introspectiveH

Taking Wiimote Innovations to the Next Level

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

Recently, I came across some videos of a very smart dude name Johnny Chung Lee that has been doing some interesting innovations with one of my favorite toys, the Wiimote. Johnny Lee is a Ph. D. student at Carnegie Mellon, and his innovations are both simple and brilliant. He is doing work similar to Majority Desk, but taking it way beyond to the next level. The biggest shift in thinking is that he uses the Wiimote and infrared sensors in reverse, so that your hands are more free to move around naturally.

I love it; such a simple paradigm shift unleashes so many possibilities. If you don't agree, then check out his next video where he uses this same concept to provide a cheap alternative to both expensive electronic whiteboards and the upcoming Microsoft Surface, which is supposed to be priced between $5k - $10K.

Because of the high interest in the project, but lack of resources to pursue it full time, Lee released the Wiimote whiteboard project as open source…another brilliant move.

I'm swamped with requests for compatibility fixes, requests for Mac and Linux versions. … and as much as I would love to be able to get this working in the hands of as many people as possible, I don't have the skills or time to do all this alone. So, here is my call for help. I have created a SourceForge repository for all WiimoteWhiteboard development.

Over at Cynergy Labs, they have also picked up on the minority report/Wiimote concept and put together a really nice, polished application using a pair of real minority report type gloves. Thanks to my friend Karl Johnson over at Cynergy, for sending this one along.

Cynergy Labs: Project Maestro

I love the fact that these type of breakthroughs are being created with a $30 Wiimote and $20 worth of parts from Radio Shack.

Microsoft Surface: $10,000

Wiimote: $30

Making Microsoft's Surface an overpriced, big ass table: priceless

As a bonus, check out Johnny's latest project on head tracking with the Wiimote for desktop VR display. This is just freaking amazing and opens up a whole new can of worms.

Combine majority desk, maestro, and head tracking VR together and you could be fully immersed in a productive 3D environment using a minority report interface. Thanks Johnny Lee; I salute you.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Posted in RIA, Wii, opensource, majoritydesk, flex, technology | 2 Comments »

Why I Love the Interwebs - Chapter I

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

So I'm at the gym tonight jogging on the treadmill. I'm a big dude, so this is a miracle within itself. At least I had my trusty Zune to get me through the workout, right?. Well, not really.

For all you Apple fanboys, just chill out for a sec and listen; I bought the Zune at Christmas from Amazon for $90. The first pain was that I couldn't listen to any of my previously purchased iTunes music on it unless I first burnt all the tracks to a CD then ripped it down and added it to the Zune library manually. Why do I have to go through this laborious task for music I already purchased?

Anyway, I opted to by the Zune Pass for $15/month which gives me unlimited listening to any song with any participating record company. This has been a decent option for me because I have been able to sample a lot of different music that I wouldn't normally purchase. Well, the catch is that all the music expires as soon as you cancel your monthly membership. When your Zune is hooked up to the PC, it can connect online to renew your music licenses.

Well, that brings me back to tonight. As I'm jogging along with ease (yeah right), and I am about 5 minutes into my run, I get a message saying all my music was expired and I couldn't listen to any of it. I have been traveling a lot in the last couple of weeks, so I haven't actually had it hooked up to my PC to allow it to renew the licenses. Well, this sure is a rude way to interrupt my workout. I was pissed and had to finish up with no music.

So, let me ask you. Why in the heck do I have to go through all this DRM crap for music I have already purchased? I can't listen to it except on the device that I purchased it on originally, and when I pay monthly, I have to worry about stupid expiring licenses.

This is what brings me to this first chapter of Why I Love the Interwebs. Today, Radiohead released their new album In Rainbows as a digital download from their site. Freed from any record label contracts, they leave it up to you to put in a fair price.

On October 8, Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails, made this announcement on his website.

Hello everyone. I've waited a LONG time to be able to make the
following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally
free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have
been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the
business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very
different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a
direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.
Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.
Exciting times, indeed.

This is the power of the Internet. Welcome to the cluetrain. Without traditional barriers of connection and communication, the global conversation no longer needs a useless middle man. Record labels and their desperate grasp of DRM is archaic and outdated. Music companies are holding on to something that is destined to fail. The Internet brings in a new world where there are direct conversations. If you don't bring value, then get out of the game.

To kickstart the revolution, it will take a few big names to stand up for what is right. For this, I salute you Radiohead and NIN. You are visionaries and you are my heroes. Now excuse me, while I first go support these guys and then head over to lastfm and pandora.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Posted in funny, WhyILoveTheInterwebs, cluetrain, Internet, technology, ewH | 7 Comments »

majority desk - get your wiihands on

Monday, October 8th, 2007

Majority Desk is a project that Dan McWeeney and I worked on this year for demo jam at SAP TechEd. It's basically a 3D rendered widget desktop ran by an open source physics server; and oh yeah, all user interaction is completely controlled by two Nintendo wiimotes. It supports full interaction with flash movies running on floating, spinning tiles. Cool, eh? :) Some of the demo widgets even consume web services from an SAP Netweaver system. See, and you thought business was boring.

Majority Desk is powered by Adobe AIR and takes major advantage of many available open source projects surrounding the Flex community. We used Open Dynamics Engine wrapped with Python for the physics engine, Papervision3D for the 3D rendering, WiiFlash for the wiimote interaction, Tweener for the visual transitions, and Doug McCune as an Flex open source fountain of knowledge. If you are interested, Dan is planning on writing a blog post with more of the technical details. I will throw a link up once it is posted, or you could just just subscribe to his blog, which you should do anyway. He is one brilliant dude, and working with him has been career changing. [UPDATE] Dan's post is up Majority Desk Architecture

So without further ado, check out the demo below.

Here is an exclusive interview that we gave to the Redmonk guys before our demo in Las Vegas. They were the first to see it, because those guys rock!

Here are some photos of us on stage during the demo and the next day in the Community Clubhouse. If you think majority desk looks cool on your monitor, picture it on a 30 foot screen in front of a thousand people. Yep, that's me with my back to the audience "showing them my good side". These photos come from Dan's Zooomr stream and Marilyn Pratt's Flickr stream.

This one comes from Nancy Margulies and her beautiful "Community Mindspace" mural

We had a blast and the crowd really enjoyed themselves. We couldn't compete this year because we won last year with SAPlink, so we chose to break all the rules and just focus on blowing the crowd's socks off. I think it worked.

Last, but not least, I want to give a couple shout outs to some of the people that gave us inspiration, support, and encouragement to work on this crazy thing.