Strukt Ideas

Podcasting

Thom — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:16:58 +0000

Today I’m writing about something that isn’t very new. But podcasts have become a quite impressive medium by now and I’ll dedicate my weekly blog post to this new information source.
“A podcast is a series of digital-media files, which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers.”, is how the Wikipedia puts it.
Basically, it’s the same as a radio show. Just that every new episode is downloaded automatically to your computer and/or portable music player and you can listen to it whenever and wherever you like.
There are already millions of people out there producing their own podcast and together cover almost any imaginable topic. It’s easy to find a podcast but not so easy finding the good ones. Most of them are really impossible to listen to because of bad quality or due to bad show hosts and boring content.

And now I would like to present to you a few of my favorite podcasts:

This week in Tech
or, casually referred to as TWiT is an award winning, weekly podcast hosted by Leo Laporte and many other very notable people worikng high up in the technology and internet sector. The show features round table discussions and debates surrounding current technology news and reviews, with a particular focus on consumer electronics.
It gets you all the newest information about newest developments in the tech sector. Sometimes the show consists of lots of rambling around about some topic but usually that’s quite entertaining.

This week in Science
This Week in Science (TWIS) is a weekly science radio talk show broadcasting from the University of Davis campus. Two quite entertaining Hosts deliver a lively and informative review of current research in technology and science. There are often interviews top scientists, technologists, and luminaries. The Brian Greene who wrote “The Elegant Universe”, NASA astrobiologist Jack Farmer, Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, popular science fiction author and futurist William Gibson, and author of the Mars Trilogy Kim Stanley Robinson. And, my favorite: an Interview with Dr. Leonard Susskind one of the greatest minds of our time!

fm4 Reality Check
Reality Check is Radio FM4s news programme with interviews and analysis of stories from around the world with in-depth coverage examining how stories develop and why they are relevant. Issues such as human-rights, new discoveries, orange-revolutions, every imaginable topic making the news today can appear on Reality Check.
It’s great because they give a very comprehensive picture about certain, mostly current events and crises.

IQ Wissenschaft und Forschung
Only available in german language, this one is also a very informative science and technology podcast!
This is how the contents of the show are described on Bayern 3’s website:
“Jeden Tag entdecken Forscher etwas Neues - irgendwo auf der Welt. Behalten Sie mit uns den Überblick: Wir erklären Ihnen, was davon wirklich wichtig ist und was dahinter steckt. In den Naturwissenschaften und der Medizin, in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften.”

Sternstunde Philosophie
My definitive favorite is also available only in german. This one is a weekly podcast consisting of a 60-minute dialogue between the moderator and a guest. And the guest list is quite impressive with many Nobel laureates, bestselling authors, philosophers and very high government officials and diplomats.

And if you don’t know how to subscribe and listen to podcasts (it’s very, very easy if you have iTunes and an iPod!) click here

Leave Some Trails

Gregor — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:43:01 +0000

Yes, indeed, Engadget.com said it correctly, this isn’t the newest idea around, but very well executed: The Sensacell reactive floor installation at the Comunitat Valenciana in Spain is a beauty, super reactive and very flat in construction. I could see myself spending hours playing around with this thing. Make sure not only to check out the video below, but also the Sensacell Website, which shows detailed product information and application examples.

via Engadget

Got depth? Auto-stereoscopic LCD for mobiles

Andreas — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:53:08 +0000

Epson spread the news today about a high-resolution autostereoscopic display for mobiles. It has 384 x 256 3D-pixels for each eye with a screen width of only 2,57 inches - not too bad. We’ve seen a lot of these displays already (see Tanja’s post about Newsight), but this one is - according to Epson - much sharper and more vivid. It uses the usual technology for autostereoscopic displays, but has additional lenticular lenses in front of the display:

That means that the next iPhone might boast 3D-images and that we can play 3D-games on the next PSP? Coooool, ey.

Via macnews.de
(in their article, they say the displays are 1024×768, but you can only see 384×256 in 3D according to Epson’s information in the article linked above)

Holographic Multi-Touch System

Gregor — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:55:01 +0000

The people over at Obscura Digital pulled off another nice piece of installation. Using their own multi-touch software and combining it with the holographic projection technology of Musion’s Eyeliner 3D System they created quite some magic. If you look closely at the end you can see that the operator has tiny LED lamps in his hands that, if i’m guessing correctly, light up once he squeezes them, which then will create a blob for the system to recognzie.

via Engadget

Multi-Touch: work in progress

Andreas — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:44:32 +0000

Our multi-touch research project shows major progress recently. We have been developing a new software for tracking and object handling in vvvv. We started from scratch due to performance issues and now the system is reactive and fast - just the way we always wanted it to be. David Dessens did a great job there! Still, there are a couple of issues to be solved. We’ve tested and prototyped some applications, like a memory, a media browser, a synthesizer, and of course abstract touch-sensitive visuals are always great fun to play with.

This video shows the current Work-In-Progress (next time in HDV again, this is plain DV quality):

Multi-Touch - Work in Progress from Andreas Koller (Strukt) on Vimeo.

The project’s blog can be found on multitouch.at.

The Liquid Display

Thom — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:25:16 +0000

Nicolas Büchi, a student from Swizzerland (University of Art and Design in Zurich) used a tank of water to create a kind of display. There are 16 user-controlled SMB valves that release air into the tank to create bubbles. These valves are controlled with sensors build into smaller water-tanks. The idea is not new but I like the realisation. Have a look at http://theliquiddisplay.com/ for a few more pictures.

the liquid display - a physical interactive installation from nicolas büchi on Vimeo.

