Episode 162 – Seeing is Believing

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Michael and Michael are excited that it is that special time of year again, the one where you can buy Thin Mints, and Caramel deLites, and all manner of Girl Scout cookies.  And they are even more excited about the kickstarter game being developed by the Girl Scouts where the cookies take center stage, and the scouts learn all about the various development platforms: MIT’s Scratch, iOS & Android to create the game.  Nice touch, by the way, that the Kickstarter video uses virtual audio reality with positional sound.

Turning from the savory to the visual, Michael and Michael discuss the OxSight augmented reality solution to help low vision people see better — determine the foreground from the background, improve the contrast, zoom in and more.  A tremendous use for such promising technology.  Be sure to check out the link below to see the videos for yourself.  See if you believe Michael R, that this is Geordi LaForge’s visor.

While traveling to the University of South Carolina School of Engineering, Michael M saw some of the older computing technology on display (picture above) and remembered well using his Dataman a few years ago.

Rounding out the show, Michael R would like to issue a rare personal invitation to see him perform with the Durham Savoyards as they present Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Grand Duke March 30 – April 2.

selected links 

Girl Scout Kickstarter:  Marshmallow Run game — https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/designcodebuild/marshmallow-run-game

Girl Scout cookies — http://www.girlscouts.org/en/cookies/all-about-cookies/Meet-the-Cookies.html

TechCrunch article:  OxSight — https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/16/oxsight-uses-augmented-reality-to-aide-the-visually-impaired/

OxSight — http://smartspecs.co

Geordi LaForge — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge

Low Vision Rehabilitation | Durham Eye Care with Dr. Henry Greene — http://academyeye.com/low-vision-rehabilitation/

Facebook React Native — https://facebook.github.io/react-native/

Achron — http://www.achrongame.com/site/

CodeCadets — https://www.codecadets.com

Girls Make Games — http://girlsmakegames.com

University of South Carolina College of Engineering & Computing — http://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/engineering_and_computing/

Durham Savoyards — http://durhamsavoyards.org

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Episode 161 – Virtual Audio Reality

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We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. — intro from the 1960s US television show, The Outer Limits

We will control the audio. After many episodes discussing virtual reality and augmented reality, Michael and Michael place their focus for this show on the auditory. Not just 3D sound, but positional sound — location based sound. Sound that makes you look.

The binaural sound demo from the BBC starts off the conversation (be sure to have your headphones or earbuds at the ready for this), demonstrating how audio engineers crafted a head that looks like a villager from Minecraft to contain two microphones embedded in replica ears so as to capture sound in audio stereoscopicy, to combine with visual input from virtual or augmented reality to draw the person really into the experience.

Even on it’s own, the virtual barbershop example, which is completely devoid of video gives a compelling and immersive experience of being in a barbershop for a hair cut, down to the snip-snip of the scissors above your ears.

A little pre-show research turned up several auditory games, the first discovered via a link to the AppleVis podcast team’s review of Ear Monsters. Vanished and Blindside are a couple other examples of auditory games.

This fascinating conversation led, naturally, to music, and groups such as Yes, The Who, Art of Noise and more came into auditory focus. Give us a listen — check out the links — make your ears happy. Ours sure are!

Show Links
Binaural Sound demo from BBC — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51za5u3LtEc&feature=youtu.be
Virtual Barber Shop — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA

AppleVis review of Ear Monsters — http://www.applevis.com/apps/ios/games/ear-monsters-3d-audio-game
Ear Games (makers of Ear Monsters) — http://www.eargames.com/
Vanished audio only game — https://www.engadget.com/2013/09/29/audio-only-horror-game-vanished-out-now-on-ios/

Blindside audio game — http://blindsidegame.com/

Leave It by Yes — https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/90125-deluxe-edition/id1082025269 Apple, or https://play.google.com/store/music/album?id=Bdrje6xvsqlxg53zycriukmkcwm&tid=song-Twhiy3dtg2ka23jfcujfteke24e&hl=en Google
Leave it by Yes music video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-hJFoSgXfM
Yes’ 90125 album — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90125
Tevor Horn — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Horn

SCTV’s 3-D House of Beef — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEnCKEfSgUM

Baba O’Reilly by The Who — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c1hYO_BYHY

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Episode 160 – 3D OBD

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src = obdii.com

Car? Whar? Over thar!

Michael & Michael get together to talk about one of the original examples of augmented reality, the Head Up Display (HUD) for cars, and explore the example of the Hudway Glass, an ingeniously simple Kickstarter product that allows a user to place their phone on the dash and have the phone’s display reflected back to the driver. Michael R remembers an app with this kind of capability from way back when called V-Cockpit.

