Monthly Archives: June 2016

Higher Quality 3D Printing With Complex Chemical Processes

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While 3-D printing is pretty interesting, there are still many limitations (on top of the price). Many 3-D printers use additive processes that can create imperfect surface finished, brittle products, and manufacturing defects. Which is not a big deal when printing up a chess set, but could cause problems with wider usage of 3-D products in every day life. Many companies are creating new methods to overcome these limitations. One example is Carbon, a company that has created a high-end 3-D printer that works on the same basic idea as the OLO phone printer. Light is used to hardened chemicals that are pulled out of the resin to create accurate finishes, stronger products, and more complex possibilities – all in a fairly fast process. This is still expensive for now, but if we are soon going to get $100 versions that use our phones, I bet the cost is coming down soon.

Make Your Own 3D Videos With a New GoPro Lens

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=NyYs_j0_uyo

Creating 3-D videos has been expensive in the past, but some day we will probably see this feature built into our smartphones. Until then, a new inexpensive option has been created for owners of GoPro Hero 3 or Hero 4 cameras. The Vitrima lens fits over these GoPro models and uses mirrors to create a 3D video capture. This has to then be watched through a 3-D headset of some sort (and means whatever you capture is stuck with this limitation forever), but still an an interesting development. The IndieGoGo campaign is currently asking $79 for the lens and $110 for a lens + 3-D viewer headset. And the lens makes the Go Pro much more bulky. But still an interesting development. I am guessing the video above looks better in 3-D 🙂

Evolution of the Dual-Layer/Customizable Pathways Design

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Matt Crosslin Dual Layer and Future 1-19-16 from Dr. Andy Berning on Vimeo.

Some of the work we do at LINK Lab is creating ways to help learners maintain autonomy over their learning process in the digital learning process. Most education is design as a “follow the instructor” pathway, where the learner follows a pre-set path through content (or chooses between a multitude of preset choices to create a “personalized” path). The Customizable Pathway design (FKA dual-layer) is a design approach that lets learners choose from the instructor content or their own content at any given point in the course. It’s a very learner-centered design that allows people to take control of their learning process. The video above is me talking with Andy Berning (also at the LINK Lab) about the basic idea. We have been tinkering with it for well over a year now, so I wrote a blog post about where my current thinking on the concept is. The past has been mostly focused on the instructional design side, but it seems to be clear that the future needs to be focused on helping the learner create their individualized pathway.

Position Tracking in Virtual Reality Through Stereo Cameras

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One of the current problems with Virtual Reality (in addition to price and access and…) is that it is hard to move around in the virtual space. Many VR programs solve this by controlling your vantage point, making them more like interactive immersive movies. Which are often still pretty cool, but if you want to move around in an immersive environment, you usually need some heavy duty hardware to track your movement. Stereolab is aiming to change that with a $449 stereo camera that mounts to the top of your VR headset. Still not cheap, but as this article explores, someday this functionality may be built into our phones (the iPhone 7 is rumored to have a stereo camera). The video above is an example of how the camera itself captures depth, which is an interesting concept in itself (as the video says, what if each pixel could capture depth as well?). Obviously this is still an idea in its infancy, but add this to eye tracking software in VR headsets, along with VR biosensers (when do we get haptic feedback gloves and smell emitters from Ready Player One?)… virtual reality is getting a lot more immersive by the day.

Using Kinect to Bring Your Body Into Virtual Reality

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So the rumor is that Microsoft is killing the Kinect motion detector. Or at least, not building a connector for a Kinect into their next gaming console, which will mean that its future is looking shady. Which is too bad, because people are doing interesting work with the Kinect. For example, see the video above where they essentially use three Kinect cameras to bring someone’s full body into virtual reality with them. The interesting part is where he changes the view and basically gets a virtual out of body experience. Hopefully, this won’t mean the end of projects like this – think if you could set down some 3-D cameras at a historical site on the other side of the world and load that up instead of the office in this picture? Virtual out of body field trips.

Gloves That Can Translate American Sign Language Into Text or Speech

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uY-MyoRq4c

One of the weaknesses of the different translation apps and services is that they are for spoken languages. Sign languages are a major language that they can’t translate. That may be changing in the future after two undergraduate students at the University of Washington invented SignAloud gloves, which are designed to translate American Sign Language into speech or text. Of course, American Sign Language is not universal, and it will probably take a while to work out the many different forms of ASL alone. But like with all new technology, the first versions always evolve into better and better tools. Hopefully this will continue beyond the experimental phase.

Bendable Smartphones and Tablets Getting Closer to Reality

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlIv7FZw73Q

Bendable screen technology has been on the horizon for a few years now, with a few gadgets here and there popping up with curved screens or edges. Science fiction has been showcasing the idea of a tablet that is basically a thin sheet of bendable touch screen paper. So it only makes sense that companies would start moving in that direction. Lenovo recently showed off two concepts they are working on: a smartphone that will bend around your wrist to become a smart watch, and a tablet that will bend in half to become a phone. The video above is a mash-up of their promo video and the recent announcement they made about this product. I can see interesting applications for both, as well as how some might kind of think these are ho-hum ideas. For example, the slap-wrist watch seems too thin to be a phone for some, and too thick to be a wrist watch for others. But these are new ideas that will probably evolve into other ideas, so something to keep an eye on even if you don’t like these two particular ideas.

Razer Open Source VR Platform

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZBfRtriw_Y

One of the biggest problems with Virtual Reality is the cost. Behind that is the closed nature of the main systems. Games made for an Occulus Rift only work on an Occulus device. Razer looks to change that with a Virtual Reality viewer built on open hardware that runs Steam-based open software. The specs are designed to compete with higher end VR headsets like Rift, while the price is aiming at the mid-range category. They even have highly adjustable lens so that people with glasses can use the devices without their glasses on. The biggest problem seems to be finding out how massive of a computer you need to run this headset. Most people probably still don’t have that kind of computer, so it may be hard for anyone beyond gamers to jump in at this time.

Overcoming Stage Fright With Mobile Apps and Virtual Reality

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I have never been a part of Toast Masters, but co-workers that have said it is a great idea for improving your public speaking skills. While nothing will probably ever replace input from a live audience, there are some tools that could possibly help in some ways if you don’t have access to a Toast Masters meeting, or time, or maybe are still not quite to the point where you want to practice with a live group. This article from the New York Times highlights several mobile apps and virtual reality programs that could help. I would think the Ummo app for $2 would be the best place to start – it counts your “ummmms” and mistakes and helps you reduce those. The Public Speaking VR app can transform your Google Cardboard into a public speaking simulator (see video above). Not totally realistic, but interesting possibilities. Other apps like speech timers and teleprompter apps round out the list. Not really a cure for stage fright by any means, but some interesting innovations to help people on their path.

Is the Future of Mobile Devices Modular?

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I remember hearing about Google’s Project Ara to create modular smartphones a few years ago. It seemed like a far-fetched idea back then, but now it seems that these will be a reality next year. What are modular cellphone? Basically a swiss army knife phone, where you can switch out different sections (modules) with new parts. Instead of trying to cram more tools into one phone, the idea would be that you could swap out tools when you need them. This would be things like better camera lenses, better microphones, better speakers, various scientific/measuring tools, physical parts, drone parts, etc. – anything that would take up a lot of room in a single phone. I am always knocking my phone case off, so I hope they have a good system for keeping the parts in place. And to store them when not in use. Seems like it could get bulky. And they never seem to show the screen side for some reason. But there are some interesting possibilities here, and a bonus that it looks more like a real phone than the proto type from years ago did.