Steam’s ‘Big Picture’ mode, which turns the service’s interface into a more TV-compatible redesign, is available in beta starting today.
Big Picture is designed for living rooms, with a new 360 degree, non-QWERTY keyboard that looks to facilitate easier typing, and a new “first-person” web browser that “doesn’t suck,” according to a launch trailer. It is controllable with both a standard controller and a keyboard and mouse.
As for what the future may hold for the Portal developer, the New York Times is reporting that the company is working on a set of augmented reality goggles.
“Every way I look, the scene shifts, the battle unfolds,” says the report. “I have a crazy contraption strapped to my head: a boxy set of goggles that looks like a 22nd-century version of a View-Master. It immerses me in a virtual world. I whirl one way and see zombies preparing to snack on my flesh. I turn another and wonder what fresh hell awaits.”
The man in charge of this wearable computing project, Michael Abrash, tells the paper that the prospect of glasses that can run augmented-reality games is still three to five years away. He further says that he isn’t sure whether or not Valve will make and distribute such hardware itself.
If it does, though, that may lend some credibility to the rumors surrounding the company’s much-ballyhooed job postings last week.