Obtaining a high-quality 3D digital model of a physical object can be a fiddly process, that often requires considerable user input. German research and development company NEK, however, is attempting to make things easier, with its OrcaM Orbital Camera System. Users just place an object inside...
Read more...On December 29, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals one of the next chapters for device security. In 2009, Apple's presence detection patent first came to light in relation to future MacBooks. Then in November of this year, Apple...
Read more...A group of researchers at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology in Tokyo has developed a car seat [JP, PDF] that can identify drivers when sitting down. The trick is that the system measures the pressure people apply on the seat through a set of 360 sensors. Each sensor is...
Read more...We've been hearing about trillions in the news so much lately, it's easy to become desensitized to just what a colossal number that is. Recently, a team of researchers at MIT's Media Lab (ML) built an imaging system capable of making an exposure every picosecond - or one trillionth of a second. Just...
Read more...In 2008, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2.3 million automobile crashes occurred at intersections across the United States, resulting in some 7,000 deaths. More than 700 of those fatalities were due to drivers running red lights. But, according to the Insurance...
Read more...At Embedded Technology 2010, Tohto C-Tech demonstrated real-time 3D face reproduction, using a GPGPU and stereo cameras. The demonstration shows video shot with a stereo camera rig, with 3D replication achieved by a matching method based on phase correlation. The matching processing was done...
Read more...A research group at Waseda University is working on technology to generate 3D models of people's faces easily, without requiring the use of special equipment such as range scanners. "The technology we're suggesting here is for generating a 3D model as quickly as possible from a single photo."...
Read more...Yaskawa Electric, who hold the largest share of the world's industrial robot market, are developing the next-generation SmartPal VII. This robot can be operated remotely using a Kinect motion capture system. "Here, we're demonstrating how someone in Tokyo can operate a robot at their mother's...
Read more...By now, you may be familiar with body-scanning systems that take peoples' measurements, so those people know what size of clothes to shop for. Such systems include the recently-launched Bodymetrics, along with the more-establishedIntellifit. Well, startup company Fitted Fashion is taking the concept...
Read more...Had Shakespeare been born several centuries later, he might have said "All the world's an interface," especially if he'd had a chance to play with the recently-developed, wearable OmniTouch system. While interactive interface projectors are far from new, this innovative concept design utilizes a different...
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'SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.
We've evolved over millions of years to sense the world around us. When we encounter something, someone or some place, we use our five natural senses to perceive information about it; that information helps us make decisions and chose the right actions to take. But arguably the most useful information that can help us make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with our five senses, namely the data, information and knowledge that mankind has accumulated about everything and which is increasingly all available online. Although the miniaturization of computing devices allows us to carry computers in our pockets, keeping us continually connected to the digital world, there is no link between our digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. Information is confined traditionally on paper or digitally on a screen. SixthSense bridges this gap, bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures. ‘SixthSense’ frees information from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer.
The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.
The SixthSense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness, viability and flexibility of the system. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by Multi-Touch based systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements. The drawing application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of the user’s index finger. SixthSense also recognizes user’s freehand gestures (postures). For example, the SixthSense system implements a gestural camera that takes photos of the scene the user is looking at by detecting the ‘framing’ gesture. The user can stop by any surface or wall and flick through the photos he/she has taken. SixthSense also lets the user draw icons or symbols in the air using the movement of the index finger and recognizes those symbols as interaction instructions. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application or drawing an ‘@’ symbol lets the user check his mail. The SixthSense system also augments physical objects the user is interacting with by projecting more information about these objects projected on them. For example, a newspaper can show live video news or dynamic information can be provided on a regular piece of paper. The gesture of drawing a circle on the user’s wrist projects an analog watch.
The current prototype system costs approximate $350 to build. Instructions on how to make your own prototype device can be found here (coming soon)

So just how much can a digital camera the size of a Hyundai see? Hopefully, if you're the Stanford team building it, enough to answer some fundamental questions about our galaxy.
It will be the world's largest digital camera by a good margin, built by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope—a large aperture survey telescope designed to find and photograph faint astronomical objects from its perch high atop a Chilean mountain. Specifically, the LSST will investigate astronomical phenomena including dark energy, dark matter, and near-Earth asteroids, as well as inventory the solar system and explore the transient optical sky.
The features and specs of the new LSST surpass any current telescope, either land-based or orbital. Its 8.4-meter-diameter mirror will be able to scan large swaths of the night sky while generating 3D maps via 800 15-second exposures every session—nearly 50 times as much area as the moon takes up in the sky. The LSST's 3.2-gigapixel camera will consist of 189 CCD ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light-sensitive sensors, cost roughly $170 million, and have enough resolution to spot your car's headlights at a distance of 400 miles. [Stanford - Peta Pixel - R&D Magazine - Roger Galbraith]
source: http://gizmodo.com/5858164/stanford-is-building-the-worlds-biggest-digital-camera
Virtual Cable™
Virtual Cable™ is an augmented reality (AR) application for automotive navigation. The system, using our breakthrough true-3D technology, presents a wayfinding line visible right through the windshield; presenting the information as a natural part of the landscape. As you can see in the video below, the line appears to be stretched over the road for several hundered yards in front of the car, above the street-level activity of traffic.
Current GPS systems distract the driver's gaze from the road to animated two-dimensional maps, with a distinct lag as the brain interprets the map information and applies it to the route. Often several glances are required to resolve the differences between the "cartoon version" of the GPS data and the real world. The Virtual Cable™, with its naturalistic perspective and foreshortening, appears to the driver as a solid overhead cable, showing turn-by-turn information way before the driver needs to act on it.
source: http://www.mvs.net/