Thinking digital

TDC 2009 (Thinking Digital Conference) took place last May:

Thinking Digital is an annual conference where the world's greatest thinkers and innovators gather to inspire, to entertain, and to discuss the latest ideas and technologies.

One of the speakers was a very well known researcher in HCI (Human Computer Interaction), Johnny Chung Lee, famous because his works using wiimote controller.

In the following video, Johnny summarizes his work with the wii controller, and then describes what's going on in HCI researching:
- Mixed reality devices (e.g. Microsoft Surface, augmented workbenchs)
- 3D displays (4D light field display)
- Flexible displays, ink paper displays...
- Haptics (e.g. touch in the air, vibrating screens)
- Tracking the position of the camera using computer vision
- Brain sensing (e.g. a car monitoring the human brain to use its answer against dangerous situations)
- etc.

Thinking Digital 2009 Talks: Johnny Chung Lee - Research into Interface Technology from Herb Kim on Vimeo.

A very good BBC article about AR applications

With the title Mobile phones get cyborg vision, BBC describes the present and future of some current Augmented Reality applications. It is worth seeing it.

Some interesting videos about the history of CGI

Looking for new material for my students I have found some interesting videos about the history of CGI (Computer Generated Images).

This first one summarizes the use of CGI in the film industry:



The second and third, two parts of the same, describe the evolution of CGI from its beginning to nowadays:



Click here for the second part of the documentary.

An online Augmented Reality application really useful

Although we have been able to see a lot of Augmented Reality (AR) applications recently, some even online (based on Flash, for example), it is not common to see some real useful examples. I mean, examples where the use of the AR is really interesting and contributes to the final product.

A good example of this is the U.S. Postal Priority Mail with its Virtual Box application. Visit their website, and see the demo video to get the final idea.

"Which box fits your shipment?" By using AR, the user can print a pattern, and can visually explore if the different box sizes are or not appropriate for the object the user want to send. The boxes are visualized with transparency, so they can visually compare the size of the object to send vs. the box. Great and useful.