. Kate Moss as Princess Leia: 

'Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only help'

Click on Here to view this 'first-to-the-world'
demonstration of 3D holo-technology that is about to transform fashion shows, conferences, night clubs and arts theatre.

'Just Think It' to 'Design It'

How many science fiction movies have featured elements of ‘mind-control?’ Recall the squid-like alien monster that taps into the mind of the President of the United States in the epic ‘Independence Day!’ Well, alien or not, we are about to join our telekinetic space invader foes.

Artificial Telekinetic (AT) technologies are now rolling out of the lab, and being applied in high-end applications such a remote mind control of military assort vehicles and flying robot drones; mechanized hospital beds, wheelchairs, voice box simulators; videogames, and here, Computer Aided Design (CAD) Interfaces.

Pioneering CAD interface technologies are enabling designers to select and control on-screen 3D graphic solid-models using the power of the mind! Woo!! Integration of thought controlled headwear means designers can use AT to design whole models and schematics with brain waves alone.

Emotiv ‘EPOC,’ founded in Sydney in 2003 by technology entrepreneurs Tan Le, Nam Do and Professor Allen Snyder, is a revolutionary personal interface for human computer interaction; a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) that uses electroencephalography (EEG) brain waves. The inclusion of the EPOC controls strengthens what is already deemed an incredible groundbreaking BCI design; pushing the boundaries of designer thoughts.

This is about flow again (just as in online learning activities). Unfettering the minds will really get the creative juices going. The Emotiv EPOC uses a set of 14 sensors plus 2 references to tune into electric signals produced by the brain to detect the user´s thoughts, feelings and expressions in real time. Based on the latest developments in neuro-technology, Emotiv has developed a revolutionary new personal interface for human computer interaction. The Emotiv EPOC is a high resolution, neuro-signal acquisition and processing wireless neuroheadset that allows users to experience the fantasy of having supernatural powers and controlling the world with your mind.

The original goal of the company was to pioneer more realistic and human computer interfaces using mental cues and unconscious responses from the user. To do this, the company envisioned a low-cost, consumer-friendly, wireless, multi-channel EEG headset.

Emotiv targeted its initial product towards gaming applications, because that promised volume sales and high earning potential, but also because gaming provides a good benchmark for the system’s user-friendliness and robustness during everyday use.

For brain signal acquisition, Emotiv engineers used a high-quality front-end amplifier system, multiplexed to a 16-bit analogue-to-digital converter that passes samples at 2048Hz/channel to a Microchip dSPIC processor. 

The headset is capable of detecting four mental states, 13 conscious thoughts and facial expressions (through electromyography, the recording of electrical activity of muscle tissue). In addition, the device uses two gyroscopes to sense head movements. Today, Emotiv sells applications for brain-controlled photo viewing, brain mapping, games and brain-controlled keyboards, plus developer tools. 

'Think It' to 'Make It!'

What if you could just think of a thing – a 3D cartoon toy character; or a new washer for a dripping tap; or perhaps a Baseball Cap with your team’s insignia – and then get hold of one of those new fangled 3D printers and make it right on the spot? No years of training to become a skilled design engineer or toolmaker, and no complicated CAD routines to learn. You just imagine the widget, and it pops out of the 3D printer within, say, ten minutes, just like magic!

Fictional nonsense? Or a happy-go-lucky vision of twenty-second century technology? Or perhaps a profound dream that might arguably be one of mankind’s most spectacular and beneficial technological innovation?

Well, this is no longer a daydream! It is a hard reality. Because an ultra-bold enterprise called ‘Thinker Thing,’ wants you to be able to create anything just by thinking about it! Sounds to Dr Who?

At this point, users are not directing complete designs with their thoughts, as though your brain were controlling the mouse. Instead, the EPOC measures reactions to different design elements and selects the element that is most appealing to the design’s thinker. Each piece of a larger design slowly evolves as EPOC continues to monitor a designer’s thoughts, until eventually the entire piece is complete. Thinker Thing, say:

‘3D printing, what the economist calls the next industrial revolution, is based on a promise, for anyone to be able to create real objects from a computer model. But who can create these computer models. Current software is based on techniques from the 80s, they’re outdated difficult to use and take years to learn. How much of a revolution will it be if only a handful of professionals can create for these machines.

