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Immerse yourself in augmented reality via Total Immersion
From Demo '07: Webware.com's Rafe Needleman gets a demo of a new application for augmented reality from Total Immersion.
During the festival of Ganesh Chaturti, the last time devotees get to see their beloved lord Ganesha is before immersion. But no one knows what happens underwater. This film is a blend of fact, myth & fantasy, which talks about the journey of an immersed image underwater. All the immersed clay images, each one with innovative iconography, get animated (indicating the presence of prana). Their energy and merrymaking finally make the God himself appear, to collect prana from all the images. This leaves inanimate clay objects, which quickly dissolve into formlessness. This formless state of clay only lasts for a short time, though. In next year's festival the prana again regains its iconic form. In this respect it replicates the cosmos itself.
French-based company Total Immersion has come up with software that turns 2D pictures into 3D models on a screen when they are displayed in front of a Webcam. Last year, they set up shop in the U.S., selling their product as interactive kiosks that could appear in stores or conferences, among other uses. But anyone with a computer and a Webcam can download a test sample to try it out. In this video, CNET News.com's Hanna Sistek shows how the software works.
Maya: Nurbs Modeling 2nd Edition: preview
This video provides animators, visual effects artists, and game developers with an introduction to NURBS Modeling in Maya. Maya: NURBS Modeling 2nd Edition has been revised and expanded to include: creating boundary surfaces, sculpting with Maya Artisan, understanding UV surface coordinates, and much more! Visual effects artists, Andrew Hazelden and Russell Hazelden, provide numerous tips for efficient modeling, including: how to keep objects organized using the layer editor, how to create accurate scale models using reference images, and countless time saving keyboard shortcuts. All of the modeling techniques are then put to use in the final exercise which is creating an antique lantern using NURBS curves and surfaces. No steps are left out and every detail is explained, with easy to follow step-by-step instructions. Maya: NURBS Modeling 2nd Edition is available on DVD-ROM for Windows XP and Mac OS X.
Fly your own remote-controlled robot
From CES 2007: CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos gets a demo of a few different models and speaks with Wow Wee's Vice President of Sales, Art Janis, about the company's goal to create affordable robots.
Harman/Kardon Go + Play iPod boom box
The Harman/Kardon Go + Play is one of the best-sounding portable iPod speaker systems you can buy, but its high price and lack of compatibility with recent iPod models make it a limited recommendation.
Livescribe digital pen gets student test
A UC Berkeley student has become such a devotee of the Livescribe digital pen that he's now one of three dozen "campus scribes" paid by Livescribe to evangelize the product at their school. He shares how the pen has improved his study habits.
Richie Hawtin's latest project is DE9: Transitions. Realized in 5.1 surround sound and using the latest recording technology to create an immersive sonic experience, DE9: Transitions encompasses 95 minutes of altered perception. It combines everything from original Hawtin productions to unreleased tracks straight from the studios of cutting-edge producers like Ricardo Villalobos, and adds flashes of classic techno moments which inspired him when he was a young clubber. But most of the tracks are fundamentally transformed from their original states. Some fade in and out over a period of minutes, while others are reduced to one single sampled note. The on-screen read-out on the DVD version of DE9: Transitions illustrates the smoothly shape-shifting outline of a remarkable complex project. In fact, the tracks are so close to becoming entirely new compositions that Hawtin has made the decision to give them his own names. "It's taking a chance, doing a mix CD and giving the tracks my own titles representing what these pieces have become," Hawtin admits. "But I believe it's gone far enough that I can do that. Some people might get pissed about it; we'll see. The CD artwork plays with that; it's a picture of my face which is totally made up of these track names, so it shows you that although this is made by me, I'm no greater or lesser than the information I'm using." Copyright: Novamute/Mute
At Demo 2006 in Phoenix, we looked at Polyvision's Thunder Conferencing system, which offers eights screens and live video.
Microsoft unveils touch screen computing
Microsoft has just announced its Surface Computing technology, a project that has been kept under wraps for five years. Using a giant table-like display, users are able to draw, interact with media, and use another new technology called domino tagging, in which a real-life object on the computer's surface is identified and becomes an on-screen object that can be interacted with. CNET News.com's Ina Fried got a demo of the Surface Computer.
