This is just incredible, and a real joy to watch. I’d love to think that, if I’m ever a dad, I get to do something this cool with my kids.

Luke Geissbuhler and his kids decided they wanted to send an HD video camera high into the stratosphere, so they spent eight months researching and testing for their project before finally launching their Go Pro Hero HD-laden balloon from Newburgh, New York. The balloon rose for 70 minutes to a height of 100,000 feet (19 miles) above the Earth before popping.

The video includes audio, so you get to experience what it looks and sounds like to be floating 19 miles above the Earth, surrounded by the blackness of space.

Source: Petapixel

A blog post over on Games4Rehab alerted me to this cool hand tracking technique from researchers at MIT. It simply uses a printed lycra glove and a webcam, and can track the 3D position of the hand at under 100ms latency.

I quite liked the light-hearted trailer they put together for the glove too:

This could be very useful for some of the research I’ve been doing lately – plenty of games and applications could be made around this technology. Then again, I guess thats what Microsoft are getting at with Kinect. How good both are in the hands of the public remain to be seen.

For more details on the project, check out the project’s page.