tagged w/ Virtual Reality
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The practical essence of your personality will soon be surprisingly easy to steal. The coming generation of virtual reality will be able to appropriate so much of what it is to be you, that things could get seriously out of controlThe practical essence of your personality will soon be surprisingly easy to steal. The... more
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Writing the previous article reminded me to check up on the latest Kinect goodness being developed by ordinary folk. I've posted my three favorite ones below. Reportedly, NASA now wants to buy some Kinects in order to create virtual teleconferences and share 3D data.
http://www.logiccool.com/blog/593817-the-latest-awesome-kinect-hacks/Writing the previous article reminded me to check up on the latest Kinect goodness... more
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We've already moved from the wii-mote to the non remote Kinect but now there's a video of a man stumbling around a virtual ladnscape in near holodeck form.
According to the description, it is a 10' x 10' x 10' but is a $600,000 project so don't expect it to be ready by next Christmas.
"Can you imagine playing a game of Quake or Call of Duty with this setup? I think we can all agree that the future is going to be awesome! So the question now is... when can I get one?"-Youtube
Though if it ever does get picked up by the gaming industry expect more party games and fitness islands.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ7QJwcdJmMWe've already moved from the wii-mote to the non remote Kinect but now... more
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This is a fan webpage I made for the Daily Show that has augmented reality and 3D web elements embedded in the page. This highlights HTML5, WebGL, X3D, and X3Dom technologies. More information on augmented and virtual reality technologies can be found at my blog.This is a fan webpage I made for the Daily Show that has augmented reality and 3D web... more
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“World Builder” is a poignant and visually dazzling short movie by Bruce Branit, which tells the story of a man who literally creates a new virtual reality for the woman he loves. A beautiful European town square seems to materialize from thin air and the builder’s glowing user interface. The film is another example of what’s possible with low budgets and a high degree of inventiveness, and critics have said that visually it compares favorably to scenes from “The Matrix” and “Minority Report.”
This piece includes colorful photographs, as well as the remarkable short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/world-builder-creating-a-new-reality-for-the-woman-he-loves/“World Builder” is a poignant and visually dazzling short movie by Bruce... more
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At the Augmented Reality Event 2010 in Santa Clara, I got a chance to get an early copy of Retinex, an AR comic book from the folks over at SpiralConcepts and permission to make a short video showing some of its features. The comic has a good story and an interesting take on augmented reality. The story and art is created by 3Satva. SpiralConcepts (www.spiralconcepts.com) built the comic's web-based AR elements.At the Augmented Reality Event 2010 in Santa Clara, I got a chance to get an early... more
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Researchers at Tokyo University have come up with a technology that is a first and significant step away from the mouse and keyboard – touchable holograms.
[Hiroyuki Shinoda, Professor, Tokyo University]:
"Up until now, holography has been for the eyes only, and if you'd try to touch it, your hand would go right through. But now we have a technology that also adds the sensation of touch to holograms."
The technology consists of software that uses ultrasonic waves to create pressure on the hand of a user “touching” the projected hologram.
Researchers are using two Wiimotes from Nintendo’s Wii gaming system to track a user’s hand.
The technology was introduced at SIGGRAPH, an annual computer graphics conference, and has so far only been tested with relatively simple objects.
But its inventors have big plans for touchable holograms in the future.
[Hiroyuki Shinoda, Professor, Tokyo University]:
"For example, it's been shown that in hospitals, there can be contamination between people due to objects that are touched communally. But if you can change the switches and such into a virtual switch, then you no longer have worry about touch contamination. This is one application that's quite easy to see."
Touchable holograms could be used for a wide variety of things... everything from light switches to books with each appearing when needed, and then disappearing when not.
And holograms could replace the need for making new interfaces for technology, since they could be changed without having to make a new physical product.Researchers at Tokyo University have come up with a technology that is a first and... more
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This 3D display system combines an image of your hand with haptic feedback and computer graphics in real time to provide the sensation of actually touching virtual objects.This 3D display system combines an image of your hand with haptic feedback and... more
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Has our new definition of "life experience" rendered tangible interactions irrelevant?
May 28, 2010 |
Not so long ago, I taught a graduate writing seminar in which I got caught in an argument about virtual vs. "real" experience. Two students—among the brightest in the class—insisted that they could go to Rome via a computer program through which they could view every street, turn this corner and that as they pleased, look at every ruin and work of art, and their experience would be as real, as engaged, as if they'd actually been there. n "But," said I, "a pigeon couldn't shit on your head."
