 |
|
1 to 5 in the ZML. Did you ever get the feeling that the ZML should be used for more than doing powerpoint presentation on 14 screens at the same time? I’m running a workshop today from 1 to 5 today. Be there to learn how to make the most of our 14 screens !!!
Have you ever posted something to your blog and feld “this may be useful to other members of the IMD”? You may have then thought “Well, I can post it to the main page”, but then you feel “But everyone sees the main page, not just IMD People”. So maybe you get nervous and end up not posting to the main page, but just leave your post in your own blog. I understand how you feel… But think about this, activity on the main page makes it more interesting. People comment more when they see posts on the main page, and what you have to say IS interesting. So go ahead and post to the main page when you have something to show or a comment to make on something interesting…
Kellee and Jenova are mentioned about 3/4 of the way into the article which is mostly about USC Stevens institute. It’s a neat feeling to see IMD alumni on the cover of a magazine in my mailbox. Speaking of Kellee and Jenova, check out the next post to see what they are up to.
A list of formerly commercial or shareware games now free to download
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_games_released_as_freeware
Check out GTA and GTA II as free downloads for some interesting historic perspective on the recently released GTA IV. The original multi player gameplay in GTA consumed many hours of my time in 1997 here at USC and is well worth checking out considering no multi player versions of the game have been released until recently.
But you don’t want to partition your HD and you think creating a dual boot system is complicated. Today’s your lucky day, because you get to install ubuntu with just 5GB of free space on you HD. No complicated installation process at all. You’ll just need some time to let the Ubuntu CD download (~650MB). To get you started, just follow the link to wubi and you’ll have Ubuntu running ASAP. This is a great way to run all the open source tools available to Unix systems while keeping your XP or Vista running. Ubuntu even comes with Gimp (photoshop like picture editing) and OpenOffice (Open Source MS Office).
Running Ubuntu requires a restart and selecting Ubuntu instead of Windows. This installation has full access to your windows file system so you can transfer files back and forth. To uninstall, just uninstall using the standard windows uninstaller.
This is by far the simplest way to try Ubuntu and have a completely fail safe way of reverting your system back.
Epson projectors can be controlled via a web interface which uses a simple api to execute commands. Understanding this allows us to implement a system to send commands via the network directly to the projector, bypassing the web interface. Curl is a standard unix command used for getting web pages, or just sending an http request in our case. The trick to controlling the epson projectors is that the ref-url in the header of the http request must be the IP of the projector, or else the projector will not accept the command. Luckily, curl provides this functionality. So here it is:
curl -e http://projector-IP –header ‘Authorization: Basic username:password-hash’ http://projector-IP/cgi-bin/sender.exe?KEY=command-code > /dev/null 2>$1 &
Portions specific to each projector are Italicized. For access to the ZML projectors please contact me. A few command-codes are below.
The 2008 One Week Projects have been posted on our YouTube channel.
-Peter
IMD has a Playlist on the SCA YouTube page. The direct link to it is below. More videos will be added after spring break so keep watching.
USC YouTube Sites:
I’ve always been interested in Motion tracking and what can be done with this technology. Motion tracking objects or people without the need of additional equipment in particular makes this field very interesting to me. Making a room respond to a person entering that room without the need for the person to put anything on or wave a wand is fascinating to me. I think the ZML is a great place in which we can implement a system like this, the screens being the part of the room that reacts to a person walking in. So here’s my idea.
Using video cameras or motion sensors to track people in the ZML. Whichever of the 14 screens the person is closest to, would have an avatar walking along with that person, almost like a shadow. If a person stops to look at the screen, the avatar should react to that person by dancing or sticking it’s tongue out or whatever. I’m trying to figure the best way to do the motion tracking at the moment.