Most of the CAD programs used to create designs for additive manufacturing (AM) aren’t what you might call user friendly. But what if someone could build a design tool that allows the user to make anything they can imagine, by thought alone? Thinker Thing is a company that has taken on this ambitious project, with startup funding from the Chilean government. Instead of controlling the evolution of a design with a mouse or touchscreen, the company is developing a method of using an Emotiv EPOC EEG reader to build 3D objects. From the website:

'The Emotiv EPOC headset ‘reads’ thoughts to direct digital design. Courtesy of Emotiv.'

‘When I was a child I used to think how incredible it would be to just imagine a thing and it would simply appear, readymade. This might still seem like science fiction, but amazingly the technology needed to make this a possibility is already in existence today, all that is missing is a creative approach to build the interface between mind and machine.’

At this point users aren’t directing complete designs with their thoughts, as though your brain were controlling the mouse. Instead, the EPOC measures reactions to different design elements and selects the element that, according to your EEG, is most appealing to the user. Each piece of a larger design slowly evolves as EPOC continues to monitor a user’s thoughts, until eventually the entire piece is complete.

Currently, the Thinker Thing team is touring Chilean schools to expose the children to basic engineering principles, using the EPOC headset and design software to create monsters (think Monsters, Inc. rather than Pacific Rim). The features of each monster will vary child-to-child, and the end CAD design is printed out by a 3D printer. Thinker Thing has launched an Indiegogo project to hold an exhibit of the various creations following the tour’s completion.

While this approach has some flaws from a specific design standpoint, the neuroscience behind the program and the EPOC are still very new. Before too long it may actually be possible to think of a specific image and see that image take shape on your computer. That might not thrill CAD software studios, but such a development would open up digital design to anyone with creativity.

Have a breeze around 'Thinker Thing's website and watch the intriguing videos.

Harold White, PhD, is a NASA veteran who runs the advanced propulsion program at Johnson Space Center.  His particular area of research is "warp drive."  

Warp drive is the only technology that could (even theoretically) permit faster-than-light travel, which under normal circumstances involves a clear violation of Einstein's theory of special relativity. 

Why is this so exciting?  A functional warp drive would have tremendous implications for space travel.  Today, it would take a NASA satellite 75,000 years to get to Alpha Centauri, the star system nearest to our own. 

However, according to White, a vehicle equipped with a warp drive could make the trip in just two weeks, while converting 1,600 pound of matter to energy.1

To underscore its relevance, the head of NASA, Charles Bolden said, "One of these days, we want to get to warp speed.  We want to go faster than the speed of light, and we don't want to stop at Mars."   

About 20 years ago, a physicist named Miguel Alcubierre was doing graduate work in general relativity.  After watching a Star Trek episode, he asked himself, "What would it take to make warp drive physically plausible?" 

In 1994, his answer was published in the form of a peer-reviewed paper in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.  That paper carefully outlined the physics that would be involved in the creation of a faster-than-light warp drive.2 

Konstantin Kakaes, a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation, recently described Alcubierre's thinking this way:

     "Alcubierre envisioned a bubble in space.  At the front of the bubble, space-time would contract, while behind the bubble, space-time would expand (somewhat like in the Big Bang).  The deformations would push the craft along smoothly, as if it were surfing on a wave, despite the tumult around it.  In principle, a warp bubble could move along arbitrarily quickly, because the speed-of-light limitation within Einstein's theory applies only to objects within space-time, not to distortions of space-time itself.  Within the bubble, Alcubierre predicted that space-time would not change, leaving space travelers unharmed.

     "Einstein's equations of general relativity are very difficult to solve in one direction—figuring out how matter bends space—but going backward is fairly easy...

Get started printing out 3D objects quickly and inexpensively!

3D printing is no longer just a figment of your imagination. This remarkable technology is coming to the masses with the growing availability of 3D printers. 3D printers create 3-dimensional layered models and they allow users to create prototypes that use multiple materials and colours.  This friendly-but-straightforward guide examines each type of 3D printing technology available today and gives artists, entrepreneurs, engineers, and hobbyists insight into the amazing things 3D printing has to offer. You’ll discover methods for the creation of 3D printable objects using software, 3D scanners, and even photographs with the help of this timely For Dummies  guide.

