Tomorrow is the day that MetroCAF 2012 takes place: the annual SIGGRAPH event honoring the best animation talents that NYC-area schools can muster. This year’s jury has selected four outstanding achievement pieces to be honored at MetroCAF, but even the least of these entries are amazing bits of work. If you have ever built computer animations yourself, you know how much work goes into these kinds of projects, and how much time even the simplest of steps can actually take. Watch the trailer, and prepare to be amazed. And even if you don’t know how to do this stuff, you should be able to appreciate the results.
It seems if you fill a classroom with robots that make mistakes, the kids get smarter. According to this New Scientist Report, a Nao Robot was operated by humans in the next room during an English class in a Japanese school. Yes, that is Telepresence rather than true robotics, but the kids didn’t know that. They played a learning game where the English name for a shape was given, and the robot and kids would draw that shape. It appears the kids learned faster when the robot made mistakes, and the children would have to teach it to draw the correct shape to go with that word. Which is just scientific backing for the old adage The best way to learn is to teach. Not only that, but the kids then wanted to continue learning with the Robot, and would carry on studying longer and learning better as they did so. The results will be presented at Ro-Man this year, the 21st IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, which will run from tomorrow, September 9th through the 13th in Paris, France. The event is all about real world results of humans and robots working and communicating together, and every year contributes tremendously to the further development of robotics on both the software and hardware fronts. Take a look at their scheduled presentations to get an idea of the scope of this event. If you were thinking of building your own robot, this is a great place to absorb some real understanding of what is possible today and coming for tomorrow.
This one is for the iOS series of devices, including iPhones and iPads; the Free Graphing Calculator for iOS. This has a lot of built in functions, solvers for a variety of equation types, constants including those necessary to do orbital mechanics calculations, reference material including some very detailed but understandable explanations of how the various logic gates work, and a whole lot more. If you do anything with math beyond count your change at the checkout counter, this app will help you do it a lot faster and easier. Thanks to the folks at The Daily App for the heads up on this one. If you have a iOS or Android smart device you will want to visit the Daily App once a week or so to check out all the interesting goodies they find.
I am still trying to decide if this is a major tech advance or just creepy. Using some Augmented Reality goggles and software, a Japanese engineer has come up with a way to date his favorite virtual idol, Hatsune Miku. A bit creepy, was my first reaction. But what if you then used a Kinect or other low cost motion capture solution to drive your anime character of choice in real time with an actual person wearing the avatar? That could end up being a new level of RPG and Cosplay interaction amongst consenting adult geeks. Perhaps it is time to break out your own copy of the ARToolKit and start programming your glasses.
I wanted to break from my usual kind of entry for a moment and cheer on the MOD production process, meaning Manufacture On Demand. Warner Brothers, Shout Factory, MGM, and several others have done this with a lot of titles which have not been available for a while, and it is a great business model for the digital age. You pick one of the titles in their MOD catalog and put in your order, at which point they burn you a copy of the CD or DVD on their industrial grade reproduction gear, print out a label, and send it your way. For the customer, thousands of titles you could not previously get your hands on except possibly in very low quality bootleg format are now accessible. For the manufacturer, titles they own but were not previously making any money on can now turn a small but steady profit for them, without the loss incurred by going to a full press run when the demand for the product is not there. If it turns out the demand is there as evinced by the number of folks putting in orders for an MOD title, they can then release the disk or box set as a full press run (“press” being a leftover term from pressing vynal records, the original media distribution format).
Obviously this process is good for both music CDs and video DVDs, but it doesn’t stop there. With the advent of 3D printing, objects of all kinds can be put through the manufacture on demand process. Even better, they might be designed anywhere in the world, but you could have them printed locally and avoid the shipping costs, downloading the printing template across the web. Did you know this is the same technology Jay Leno uses to produce mil spec perfect replacement parts for his vintage automobile collection? This stuff is available today, and although it can be a bit pricy, there are also open source 3D Printing options worth looking into, such as the ongoing MIT research.
The Art of Video Games is a new exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, with a collection of 80 games, interviews with the creators, quite a bit of history and background, and a whole lot more. So I am sure not many will be surprised to learn that the folks from Think Geek are making a run to attend the event this weekend , and they are inviting everyone along for the fun. It works like this: meet up at the F Street lobby no later than 12 noon on Saturday, the 26th, to gather and be identified as part of the event. Of course, you might want to sign up ahead of time so if you are one of the winners they know where to send your prizes. At 12:30PM everyone will have been split up into teams of three and start cruising the exhibits, where you will want to pay plenty of attention. Finally, at 2PM, reconvene in the F street lobby to answer questions about the exhibit and the games for a shot at the prizes. This gathering should be a lot of fun, but if you already have plans this weekend the exhibit runs through September 30th, so you still have plenty of time to see it.