Gabe Newell, in a BBC interview, has revealed some more details about the development of Valve's SteamBox. Saying that they plan to ship prototypes in 3 to 4 months, depending on their ability to nail down partners, and figure out some of the problems they're still having. The major problem at the moment is one you would expect when you put a PC into the living room: how can the heat and noise generated be reduced, without sacrificing power. There are also some issues with controller design, which seem to come from not being exactly sure on how the control schemes would interact with everything else. Newell went so far as to say that they're considering biometric sensors to allow games to gauge how a player is feeling, pointing out how it would allow games to offer a new experience every time they play. At the moment all I can imagine is the AI director having a direct feed into how freaked out a player is at any particular moment, and the evil that it could then inflict...

Finally, and unfortunately, there's still no news on Half-Life 3, with Gabe commenting 'I can't really say anything about Half Life 3...When there's something to talk about, I'll be happy to talk about it'.