• Includes information on stereolithography, selective sintering, fused deposition, and granular binding techniques
• Covers the potential for the transformation of production and manufacturing, reuse and recycling, intellectual property design controls, and the commoditization of traditional products from magazines to material goods
• Walks you through the process of creating a RepRap printer using open-source designs, software, and hardware
• Addresses the limitations of current 3D printing technologies and provides strategies for improved success

3D Printing For Dummies is the must-have guide to make manufacturing your own dynamic designs a dream come true

Link to Amazon see inside.

P.S This is good, but  Now. Come to my conferences later this year!

John Hanke NIANTIC LABS 

'ADVENTURES ON FOOT' DICE2014  

4 Design Principles: 

The World is the Game - Move to Play - Urban Exploration

John leads an innovative 'startup' within Google called Niantic Labs. Niantic was founded by John as an independent group within Google to explore new kinds of mobile applications at the intersection - Hyperinnovation - of mobile, location, social, and with eye towards an emerging class of wearable devices. 

The group has launched two very well received products to date - Field Trip, a guide to the hidden secrets and amazing places of the world, and Ingress, a mobile app that turns the entire world into an interactive, multiplayer game.

Multidirectional Impact Protection System Helmets

For years a helmet's goal was to prevent skull fractures, but designers are now working on ways to fight concussions too. 

The Giro Combyn helmet, worn by athletes including U.S. half-pipe-hopeful Gretchen Bleiler and already on the market for consumers, has a vinyl–nitrile liner and a flexible shell designed to withstand the multi-impact falls common in BMX, skateboard, and snowboard events. The materials remain pliable in the cold, transmitting less energy to the brain in the event of a wipeout. 

Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, the Super-G gold medalist in 2010, wears headgear featuring the Multi-directional Impact Protection System available in various brands. The shell has an inner membrane that slides during impact, dissipating the rotational forces unleashed on the head. 

Aerial and mogul skiers will use technology designed by HIP-TEC, a company that creates sport-specific liners using data from rotational- and blunt-force crashes. 

The tech should be available for consumers this spring.

Cheetah Ultra Sports Whip F-117 is an interesting new snowboard design. Company called Cheetah Ultra Sports has spent four years developing the product which I believe won’t work well on all terrain. There is a big opening in the middle of the board, which makes us scratch our heads here at the “Homeboy Headquarters”.. Why on earth has a snowboard got a huge opening in the middle?

Cheetah Ultra Sports says, “The main purpose of the opening is to reduce the amount of surface which comes in contact with snow. Smaller surface means less drag, which translates into more gliding speed.”

Wow! Wait a minute.. Less surface means more gliding speed? Maybe this idea works on hard slope, but when riding powder snow I guess the opening will cause some serious trouble. I believe you get tons of snow right on your face through the big opening. I might be wrong, but what else could we expect?

Then those huge “shelves” for attaching bindings of Whip F-117 look really interesting to me. Why so big? Unfortunately I don’t know the answer to my question, but there must be a good reason. Anyhow they look cool, eh? The cool design has also the negative side, and it is the fat price of $1,900. 

Written by: Marko Pyhajarvi 

Hyperinnovation 12 Years On!

My book ‘Hyperinnovation’ was published in 2002. The product of 12 years R&D, with its primitive inception in 1990.

Its underlying idea was (is), ‘The multidimensional Interconnection of Ideas.’ The collateral convergence, divergence, paralleling, customising, real-time and accelerated pace of innovation.

In the late 1980s, when I began to maul over and incubate that concept, I had hard time debating the idea (let alone achieving dialogue) with my peers. Back at the end of the 80s, things - technology, organisations (inside and out), markets and industries – were a hell of lot more disparate and disjointed.

The Internet was some esoteric term, and the technology mostly and often exclusively exploited by the highbrow scientific community. The World Wide Web had not even got out of bed. In parallel, Automobiles were still a near empty tech-box on wheels. Utilities (gas, electric, water, telecom) supply came from a linear, single resource service vendors. Cell Phones were the size of a brick, and all you could do was ‘Voice!’ Music, videos, gaming, and books, came via discrete physical mediums. Socialising meant mostly going to the pub, park or family Sunday Lunch. Point is, things were a whole lot more disconnected back in the day.

Today, the term Hyperinnovation is part of universal business language. Reflecting the reality that things are evermore interconnected; and thus dynamic, virtual, instant, and perpetually evolving.