Granting that any experience can be called "real," in that it is an experience, I argued that there are differences in the nature of virtual and actual reality. For one thing, on your walk through a virtual Rome, you aren't even walking: you're sitting. And what's Rome without the wonderful smells of food? Even if your virtual Rome is accompanied by recorded sounds of Rome, that's nothing like the sounds of racket, traffic, music, and language, the melodious cacophony of Italian, spoken all around you. A flat screen gives you no sense of Rome behind you, and to the side of you. The rain won't rain on you, and you won't have to dodge crazy drivers.
You're having a one-dimensional experience, literally and figuratively. And no matter what's inputted into the program, there's no chance of running into the girl who sat next to you in high school chemistry—or anyone else. What R. D. Laing once called "the freshness and forgivingness of creation" couldn't reach out to you, nor you to it.
Your computer program couldn't include the unprogrammed, yet the unprogrammed is generally what happens during the engagement of human beings with each other, and with the world. James Baldwin's truth that "any human touch can change you" isn't available on your computer.
I said what I thought obvious: the computerized Rome couldn't give you what a Laing or a Baldwin would most value about Rome: the city as a medium for engaging life beyond personal, private acts and perceptions.
They didn't get it. My argument left them utterly unconvinced, and they looked at me bemusedly, as though I was mildly to be pitied because I didn't get it.
What separated us? Between my sense of the real and theirs gaped a chasm that I didn't understand.
What would a psychotherapist make of it? If, in your consulting room, one of these students told you that the Rome on his computer is more real than the real Rome, is that a symptom? if so, of what? Would it be a syndrome to be addressed in therapy? or just a piece of data, a reference-point for this particular client?
At around the same time, I saw related behavior that no one would connect to psychological difficulty, at least in any conventional sense.
I was driving the Southwest with a companion who'd never been there. In Arizona, on the edge of the Painted Desert, we stopped at the Petrified Forest, a vast, barren expanse of chaparral and mesas, on which lie the trunks of ancient trees turned to stone. On these trees, every detail of bark is present and vivid, yet somehow a forest has become rock. We parked at the first viewing point. My companion, without saying a word, made her way down a slope and sat. I figured she'd be there a while, absorbing this place out of sight of the road and of me, watching the Petrified Forest's stones, birds, critters, and clouds, and maybe getting bit by a bug or two—a contemplative engagement with a present terrain.
More at the link:Has our new definition of "life experience" rendered tangible interactions... more
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From A Beautiful Mind to Gladiator, Russell Crowe seems to have a career full of movies with at least one memorable line of dialogue. The Rotten Tomatoes Show analyzes all of them and comes up with the Top 5 Best Russell Crowe Lines.
The Rotten Tomatoes Show is a movie review show that airs on Thursday nights at 10:30 e/p on Current TV. From reviews of the newest releases to commentary on cult favorites and movie trends, each episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show is a fast-paced, comedic journey through the week in cinema.
For more from the Rotten Tomatoes Show: http://rottentomatoesshow.comFrom A Beautiful Mind to Gladiator, Russell Crowe seems to have a career full of... more
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There.com is closing on March 9th, 2010
In 2003, There.com was launched as a 3D Immersive Virtual World for everyone.
Unlike other products, There was designed from the beginning to be a welcoming and comfortable place for everyone - not just gamers, not just people over 18, not just people with high end computers, and not just people on broadband. This principle extended far beyond just the technology: for example it led to our submissions review system, which ensured that user generated content didn't infringe on existing brands, or even other member's content. To that, we added socialization tools including 3D avatar chat, clubs, events, activity flags, card games, quests, virtual commerce, kinetic games such as paintball, buggies, and, of course, hoverboards. While many of these things sound commonplace today, in 2003 we were arguably one of the first places to "put it all together" in one package.
But all of that was just a big stack of technology and hardware. It was when we added people - our members - to There.com that it actually came to life. Through you, There has been known as a vibrant, welcoming place for people to come and meet other people, have fun, create, or just hang out. Over the years, millions of folks have passed through our doors, each of you bringing something new and different to There.com, and, hopefully, taking a little bit of the fun with you back into your "real life".
By adding developers to There, we made it possible for the world to becomes millions of time more interesting and creative than it possibly could have been otherwise. Of course, the talented artists and modelers at There created an amazing world to start with, but it was your content - clothes, vehicles, accessories, buildings, lawn furniture, gnomes, snowmen, etc, etc, etc - which really helped bring the world to life, and make There the special place it is today.
Finally, to this mix, we added brands, which had a lasting and important impact on There.com. We can't list them all here, but names like Coca-Cola, CosmoGirl, Bebe, K-SWISS, and SPIN all brought their own products and influence to the world, which in turn made it an even more interesting place for people to be.
We believe that all of this together made a world which was, well, like "real life", with just the right level of unreality thrown in. Standards for speech, interaction, avatar dress, and even the amount of "blood and gore" were pretty much what you'd expect in the real world, and we believe that it's one of the many things which made There special, accessible, and attractive to people from all over the United States and the world -- not just the privileged with high-end machines and broadband connections.
