The other six

my other six blog entries are on the other blog globalcivicmedia2.com its the same password as for this one

Media Rooms of the future

So next semester I am hoping to be working on a project to help design media rooms for houses. I decided to take a look at how media rooms look today. I even tried looking up modern media rooms and all the results were the same. it was flat screen televisions with modern decorations and different couches. it was just using old technology and giving it a new look. The only different technology i found besides different televisions/speakers were those universal touch screen remotes. I feel like most of these things that they show you can be found in best buy or ikea. This makes the idea of adding new technology to the media room very appealing. Why shouldnt a room have a kinect in it to control the media. Instead of looking for the remote just flick your wrist to change the channel. Even better why shouldnt a projector have multiple image shown on a screen in 3D so you can reach out and grab the item you want to focus on with the technology used in the kinect. There is so much that can be done these days with the use of the kinect and computers but i feel that no one is using this technology to its full potential.

Internship

Last Friday i met with Paul in Soho about the internship. I had some idea of what it would be like but to be honest the word impressive would be an understatement. The store(if you could call it that) look much more like an art exhibit. Everything was placed and set up in a specific way. There was a good amount of merchandise out on the floor but it was over crowded. I liked the how elegant and simple most of the designs were. I think the tubes i liked the most though were the simple bathtub with the "complicated" faucet. The contrast between the two really brought your eye into focus. Almost like the tub was the landscape and the faucet was the centerpiece. It was very nice and very modern. An interesting thing i saw in the newspaper that friday was about a young bikini model who was found dead in a bathtub in Soho. It showed a picture of a bathroom and I'm pretty sure that there was the same bathtub in the show room if not a very similar one. One of the biggest surprises for me was how nice and friendly everyone who worked there was. It was beyond the regular common courtesy of just "hello, how are you?" Paul, and the two girls behind the desk made it very easy to feel comfortable while i was there.

Kinect 3

so i found a new website and realized that youtube has nothing on the website kinecthacks.net i was so amazed by the things that these people are doing i decided to make another blog. One thing that i found practical was a video about program that makes a minority report interface. Theres also a program that shows a person controlling a 3d model of a dog with kinect. he is actually moving it and controling it like a puppet. It is pretty impressive. Ive written so much about the kinect im not sure what else to write even though these hacks keep getting better. There is So Touch Air which will soon be available so you can control windows 7 with the kinect. Many of these hacks are beyond my imagination and Ill end with one hack that didnt even enter my mind... someone created a hack for the kinect that allows you to control a virtual sex game... the video did not show anything pornographic only showed the guy using his hand to move the hand on the screen but i can only imagine the motions you would need to do to actually have sex in the game.. really astonishing stuff
LINK: kinecthacks.net

Wii remotes=3D

so i also found this cool link for the wii remote. the video stinks but half way it shows a hack with the Wii and it is pretty awesome. It uses two infrared lights on a pair of glasses and the wii remote projects the images in 3D. it really takes 3D to the next level. As you move your head it moves the image with it. For a minute i thought it was fake because it looks so good but as the camera gets closer to the screen you can tell that all the images are on the screen and just appear in 3d. you can actually move past objects as you get closer to the screen. I think it would be unique to have this sort of 3d used with the kinect. Either that or just have the kinect do it all. But imagine a running game that as you run on in place it appears that you are running past things. or you can stick your head into a 3d window and look around inside. it is very interesting and theres alot you can do with it
LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEEDnfGFrNc&feature=related

Kinect 2

Wow... i thought the hacks you showed us in class were pretty impressive but this stuff is really insane. The amount of hacks coming out from the drivers for the kinect just keep adding up and i feel as if everyone is trying to one up everyone else and add onto the previous hacks. I no there's that law that says technology will double every 18 months but allowing people to hack the kinect has definitely added a boost to the advancements in technology. There are videos of a person playing mario on the kinect where you jump to jump and run to run. That is pretty standard but a nice twist on an old classic. Theres also a hack where you can actually play an air guitar through the kinect and when you see yourself on the screen you have a guitar in your hands. My personal favorite is a person used the kinect to sense his body and replace his image with the background making him appear like predator. heres the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho8KVOe_y08

