This is incredible. Just when I thought I had a grip of current robot development, the Japanese blow my mind with this piece of raw awesomeness:
It is so difficult to keep pace with the Far East on the technology front, but I am very interested in at least progressing research into the potential for branded robotics, androids & cybernetics if any readers have thoughts?
I found this video clip which does well to sum up my current opinion on marker-based Augmented Reality, which seems to be breaking into the mainstream via desktop applications and fixed webcams:
Me too (doing some AR stuff)! from Anatoly Zenkov on Vimeo.
You’ve seen it around the office – someone prints out a marker and everyone huddles around the only computer with a webcam. Anatoly Zenkov has noticed it too, and he wants you to realise that all you’re really looking at is a static 3D image overlaid on a piece of paper. Nothing culture-shifting about that now is there?
Let me be among the first of the dissenters:
There is far more to AR than barcodes and webcams.
There are thousands of helpful & exciting uses for the technology. Think past ‘tethered’ AR experiences and consider what good Mobile AR can do with GPS and with markerless tracking. Endless potential lies that way. I assure you, the future is far brighter than we think.
Where I initially believed that the Advertising and Entertainment industries would drive innovation and push AR into popular consiousness (they are currently doing so), I now believe that good AR (as distinct from any old AR) will be driven by paid applications on next-gen handsets.
I think I’ll serialise posts about the best applications for Augmented Reality over the coming weeks. Why not subscribe now to hear about it first? You know it makes sense.
Microsoft have released a new video suggesting they seek to reposition themselves over the next decade. I think they are on to something:
Their vision for the future is evidently very ambitious, but I believe that if anyone can pull this off, it’s them.
Microsoft’s approach has always been to create user experiences that are improved through exclusive use of Microsoft products. Sure, it’s got them in a lot of trouble in the past, but it’s their corporate power and knowledge of how technologies (especially theirs) can work together that will best service the user through Ubiquitous Computing and Augmented Reality.
What’s especially interesting to me is that they really seem to have thought past their next release, Surface. It’s great to see something of their overall strategy. Something Apple, Google & Yahoo! are far less forthcoming with.
We are soon to have a Surface installed in the lobby at work. Really looking forward to it, but I’m concerned it’ll be too prescriptive in what it can be used for. If Surface and any of the featured technologies in the above video suffer the marketing / usability failures of Vista it’ll be years more until these tools become a reality, at the hands of their competitors.
Will feedback on Surface once I’ve had a hands-on.
Very exciting semantic technology for Firefox, that susses out what you are trying to do, and does it for you!
The below video, though highly stylised, is a great indication of our next steps towards Web 3.0, and onwards towards ubiquitous computing in the academic sense, that of interrelating processor-equipped devices/clothing/pens/kitchens etc that share and translate information to improve or simplify our lives.
We’ll need years of research to teach your jacket to stream your favourite album when it notices you’ve been sad lately, but Mozilla have at least made small steps towards mind/machine connectedness by removing a few of those quirks from the internet’s core product – email.
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
This piece from The Onion brutally destroys both Sony, and the wider electronics industry for their shameless plugging of products they ‘think’ we all want. Of course, what we all really need is convergence between existing products, rather than entirely new products that defy comprehension. That aside, check out the video:
Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Fucking Work
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