As its Halloween today, I thought I’d finally get round to carving my very first (yes, ever) Pumpkin. Its nothing that you would find in an art gallery, but I’m quite chuffed with it.
See what you think.
PS. I’ve washed my hands 3 times so far, and they still smell of pumpkin juice š
At the first DDDNorth, I did a session on Kinect and the Kinect SDK. One of the question I get asked is “can it track my fingers?” Well, the SDK doesnt let you do this – yet. However, because you have access to the raw video streams, theres no reason why you cant do it yourself.
Microsoft Research have taken a Kinect, and using the reflection on a piece of glass from a normal monitor, and managed to recreate a HoloDeck environment, right on your desktop – Called HoloDesk.
It lets you manipulate 3D objects in real time, and allows intrgration with real world objects. Its much better to see than explain, so watch this video.
Back in 2005, I did a video called “a long road” for the Visual Studio 2005 launch. It showed the startup and desktop of every version of Windows, all the way up to the preview of Windows Vista.
Now someone else has taken that a little further and put together a video showing the upgrade process for each version,
It was good today to hitch a ride onboard space shuttle Discovery, for her final flight. Not literally of course (I couldnt get the time of work) but I liked the engagement campaign Nasa has been running.
You key in some details and an image and you then get a ‘launch’ video. Heres mine.
Whats really cool about this is that if you come back to the site when then shuttle returns to Earth, and key in a code , which they give you after the launch video, then you get a certificate to say you’ve been on the mission.
I think thats a really cool way of getting people to go back to the site.
During my talk at DD9 a couple of weeks ago, I discussed various different approaches to Domotics (that the posh word for home automation;-)). One of those ideas I suggested was to make use of Microsofts excellent Kinect and its depth perception cameras.
Great minds think alike, obviously, as I notice an entry on 123kinect.com showing exactly that!
Channel4 news ran a promotion on some of the stuff Microsoft are doing in Redmond, and beside the computer guided cars, theres a tour of the Microsoft house, where everything is controlled by touch, voice and gesture.
You can watch the video for yourself here.
Very very cool!
Ok, So Iāve seen Snow Daleks before, but never a knitted one. Just in case you happen to be an MVP in Knitting, heres a link to the instructions.
http://www.entropyhouse.com/penwiper/who/extermaknit.html
Extermiknitt!
I was down in Ilfracombe over the bank holiday, and ventured down through the tunnels in the cliff onto a private beach, once reserved for Victorian Gentlemen, with the Ladies bathing area in the next cove. On the walls of the tunnels and on the path down from the cliff to the beach, there’s a really nice lookout area. In fact they hold weddings here. In the picture of that area below, you can make out a sign (Iāve subtlety added a red arrow pointing at it 
) Seems I was famous for teaching swimming
This could be the start of a new cult over here in the UK. Bing ā Los LinksĀ !
Episode 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2lN3-i2t7kĀ
Episode 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFlaIQCWZcA
I visited my mothers the other night, and she has this cactus..
Yes I know its childish, but made me laugh. š
