Category Archives: reTransmit

cool things I’ve learned from others directly or found online which hopefully relate to the core topics of the blog

When Objects Communicate

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Vorwerk robot vacuum

I guess if a robot is going to vacuum a carpet, it should be able to talk to the carpet. And that’s basically what this puppy can do – talk to the carpet via embedded RFID chips (just wait until they use inks and dyes to weave it in). From the Discovery Channel news website:

Now the manufacturing company Vorwerk in Hamlin, Germany, has partnered with Infineon in Munich to develop an electronic carpet that wirelessly navigates a self-propelled robot over every square inch of a floor, and can even direct the machine to revisit sections it unintentionally missed.

I assume the next rev will have the carpet complaining about dirty spots and directing the robot to specific locations to do a more thorough job.

My favorite part of this news item though is when Burcu Akinci, the “expert” that apparently was in the office to answer the phone that day, makes this insightful statement: “If the whole room gets flooded, then I think the robot wouldn’t be able to navigate easily.” Classic.

(As an aside, the generic topic of object-to-object communication is especially interesting in that this capability is very much a “virtual space” feature. Barriers just keep dropping between the real and the virtual.)

(above image Copyright © Vorwerk)

Camphone Reality and Some Real Reality

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While the ambitious ubergeeks are cobbling together head-mounted gear and lugging around home-made versions of a Xybernaut to play augmented reality games (like ARQuake which I’ve mentioned here before), the geektrepeneurs are surveying what’s available, bending it to their will, and coming up with interesting applications. And the latest example seems to be Camblaster, an interesting combination of cellphone camera technology and mobile gaming.

I think Jamais Cascio who posted this item over on WorldChanging.com where I found it, has already written what I’m thinking; so just go read his entry.

And for the industrial designers that read this blog, while you’re visiting the WorldChanging site, check out two other articles: this one on China and this one covering Bruce Sterling’s piece on technology.

Rosedale Interviewed

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Via the Second Life forum I made my way to a Gamesblog interview of SL founder and CEO Philip Rosedale. From the interview:

In May 2005, the total amount traded in-world was USD$1.47 million. There were 1.3 million transactions between 19,500 unique users.

And to think this is really still in its infancy.

(edit: C|Net has latched onto this interview. you can read that entry here)

WoW Data

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Terra Novan and mediated interaction researcher Nick Yee has posted on the Terra Nova website an announcement that World of Warcraft player data he and a few PARC researchers are collecting is now up for review and discussion on the PlayOn blog.

If you’re like me then World of Warcraft by itself doesn’t mean much other it being an online videogame. However, the information they’re extracting is pretty interesting. I may not know what’s happening at “level 40”, but comments like the following are easy to understand:

Plotting playing time against level by guild involvement shows several interesting trends. Playing time increases dramatically for guilded players right before level 40. Because of the new skills and mount granted at level 40, it makes sense that players may increase their playing time to achieve those goals. Perhaps being in a guild facilitates this because other guild members encourage and help players reach level 40 when they get close to it, thereby increasing playing time.

Sounds like the academic version of how I imagine Massive’s system operates. Interesting (and perhaps a little scary). But if I’m an advertiser, I know where I want my ads placed… right around whatever it is in level 40 that’s making players spend more time online (I’m imagining there’s some location-specific activity or item required for the player to level up).

The Ultimate ARG (or This Is Not A Videogame)

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Image of the J-UCAS system in action

C|Net has a slideshow from the currently in-progress Paris Air Show. Notice that the first image in the slideshow shows a UCAV (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle). Now look close and you should see a few of those flying drones/robots in the above conceptual image taken from the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) website. If you read the MIT Technology Review article I mentioned a couple months back in this post, the videogame aspect of all this is pretty obvious. Since that time however a couple more related bits have come along, including: news about swarming robots, word on an attempt to create a virtual brain, an announcement that the keel is being laid for a new kind of warship (the Littoral Combat Ship, a variation of which would presumably make an excellent platform for UCAVs), and plenty of discussion about military spending. There’s even another article similar to the MIT Tech Review piece – this time over on the Popular Science website (read “Trust Me – I’m a Robot” here) .

And all I wanted to see were some pretty pictures of the new Boeing jet I mentioned a couple days ago. Looks like pieces of this augmented reality stuff are everywhere; it’s just maybe not entirely obvious how it all fits together.