Sunday, December 21, 2014

Sci-Fi Author Neal Stephenson Joins Mystery Startup Magic Leap as ‘Chief Futurist’

Sci-Fi Author Neal Stephenson Joins Mystery Startup Magic Leap as ‘Chief Futurist’

Neal Stephenson.
Neal Stephenson.  Bob Lee/Flickr
If nothing else, Magic Leap knows how to capture the imagination.
Silicon Valley is already abuzz over this stealthy augmented-reality startup, mainly due to some funding from Google and a brief glimpse of the company’s technology that shows a 3-D virtual elephant floating above someone’s hands. And now, the company has raised its cachet even higher by teaming up with big-name science fiction writer and game designer Neal Stephenson, author of such sci-fi classics asSnow Crash and Cryptonomicon.
Stephenson will hold the title of “Chief Futurist” at the mysterious Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based company, which recently announced a $542 million round of funding led by Google. The sci-fi writer revealed his new title with a blog post, saying he’d been swayed to join Magic Leap after receiving a demonstration of the company’s technology.
“Magic Leap is mustering an arsenal of techniques…to produce a synthesized light field that falls upon the retina in the same way as light reflected from real objects in your environment,” he writes, saying it’s a tool that will serve not only gamers but “readers, learners, scientists, and artists.”
As one of the company’s visionaries, Stephenson will work with the startup in a more theoretical, rather than technical, capacity. “Where I hope I can be of use is in thinking about what to do with this tech once it is available to the general public,” he writes. He’ll join other notable names at the company, including founders Rony Abovitz, the former head of a medical robotics company MAKO Surgical, which was sold for $1.65 billion, and Richard Taylor of WETA Workshop, the company that created the props and creatures seen in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Thus far, the startup has been extremely tight-lipped on what its final product will be. Publicly, it released little more than a GIF of a tiny elephant appearing in an open pair of hands as a puzzling hint of what it would eventually debut. But somehave speculated that the company could be making a Google Glass-like wearable that realistically blends computer-generated graphics with real world.
In this manner, Magic Leap adds to a wealth of efforts by others—notably Google Glass and the Oculus Rift—to bring augmented reality and virtual reality into the mainstream. When the company landed that $542-million pile of cash, the investment didn’t come from Google Ventures, Google Capital, or any of the search giant’s other investment arms—but rather Google Inc. itself.
Additionally, Magic Leap nabbed senior vice president Sundar Pichai, the man in charge of Google’s core products, as a member of the startup’s board. And other investors carry their own cachet, including Qualcomm, Legendary Pictures, and venture capitalist bigwigs Andreessen Horowitz, Obvious Ventures, and KPCB.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Turn in for finals

Turn in for finals - Monday 12:00

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

You need to turn in your 5 page paper

Your video 

All the work you did on any of the following
dvd- cd- or flash drive- I don't do downloads

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what is most important in the final is the video documentation of it working
make it as good as u can-
think of timing- 
the beginning of the video should get people excreted about the project- then go into detail how it works-
make sure the display of the device [while recording ] is crystal clear and in focus-
get a long shot - shows person viewing the device from a short distance- it should be clear they are looking at a phone-
staging- the background better look good-
sound- make it sound pro- no background noise that should not be there-
if it needs a voice over do the video over first so you know how much video you will need
we do have a sound booth at magnet-


please know I am open to creative approaches on the video [different from above] like nabil's - [who should make small individual movies]

If you have questions please ask me-

mark

Friday, December 12, 2014

Geminid Meteor Shower Of 2014: How To Watch The Year's Best Sky Show

Geminid Meteor Shower Of 2014: How To Watch The Year's Best Sky Show

Posted: Updated: 
Listen up, skywatchers. What's expected to be the year’s best meteor shower is set to light up the skies this weekend.
The 2014 Geminid meteor shower will peak overnight on Saturday, Dec. 13 through Sunday, Dec.14. If the sky is dark and clear, viewers in the Northern Hemisphere may be treated to as many as 120 meteors per hour starting around 9 p.m. local time until dawn.
The meteors--small pieces of debris from an asteroid named 3200 Phaethon--should also be visible on Friday and Sunday nights.
(Story continues below image.)
geminid shower
Geminids captured in December, 2012 in South Dakota. (Flickr/David Kingham)
No special equipment to catch the meteors is needed. Just find a spot with an unobstructed view of the sky and no glaring lights nearby.
“Go out late in the evening, lie back in a reclining lawn chair, and gaze up into the stars,” Sky & Telescope’s senior editor, Alan MacRobert, wrote in the magazine. “Relax, be patient, and let your eyes adapt to the darkness."
NASA says Saturday's celestial show will be particularly good for youngsters, as the best time for viewing will be in the first half of the night, before the last-quarter moonrises around midnight. Though the moonlight may interfere with meteor-watching, the brightest Geminids will probably outshine the moon. (Head over to the U.S. Naval Observatory's website to find out the moonrise time for your location.)
Unable to make it outside when the meteors show up? The Slooh space camera is scheduled to live-stream the shower on Saturday starting at 8 p..m. EST -- check it out above.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

For The Final Crit on Monday......

