Category Archives: Technology

Augmented

Virtual Reality was hot in the 80s. We were so ready to jack in to fully realized worlds that were indistinguishable from reality.

Then we actually tried VR, and found that while it was cool in theory, the execution was a more than lacking. The visuals were lacking, the goggles were heavy, and the interfaces were clunky at best.

Now we’re well into the 2000s, and not only are there no flying cars, but there are no virtual reality salons. It’s a shame. I imagined that they would be like opium dens, where addicts would pay to jack in and escape from the real world for hours at a time. (No, instead I pay $15 a month to do that in the comfort of my own home, in a place called Azeroth.)

So we’re not really living in the future. We’re living in the here and now.

So what’s here and now? “Augmented Reality.”

Instead of trying to create a computer generated reality that is virtually indistinguishable from real life, they are working on a way to change what you see. In retrospect, it’s the first step we should have taken before making a movie like “The Lawmower Man.”

Human Interface Technology New Zealand is working on augmented reality and it’s got some of the best movies that I’ve seen. The whole concept is a little hard to explain, but I’m going to point out one of the prototypes that they have, “Magiplanet.” When you watch the video, you can see that it’s a fantastic bit of technology.

I think the project’s title is very accurate. When you see the planet rotating on a piece of cardboard, it’s almost magical. The voice of the narrator could use some work though. It’s a little too, “xxxtreme!!” Knowing that this was for children of course, I liked the way they pronounced, “Uranus.”

I chuckled.

I watched all of the videos and each time, I was impressed.

What’s amazing is that the perspectives of the augmented reality are correct. If you rotate the book with the boat popping out of it, you can actually look around the boat and it looks right.

Educational applications seem incredible. You know those audio tours that they give out at museums? Now imagine they hand out goggles instead. You could “see” ocean currents on a globe, or the inside of a steam engine.

Now, I can see this being very cool for tabletop gaming enthusiasts, people who play things like WarHammer. I’m not thinking about making the figures actually shoot or move. I’m thinking more of a user interface.

There’s measuring involved for things like movement, lines of fire, and areas of effect. Now, imagine that the figures are equipped with id tags. With augmented reality, you could see how far the figure was allowed to move on your next turn and where they could fire. You could also see the same info for your opponent’s figurines. I can see this improving the flow of the game, as well as making it more enjoyable for the players.

Another interesting thing to do would be to make actual scenery, something akin to what the company Total Immersion demos inthis video. The video’s a bit long, (not to mention Windows Media–but at least the part that I’m talking about happens early in the video.)

If you believe HIT labs, this technology’s only two years away from implementation.

I’m not holding my breath, but I would certainly like to see what else people come up with.

Library . . .of the FUTURE

I’m not exactly sure how this happened, but I was involved in our library’s “Symposium 2010: The Library in the year 2010.” I served as a member of the “Video Game Community” on a panel that examined the way that video games affect current and future generations of learners.

There were four of us and we took on the topics of “Why Game?,” “Games and Society,” “Gender and Gaming,” and “Games and Education.”

I got “Games and Education” as my topic. Which I wasn’t too thrilled about initially, but I’m happy at the way the presentation turned out. Instead of taking a macro overview of educational games, I went for a personal viewpoint. I talked about three games in particular, that I played. It was taped, and I’m hoping to get the raw footage pretty soon to digitize and post. I won’t go into the particulars of the presentation here, in the hopes that I’ll be able to get that tape. Sooner, hopefully, rather than later.

I didn’t get to bring up my social commentary regarding the sales of M rated games to the parents of minors during my presentation, but I think I did a great job during the Q&A afterwards.

For this panel, the symposium organizers invited experts from various disciplines, and more than a few librarians from local institutions attended. After the panel, there was an informal dinner where the panelists got to sit down and eat with these experts.

Firstly, I would like to apologize to all of the librarians I have yet to meet.

I was not looking forward to this part of the panel. I imagined conversations with librarians to be very dry affairs, temporal wastelands to be avoided, like lines at the DMV. I imagined droning on about the Dewey Decimal System, and waxing rueful over the “good old days” before the internet ruined research.

I could not have been more wrong.

