MIT Students + iPad = Future

I saw this…and I was just blown away with how cool it is. Ok we’ve seen some funky stuff done with augmented reality and it does remind me a lot of the demo of SixthSense technology I saw awhile ago ago, but I believe that T(ether), as it is called, takes it to a whole new level.

Some students at MIT’s media lab have created a Minority Report-esque tool using a combination of an iPad, a glove, and a Vicon motion-capture system (instead of the iPad camera) that basically allows you to create objects in a virtual space that you can see through your iPad. Your iPad becomes a window or a key that reveals a magical three dimensional cyber-world.

But what’s really cool is the collaboration feature: together, you can view the same 3D objects and interact with them, even when they’re created by another iPad. This creates a completely virtual workspace that multiple people can work together in.

This set my imagination alight: imagine magical children’s stories built for the iPad, where kids could physically interact with their world – and could even play in the same magical world with their friends? Take that further up the scale and you start thinking about a fusion of MMORPGs and LARPing into one of the most amazing pastimes I can think of: virtual reality RPG.

If I were rich, I’d be pouring my money into funding the advent of VRRPG (as I am officially going to call it). And T(ether) seems to be the kind of tech that will be a pretty big stepping stone in that direction.

[Made by MIT Media Lab | Via Cult of Mac]



iCloud Helps Woman Recover a Stolen iPhone

Technology is a wonderful thing, but when that technology fails on you, it can be very frustrating. Sometimes, however, technology does exactly what it is supposed to and you find a fringe benefit you weren’t expecting.

This was the case when Katy McCaffrey’s iPhone was stolen on a Disney Cruise. It turns out her unwitting thief was off having fun with his newly discovered iPhone and failed to turn off the iCloud feature, which was still connected to Katy’s service.

If you don’t already know, the iCloud feature automatically saves every picture you take on your phone to the cloud server so that you can automatically have a copy of those pictures on all your other iDevices. So while she was lamenting the loss of her pricey iPhone, she was treated to a photo journal of its misadventures with its new owner!

So Katy decided to contact the Disney Cruiseline since it appeared from the collection of pictures, the culprit may well be a staff member. She also posted a Facebook Group called “Stolen iPhone Adventures” with pictures of the alleged thief. She calls him Nelson, for no real reason other than she doesn’t know his real name, but its pretty obvious he works for the Disney Cruise. There are even pictures of the alleged thief with his pregnant significant other.

This could cause a bit of a media attention that would hopefully result in the employee being identified, getting to the bottom of this mystery. Katy is hoping that in addition to getting her phone back, after sending these photos to the Disney Cruiselines she might get some travel perks or park passes.

But to be fair, while this might be the guy who is using the iPhone it doesn’t necessarily mean he was the one who stole it. It might have been sold to him by a cruise patron, or maybe in his duties he found it and just made no effort to get it back to its owner (which might be as bad as stealing it, really).

Hopefully this works out for her, in the meantime it is fun to hear how technology bit back!

UPDATE: It has been confirmed that a rep at Disney Cruiselines has been in touch with Katy McCaffery and “working to make it right”. The phone has been recovered, but no news as to whether the staff member was the culprit, though a staff member was put on “administrative leave” until it gets resolved. That sounds leading, doesn’t it?

New Mini-Episode of Doctor Who Written by Kids

In January, BBC Learning, working with Blue Peter, ran their Script to Screen 2012 competition that challenged children aged 9-11 to write a script for Doctor Who with an Olympic theme in the comedic fantasy that is the Doctor Who style, and, of course, some Doctor Who tropes.

The winners are credited in the episode as “The Children of Ashdene School”. It’s actually a rather funny little script, especially considering it came from young uns. It’s also a wonderful little extra for the Doctor Who fans who just need something new from Doctor Who whenever they can get it. ;)

[Via The Uniblog Facebook page and io9]



NBC Claims Copyright over YouTube Content They Don’t Own

An aspiring pair of comics named Brian Kamerer and Travis Irvine once made a promotional video for Daniel Kosh, their town’s mayoral candidate. The video was a tongue-in-cheek video that pimps their buddy to be the new hope for their town. Well the video was featured one night on Jay Leno, poking fun at the silliness they created.

While that brief national exposure might have been worth the smile and chuckle it gave Brian Kamerer and Travis Irvine, three years later when NBC took down this very same video on YouTube Kamerer was less than impressed.

