reminiscing the future

A lot of the talks we’ve had here at IMM this past year had to do with specific technologies, so it was really refreshing and even more so rewarding to have one on just technology and the immense speed it is growing at.  The speaker in question is Wayne MacPhail, who is no stranger to changing technology as he began in print and when he saw the future, moved online.

Speaking of the future, the best quote Wayne used to blanket a part of his talk was from Gibson, “the future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed”.  Which essentially makes sense if you just think about all the overpriced gadgets that tech freaks get excited over every few months that eventually end up in everyones hands or go the way of the beta.  The key is to be able to predict which of these technologies will take off.  Some are more obvious than others.  I doubt there were ever many doubters about the potential of the internet.

The idea of the past, present, and future existing at the same time also stemmed from this topic.  Blade Runner being a prime example of a world where the future is pasted on hap hazard to the past.  I feel that way about parts of Toronto, where store fronts will show chunks of facades from decades earlier, it gives it a nice collage effect.  It a lot of cases this seems to be the nature of the beast with technology.  Medical and the sort research aside, most technology isn’t really essential to our existence and usual exists for commerce reasons anyway, so it can’t be expected to be available every to everyone.

Another interesting point Wayne brought up was to do with the how every 24 months, the amount of memory/computer speed doubles.  This is mostly cool, but also partly unsettling when I think about where it is all leading to.  We can process more data, run more complex programs, we essentially model life in these machines.  It makes me think about the hard line between technology and the natural world and how for me I still prefer to have a seperation at times.  I don’t know what it is about me but I enjoy doing some tasks myself.  I still prefer to open the car door with my key just for the sensation of causing that little ‘click’.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than happy to have my desktop run faster and the ability to access any information I want at any time, it mostly comes down to the divide of technology that makes some tasks more convienient/practical/safe/fun and not just more lazy.

Many other points were covered by Wayne, but these got me thinking the most.  If you wish to know what they were I recommend checking out my other classmates blogs in the blog roll and seeing what they took away from the talk.

Multimedia Pioneering Adventures in The Third Dimension

Today we had a talk from Spatial View about their interesting line of 3d screens.  I think the whole idea of things popping out of our screens is cool enough but still feels more like a novelty than anything.  That being said, it’s a heck of a novelty for playing games.  I had a pair of 3d glasses for one of my older computers and especially for first person shooters it added extra depth and atmosphere.  Why I would want to feel like Barbara Walters was doing an interview right in the heart of my very own living room? (to remain rhetorical).

I guess though right now there has been a resurgence of 3d movies, which is also a really cool aspect.  Automatically I think of B grade 1950’s monster movies with red and blue lenses, though it’s come a little bit farther than that these days.  Spatial view seems very keen in their work to get rid of the glasses all together and with just an extra filter on your screen, bring a similar experience… in full colour!  Doesn’t even have to be your television or movie screen any more.

The whole idea of it makes me think about how my brain feels about the experience.  It isn’t like I believe that what I’m seeing is anymore ‘real’.  If anything it’s hyper real and doesn’t feel quite natural, especially when limited to just the screen.  And then there is the whole aspect of wanting to reach out and touch what’s in front of you… but then again, sometimes it can be kinda unnerving as well (in reference to it being 3d and not just being super cheesy).

Optical illusions in general seem to have the power to amuse and impress us so I guess it’s no wonder that we are trying to improve on them and integrate into current technologies.  At the same time however, it really does just feel like a stepping stone towards proper augmented and virtual reality so it’ll remain a fun novelty for now and I guess I’ll have to wait for a proper 3d movie where i’m running from godzilla along with the actors.

The Gesture Of It

February 6th we payed a visit to GestureTek’s downtown Toronto office for a short presentation about their history, and more importantly, to play with their toys.  They showed us a wide range of gesture driven devices, though most of them were running pretty simple demo programs, which didn’t blow me away, they at least stirred my imagination for the potential application of some of the devices.

GestureTek is a Canadian company that’s been around since the mid 80’s and over that time has developed a huge arsenale of gesture driven products for a wide variety of uses.  At their most simple, the various devices become simple extensions of mouse cursors but the stuff involving cameras and greenscreening is pretty interesting.  I can only wonder at the amount of calculations going on behind the scenes to identify and track all the human movement.