The people (at my table, at least) were dynamic, technically savvy people who are trying very hard to keep information “alive.” I had some great conversations about user interface, podcasting, RSS feeds, and the digitization of collections.

So I had a good time, and the chicken was tasty and well prepared. Dessert was another matter. In retrospect, I should have gotten the apple tart.

Why I'm Waiting

It’s the 15th of March, and I have not preordered a PlayStation Portable.

I, myself, am rather surprised by that fact. I am a videogame enthusiast, am I not?

I love the technology, the stories they tell, the worlds that they create, and the experiences that they provide. I love the way people react to them, the way they get “sucked in.” Watching the news, I even love the way that people are driven to love or hate them.

Then of course, I love playing the games.

So why no PSP for me? I technically own three GameBoy Advances. (That is an awkward plural. I say “technically” because I’m counting the DS for its backwards compatibility.) There is also an original GameBoy Color and a Neo Geo Pocket Color.

I admit, I’m tempted by its large, brilliant screen, its multimedia capabilities, the WiFi, the graphics (Oh lord, the graphics!), and a myriad of other technical reasons. And of course, the games. There are some excellent looking titles at launch. Lumines in particular really calls out to me. I’m all about the music puzzle games.

It’s a compelling system, an ambitious undertaking by a company that really wants to take a bite out of Nintendo’s territory.

So why not? Probably several reasons.

There’s a battery issue. The PSP uses Universal Media Discs, not cartridges. There’s a tiny optical drive in there. That means a motor to spin the disc, and another motor to move the laser to and fro to read the disc. There’s also powering the laser. Granted, the UMD can hold a lot of data, but an optical drive is not something you want to have if in your system if your battery is not up to the task.

I’ve seen my laptop battery drop from 90% to 50% just by watching a DVD. I can only imagine what the actual battery life on the PSP is going to be like. Sony addressed this issue earlier, stating that battery life is a concern that developers will need to address. As of the last time I checked, the battery will last all of two hours if you’re watching a movie on UMD.

If you’re playing a game, it’s a little better. Four to five hours. If you’re using headphones. At half volume. With the brightness turned down to medium. Not using the WiFi capabilities. And if the game doesn’t use a lot of 3D graphics. So, I’m thinking two, maybe three hours for games. I must be spoiled from the 10 hours I get from the Nintendo DS, and that thing has two screens.

Sony has already stated that they’re going to release a bigger battery, and has pointed to their earlier product lines as examples. The Walkman, which initially had a horrible battery life, enjoyed longer playtimes as its technology improved. I think Sony believes that this statement is going to prevent buyer’s remorse. It certainly makes me feel better, but more so for not preordering one.

I would like to point out that they said, “We are going to release a bigger battery.” They did not say, “We are going to integrate a larger capacity battery for the US release.”

Then there’s the Square button issue. When the PSP was released in Japan, there were a few individual PSP units (approximately 5,000) that had a manufacturing defect. The square button would sometimes get stuck in the down position and not come back up. Sony eventually offered repairs for the unlucky early adopters, but there was a period of time when the company even refused to acknowledge the defect. Sony says that they have tracked down the problem and PSPs manufactured in March of this year no longer have this issue. (Plastic casing around the buttons not being trimmed properly.) With the US launch date in less than 9 days, I certainly hope so. I have never called Sony customer service, and I hope I never have to.

Then there’s the fact I have to buy a whole new form of memory storage. They give you a 32 MB Memory Stick Duo to start, because the “first one is always free.” But in order for you to play movies or music, (That you’ve ripped yourself) you’ll have to get a larger one.

Add the fact that this is Sony’s first revision of their first handheld multimedia system, (not to mention the first revision of its operating system) and you have a convincing argument that weighs very heavily towards the “wait until later” course of purchasing.

Oh, and initial reviews of the Japanese units pretty much agree that the headphones and remote suck. Just FYI.

I’m not saying that I’m never going to get one. I just feel that there are a lot of factors that make me want to wait until at least the second revision of the hardware.

I am an early adopter. I’m normally up there in the front lines, at the midnight, with my fully paid preorder slip in my hand.

But this time, I’m just not feeling the push.