Unfortunately, this also meant that There.com's customers were hardest hit by the recession, and, so was There. While our membership numbers and the number of people in the world have continued to grow, there has been a marked decrease in revenue, which, in these economic times, is no surprise.
Throughout the last year and this quarter, we have fought the good fight by churning out new features and revisions as fast as we possibly could. Our hats have to go off to the team, which have in a very short time introduced a whole new suite of casual games, a completely new foundation for our user interface, improved internal efficiencies for the product, real estate, a whole new level of Community Involvement, etc, etc. On top of that, we've revised our first user experience several times, making the whole process for registering and getting into the world (and continued to be amused when the same features appeared in other worlds).
But, at the end of the day, we can't cure the recession, and at some point we have to stop writing checks to keep the world open. There's nothing more we would like to avoid this, but There is a business, and a business that can't support itself doesn't work. Before the recession hit, we were incredibly confident and all indicators were "directionally correct" and we had every reason to believe growth would continue. But, as many of you know personally, the downturn has been prolonged and severe, and ultimately pervasive.
We're very sorry to announce that There.com will be closing to the public at 11:59 PM on March 9th, 2010.
We'll be closing registration, billing, and member program upgrades immediately.
Developer submissions are closed effectively immediately.
Rental processing will be stopped, so no more rent will be collected for neighborhoods, lots, or There homes.
Paintgun refills will be free.
Portazone refills will either be free, or we'll "stop the clock" on Portazone minutes. We'll sort that out in the next day or so.
All purchases of Therebucks and member program updates made between midnight Pacific Standard Time February 1, 2010 and 11:00 AM Pacific Standard Time on March 2, 2010 will be refunded in full. Purchases made via PayPal or Credit Card will be refunded automatically. Purchases made via PayByCash or the Ultimate Game Card will need to follow the procedure outlined in the F.A.Q. to get your refund.
We will attempt to continue a Therebucks buyback for developers as we have been. If you are a There Developer, and have Therebucks you'd like us to buy back, please follow the procedure in the F.A.Q. to request a buyback.
It's been our privilege to play a small part in making the place that was There.com, and for that we thank you. We know that There will continue to live in our hearts and minds, and hope it does in yours, too.
Michael Wilson
CEO, There.comThere.com is closing on March 9th, 2010
In 2003, There.com was launched as a 3D... more
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If you never saw Minority Report, then we can just tell you - when Tom Cruise uses a "computer" he looks more like a conductor of an orchestra, or maybe a DJ, than your average typist. As he browses through files, he swoops his arm dramatically in the air. He forcefully pushes useless information out of the way and manipulates video with swoops and twists of invisible dials.
If you're anything like us, all you thought was "I can't wait to play with that." Well, your time is coming soon.
The New York Times' Bits Blog reports that John Underkoffler, a science consultant for Minority Report, has worked for the last decade with his company, Oblong Industries, to take the gesture-activated interface from the screen to, well, the screen. Underkoffler unveiled the interface, called the g-speak Spatial Operating Environment, at Friday's annual TED conference.
The interface has been tested for a number of applications, from virtual pottery-making at RISD, where you watch a user create a digital wire-frame pot as if using a spinning wheel, to the more intangible Tangible Media Group at MIT, where the g-stalt interface allows the user to "manipulate complex data sets with the hands".
"Starting today," reads the Oblong website, "g-speak will fundamentally change the way people use machines at work, in the living room, in conference rooms, in vehicles."
According to the article in the Times, this type of interface has already been in use in Fortune 50 companies, government agencies and universities, and it quotes Underkoffler as saying that "in five years' time, when you buy a computer, you'll get this".
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/minority_report_in_your_living_room_gestural_inter.phpIf you never saw Minority Report, then we can just tell you - when Tom Cruise uses a... more
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You love going to the Cinema. But, have ever wondered what goes on inside a Projection Room?