Kamerer wrote an open letter to Jay Leno attacking their decision to claim copyright over this segment that was used on their show WITHOUT permission. Kamerer and his partner Irvine were flattered that their video was used on his show and didn’t take offense, but they were never contacted to let them know Leno was about to use it, nor were they asked for permission. Still it was all in good fun.

It’s all fun and games until someone loses copyright.

Apparently since it was used in the show someone decided in their infinite wisdom that it was an infringement of copyright that a portion of the show was being used on YouTube without their express permission. That might just be the very definition of irony.

So while Jay Leno gets all the attention and laughs for presenting this clip on national television, the very content creators that filmed and produced – even SANG on that silly little video, are not allowed to show their clip on YouTube. It is not theirs anymore.

Since when is it ok for the producers of Jay Leno’s show to take content online and pretend it now belongs to them because they used it?

You can read the open letter here where Brian Kamerer goes (quite rightfully) off the deep end about this violation.

You can see the original video below – now hosted on Funny or Die.

Amazing Star Wars Tattoo Sleeves [Pic]

Some stunning ink work from Nathan @ Holdfast Tattoo. Would love to meet the guy who has this on his arms (and the artist who did the work!)

[Holdfast Tatoo]

Tags: , ,

The Ketchup War is Over

One of the great mysteries of life is how to get the ketchup out of the ketchup bottle. Our cavemen-like minds usually resort to the most base of instincts to extract the delicious condiment: physical violence. That problem is even more frustrating when there is very little left in the bottle itself: The walls of the bottle are lined with a thin layer that collectively would garnish my hamburger, but it is denied me.

Of course then we find ourselves beaten by the inanimate condiment container and we surrender to its superior steadfast position. We throw away countless traces of pasty substances every day due to this dilemma, but now MIT doctoral candidate Dave Smith and his team of mechanical engineers have concocted a solution that may not cure cancer, but it will finally give mankind the upperhand over the tyranny of the ketchup bottle.

The solution is called LiquiGlide. It is a micro fine liquid layer that can line the inside of containers and allow for the free movement of the contained substance leaving no trace behind. The coating is made of FDA approved non-toxic materials and will not affect the flavor nor mix with the substance in the container.

Brilliant. Just magical.

Aside from making it super easy for me to dispense ketchup (maybe TOO easy), if this technology was sold to just the condiment and sauces market ALONE it is estimated it would save 100 million tons of food being discarded on the inside of containers every year. This market is already estimated as a $17 billion business in the US.

Ketchup has lost the war. We live in the future my friends.

Hopper Skip Function Jumps into Court

When a TV network boss claimed that skipping commercials on a DVR amounted to theft, most people laughed. The humor has faded away this week with a lawsuit against the manufacturers of one DVR that automatically skips the breaks.

CBS, Fox, and NBC are suing Dish Network over its digital video recorder Hopper. The device officially takes its name from the idea of the signal “hopping” around a home so it can be watched on any TV set. However, a recent update adds an “Auto Hop” feature that automatically skips the commercial breaks on recordings from the major networks.

The lawsuit is based on the idea that by removing the break from the video the user sees, Dish Network is effectively creating a new program and thus breaching copyright. Dish Network disputes this, arguing that although the playback skips the relevant section, the broadcast signal and content remains unaltered.

Dish Network has filed a lawsuit in response. It appears to be a request for a declatory judgment, which is simply a court giving a legal opinion, in this case that Dish Network is behaving lawfully in itself. Such a judgment is not strictly binding in itself, but does carry great weight in any related legal proceedings.

There’s some speculation that the dispute goes beyond the technology itself. A media analyst quoted by the BBC suggests Dish Network introduced the feature as a negotiating tactic and might be prepared to remove it in return for the networks charging lower fees to carry their programming.

Arguments over PVRs go back to 2002 when Jamie Kellner, then CEO of Turner Broadcasting, infamously said of ad skipping that “It’s theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you’re going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn’t get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you’re actually stealing the programming.”

Kellner’s view has never caught on with the courts, and most people have taken the view that the ability to skip a commercial break on a DVR is no different to the fast forward button on a video recorder (or, indeed, going to the bathroom during commercials.)

Whether the courts now take the view that making the process automatic, to the point that viewers don’t even have to press a skip button, remains to be seen.