Spherical Multi-Touch Display

Gregor — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:01:31 +0000

It was rumored for quite a while now that Microsoft is working on a spherical multi-touch display prototype. Today, at Microsoft’s Faculty Summit in Redmond, people will get the first chance to interact with it. The sphere is built on commercially available hardware by Global Imagination of Los Gatos, California, but Microsoft managed to put the camera for tracking user interactions behind the SAME lens as the projection source. This of course is a clever way to avoid tracking from outside or a bulky globe-stand.

As of now, Microsoft does not seem to aim for a commercial version of the spherical multi-touch display, they simply want to proof the concept and also see how people accept the unconventional screen and its interaction possibilities.

Make sure to check out the video on this page.

via Engadget

Augmented Reality on iPhone

Gregor — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:31:29 +0000

It seems like not even our blog is safe from iPhone related news. But one has to admit, it’s an interesting platform for developers with quite some innovative interface features packed into it. For us it’s exciting to see that one developer (Artoolworks) picked up one of our topics of interests: Augmented Reality. It seems that the processor and the built in graphics power allow interpretation of fiducials. Unfortunately the iPhone right now doesn’t sport a video processing capability, so the developed application only works with up to 12 frames per second. But hey, we are already waiting for iPhone 4G anyways, right?

via www.schroeder-wendt.com (text in German only)

Just think about it: thought control your computer

Andreas — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:33:08 +0000

By the end of this year we might be able to take control over computers just with your thoughts. That’s what Nintendo’s president and CEO Satoru Iwata promises in an interview with Times Magazine (german summary on macnews). The australian company Emotiv has developed “neuroheadsets” equipped with 16 head-mounted sensors that read mind activity, the so-called EPOC. It will cost $299 according to the website of EPOC (they mention it in the GDC video). For sure we have to wait 20 years until this technology really works well and whole games can be mind-controlled, I guess. But according to reports mentioned in the interview, this technology is the tip of the iceberg and a glimpse of what will be possible in human-computer interaction.

Another product in this category is the nia - the Neural Impulse Actuator - from OCZ Technology. It can be used as a normal PC periphery via USB, and converts bio-signals from your brain into keyboard signals. They state it cuts your reaction time in computer games by 50%. Yeah, right. But it is only recommended to use it as additional input for a more immersive gaming experience.

“As soon as we think something in our brain, it will appear within a video game”: for Nintendo, the next step after the Joystick and the Wiimote is the thought-controlled computer game. Well, I’m looking forward to christmas! I wonder what kind of world this is where everything you think appears in the game. Solaris? Firefox? Strange Days?

PS: The tagline of Emotiv is kinda scary: “We know what you’re thinking.”

Stantum provides 15,4 inch multi-touch TFT screen

Andreas — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:37:21 +0000

The french company Stantum, formerly know as Jazzmutant and developers of the infamous Lemur (Gregor wrote about it), have developed a 15,4″ multi-touch TFT screen. This was released in January already, but since then there have not been any news on this - we still try to get hold of one. I am sure that it works as smooth and responsive as the Lemur, but allowing to display whatever you need on a 1280×800 TFT, which is just what we need for interactive terminals, media browsers, games… and development of applications for our big multi-touch table.

Stantum provides a very basic explanation how it works, and they also released it as a development kit. We are sure this is the way human-computer interaction will evolve.

Gysin and Vanetti Showreel

Thom — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:42:47 +0000

Great showreel by Andreas Gysin e Sidi Vanetti showing mostly artsy installations. Everything is very reduced and minimal but with a strong impact on the visual nerves. But what I like best is their interpretation of a “Swatch” watch.

Link to www.gysin-vanetti.com

Z-Cam: Images with distance information

Andreas — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 22:07:46 +0000

This is a small dream come true: an affordable z-depth camera, with a decent framerate (60 fps!) and a good resolution (1.3 Mega-pixel, which is more than enough for interaction), all wrapped up in a webcam-sized case. We’ve seen various of chunky, slow z-cams before, but this seems to be promising - for sure we will get one and try it out, and hope we can give a report on how it works with vvvv soon. We just hope this is not a hoax, but the website of 3DV looks quite professional. Still, we haven’t received a reply concerning the availability and price. According to engadget (article from January) it is expected until the end of 2008.

Including the z-depth opens up various possibilities in interaction, these are the most important I can think of at the moment:

gesture controlled navigation made easy
finger- or headtracking (think Minority Report and other science-fiction films) but without any hand-gloves or stickies on your fingertips!
depth-keying makes the green-screen in studios becomes redundant
motion-control (however, I imagine that this works very poor compared to real motion capture systems)

The Z-Cam by company 3DV Systems from Israel works with the so-called “Time-of-Flight” principle, where “the Depth information is captured by emitting pulses of infra-red light to all objects in the scene and sensing the reflected light from the surface of each object.” (from 3dv website) This is the most obvious way (similar to echolocation done by dolphins, bats and so on, I guess) and most of the cams work that way - but mostly below 15 fps, which is not suitable for interaction.

Some more info and videos are available on the website of 3DV Systems (be warned: poor video quality, but you get the ideas what you can do with this camera).