I just happened across a very cool news article on Embedded Computing announcing Samsung Heavy Industries use of RTLinux for a system that runs their ship-building production robots. From the article (Link):

Working with FSMLabs’ Korean partner, RealTimeWave, engineers at SHI have created some of the worlds most advanced ship-building robots including an autonomous “Spider” welder that autonomously guides itself over the ships membrane wall.

In addition to the Spider robot, SHI has developed a RTLinux powered pipe alignment robot also in production use and a third, Stewart-Gough Type 6-axes parallel robot is under development. The robots use SHI designed 3-D path tracking and real-time attitude control systems.

Now this is the kind of thing I was getting at earlier when I posted about both the Zaha Hadid-designed building under construction (Link) and about the future where we “grow” our structures (Link).

Very cool. Now about those robot termites…

via Robot Cafe

{Image Copyright © FSMLabs, Inc. 2006}

{Edit: Whoops. I accidently saved this entry as “Private” back on February 12. Consequently, it’s been hidden from view and is now pretty late. Oh well. I’ll update the timestamp so it lands on the front page.}

As some of you know I’ve been watching some of the short Demo ’06 presentations and posting entries about them here (see earlier posts – Link 1 and Link 2). But today I went looking for something with a bit of associated hardware and what I found was pretty interesting. It’s a product by a tiny company named ZinkKat and the thing is called “Chili”. Basically it’s a wireless device that connects the user to all their audio-based stuff (e.g. phone, CD, podcasts, aso) or to any content which can be converted to audio (e.g. instant messaging, RSS feeds, aso). All this and only two buttons.

Watch the presentation video for yourself (Link) and get both more info and a better look at the device over on newsobserver.com (Link – best image I could find).

There’s an excellent entry (Link) over on the CinemaTech blog covering yesterday’s film industry conference, “Other Digital Stuff: Expanding the In-Theater Experience”. It’s a long, detailed entry that has plenty of information for people interested in how the movie industry is dealing with the transition to digital and what their thoughts are for the future.

I found this portion the most interesting:

Fithian says that one thing that will be powerful is showing movies with niche appeal on Monday or Tuesday nights – movies that might work in four or five cities, or just one metropolitan area, but not the entire country. He says that digital could be “potentially the most exciting thing for independent filmmakers.”

Goldwater says, “Digital technology empowers exhibitors to accomplish more with the underutilized space and time in their theaters. I think there is a lot of exciting potential yet to be realized — though exhibitors are [also] looking to optimize the performance of feature films.”

Levin says he thinks digital cinema needs to focus on types of entertainment not available at home (IE, not the Super Bowl). Feature films and 3-D content, for instance.

I’m thinking more along the lines of what Swartz hinted at earlier (“embark in new directions”). I think we’ll see whole new kinds of activities sprout from digital theaters. So rather than focus on distributing entertainment not available in the home, I suspect we’ll hear stories of enterprising theater owners finding ways to make their service a more integral part of the community.

Actually, I should stop thinking about this as “digital cinema” and instead think of it as “digitally-mediated activity hubs”. When I lose the “cinema” tag, my imagination takes off. Including seeing an opportunity for something like Pangea Cinema (read about that over on WorldChanging.com – Link).

I came across something online not too long ago – a blog entry perhaps – that I recall wanting to revisit. Unfortunately I can’t find it since I didn’t bookmark it. But the point of what I’d read was that intimidatingly complex game controllers were keeping a large number of potential consumers from even trying videogames. The example provided in the entry was the author’s own father who was sufficiently intrigued by a game the son was playing to want to try playing it himself … at least until he took a look at the controller.

There’s now a similar discussion regarding how controller designs are actually influencing game design. And much of it is focusing on Tom Armitage, one of the speaker’s at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (ETech).

His presentation, which stands out like a sore thumb on the ETech schedule, is/was titled “From Paddles to Pads: Is Controller Design Killing Creativity in Videogames?”. From the summary for his session (Link):

The videogames market is stagnating. The primary cause is not the domination of the industry by larger companies, the rising costs of next-gen games, or even lack of imagination.

The primary cause is the interfaces we play the games with.

We Make Money Not Art has now posted a nice entry (Link) about Armitage’s talk. Give it a read to supplement the summary. And if you’re a product/interface designer be on the lookout for more articles and blog entries about this issue. There will doubtlessly be some interesting chatter. Just be sure to bookmark what you find.

A lot of people think it’s cool that indie band Matmos did this: begged recipients of their promo CD not to post tracks on the internet. I don’t think it’s so great. Because they shouldn’t have to ask. Because as soon as some greedy jerks see an opportunity in handwritten pleas asking us to respect the creative work of others, kids in some undeveloped third world cesspool will be writing little “personalized” notes just like this … a dollar for a every few thousand or so.

One of my favorite movie lines is “Starvation is a powerful aphrodisiac.” Screwing people over – literally or metaphorically – isn’t cool.

via Boing Boing

{Image source: Resonance FM Blog}