For The Final Crit on Monday

READ the syllabus on the Final Crit- *** 
If you are being rude during other people's crits it hurts your final grade-
If I can hear you or you are distracting me - it hurts your grade-
Laptops are closed during finals + no phones- texting etc
Come on time- being late really hurts you....

---

For the final-


Ideally-
You will show a powerpoint to the class explaining you final + then show your video. If you can do a live demo that's is also great-

****The most important thing is a working demo- if its made to work offsite make a video-
The paper and overview video are not as important- I can give you more time to finish them after monday.

Whats supposed to be due Monday? I will give an extension on the below- the working demo is the most important.

1 - CD/dvd/ flashdrive with all your work from the semester.
2- 5 page paper on your project
3- video documentation of your work

email me with questions-

Metaio License??

Everyone who wants the Metaio license I need to give Janet a list-

Please email me at Polytech3d@gmail.com
Title the email Metaio License

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

class is optional

Class on wed is for help on your project-
If you want to spend the time in the real world documenting  / videoing that's also
great. If you do not come to class I will be harder on you so do a good job.

If you come to class I can help you get your work together for next weeks final-

C u soon!

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Ultrasonics may soon let you touch what you see in virtual reality

http://mashable.com/2014/12/02/ultrasonic-haptic-feedback/

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IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
At this point it seems like it's just a matter of time before every device shown on Star Trekbecomes a reality and, thanks to a new innovation, the holodeck could be next.
A UK company called Ultrahaptics has developed a method of providing haptic feedback for holographic imagery by using ultrasonic technology.
Originally developed in the research labs at the University of Bristol, the developers of the system can deliver different haptic feedback and virtually tactile shapes through ultrasonic waves by pulsing the feedback of the ultrasonic waves or changing their modulation frequency.
The change in pressure that creates the virtual shapes and force sensations is termed "acoustic radiation pressure."
To better wrap your head around the concept, think of the fictional mid-air interface show inMinority Report, a type of system promised by real world companies such as Leap Motion, that allow you to manipulate computer data with gestures in the air. Now add texture and force feedback to such a mid-air interface and you begin to understand the possibilities of Ultrahaptics' system.

"We've been working on this for over four years," Tom Carter, the CTO of Ultrahaptics and a member of the team that developed the technology, told Mashable. "The goal of the company isn't to launch its own product, we want this tech to become embedded in lots of different products, from clocks, to home appliances to cars. To do that, we needed to engage OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] as a company."
Ultrahaptics

Artist's concept rendering of Ultrahaptics being used to control a car's dashboard interface.
IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
The breakthrough, said Carter, who was working on his computer science Ph.D. at the University of Bristol before helping to launch the company, has to do with the optimization of the algorithms that control the ultrasonic waves. "Previously, it's been possible to focus ultrasound to a point," Carter said, but those attempts yielded unstable results.

The Ultrahaptics solution uses an algorithm that better controls the volumetric distribution of the acoustic radiation force fields.
Ultrahaptics

Artist's concept rendering of Ultrahaptics working in concert with the Oculus Rift.
IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
But, according to Carter, simple interface controls are just the beginning. Further out, in as little as three to four years, he envisions the successful three-dimensional haptic lab experiments being integrated into real world products and situations that most of us could experience on a daily basis. But what most excites Carter are the possibilities of Ultrahaptics being used in virtual reality.
" 
The holy grail for this has to be virtual reality
The holy grail for this has to be virtual reality," said Carter. "There's a huge amount of development going into things like the Oculus Rift. Now you can only see and hear, you can't touch. So the ultimate hope would be that you could put on those virtual reality goggles and feel and touch the virtual world."
Although the current version of the technology works in a lab setting, Carter said we'll have to wait a bit longer to see some of the commercial applications of the technology.
"For example, being able to [use the technology to] control a simple device with a button, like an alarm clock, for instance," Carter said. "The alarm goes off and you just wave your hand out into a general area and it could project feeling onto your hand, and you could tap or swipe, and it would allow you to snooze... We'd love to have a commercial product on the shelves in one to two years."

BONUS: What Is Virtual Reality and How Does It Work?

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