Biometrics

Ideas are bit like buses, you wait for ages then three come along at once. One idea that has been around for quite a while is computer odor recognition. This week I saw a computer being used to transmit a smell using a PC. You click on an image of a flower or whatever, and the smell is transmitted.
My first thought - naturally - is how could that be used in animation? One idea would be to link it to animated Greeting cards for birthdays, Christmas, and the like.

My second thought is how could it be abused by hackers. Well, they could spam you with nasty smells I suppose, but smells might also be the ultimate password. Check
http://ezinearticles.com/?Biometrics---Customer-Friendly-Computer-Security&id=106788

Another problem is that smells aren't easy to pin down. You can say something smells like a rose, but what does a meadow smell like after the rain? You need an image of a meadow, and sorting images out has been another problem waiting to be solved, and perhaps it now has; or so they say at
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/11/02/tech-imagetag-061101.html

The Gadget Show is the show to see for all those gadgets that you cannot imagine anyone buying. This week an inflatable church big enough to hold sixty people (could be a cinema), and yet another attempt to make a 360 degree cinema screen so that you feel you are in the centre of the action.
Of course, Multi-screens have been around for very many years, but the main problem is having projectors both small enough to fit into the cinema, and synchronising them. Both problems now easily solvable; it only requires suitable stories to make use of them now.

Stan

Input Output

When I started in Computer Animation in the mid 1960s, Input devices were limited to a teletext type keyboard, a lightpen (if you had a screen, and most didn't) and a Puck; a sort of pre-history mouse. Your output was punched cards, and later punched tape. On one ocassion around 1970 I was on a TV programme about computers; I held up a piece of punched tape and said "One day film will look like this".

Things have moved on, and Input devices come in many forms; a very interesting one that looks to change the world can be seen at

http://ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=j_han&flashEnabled=1

The "interface-free," touch-driven computer screen, which can be manipulated intuitively with the fingertips, and responds to varying levels of pressure.

Output devices are no slowcoaches either. The largest digital photo has recently been shown, coming in at around 35x32 feet and 8.5 gigapixels. True it's not a moving picture, but a week or two might change that. You can see it at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/29/2239224

Using the brain as an input device has always been the realm of Science fiction, but getting increasing attention in recent years. Biofeedback was quite popular in the 1960s, but lacked the technology to do anything serious.

One aspect of recording brain patterns I find interesting is not as a computer input device but as a lie-detector. As a writer 'telling lies' is something inherent in many stories; Crime and Love obviously, polititicians, car salesmen, lawyers, and Estate agents might consider the ability to lie as an asset. Doctors may have to do it to be kind, A TV programme on 'Honesty' said that Society would break down if everyone was honest!

Another interesting article came out today about a competition I'd never heard of called the Hutter Prize http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/29/2127201

It is about compressing data, and presumes that compressing data in files is similar to how the brain works.

There are some people who believe that the brain is a bit like a cupboard, and that you can only put so much into it. Others (and I am one) believe that the brain can hold an unlimited amount of information. The reason animation works so well as a teaching aid is that it eliminates all but the essential material of the subject it is presenting.

The fact that people with phenomenal memories say they recall numbers as pictures indicates that we might have been using our brains in the wrong way for a few thousand years.

Need I say that teaching animation as a core subject in the curriculum will change all that?

Stan

Drawing in the air

It's Fireworks day next week; as a child I used to wave sparklers in the air to create patterns. At best I could get circles, and perhaps figures-of-eight, but not pictures, though I have seen simple pictures created in the air by lasers.

Of course, if you could move the laser fast enough you might create a whole picture. It works by persistance of vision, but that only lasts for a fraction of a second.

Supposing you could draw slowly and still see your picture? Well, that's what some clever people have done. Not only can you draw slowly in the air, you can do it in 3D, and have the object you drew actually created. Don't believe me? then go to http://blog.pcnews.ro/2006/10/28/sketch-your-furniture-in-the-air/
Apart from drawing in the air, you can also project images onto air. Take at look at http://blog.pcnews.ro/2006/07/27/real-display-like-in-star-wars-movie/

Miracles are getting commonplace now in the world of animation, so we need a new word to cover things that can only be done by divine intervention. But even the divinity is getting mapped out by animation. Look at http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/category/educational/ a 3D weather map. Scientists have just launched a satellite to map a 3D picture of the Sun as well.

Not many of us have a need for 3D images of the Sun, but how about having your own avatar that can try on clothes for you? If you're interested look at http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/category/clothing/

The scariest aspect of 3D mapping I've seen was on a Horizon show last week where they showed experiments for mapping the brain. Different areas of the brain are highlighted as you think about different things. They say that one day they will be able to replay the images from your brain so you relive the experience, even to the point of capturing dreams!!!

I'd have second thoughts on that one, and just hope that the second thoughts don't get mapped.


Stan