IZation Labs

Cliff says:

These days technology is constantly getting smaller. UMPC’s and cell phones are testing just how small we can make something and still make it controllable via the human hand. New Scale Technologies just caught my eye a couple of days ago with a claim on manufacturing the world’s smallest linear motors and I believe that they are second to none. Some of their products are absolutely amazing and require a look at for any engineer, designer, physicist, or techie.

To check the site out, just go here.

Man has always dreamt of moving objects with his mind. It’s just one of those things that everyone would love to be able to do. Let me give you an example:

See the little stick figure? See what he’s doing? Telekinesis: manipulating objects with his mind. In this case he is lifting a wooden box and stopping bullets.

Mind numbing announcement. We’re getting there. No, really. And knowing the kind of things I blog about, how do you think we are ‘getting there’? That’s right. Technology.

Enter Emotiv’s EPOC. A controller that captures signals through the skull much the same as electroencephalography does and shunts the data into a computer or game system for processing. (Think of actually reaching out and using the force instead of pushing the left trigger in the next Star Wars game.) For around 300 dollars, you can own a device that has the potential to turn your thoughts into commands for not only digital, but also real world items.

It’s actually an amazing device, and seems to do a decent job of coming-through performance wise. There are multiple videos showing off what it can do at Emotiv’s website. To get an a basic idea of what the EPOC is capable of, watch this video. Note: I found a better video that isn’t hosted by facebook. Click the link to enjoy!

Think of the possibilities. One could tie this to a microcontroller or a small computer (eee PC, anyone?) and use it to take control of anything from, for example, remote control toys to heavily modified remote operated lawnmowers. Think of any item you own that requires a button push; maybe the turn of a dial. Theoretically, you could do away with the physical contact of pushing a button or turning that knob, replacing it with nothing but mental concentration.

Not to say that is a simple thing to do, but have you looked at the hacking community? If it’s possible, then someone can do it. Enough said. Go check out that website. It’s worth it.

And yes. I have reserved my EPOC headset. :]

Woodchuck62 suggests that we change IZation Lab’s catch phrase to “Making the Brain USB 2.0 Compatible One Unsuspecting Victim At A Time.” Maybe we could put that on a t-shirt and sell it!

Another really cool video, this one is about the worlds (allegedly) largest vortex cannon. Interested? Watch the video to gain some insight. My favorite part is where it knocked down all of the cans! If you want to build your own, check out this Instructable!

This is my first time trying to composite 3d footage onto an actual real-world surface (in this case, it was a picture taken in my dorm.)

I was kind of flying blind as to how things lined up, as I had to render the image every time I changed something, the preview wasn’t cutting it for me…

Next steps would obviously be to clean up the physics animation a little bit, (I already did some hard core cleanup to deal with the floating domino problem), render grainy-ness over the entire project and put at least a little effort into the lighting, but that’s for another night. I have homework I need to get done.

I followed this slightly outdated tutorial to get it done.
weirdhat.com/blender/compositing2/

Though I don’t get the chance to watch Mythbusters very often, (remember, I have farmervision. 7 channels. That’s it.), I could never pass up the chance to share this video. This is just too awesome.

Introducing our own radio channel, WIZL, 61.0!

http://izationlabs.com/audio/WIZL Channel 7 News Short.mp3

Okay. So, now that we’ve established that that was just a joke, (If you didn’t know that, I thank you, because that means my recording was of decent quality) I’ll tell you what I am actually introducing.

• First and foremost, I have been testing my new Blue Snowball microphone. I know, from the name alone it doesn’t sound that impressive, but trust me it is.  It is an 80 dollar microphone that connects to the computer via usb. It pulls its phantom power from the USB bus, and has 2 hemispheres and three settings. Mode 1 is a unidirectional cardoid microphone. Mode 2 puts a -10db PAD on the same cardoid mic, and mode 3 activates the omni-capsule, the other side of the mic, meant to pick up environmental sounds. I have to say I love this not so little microphone.

This thing is amazing!

That’s a quarter below and held next to the mic for scale.

The reason I bought it is because I was tired of messing with headset microphones and typical passive mics that just don’t get the job done well. The next step up was either this, or a 200 dollar mic that requires a pre-amp for the phantom voltage. That’s the beauty of this little thing. If I need to go to some foley recording outside, then I can just pack up my laptop and this little microphone and do it.

A passive mic would work, but not with anywhere near the quality. And one of those more expensive mics might give me a better quality recording (I say might because this little microphone absolutely blows me away) but it would never be as portable or accessible.

• The second thing I wanted to introduce isn’t really a big deal. I downloaded a nice little audio plugin that lets me embed the player that you saw at the top of this page. Now if I feel really inspired and make some good music or recordings, I can just let people listen to it by clicking the play button right at the top of my blog! **Due to memory issues, the plugin is currently disabled. Click the link above to hear the clip.**

So I finished the Beta. I’m not sure how many hours I spent working on the animation and lighting on this release, not to mention just the general tweaking of random settings to increase the overall quality of the animation. I spent the better part of 3 or 4 days rendering it out, and here it is. It’s my first time using textures, AA, and SSS. If anyone out there has any suggestions, please let me know. I’m sure there are plenty of ways this could be improved. I have the final version all planned out, with quite enough changes and additions that I think you will be pleasantly surprised, but the basic animation of the Aggravated Pawn stays the same.

It’s interesting. I’m so used to trying to do everything on my own that I’m not big on asking for help. I’m breaking that habit though. If I were doing this as a job, I would be doing as much social networking as possible. Even though this isn’t my job, (ahh, do I wish I could get paid to Blend), there’s no reason not to get started. In which case, I’ll be over at the Blender artist forums! See you there!

<Edit> The link to the Blender Artist topic about this animation is here. </edit>