Game business is taking over (as expected)

Global games business to hit $112B by 2015

Spending on video games around the globe will grow from $74 billion in 2011 to $112 billion by 2015, according to market researcher Gartner.

In 2011, Gartner estimates that spending will be up 10.4 percent compared to $67 billion in 2010. That represents a healthy level of growth, despite the fact that some of the traditional categories of games, such as consoles, have seen slower growth recently...

Read more: venturebeat.com

Skelton yourself with Kinect

XBox Kinect OSCeleton / Kinect Skeleton Tracker

OSCeleton is basically a DIY motion capture system.

It sends 3D tracked body skeletons trough the OSC protocol so you can build anything easily.

So...

"Grab the drivers:

github.com/​avin2/​SensorKinect

Follow the install instructions:

ros.org/​wiki/​ni

Download OSCeleton and run the binary:

github.com/​Sensebloom/​OSCeleton

(use "OSCeleton -h" in the command line for more options)

and the Processing examples in the video:

github.com/​Sensebloom/​OSCeleton-examples

Try Animata too:

animata.kibu.hu/​

  

... and enjoy ;) ...

SenseWall

This is the latest multi-touch installation by SenseBloom. It’s located in the campus bar at the Computer Science Department of Coimbra University, Portugal.

...SoundTrack: KC & The Sunshine Band, Shake Your Booty sensebloom.com"

sources: (SenseBloom) 

Very interesting post by Peter Kirn >> createdigitalmotion.com

No comment...

On Cyber Monday, Amazon Sold 158 Items Per Second (13.7 Million In Total) 

"Amazon this morning announced that on its peak day for this year, November 29, customers ordered more than 13.7 million items worldwide across all product categories, which translates to a – self-proclaimed – record-breaking 158 items per second...

techcrunch.com

Storing Solar Energy would change the World

A prototype solar device has been unveiled which mimics plant life,
turning the Sun's energy into fuel.

Luz verde a la construcción de una planta solar de 185 hectáreas en Andalucía L.O.

New solar fuel machine 'mimics plant life'
"The machine uses the Sun's rays and a metal oxide called ceria to break down carbon dioxide or water into fuels which can be stored and transported.."
Article by Neil Bowdler bbc.co.uk

Luz verde a la construcción de una planta solar de 185 hectáreas en Andalucía

laopiniondemalaga.es

3D TODAY: Storing Solar Energy would change the World http://bit.ly/icbfoi

News from the Front

Assange to become MEAA member

"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to become a member in good standing of the Australian journalists' union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA)..."

au.news.yahoo.com

Photo: AFP ©

Making Aliens Giggle

This is a pretty easy project. If you're interested in doing it yourself, here are a few pointers to get you started:

•  Get an amateur radio license. If you're in the United States, you want to get a Technician's license. This will let you run the type of radio we used to track our balloons, an APRS beacon by Byonics.
•  Paul Verhage's ebook on near space ballooning is very helpful, although a bit out of date.
•  If you're in the United States, read FAR 101. FAR 101 has all of the regulations that you'll need to follow if you're launching a balloon. Sorry, I don't know the regulations for different countries.
•  Telemetry is by far the most important part of this project. Send up a good radio, good antenna, and good GPS. Don't compromise on these things.
•  Weather balloons can be bought from Kaymont.
•  Hacking cameras is best done with CHDK, check to see if your camera is compatible.
•  Radar reflectors can either be made or purchased from West Marine
•  You can get a rough idea of where your balloon is going to land using flight prediction software or just by looking at the wind charts.
•  You might get caught up looking at the wind charts and weather patterns for high altitudes. It's also important to figure out what your surface winds are at your launch site. Launching is hard if it's windy on the ground.
• Don't be afraid to move the launch site or cancel the launch completely if the weather conditions aren't right.

android.hibal.org

Neutrino pickabooing is ON!