Or, maybe I’m just waiting for the other colors that they promised.

I feel like chicken tonight

Nothing screams factory farm like an automated chicken harvester. It’s called the E-Z Catch Harvester and the machine is both disturbing and amusing. Thankfully, the site provides a video and I suggest that you watch it, because there is nothing like seeing chickens eaten by a large machine, and then shot out of said machine into coops. You may say that I am losing a war with the nation of hyperbole. I say you should click on the link and watch the video.

The video is silent, which makes it all the eerier. I would have preferred some banjo, maybe something with a lot of fast picking.

Now they need to make something completely autonomous that plucks, slaughters, packages and freezes chickens.

My mother once told me the story of her grandmother walking out into the backyard, breaking a chicken’s neck, and walking back in to prepare dinner.

Now we have a 40 foot long robot that puts chickens into coops, that go to a slaughterhouse, that kills the chicken, that goes to the market, where you buy the chicken, that you make for dinner. (Yes, I know it’s oversimplified but bear with me.)

Have we come a long way, or have we fallen?

The Pet that Eats Dirt

Or, alternately, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let the Robot Vacuum.”

Unpacking is an unpleasant but rewarding business. I rediscovered a great deal of real estate last night after clearing away boxes, and laying down the six by nine carpet. With the recliner and coffee table in place, it looks like an actual living space, rather than a storage area for boxes. After laying down on the carpet for a few minutes, I realized that I had to vacuum. The carpet had been rolled up against the wall for months now, and I wasn’t sure if I vacuumed it before I rolled it up.

It was then that I remembered that I received a Roomba Discovery for Christmas. It was from Julie, who knows my predilection towards items that are achingly expensive, shiny, and of a gadgetological origin. In about ten minutes, I installed the battery, and placed it on the charging station. Roomba’s charge cycle is three hours, but it was late, so I went to bed. I left Roomba in its base station, power button pulsing with orange light to the rhythm of a Jarvik heartbeat.

This morning, whilst drinking my morning tea, I let it loose upon my apartment. The light was green. I picked up a few loose bits here and there, placed Roomba on the carpet, and pressed the “clean” button.

The novelty factor of the Roomba is undeniable. Roomba sounds like a high powered RC car, but moves like a tank. The way it navigates is via collision detection, so it “feels” its way around the apartment. It bumps into everything, and adjusts its direction after it hits something. I almost felt sorry for it. After watching it for about half a cup, I began to see that although it was “blind,” it certainly wasn’t “dumb.” It would follow a wall, making sure to vacuum the edges. It could find its way out of corners, head for directions that haven’t been vacuumed yet. There were times when I thought it was going to get stuck, and seemed to, but it eventually found its way out.

I didn’t let Roomba vaccuum for the entirety of its cycle, but it did cover a good bit of my apartment. It even maneuvered its way into my bedroom hallway and back out without incident. I picked it up, Roomba beeped and flashed amber, which meant, “Hey! I’m not done yet!” (In the manual, they say that this means, “Mission Abandoned.” For a moment, I imagined a talking Roomba, which sounded like a female Dalek. Yeah, I’m not sure how you tell them apart, either.) I put it down in front of the base station and hit “Spot” and “Clean” at the same time, which sends it back to the charging station. It then turned itself completely around (I had it facing the wrong way) and performed what I can only describe as a “docking maneuver” with the charging station.

Blue Danube was playing. I nearly cried.

But does it really work? The amount of dirt that I cleared from the dustbin seems to indicate that it does. The carpet looks better than when I first unrolled it, and I all I did was I was put this robot in the middle of the floor and press “Clean.”

Did I mention that it was entertaining to watch?

It’s not completely fire and forget though, it’s almost like owning a pet. You have to keep floors relatively clear of things that you don’t want it to “eat.” It may try to get underfoot if you’re doing something at the same time that it’s playing on the carpet. It hasn’t messed anything yet, but I’ll keep an eye out.

Roomba came with two virtual walls, but my condo, I don’t foresee using them. Besides, why use a virtual wall when I can just build one out of boxes?

Now, if only they’d make a robot that does laundry. I hate laundry.