Its video like this that make me wish I was a better, more inspired researcher.  A great idea, designed and developed at low-cost to create a highly impressive Augmented Reality system.  Baring in mind that this is just a prototype, it really makes you wonder how much the digital world will merge with the physical world over the next few years.  AR technology is moving at such a fast pace, and in particular in the past year (co-inciding with the increasing power of portable devices like smartphones) it has really taken some leaps forward into becoming mainstream.  As well as filling our world with information and shared knowledge within seconds, it will also have great implications for gaming and I’m extremely excited for it.

The future’s bright, the future’s augmented.

As Arnold Schwarzenegger once said… “This, is really cool!”.

A very cool integration of FaceAPI and the Source engine to create head tracking movement in games using just a standard webcam.  Probably less convenient and more strenuous than using a traditional controller, but still cool tech nonetheless with a lot of potential for other applications.

Info link: http://torbensko.com/software/head_tracking/

I’m gonna start doing some “miscellaneous” notes posts on my blog, just to write about little things that are worth noting during the week (the sort of stuff I tweet about).

• Google Chrome, Google’s new internet browser, launched this week in beta form.  I’ve only had a short play with it but it seems extremely fast and has a very neat and concise look to it – would be useful for the 1024×600 resolution on my Acer Aspire One, giving me more web-page viewing space.  The incognito mode is also cool, where a user can browse the web without leaving a trace.  For now though I’m too reliant on my Firefox add-ons, but this has a lot of potential to some day become my new favourite browser.
• This week I attended IMVIP 2008 in Portrush, a conference on image processing.  Some cool stuff was shown, though since I’m not from an image processing background a lot of it went straight over my head.  You can check out my publication for the conference at my writings page.  Also, the food was fantastic, kudos to the conference organisers and the Ramada hotel.
• I’ve been listening to Oceansize’s Music For Nurses EP this week a lot.  Although its old, I just can’t get over it.  Five tracks of sonic bliss.  Highlights are One Out of nOne and Paper Champion.  Check out the previews and buy the EP here!  Timeless.
• I’m off to Portugal tomorrow morning to attend the ICDVRAT 2008 conference in Maia.  I’m looking forward to this conference a lot since its right up my alleyway in terms of research focus.  Plus the rain at home is depressing me a lot.  If my hotel has free (or cheap) wireless, I hope to post some blog posts about this during the week!  No promises though, sadly.

A while ago I was extremely interested in the Asus EeePC as an extremely portable sub-notebook that I could take with me on my daily commute to and from University, in order to get some work done or chill out with some addictive little Windows games without the need to carry around a full sized laptop bag all day. After my initial dislike for the original EeePC’s small screen with large black borders, and the imminent flood of similar products to the market, I decided to hold out and see if something better would come along which would give more “bang for its buck”.

Step up the Acer Aspire One.  Hit “read more” to read about my experiences with the machine.

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Last Friday I finally bit the bullet and sold my soul (well, my bank account at least) to an 18 month phone contract, after swearing to remain Pay-As-You-Go which I’ve been on ever since first owning a mobile phone, all for the new shiny Apple iPhone 3G 8gb.  I’m a geek, we all know that, and after all the hype I just couldn’t let this pass me by and I didn’t fancy waiting until the PAYG model appeared with a hefty price tag.  So I thought today I’d take some time to post my impressions of the device.

Hit the “Read More” link to read my full impressions.

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This video is both amazing and extremely exciting.  Its from the 1up show, and it showcases the Korg DS-10 synthesiser for the Nintendo DS.  I love the sounds from it, the fact that you can jam wirelessly, and just the general thought of having a handheld synth like that makes me want one a hell of a lot!  Check it out.

“My God, its full of stars!”

Here’s a little screensaver I kind of accidentally made while coding a prototype game.  I’m still working on the game, I just thought this worked well as a nice serene screensaver.  I’ll hopefully update the screensaver in future to allow adjustable options.

A low quality preview is available at Youtube here.  Designed in the Microsoft XNA framework for Windows XP and Vista.

Requirements to run the screensaver:

.NET Framework 2.0
DirectX 9.0c (even if you have this, you may be missing files required for XNA)
XNA Runtimes 2.0

Download screensaver (.scr) here – Save to your Windows/System32 folder, then choose Stars as your active screensaver in Windows.  Enjoy :-)

It never ceases to amaze me what some clever geeks can come up with. I’m envious of both their free time and their mad-cat skills and ideas. Anyway, I saw this while checking out Engadget this morning and found it very amusing. I’m a sucker for useless, cool-looking toys that you use once and then sit on your shelf gathering dust; therefore, I want one.

On a different note, I’m still pretty busy with uni work, hence the lack of updates. You can keep up with what I’m doing at Twitter or on my FriendFeed if you’re really desperate to stalk me.

So last night, after completion of a small milestone of work (I mean, very minor, still got tons to do), I decided to have a go at loading linux on to the PS3.  First it was a matter of choosing which linux distribution to go with.  There’s a number of linux packages which work on the PS3, a list of which you can find here.

I decided to go with PSUbuntu, since I had a small tidbit of experience with using the standard distribution of Ubuntu within Virtual PC.  I was lucky enough that I had previously partitioned my PS3 hard drive when I installed a fresh 250gb hard drive a few months back.  If you’re interested in doing this yourself, all the instructions you need are here.  So, having done this before, it was a matter of downloading the specific Ubuntu ISO designed for PS3 (again, the link and instructions can be found here) and burning it to a CD.

Once ready, I booted the PS3 into “Other OS” mode and followed the instructions from the PSUbuntu site.  After a while (quite a long while) everything installed without a hitch (I should point out I used my USB keyboard and mouse, I think this is pretty much essential), including working sound and network support from the install.  It was just a matter of fixing a few things like the resolution (instructions).

Et voila, Ubuntu on the PS3.  I’m not exactly sure what to do with it, but using Firefox beats the hell out of the PS3’s built in browser.  Just a pity I haven’t got the Flash support working yet.  Still though, kinda cool!

Its also worth noting I’ve updated the blog to the latest version of Wordpress.  It shouldn’t make any difference, although the admin panel is now a lot sleeker!