The last Digital Optical Module (DOM) deployed in the IceCube array

icecube.wisc.edu

BMW Macht Frei

Thank you Mr Berlusconi

Julian Assange free!

Julian Assange Free! Gives A Statement After His Release From Prison

Neuronal Chips

MoNETA a Mind made of Menristors

MoNETA: A Mind Made from Memristors

DARPA's new memristor-based approach to AI consists of a chip that mimics how neurons process information.

Article by Massimiliano Versace, Ben Chandler

"..How will we know we've succeeded? How will we know that all this effort and new hardware and new software have yielded what we want—an artificial intelligence? We'll know we have successfully built an animat when we are able to motivate MoNETA to run, swim, and find food dynamically, without being programmed explicitly to do so..."
>>spectrum.ieee.org

Neuronal Man:The Biology of Mind

Jean-Pierre Changeux
Translated by Laurence Garey

  "Over the past thirty-five years, there has been an explosive increase in scientists' ability to explain the structure and functioning of the human brain. While psychology has advanced our understanding of human behavior, various other sciences, such as anatomy, physiology, and biology, have determined the critical importance of synapses and, through the use of advanced technology, made it possible actually to see brain cells at work within the skull's walls. 

Here Jean-Pierre Changeux elucidates our current knowledge of the human brain, taking an interdisciplinary approach and explaining in layman's terms the complex theories and scientific breakthroughs that have significantly improved our understanding in the twentieth century..."

Beyond mental man and neuronal man

dodod71.blogspot.com

Changeux neuronal man : 20 Ebooks Gratuits format pdf

ebooks-gratuit.org

Pixels Camouflage

"The days of disguising things from the human eye are gone. Now, camouflage is designed to hide objects from digital satellites."  thebrigade.com

Optic art as a way to survive  3d-today.org

3d-today.org #optic

Franco Maria Ricci creates world's largest maze

 

Italian creates world's largest maze

"Franco Maria Ricci, the publisher behind Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus, creates seven-hectare maze at Fontanellato..."

Article by John Hooper. (Sunday 4 July 2010) guardian.co.uk

Posted via email from xea's posterous

Stephen Hawking Says Aliens Could Eat Us

Stephen Hawking

 Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking says he believes aliens are probably real, but thinks we should not be trying to contact them. 

Professor Hawking thinks if aliens are out there, they are far more likely to want to eat us than make friends.

  “To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” Stephen Hawking says. 

“The real challenge is to work out what aliens might be like.” In his thinking, those bad sci-fi movies and TV shows that feature aliens raping the planet for resources and possibly herding us up for dinner like cows are probably right on the money.

 The famous brainiac shared his alien thoughts with viewers of his new Discovery Channel special Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.

 According to Hawking, real aliens would probably be nasty beings who thought of us as cockroaches to be squished underfoot. 

“If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans,”Hawking said. 

 Hawking thinks we should probably shut up and not be trying to call up any random aliens out there in the universe. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” Hawking said.

 Yeah, we kind of have to agree with that sentiment. If there are aliens out there and they are anything like us, we probably wouldn’t want to meet them in a dark alley of the solar system.

via really-weird.com

Posted via email from xea's posterous

Police carry out real life raid searching for virtual furniture stolen from online hotel | Mail Online

"Police in Finland have raided five homes searching for virtual furniture stolen from an online hotel.

Detectives said around 400 items - including virtual beds, tables, chairs and 'several flat-screen televisions' - were taken from rooms at the Habbo web hotel.

