An RFID cloaking device has been developed...and tested in the pharmacy of all places...*groan*....thats exactly the testbed that I wanted to use for my device, only NOT cloaked! Oh well, it looks to only be hiding prescriptions. Heres the slashdot article posted and the eWeek article about it. Thank you Mr. Naimark!
McDonalds is jumping on the RFID bandwagon in Chicago (their test bed I believe). Not only can you buy gas with your RFID tag, but now you can buy burgers and fries as well. MSNBC is running the RFID article here.
Thanks to Stephanie for pointing out the article. We can always swap posts, just let me know!
I have all the characters together now, 6 of them. I have about 1/3 of the clues written, need to get that out of the way. Working on a Director Prototype.
Included are some ROUGH characters sketches. Please feel free to laugh as that is the purpose of these highly exagerated faces.
AAAACCCCCKKKKK!!! To many sites to contribute too! Here's another one for our MS project...
http://randomfoo.net:8668/space/start
Revised of course: Now basing most of the gameplay on the card game "the Lorax". Ever heard of the Doctor Suess book? Same subject material realized into an interesting little card game for children. Now it will be used for MURDER! MWUHHAHAHAHAH!!! Ooooh, evil.
There are 6 characters total: Each character has 12 pieces of evidence against themselves, scattered through out the town (set in 1903). Amoung the evidence are three sets of "actions". They are designated "Lies", "Truths" and "Blackmail". There are a total of 14 of each of these "actions" available to find, mixed in amoung the evidence. Lies negate other evidence, Truths keep evidence in play and blackmail steals evidence from other players (will be explained more later). A player finds evidence and actions the same way in the game "Myst" just by hunting around the town. The player may keep evidence to themselves, but in order to successfully start accusing other players of guilt (and keeping themselves innocent) they must "play" pieces of evidence out in the open for others to see. In order to "play" evidence, players must find two or more pieces of evidence to make a "clue". This clue can then be played out in the open for all to see. Each piece of evidence the player finds that coincides with the clue they started can be added to. The action cards now come into play, as you can "steal" clues from other players with the blackmail cards, or you can cancel other cards with the lie card, or you can protect your own pieces of evidence or clues with the truth cards.
Warning: You can only have 6 pieces of evidence in your hand at one time.
Objective: To gain the most evidence against all other players in order to prove your innocence. The player with the fewest alibi's loses and is considered the guilty party.
I'm going to make up this game on index cards and try and play it with a few of you. More to come as I edit this.
Steph, please take note:
straight from /. The new tech with robots is "frubber". I won't say more. Follow the linky dinks.
The ZML PC's are now (for the most part) fully functional, wiped and updated. They are all setup for Internet access but there are only two active taps on the wall at the moment. If you want specific internet access to a machine, you are going to have to pull the plug manually and hook up the one you want accordingly. PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE ANY OF THE INTERNET SETTING PROTOCOLS ON ANY OF THE PC's. They are configured correctly in windows.
ALSO, it would be benefical if you setup your own accounts on the PC's when you login as administrator for the first time. This way if you change some settings, it will be permanent to you and you only. The login and pass for the admin account is the same as the macs.
If anyone knows where the Adobe software or the Macromedia software is for the PC's, please let me know. If you have any questions or trouble or concerns, please contact me.
2nd year students:
The new Immersive Zemeckis Lab is now only accessible by using your new (10 digit) student id card. Please see me with questions.
Seems to be a few questions amoung the first years about DivX. The website, the codec and the free player (which is generally bundled with the codec) is available for free download from the DivX website.
DivX is just a codec. So what's a codec? It's a way of compressing video to make it teeny-tiny but also trying to keep as much quality as possible. So far, DivX seems to be the best picture vs. smallest size that I have ever found, comparable only to MPEG 4. DivX is not a part of the Microsoft machine, so you have to hunt for the codec yourself and download it. It's not hard to find, just download it above. Yes, it works with Windows XP and Windows Media Player.
That is all. Email me with questions.
Some sketches and artwork that I have been putting together for this game I want to do. Haven't decided yet whether I would like/could incorporate the 360 degree camera, but it always seems to be in the back of my mind. The following is a 3 page PDF with the Roadmap layout of the game, the fov (FOV) the player has and two of the made up suits of cards that I am using to "simulate" gameplay.
It is important that the FOV stays in that beautiful (but not mine of course) style of hand-drawn/graphite picture on yellowed paprus. I think this might add a nice touch to the game. I may need to spend some more time with those, or just have an animator/artist help me out. I think if I spent the time, I might be able to pull it off though.
The card simulation is almost complete, I have to iron out a few more bugs, but here is the gist.
6 players ONLY right now. Assign each player a suit (six total). Take a standard deck of cards and pull the 7 through 10s out. Keep the J, Q and K cards as well as ACES (they count as ones) and 2 through 6. If you have them done (hehehe), pull in the second two suits I made up, shells and moons, and seperate them accordingly, as above.
Shuffle the number cards you have together, then deal 3 out to each player. Shuffle the remaining and place two in each section of the town, should be twelve spots. Take the face cards you seperated earlier and deal 3 of those out to each player, these are the Truth/Liar/Maybe cards K, J and Q respectively (trumps). You shouldn't have any left. Players take turns looking for clues, only taking 2 extra cards total. The trading can take place during and after looking for clues, but only 2 trades are allowed per person. After all bartering is done the accusations start (or tricks like in spades). The first person to go would be whoever, play then goes to the left. The accusations are made by saying "club did it!" and then the next person to the left plays and they can either agree or disagree, depending on their strategy. A couple of rules, just like in spades, is that they have to agree if they have similar evidence. Also, the rank of the evidence (#) is obviously most incriminating the higher it gets. ACES are low in this game though, so the highest is a king. Obviously, the idea is to NOT win tricks, as the person who has the most "evidence" against them at the end LOSES. In this way the case is solved, sorta, but adds for replay ability in that; if you drop a suit and play with five, then things should go pretty smoothly. I haven't quite worked that out yet, may or may not work. I know there is a big hole somewhere, and I think that it might be in the number of cards available, I may not have enough, or too few. Hmmm....
Ah, gotta love that little PDF format! My presentation/outline for Mr. Naimark's class this Tuesday/Thursday.
RFID Thesis proposal rough outline