It seems that I missed that Augmented Reality Toolkit all the way until now. It’s ARToolKit and it’s completely OpenSource.
As a matter of fact there are a ton of demos available… HOW could I possibly miss that for so long?
“ARToolKit is a software library for building Augmented Reality (AR) applications. These are applications that involve the overlay of virtual imagery on the real world. For example, in the image to the right a three-dimensional virtual character appears standing on a real card. It can be seen by the user in the head set display they are wearing. When the user moves the card, the virtual character moves with it and appears attached to the real object.
One of the key difficulties in developing Augmented Reality applications is the problem of tracking the users viewpoint. In order to know from what viewpoint to draw the virtual imagery, the application needs to know where the user is looking in the real world.”
Here is a short video demonstration of what you could start with:
…not talking about the things that would be possible if someone had a great idea 
Source: http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/
a similar tool is available for Windows Server 2003 and now for 2008:
“Probably you are thinking at the moment: “Why the heck should I use Windows Server 2008 as my Workstations Operating System?? Vista works fine for me…”.
The answer is clear: Windows Server 2008 has almost exactly the same features as Windows Vista (SP1), but is remarkably faster and more stable!“
I cannot talk about the “more stable”-part since my Vista machines do not crash but if you’re one of those who just cannot live without the newest cutting-edge kernel version go ahead install Server 2008 and convert it into a useable workstation with Sound and stuff
Source: http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/2008/07/17/windows-server-2008-workstation-converter/
You would need:
- an old yet powerful enough notebook to play MAME games
“MAME is an emulator application designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software, with the intent of preserving gaming history and preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. The name is an acronym for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.”
- an IKEA RAMVIK sideboard
- go to the homepage of the project to get the details how to build it
Source 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAME
Source 3: http://www.ikea.com
Source 2: http://mamebook.blogspot.com/
Oh yeah. I talked about these kinds of electronic whiteboards for years – and now it seems that there is a cheap and really useful DIY solution created by Johnny Chung Lee(beside several other really useful and astounding DIY jobs)
“Since the Wiimote can track sources of infrared (IR) light, you can track pens that have an IR led in the tip. By pointing a wiimote at a projection screen or LCD display, you can create very low-cost interactive whiteboards or tablet displays. Since the Wiimote can track upto 4 points, up to 4 pens can be used. It also works great with rear-projected displays.”
So you need:
- a Wiimote
- a selfmade Infrared-LED Pen that marks the trackable point
So namenlos (his blog) did his version of the Wii whiteboard and made a video of it:
(due to music the license of this video is CC-BY-NC-SA)
Really impressive isn’t it? And you can do so much more with this Wiimote stuff. – Actually I am planning to get such a Wiimote and a Pen and try it myself.
Source 1: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/
Source 2: http://blog.slash-me.net/archives/268-Wii-Whiteboard.html
The internet makes things possible some people dreamt of for years. One of these things is the possibility to stream live-voice-chat over the internet. Many people used the citizens’ band radio – CB radio – for the last decades:
“Citizens’ Band radio (CB) is, in many countries, a system of short-distance, simplex[1] radio communications between individuals on a selection of 40 channels within the 27 MHz (11 meter) band. The CB radio service should not be confused with FRS, GMRS, MURS, or amateur (“ham”) radio. Similar personal radio services exist in other countries, with varying requirements for licensing and differing technical standards. In many countries, CB does not require a license and, unlike amateur radio, it may be used for business as well as personal communications.”
For several years now there is a group of people from virtually everywhere in germany who connect their CB radios to the internet – they link their “gateways” together using a software normally used by online gamers called “TeamSpeak”. All you have to do to take a look is to read this short how-to and follow the steps.
Here’s a sneak-peak at the current status of the server:
There’s even a livestream available (but sometimes not working):
Source 1: http://www.freiesfunknetz.com/
Source 2: http://www.goteamspeak.com/
It’s an underwater mosaic that is on the bottom of the pool and it just looks great… at least for us
Source: http://www.sinn-frei.com/unterwasser-3d-zeichnungen_8169.htm
Since we already got them this is not an option for us… but maybe for your wedding:
Source:http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10501732
Since the good old mac mini is gone and a new mac arrived – and since I moved to a new place I think it’s time to share my current desktop with you:
If you want to know how it looked in the old place an 9 months ago take a look at the fourth part of this series.
Source: the perfect working environment part 4
You may – just like me – be curious about the things that might or might not be inside of the plastic housing of a SD card:
“CHDK is a firmware enhancement that operates on a number of Canon Cameras. CHDK gets loaded into your camera’s memory upon bootup (either manually or automatically). It provides additional functionality beyond that currently provided by the native camera firmware.
CHDK is not a permanent firmware upgrade: you decide how it is loaded (manually or automatically) and you can always easily remove it.”
Main features:
- Save images in RAW format
- Ability to run “Scripts” to automate the camera
- Live histogram (RGB, blended, luminance and for each RGB channel)
- Zebra mode (blinking highlights and shadows to show over/under exposed areas)
- An “always on” full range Battery indicator
- Ability to turn off automatic dark-frame subtraction
- a higher compression movie mode, and double the maximum video file size
- exposure times as long as 65 seconds
- exposure times as little as 1/10,000 of a second
- ability to use the USB port for a remote trigger input
Additional features:
- a depth-of-field (DOF)-calculator
- File browser
- Text reader
- Calendar
- Some fun tools and games
Source: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_in_Brief
Switcher is the name of the tool that is available since some months and if you ever used Flip3d in Windows Vista you maybe know what it means when I say: Switcher is the Flip3d that should have shipped with Vista.