Internet gamers check into the hotel where they can meet friends and then purchase furniture to decorate their rooms..." dailymail.co.uk

 

Posted via web from xea's posterous

HistoryPin website lets you 'pin' historic photos onto Google Streetview | Mail Online

The Historypin website is collating historic photos which are matched up with their modern locations on Streetview.

via dailymail.co.uk

 

Posted via web from xea's posterous

Pac-Man Google doodle back by popular demand | Mail Online

http://www.google.com/pacman/

via dailymail.co.uk

Posted via web from xea's posterous

The Space Adventure: meanwhile on Earth...Part 3 / A wee(d) bit of History

The Space Adventure: meanwhile on Earth...Part 3

A wee(d) bit of History

The Union - The Business Behind Getting Highpart (1: 45: 02)

source: moviesfoundonline.com

 3D TODAY

 The Space Adventure: meanwhile on Earth...Part 1

 Architectural works

 The Space Adventure: meanwhile on Earth...Part 2

  Iakov Afanassiev (Yakov Afanasyev)

 The Space Adventure: meanwhile on Earth..Part 3
  A wee(d) bit of History

Medieval snapshot / Part 3

Medieval snapshot / Part 3

Dailymail:

Face of mystery medieval knight finally revealed with modern-day CSI skills

This is a reconstruction of the knight's face. Forensic experts believe the scar on his forehead would have been caused by an blow from an axe. His skeleton was found under the floor of a chapel at Stirling Castle.

The facial reconstruction was completed using forensic techniques familiar to followers of TV crime dramas including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, pictured.

The University of Bradford's Dr Jo Buckberry examines a female skeleton which was found alongside that of the knight underneath the castle chapel

"The battle-scarred face of a medieval knight who was killed some 700 years ago has been revealed with the help of forensic skills employed in popular TV shows such as CSI.

The skeleton of the warrior, who was killed at the time of Scotland's Wars of Independence with England, was discovered under the floor of a chapel at Stirling Castle.

Now a team at Dundee University, led by world-renowned forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black, have revealed what he would have looked like..."

Read more: dailymail.co.uk

3D TODAY   # blast from the past

• Part 1   Blast from the past: Remote  ancestors and faces in 3D
• Part 2   Forward to the Past
• Part 3   Medieval snapshot 
• Part 4   More ancestors than we thought!
• Part 5   A Blast from the Past: Collection | Part 5
• Part 6   Blast from the Past 6 | When life was in B&W

The Space Adventure: meanwhile on Earth...Part 2

The Space Adventure: meanwhile on Earth...Part 2

Iakov Afanassiev (Yakov Afanasyev)

"My overall research objective is to better understand the dynamical processes that govern the behavior of the stratified and rotating fluid that comprise the Earth's oceans, so as to improve upon existing capacity to predict evolution of complex geophysical fluid dynamical processes.

In pursuing this goal I have come to rely upon an approach combining theoretical, experimental and numerical techniques. 

This is an exciting area of research, as it gives us insight into fundamental oceanic and atmospheric physics, and also has relevance to our interaction with the environment." 

Iakov Afanassiev

Jets and vortices in the atmospheres and oceans of the rotating planets

Laboratory model shows zonal currents and vortices similar to those occurring in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. The topography of the water surface is visualized in color by optical altimetry. 

The soap bubble when placed on a rapidly rotating table can model a planetary atmosphere or an ocean. Convective motions within the bubble create color pattern due to interference of light.
Baroclinic instability of the coastal current in the rotating tank.




This video shows baroclinic instability modeled in the rotating tank. The baroclinic meanders are often observed in satellite images of the coastal ocean. In our experiment the flow is visualized by optical altimetry.



Laboratory modeling demonstrates the dynamics of the flow generated by a cylinder moving either Eastward or Westward on the polar beta plane. Polar beta plane is modeled in a rotating layer of fluid with parabolic free surface. One can see von Karman vortex streets behind the cylinder as well as inverted vortex streets and Rossby waves. The surface of the fluid is visualized by optical altimetry.

For more details see (Iakov Afanassiev) www.physics.mun.ca/~yakov

 3D TODAY

The Space Adventure: meanwhile on Earth...Part 1

Architectural works

The Space Adventure: meanwhile on Earth...Part 2

 Iakov Afanassiev (Yakov Afanasyev)

The Space Adventure: meanwhile on Earth..Part 3

A wee(d) bit of History