Voiceless Reel (2010) is an elegant black and white short-documentary unfolding the workday of a 3D cinema projectionist with 52 years of experience in the industry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vsN8r0CYUcYou love going to the Cinema. But, have ever wondered what goes on inside a Projection... more
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Virtual Iraq was originally adapted from the video game "Full Spectrum Warrior" and is credited to Dr Albert "Skip" Rizzo, a clinical psychologist from the University of Southern California. The system is available for both research and clinical use. Virtual Iraq is a form of virtual reality exposure therapy; the patient is virtually exposed to stimuli to allow them to face the traumatic experience that led to their PTSD.Virtual Iraq was originally adapted from the video game "Full Spectrum... more
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Virtual Iraq was originally adapted from the video game “Full Spectrum Warrior” and is credited to Dr Albert “Skip” Rizzo, a clinical psychologist from the University of Southern California. The system is available for both research and clinical use. Virtual Iraq is a form of virtual reality exposure therapy; the patient is virtually exposed to stimuli to allow them to face the traumatic experience that led to their PTSD.Virtual Iraq was originally adapted from the video game “Full Spectrum... more
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Looking for a way out of this hustle bustle hectic web? look no further than the suicide machine a web application that helps you to delete your past accounts and all the history that comes with it. tired of ad solicitations, 3rd party companies collecting data on you so that they can prey on your weaknesses, sick of spam and other 3rd party companies soliciting sex sites thinly disguised as dating sites?
see the following:
https://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/actions/facebook-suicide.html
http://suicidemachine.org/Looking for a way out of this hustle bustle hectic web? look no further than the... more
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Nervous drivers are being helped to overcome their road phobias by donning Cyclops-style goggles that transport them to a three-dimensional virtual world.Nervous drivers are being helped to overcome their road phobias by donning... more
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Remember years ago when the games industry excitably told us that virtual reality was the future for games? Remember the bad guy in Hackers having one of those VR toys?
Well now you can have 2 (possibly networked) in your living room for just under $3,000. Apparently they can even play Halo.....
I just had to pysically stop myself from pressing the buy it now button.......Remember years ago when the games industry excitably told us that virtual reality was... more
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JClem
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added this
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2 years ago
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Technological visionary Ray Kurzweil discusses the future of humanity and its place in a world of super-intelligent machines and super-human intelligence.
...Over the past four decades, Ray Kurzweil has established himself as one of the world's most prolific and influential inventors. His specialty is pattern recognition — teaching machines to classify data and learn. He created the first program to enable computers to read text — the basis of modern scanning — as well as the first program to translate text into speech. Stevie Wonder, a close friend of Kurzweil, calls the inventor's print-to-speech technology a "breakthrough that changed my life." In 1983, with Wonder as an adviser, Kurzweil built the Kurzweil 250 — a synthesizer that revolutionized the music world with its uncannily realistic re-creations of acoustic orchestral instruments.
For his contributions to artificial intelligence, Kurzweil has been enshrined in the Inventors Hall of Fame and has received White House honors from three presidents — including the highest prize in his field, the National Medal of Technology. But nothing he has done in the past has shaken the scientific community as profoundly as his latest prediction. In our lifetime, Kurzweil believes, machines will not only surpass humans in intelligence — they will irrevocably alter what it means to be human. Cell-size robots will zap disease from our bloodstream. Superintelligent nanotechnology, operating on a molecular scale, will scrub pollution from our atmosphere. Our minds, our skills, our memories, our very consciousness will be backed up on computers — allowing us, in essence, to live forever, all our data saved by super-smart machines.
"Right now, people think it's irresponsible not to back up our PCs," Kurzweil says. "But increasingly, we'll be backing up the information in our brains. People will think it was remarkable that we couldn't back up our brains in 2010."
Kurzweil is very specific about when this epic shift will take place. By 2045, he predicts, machines and humans will merge, redefining life as we know it. The moment is known as the Singularity, referring to the term used in astrophysics to describe the point inside a black hole where the ordinary laws of physics cease to apply. To prepare himself and the rest of the world for the era of conscious machines, Kurzweil has turned himself into the chief prophet of the coming Techno Rapture. He crisscrosses the globe to rally top scientists, hosts an annual Singularity Summit that draws leaders from places like Google and MIT, and has even developed his own line of nutritional supplements to extend people's lives until the day when their existence can be endlessly preserved by technology. At 61, Kurzweil pops 150 of his own pills every day, determined to live long enough to see the day when, thanks to machines, he will never age.
To say that Kurzweil's prediction is controversial is to understate the scientific firestorm it has generated. No less a pragmatist than Bill Gates has hailed Kurzweil's vision, calling him "the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence." But to other leading thinkers, Kurzweil has gone off the deep end, venturing into an almost messianic fervor with his promises of life everlasting. "The Singularity is a new religion — and a particularly kooky one at that," says Jaron Lanier, a top computer scientist who pioneered the realm of virtual reality. "The Singularity is the coming of the Messiah, heaven on Earth, the Armageddon, the end of times. And fanatics always think that the end of time comes in their own lifetime."
Kurzweil shrugs off such criticism: He has the self-confidence of a man who is used to being so far ahead of the curve that others can't see where he's headed. The only time he falters is when he's asked if he could be wrong about the Singularity. For a moment he stares blankly into space, as if receiving an otherworldly transmission.
More...Technological visionary Ray Kurzweil discusses the future of humanity and its place in... more
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