash landing with three straight losses to Thiago Silva at UFC 78, James Irvin at Fight Night 13 and Eric Schafer at Fight Night 15.

The charismatic father of six was on track to slug it out with Andre Gusmao at UFC 98: “Evans vs. Machida” until he broke his hand just three weeks out from the event.

Now it appears he’ll get things going again when he faces “The Tank” this September

"It’s gonna happen, hopefully within the next two, two-and-a-half months. I’m 30 now and I’m hoping to get a couple of more fights in. I know they say that in MMA, people peak later, but who knows? My whole career, fighting from age 20 to 30, I’ve gotten into real good shape and gotten out of shape and started getting back into shape again. I don’t want to do that anymore. Here I am. I’m in shape. I want to have fun for a couple of days, take some time off, eat some good food, and then I want to get right back into all that stuff…. [Diego is] really good; he’s really explosive. He’s shown that he has some knockout power and he’s a very good grappler. He’s very hungry; he’s shown that he wants to be a champion someday. This is an important fight…. I’d like to get a fight with St. Pierre again, but now that Diego Sanchez is next, once we get the word from Dana White, that’s what we’re gonna be thinkin’ about.”

– UFC Lightweight Champion BJ Penn talks to the Hawaii Tribune Herald about his fight future, including his next title defense against Diego Sanchez. No date for the 155-pound title fight had been announced; however, if the Hawaiian had his druthers he’d like it to happen before 2009 expires. He’s fresh of a submission win over former number one division contender, Kenny Florian, at UFC 101: “Declaration” on Aug. 8. It was his first title defense in more than one year. Despite a fight against Georges St. Pierre earlier this year at 170 pounds, it’s clear that “The Prodigy” doesn’t want to wait that long again to put his belt on the line. The blockbuster year-end pay-per-view (PPV) show perhaps?

Would MMA fans ‘love to see’ Chuck Liddell vs Tito Ortiz III?

According to the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” they would:

“I have no more pain, no more soreness, no more numbness going down my legs; I’m back in to fighting shape again. I just started working with Freddie Roach out of Los Angeles, the ‘Wild Card,’ and I’m excited. For once I’m gonna be 100 percent, and hopefully the fans get to the see the champion I was before, ’cause the last time I was 100 percent, when I was the world champion, and I defended my world title five consecutive times … I gotta give the respect to Chuck Liddell, he was a great champion. Too bad he retired, a rematch with him would be nice, and I think the fans would love to see that.”

The former light heavyweight champ talks via SportsRadioInterviews.com about his ‘comeback’ under the tutelage of famed boxing coach Freddie Roach. Ortiz is coming off major spinal fusion surgery to correct a back problem that plagued him in his most recent bouts. His last appearance was in May 2008 — a unanimous decision loss to now 205-pound champion, Lyoto Machida. Speculation has swirled that Ortiz could return to competition at UFC 106 opposite Mark Coleman, but nothing is official at this time. Is a win over the aging wrestler going to propel him back into the mix? Or would any fans out there rather see him tangle with “The Iceman” for a third time instead?

The first couple of weeks of September are going to be a banner time for music video games. On September 9 (09/09/09), the much-anticipated The Beatles: Rock Band will hit store shelves, just eight days after Guitar Hero 5 gets its chance to rock living rooms everywhere.

85 songs Guitar Hero 5 comes with,plus new downloadable songs, the new game's players can have set lists of potentially hundreds of songs.....GET SOME

One of the reasons that Microsoft got such buzz for Project Natal is because it is so easy to see how the technology could change the face of gaming. But it's even easier to appreciate once you get a chance to try the gesture recognition technology yourself. When I was in Redmond, Wash., last week, I got a chance to do just that. 

Playing Ricochet, a 3D breakout-like game, I found myself wanting to do whatever I could to stop the balls from passing me. It felt less like a traditional video game and more like I was a soccer goalie and an entire team was firing shots at me. (For a firsthand look, check out the embedded video below.)

It was both a lot of fun and a bit of a workout. Apparently, I'm not the only one who has noticed that.

Microsoft is counting on Natal to give an important bump to the Xbox 360, which Microsoft has said is only mid-way through its lifecycle, even though it has been on the market since 2005.

After Ricochet, I tried my hand at an existing driving game that had been connected to the Natal interface. And while my steering hasn't gotten any better than when I checked out a set-up from GestureTek earlier this year, Microsoft's technology is quite impressive. The steering and other controls were both intuitive and responsive.

I moved my foot forward to accelerate and backward to slow down, brake, and eventually reverse the car. To steer, I simply used my hands like a steering wheel.

Although Microsoft demonstrated Natal at this year's E3 trade show, the software maker hasn't said when the technology will be available. The company has said that Natal, which incorporates face, voice, and gesture recognition technologies, will be sold as an add-on to the current Xbox 360 console.

The effort to turn Natal from concept to shipping product has been something of a mini Manhattan Project inside Microsoft, according to former Carnegie Mellon researcher Johnny Chung Lee, who is among those working on the effort. And while smashing bricks and cars are some of the first ideas on how to use Natal, the vision clearly goes a lot further.

Inside Xbox, Tsunoda noted that Natal can be useful for more than gaming. He noted that for many first-time console users, the controller itself can be intimidating, even when trying to do things like navigate through menus. Oftentimes people get their first experience with the Xbox when they are at the house of a friend or family member who has an Xbox and they are handed a controller with lots of buttons.

"For a lot of people that can be intimidating," Tsunoda said. "You don't really know what to do and you're starting to feel stupid and everyone is looking at you and you are not being successful. That's really not a good first way to interact with our console."

Tsunoda and Entertainment Unit President Robbie Bach both said they are confident that Natal will also have great appeal for the core gamers already spending hours a week playing on the Xbox.

"Even the folks who are hard-core Halo or Splinter Cell players, they are also going to want to play Natal games," Bach said in an interview.

In an interview with CNET News last month, Bill Gates talked about how the technology has applications well beyond just gaming. "I think the value is as great for if you're in the home, as you want to manage your movies, music, home system type stuff, it's very cool there," he said. "And I think there's incredible value as we use that in the office connected to a Windows PC. So Microsoft research and the product groups have a lot going on there, because you can use the cost reduction that will take place over the years to say, 'Why shouldn't that be in most office environments?'"