I am both a Geek and a Guy, which gives me two counts of wanting to know about, and play with, new toys. So I hang out at web sites like EnGadget, and skim the short version from DVice, and check the new stuff at Gizmodo. I also stop by the more specialized (and therefor lesser-known) sites like Dev Hardware or Girls N Gadgets or TechOn to name a few, because they cover things the monster sized sites miss. When I get seriously into Geek Mode, I hit the MIT Technology Review or the IEEE Explore sites.
Now there is a new player in town; GDGT is a hardware junkies forum, with a twitter-like community twist. It just launched in the last 11 hours or so, which means I can’t even hint at what it might grow up to be. But I love the premise, the interface is intuitive, the layout is clean, the posts are frequent and informed (quantity AND quality, my favorite combination!), and I am signing up for an account there. I recommend you do the same.
Three of the first sites mentioned here included an announcement about Asteroid Storm in the last few hours; a game played by raising your arms while siting in the theater. The tech works by mounting two cameras on the ceiling on either side of the screen and pointed at the audience. As the screen shows them the pilots-eye view, they can modify the spaceships trajectory by raising their hand. If 25 folks to the left of the screen raise their hands, and 22 on the right, the ship will gently steer left. If the count is still 22 on the right, but only 4 on the left, the ship will jackknife right… (It might be amusing to build a virtual version of that movie theater and use the voting of the House and Senate to steer, to see how many orbital rocks our government has tried to slam us into over the years.). This group game environment (NOT an MMORPG, but it should function a lot like one in some respects) will be introduced in UK theaters on July 10th, meaning next Friday. I can’t wait to see how the first few games go, and whether the audience works together to save the ship, or against each other to take it out. The next logical step would be two ships, with the two sides of the audience competing against each other.
Now play that game with a pair of Open Source Data Gloves, which you can build yourself for $23 in parts if you don’t want to buy the $400 commercial version, and you are ready to take over the theater!