Haibane.info

Category: Stranger than fiction

  • let the world be your PC

    ok, anyone who watched Dennou Coil will immediately recognize where this is headed:

    Although the miniaturization of computing devices allows us to carry computers in our pockets, keeping us continually connected to the digital world, there is no link between our digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. Information is confined traditionally on paper or digitally on a screen. SixthSense bridges this gap, bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures. ‘SixthSense’ frees information from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer.

    The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user’s hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

    The thing is a project at the MIT Media Lab and can be built for $350 in off-the-shelf hardware. And just to make the obviousness of it all even more so, compare the following:

    sixthsense08denmo coil 1

    I posited in this slideshare presentation on the future of the Web that mapping a virtual layer on top of reality would be “web 4.0”. I think i may have been more right than I realized.

  • Pi Day is March 14th (3/14)

    I am geeked out by this – finally, formal recognition for the number pi!

    An irrational number that has been calculated to more than 1 trillion digits, pi is a concept not totally foreign to today’s Washington. But in this case, the goal was to promote efforts by the National Science Foundation to improve math education in the United States, especially in the critical fourth to eighth grades.

    Rounded off, pi equates to 3.14, hence the designation of March 14 as Pi Day under the resolution. Informal celebrations have been held around the country for at least 20 years, but Thursday’s 391-10 vote is the first time Congress has joined the party.

    So who exactly were the ten who voted against? What are they, non-Euclideans or something?

    Incidentally, one of my close friends from grad school is actually getting married today. Congratulations, Dustin and Gwen!

  • thinking about a new car

    Its definitely a good time to be in the market for a new car. What I want is a good car for winter driving, that gets decent mileage but also has enough capacity to load up bags for the airport, etc. I have an Explorer for the heavy lifting and long distance travel, so this one is really just for about town (wisconsin) driving.

    my main requirements are:

    – at least 20mpg
    – under $25k
    – AWD and ABS
    – high safety ratings for front/side impact

    my preferences are:

    – seat up to 7
    – 30mpg
    – American brand (or at least manufactured here)

    I was looking at the Subaru Outback and Forrester for starters, but that’s just scratching the surface. Any suggestions?

  • NASA rover in the Inaugural parade

    This was a cool moment in tonight’s (ongoing) coverage of the Inauguration festivities:

    That’s the prototype of NASA’s new electric moon rover under development. It’s not actually due to be launched to the moon for another 12 years and the design might change and we might not even go to the moon if the economy doesn’t get better – but assuming we do, as a nation, avoid some sort of Shoe Event Horizon scenario, then something like this might end up on the moon someday.

    Obama’s face was shining when the rover came along. I can’t blame him. It’s the coolest thing in the parade by far.

  • reading material

    Two new blogs to watch –

    Ogiue Maniax – there’s no paucity of intelligent analysis on anime, but for some reason this stands out from the crowded field.

    Schoolgirl Milky Crisis – insider commentary on the anime industry, with the most hilarious title ever. I must take serious issue though with his utterly ludicrous insinuation that Whisper of the Heart was superior to The Cat Returns.

    I also enjoyed this old (1978) essay from Philip K. Dick, now available online, entitled “How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later.” PKD was always fascinated by teh nature of reality and the question of what is authentically human (He would have been a fan of Galactica, for sure). In this essay he wanders around the question of what is reality for real, rather than just what is reality in fiction. It is a strange read, and an intimate one.

  • the very, VERY large Hadron collider

    This Onion story about the Very Large Earth Collider is hilarious for all the right reasons:

    “There will always be Chicken Little types,” theoretical physicist and futurist Michio Kaku said. “When the first nuclear reaction was achieved, there were those who said its very existence made it a weapon of unspeakable power, and there is evidence they may have been right. It’s probably worth asking if the Very Large Earth Collider may in fact pose some minute danger to the Earth.”

    While the project remains controversial, physicists agreed in late November to reconvene and evaluate the risk factor of the project after a small-scale field test, during which the Very Large Earth Collider will be turned on at 10 percent capacity, catapulting Earth into the moon at only half the speed of light.

    Of course, since a hadron is just a bound state of quarks, then protons and neutrons are also hadrons (specifically, baryons which are a subset of hadrons). Which means that in a sense the Earth is a big hadron itself… hmm. Has anyone checked the website of the LHC to see just exactly what they have in mind?

  • Hitler wants a united Eid

    This is hysterical.

    Here’s some context – but it’s funny even if you don’t care about the religious angle.

    Take that, dour mullah!

  • Fear Michael Jackson

    I’ve long subscribed to the theory that MJ is an evil genius mastermind. I think he’s probably got an IQ north of 175. Seriously, the man is like Lex Luthor and (Asimov’s) The Mule rolled into one.

    How else to explain this? He’s obviously up to something nefarious. I think he’s got an island villa somewhere, like in The Incredibles, where he hatches his schemes in James Bond Villain chic.

    If ever Michael Jakcson were to visit Japan, the combination of wierd and awesome might implode the Earth.

  • An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar

    math joke:

    An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer, and so on. The bartender says “You’re all idiots”, and pours two beers.

    (source)

  • the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys

    Today’s XKCD gets me thinking, as always, about Hitchhiker’s Guide:

    A bunch of Rocks (XKCD 11/17/08)
    excerpt from A bunch of Rocks (XKCD 11/17/08)

    Quoth the Guide:

    “…we’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere … and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.”