RUR

I liked RUR a lot better then the Hamlet skit. The Hamlet skit was a little confusing because it just randomly began so i was confused from the beginning and the by the time i realized what was going on i had already missed much of the speech. My mother and best friend were a confused by that to. I really did like RUR It was extremely interesting especially since in today's world technology is constantly advancing. One of companies biggest goals is to combine human with technology. As of right now i believe that were more focusing on bring humans more into the virtual world but Im sure there are many companies trying to make robots more life like. I know there is a big demand for advancing AI to make it more human. I have heard that in china or japan they have sex dolls that are life sized, fully movable, and look very realistic. I'm sure its only a matter of time until those become automated. I believe that the first advanced robots that come close to being life like will be for military use. I find that a little scary. The military is already using robotics to care equipment but I feel that wars would be easy to start if we would have no human casualties because our army was made of robots

The Touch OSC

i really liked the idea of the program! But one of the major problems with this experiment is that it was hard to notice if you were actually controlling the images. They were hard to see and the effect dial was hard to control so sometimes it would just turn white. At times it was also hard to tell when it was your turn. I think it would have been a lot easier if your phone received a text informing you before it was your turn. Also labels on the dials and buttons would be a lot of help. I had a basic idea of how to use the program and still had a bit of confusion trying to match what i was trying to do with what was going on the screen. I saw one girl who was just pressing buttons and hitting things to make something happen. Unfortunately she was hitting buttons that didn't do anything so she was even more confused. By the time i got to her she had missed her turn. Another big help that is more particular to the show and not in general is if we could have controlled the music. It would have been much more successful that way. The screens were hard to see and i think people would have had fun using different sound effects during the scene. When something serious happened in Hamlet an audience member would be able to decide if he/she wanted to play a happy sound effect to be funny or a dark effect to add to the scene. I think this would get the audience much more involved because they would be contributing to the play. also i think it would be a great thing to use for clubs to control the music, and images. Maybe even control the volume and lighting to an extent.

The kinect

I think the kinect opens up doors to the future. I think this is where our technology is leading us. How to bring human interaction and computers closer and make it so they will become one. The next step is obviously going to be making it more accurate so that every motion you make is picked up by the sensor even subtle facial movements. As much as people may believe that a video game could never replace a real sports game i think it is only a matter of time. Why would someone walk 5 mminutes to the park to play with only a handful of friends when they can play with all of thier frineds with the click of a button. Not to mention how long until someone invents a suit allowing the user to feel the ball in their hands. It seems that slowly reality is becoming obsolete because virtual reality is limitless. A more practical application to kinect is advertising. As mentioned in class the movie minority report showed advertisments that recognized you and spoke to you but what if you looked into a store window and as you stood there you saw your self in their newest clothing. With a simple flick of the wrist you could try on different pants without even having to walk in the store. Before we know it people mihgt not see the world but see anything they want to at all times. If its raining out why not switch it so when you look out your window it looks and sounds sunny. I couldn't tell you if this is a good thing or a bad thing but this is where i see the future of technology

Surgery Table

so i did a quick version of the surgery table i brought up earlier in the semester. It still needs a little more work. I need to make it look prettier and i need to work out the motor to slide the projector back and forth.

Lighting

Heres just some work i did with the lighting

Bryce Swampland

i decided to mess around with dark lighting, add in a layer of fog... I've come to realize some of the limitations with bryce... the colors of objects change way to drastically in different lighting at one point the trees were fire red, also the background is just flat nothing and it looks terrible in my eyes, so its hard to angle the camera so you don't have to look into blank nothingness

The WorkShop 2

This is the program where the sound makes the image... i thing its a really cool idea and thought it would have been better if the dancers were wearing white shirts. Also i felt the image was a little bland it was always the same thing maybe something more abstract would be cooler and have the image be created by something other the "hsssss" its a cool sound but there isn't much music with it. It would be really cool if the LSD program was mixed with that, so the sound would create the streams I'm sure a lot of smokers, shooters, and sniffers would love a program like that

The WorkShop

This is one of the videos i took at the work shop... I really loved the cool effects that the "lsd" program made the only thing is i had a hard time telling if the dancers were making the streams move or if they were just moving on their own

Finished the gloves

So i worked on the gloves over the break and did them but i didnt hav a camera to be able to see if the IR LEDs worked, so i got back today and checked them out... four of the leds work on one glove and the other doesnt ill hav to tinker with it more this week

The Canyon

thats how id imagine utah! doing a little experimenting with the lighting and sky

Bryce: Islands

an island i did

Bryce: City

this is a quick city i did, i don't really like it because i could get a nice texture to do the buildings with

Bryce2

some work i did over the break

Bryce

I was doing some work on bryce and made these cool floating islands of lava