Keeping with the pretty clever car theme, the pair then move to the innovation that Ford is bringing to the market for Ford and Lincoln cars: an OBD II module that plugs into your Ford car, and because of the software in your car and this additional module, you can remote start your car, download your car’s performance data, even use the 4G LTE modem as a wireless hotspot to connect your WiFi devices in the car. Michael R noted that while the OBD II port has been a standard part of every car since 1996, each manufacturer has their own proprietary software so a universal version to provide all the connected car capabilities is not highly likely. Even so, Michael R has the OBDLink MX tool for translating error codes and warning lights, along with engine diagnostics. Enabling connected car data sharing opens up more possibilities, and the insurance marketplace is one of them, as evidenced by Progressive Insurance’s Snapshot offering.

Wrapping up this short show, Michael and Michael agree that 3D TV is not the wave of the future anymore, and the article points toward the idea of VR and TV merging at some time. While certainly possible, we’ve seen other examples of holographic TV, and from Neal Stephenson’s novels, concepts of immersive storytelling where people become the actors themselves.

selected links
Hudway Glass — https://hudwayglass.com

V-Cockpit GPS app — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/v-cockpit-gps/id303482803?mt=8

Haptic Socks – https://tampub.uta.fi/handle/10024/97672

TechCrunch article: Ford’s new SmartLink OBD accessory adds connected features to other cars — https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/26/fords-new-smartlink-odb-accessory-adds-connected-features-to-older-cars/

OBDLink MX — https://www.amazon.com/ScanTool-OBDLink-MX-Wi-Fi-Diagnostic/dp/B00OCYXTYY/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&qid=1485538594&sr=8-22&keywords=obd+ii+wifi

Progressive Insurance Snapshot — https://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot/

Postscapes roundup of connected car enablement devices — http://www.postscapes.com/connected-car-devices/

TechCrunch article: 3D TVs are Dead — https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/25/3d-tvs-are-dead/

Neal Stephenson’s Cyberpunk novel “the Diamond Age” on the concept of “ractors” – people who play roles in a virtual reality experience — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age

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Episode 159 – Virtually Secure

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Michael R and Michael M, go deep on virtual assistants and the security storm around WhatsApp in the news recently. We also look at how an old virtual world shopping experience may be coming to life in virtual reality.

The duo start with the Facebook/Oculus tour of the White House and think about whether movies and television shows have the layout and rooms of the building right.  Michael and Michael quickly then turn to Amazon’s focus on virtual reality shopping experiences stemming from articles from TechCrunch and Variety.  Michael R shares his experiences in developing just this kind of experience for Sears 10 years ago.

Then things get even more interesting with holographic personifications of artificial intelligences — where the Gatebox anime character looms large — or rather hovers in a coffee machine style enclosure, and interacts with the user via voice and text chat.   While speech commands are picking up steam, it is still has a social hurdle to climb.  It is embarrassing or just feels weird to talk to inanimate objects, even though the author of the Digital Trends article makes the valid connection that talking to devices is like talking to a pet, and pets do sometimes listen…

The show wraps up with an interesting discussion on the security news related to WhatsApp.  We hope you enjoy!

Show Links:
Virtual White House – http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2017/01/13/obamas-lead-white-house-tour-virtually-help-oculus/96532192/
The West Wing http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200276/

Amazon possibly working on VR Shopping Experience https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/19/amazon-job-posting-suggests-plans-to-bring-shopping-experiences-into-vr/
Google Daydream View https://store.google.com/product/daydream_view
Oculus Rift https://www.oculus.com
Samsung Gear VR http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-vr/
Bridge AR/VR headset https://bridge.occipital.com
Sears VR Shopping Experience – now 10 years old https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ABxTr8sL3U&feature=youtu.be

Variety article — Amazon VR Shopping app http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/amazon-vr-shopping-app-1201962695/

AI Assistants are like Pets http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/talk-to-ai-assistants-like-your-pets/
Gatebox Home AR Powered Holographic Robot http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/12/the-anime-girlfriend-experience-gateboxs-ai-powered-holographic-home-robot/
Gatebox story http://gatebox.ai/story/
Gatebox https://gateboxlab.stores.jp/items/57ea607100d331404d002d77

Twitch See Bots Chat https://www.twitch.tv/seebotschat

Security Researchers call for Guardian to retract false WhatsApp backdoor story https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/20/security-researchers-call-for-guardian-to-retract-false-whatsapp-backdoor-story/?ncid=rss
SecurityNow! Transcript Episode 595 -What’s up with WhatsApp? https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-595.txt

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