I was also pretty impressed by the interactive table they had on display.  After seeing a demo of Microsofts Surface last fall, I was feeling uncertain about how well the technology had come along (maybe it’s not a fair impression, but when I finally pushed through the crowd to see it in action, it was lagging… bad).  The Gesturetek table ran along smoothly the entire time and also handles as any touchpoints as the processor will allow where MS Surface, though I can’t find an exact number, I do vaguely remember somewhere around 17 being mentioned when talking to the developers.

The wall and floor projections didn’t have me too excited, but I have a bit of a bias towards projectors as a means of interaction, maybe relating from the trama inflicted on my psyche from all those years of overhead projectors as a means of lesson plans.  I believe I get turned off by the idea that a shadow from someone standing too close can interfere with the image.  I feel like these are surfaces that will benefit greatly with the introduction of newer technologies.

The two coolest products they had that stirred by interest were the greenscreen video capture and glass surface projection and touch interface.  The camera and full body movement capturing was not only impressive technology wise, but also just had the most fun application.  I used to watch a competition show as a kid, Nick Arcade which as a final challenge someone got put into a game similar to the one we saw on display. Some of this stuff has made it to the home, but not quite at the same scale.  The second impressive technology was an interactive display that was projected onto a sheet of glass and allowed for touch interaction.  It was a very cool looking display and used a projector in an interesting way that helped me forget it was a projection.  I believe right now it was only good for 1 person to interact with but the fact that both sides could see what was on the screen added an interesting dynamic to it that projecting straight onto a wall didn’t have.

Overall it was a good trip and offered a lot to think about in terms of the evolution of user interfaces and augmenting reality.

QR as folk

We had our first speaker today, James Eberhardt, who gave us an informative (yet far too brief) presentation on QR codes and a brief introduction to his experience developing for the iPhone.

As far as QR codes go, I think this class has been my first exposure to this technology and understandably so, it hasn’t exploded in popularity yet and seeing as I have never been one to keep up with cutting edge technology (though i am quickly working to change that).  As explained by James, it is big in Japan and I doubt I shook the balance of anyone’s world with that fact.  Essentially QR’s are just bar codes so the real excitement comes from a) the fact cellphone cameras are able to decode them and b) they provide more interactive potential than just telling me the cost of my orange juice.

I would have to say that I am way more interested with the social interactive potential of these QR’s than the technology driving them as I have seen cellphone cameras being used in innovative ways even a couple of years ago.  The most common example James mentioned to us was codes being placed on posters, for lets say a movie, where a passerby could scan the code and a URL would be decoded and saved to their phone so the person could then go and check out more information at their convenience without having to remember a potentially long URL.  YYAAAWWWNNN… I see the benefit, but just looking at something like murmurtoronto and all of a sudden a whole new realm of possibility opens up.  A similar and seemingly global project does a similar thing already with yellow arrows, so really, QR codes just seem to be the next technological evolution of this.  Toss in the fact that there are websites that allow you to make your own code and I am already thinking of games and puzzles that could be played around the city.

The big issue for me, and it keeps coming up with this and other new technologies is finding a balance between creative and commercial work.  The reason anything usually gets developed is as a business venture so that remains it’s purpose until cost comes down and availability becomes widespread that people can get their hands on it and start playing around.  QR codes, being free, already have the ability to hit on a non-commercial level and that increases the potential so much even before it’s widespread.

I guess the only negatively issue from the presentation was the fact that by the time our western mobile technology comes up to speed we may already be onto newer and probably more exciting modes of communication.  Heck even our current cellphone technology is still being used in innovative and seemingly very useful ways, so only time will tell.

Overall it was a good presentation and I look forward to hearing more talks and discovering these new technologies to fuel my creativity and hopefully pay the bills down the road   In the meantime, Ive found a nice list of mobile blogs (at the bottom of the page) that will keep me interested for a while.

the first one

This here is the blog I’ve just set up for my interactive multimedia program at Sheridan.  I’ll be using it predominately to post my responses about a variety of speakers we will be hearing from about pioneering in multimedia, particularily mobile technologies.  Stick around.