There are several usability issues with Vistas built-in Flip3d, take a look:
First of all you just don’t see the content of the windows… then you don’t see their name… then… who came up with that layout?
Compare that to the UI of Switcher:
Neat, isn’t it? Try it, love it.
Source: http://baostuff.spaces.live.com/default.aspx
“Apparently in Windows Vista, Microsoft still enforce and hard-limit (hard coded in tcpip.sys) the maximum simultaneous half-open (incomplete) outbound TCP connection attempts per second that the system can make, as in Windows XP SP2, in order to protect the system from being used by malicious programs, such as viruses and worms, to spread to uninfected computers, or to launch distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). When the limit is hit, in Event Viewer, there will be such an entry:”
How to fix that and the needed tools can be read and downloaded here.
Source: Patch for EventID 4226
“Our flagship product, the Disco Dance Floor Controller Board is capable of controlling up to 192 LEDs (with 4-bit intensity control) and 64 binary switches via a USB interface. Using the included source code, a refresh rate of 17 frames per second is easily achieved. With some environment specific modifications to the software, rates in excess of 30 frames per second may be achieved. Multiple boards may be connected together using USB hubs to control additional LEDs and switches.”
Source: mit.edu
“an ungodly abomination, a EF 90-300 mm lens which is male to male filter coupled to a EF-S 18-55 lens …potential magnification is around 300 / 18 = ~16x (not taking into account non-full frame sensor, for which i am not sure how it would affect the result in the end)! granted at this mag the lens would be well over a foot long and need the subject to almost be almost _in_ the lens…total cost for me: $9 adaptor from e-bay (as i already had the lenses)”
Source: http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/09/super…
While cleaning my keyboards the idea came up to actually use dvorak keyboard layout I wrote about more than a year ago.
After creating the “dovrak german type 2″ keyboard layout file with Ukelele I am now slowly learning the new layout… quite hard after more than 16 years on QWERTZ/QWERTY…
Well… both Apple Keyboards are now dvorak-layouted… looks a bit strange when you’re only known to QWERTZ/QWERTY
If you like you can download the OS X keyboard layout here.
Source 1: dvorak article(german)
Source 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Key…
Source 3: Ukelele
Source 4: btk_Dvorak.zip (3,21 KB)
I had this very very annoying problem that Windows Vista since the July CTP refresh wasn’t able to connect to my home 802.1x certificate based wireless network. It just did not work as supposed…
But with the help of the RC1 Wi-Fi support specialists I got it working. If you run into the same problem, just do the following to solve it:
netsh wlan add profile “profile.xml” “Wireless Network Connection” all
- you have to change “profile.xml” to the filename of your .xml file and “Wireless Network Connection” to the name of your connection
Et voilá! A message should show up asking you for the certificate…
UPDATE: well you could also create a manual profile for your wireless network and export it to an xml file:
netsh wlan export profile “SSID”
Download: Wireless Network Connection-evilgate.zip (,63 KB)
I always wanted to build one myself…though I don’t have a PIC programmer at the moment…
Source: http://tobe.nimio.info/led_mood_lamp.php
After using the “Web-Search”-Plugin of TV-Browser to program new recordings into YAPS, ello came across with the idea to use the “Capture”-Plugin instead.
And after doing so: It’s incredible what that Capture Plugin can do!
in the context menu: the “Record”-Button
specify the title..and you’re done…
The Capture Plugin does several things:
- making the programming of new recordings as easy as possible
- showing visually that this particular episode will be recorded
- allowing you to remove the recording from the schedule
And all you have to do to add this functionality to your TV-Browser is:
- download: YAPS TV-Browser Plugin
- import the YAPS.tcf file into the Capture-Plugins Device Listing (Import Button)
- configure the server name and the channel-name mappings
When you’re done with that everything should work. Oh… I have to admit: The record delete functionality is not quite working as it should…but it will in some of the next builds…
Thanks to the TV-Browser team for creating such a great application!!! Keep on the good work!
Source: http://www.tvbrowser.org
I am running into several Do-it-yourself websites these days; and one of them is zedomax.com. This website tells you very interesting electronic tales, like this one:
Once upon a time, I wanted to get me a segway. But since I didn’t want to bite the bullet I just made one myself…
“The author says, “The current software, now in C running in an onboard 8-bit microcontroller, is only 500 lines of code.””
Source 1: DIY – Build your own Segway
Source 2: http://www.segway.com/
Stitching software and digital cameras make panoramic photos far easier than ever before. However, to get the best results, you need a special tripod head. These can cost hundreds of dollars, but making your own isn’t that hard. Even better, it’s dirt cheap.
Source: http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161123&print=1
and here we are back again, reorganising the desktop:
if you want to see how it looked a month ago…see part 3
Do you remember the text adventures of the early days of computer games? Now karber.net took the old-school pong and made a text based version which looks like this:
Source: http://www.karber.net/textbased/pong/
Wait until the case modding scene finds out about that… color changing heatsinks…omg!
“Eclipse is a single event heat reactive basecoat that changes from Black to White or from Blue to White. Eclipse can be sprayed through any standard paint equipment.”
Source: http://alsacorp.com/products/eclipse/eclipse_vid.htm
“2001 seconds is a complete re-edit of Stanley Kubrick’s original Space Odyssey from 141 minutes to 33 minutes 21 seconds.”
Source: http://swith.gazaxian.com/2001seconds.htm
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