But the underlying idea of Hyperinnovation has been leveraged and transformed into many kinds of new idiom from street slang to high-end commerce. Here’s a list:

·  Mashup! As in, pulp together. By way of example, Mashup.com is one of the premier tech-newscast site. Always on the cusp; always interconnecting (mashing) fresh ideas.

·  Mixology! The study of blending physical, virtual and imagined concepts. Coined by Lord Alan Sugar on his ‘The Apprentice’ programme; he has been an advocate of the interconnected business worldview for some time now.

·   GE’s Hyperinnovation. Looks at the ingredients for a successful and well-balanced innovation program – www.innovationexcellence.com.

·   Sony’s Futurescapes, Scenario 1 - Hyperinnovation. One of four videos we created for Sony Europe highlighting four possible scenarios in 2025. www. http://vimeo.com/39059428.

·  Is it Time to Rewrite the Innovation Playbook: Ten New Requirements in the Age of Hyperinnovation. www.innovationmanagement.se.

· The British Regulatory State: High Modernism and Hyperinnovation. www.books.google.co.uk

· Get ready for hyperinnovation. By Jim Carroll. www.camagazine.com.

Breakthrough in Hockey Skates

There’s a new innovation in ice hockey that the inventor believes will “revolutionize the game of hockey.”

Called “Thermoblades” it’s a new type of hockey skate that uses rechargeable batteries and computer microprocessors to heat the skate blades.

The result is a thicker layer of water between the blade and the ice surface, which reduces friction and increases skating speed.

Four NHL players have been anonymously testing them in game conditions. The product launch was at the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the projected cost of the skates will be $400 Canadian.

This innovation is, quite simply, a technological shortcut to a performance advantage. Those with Thermoblades will get a speed-boost versus those with traditional skates.

Biomechanics and 3D technology takes ice skaters to a new level.

In the past, application of biomechanics to directly improve athletic performance has been minimal. However, performance improvement is more often realised through advancements in equipment design (ie. snow boards, football boots, clubs, skis), but improvements to actual skills have been sporadic.

The goal is to utilize technology to conduct rapid assessment of the athlete’s performance and to provide objective and mechanically sound recommendations for improvement in a form that both the skater and coach could immediately use. 

Prior work with the skaters taught that most were failing to complete their jumps because of ineffective posture during the flight phase of the jump. The fact that the skater isn’t in contact with the ground during this part of the jump simplified the analysis and enabled the adoption of a 3D modelling approach to improving performance. There are several advantages to this approach. 

First, different strategies to improving performance could be examined without putting the skater at risk by asking them to implement the strategies on-ice. Second, unproductive strategies could be ruled out while successful strategies could be identified, minimising the amount of trial and error that would normally be part of the process. Finally, the skater and coach would be able to view a 3D rendering of the model to see how changes would look during the performance, providing them with a visual example of how the performance would appear for each individual athlete.

To date, the outcomes of the on-ice analyses have met expectations. Within approximately 10 minutes of the performance, the skater and coach can begin working with the model. 

The coaches can experiment with both traditional and non-traditional arm, leg, and trunk positions and immediately determine whether they benefit the skater’s performance. Most skaters report being able to implement the recommended changes in a period of 2-3 weeks, and frequently receive email and/or video evidence of a skater’s success. 

Additionally, trends associated with successful jumping styles have begun to emerge, and coaches are able to apply this knowledge to the training efforts of other skaters.

The research on the shoulder presented a different set of challenges. Early on in my career, I analysed shoulder mechanics of pitchers ranging in skill from little league to major league. The obvious flaw in the analysis was the fact that it ignored the contribution of the scapula (shoulder blade), a structure critical to shoulder function. 

Drs. Kozin and Zlotolow at Shriners Research Hostpital provided the medical direction for the work, which focused on measuring scapular contribution to specific clinical positions used to estimate the patient’s degree of shoulder function. 

The approaches began with surface mapping strategies using hundreds of markers and evolved to more landmark specific strategies using a few as 10 markers. To date, it has been possible to differentiate between scapular contribution and glenohumeral contribution (the ball and socket joint in the shoulder) to specific arm positions, and are working toward measuring the scapula during dynamic motions.

In the future, improvements in technology and new approaches to the mathematical analysis of human motion will continue to advance the ability to analyze and improve performance. 

Looming on the horizon are optical systems that can capture motion data outdoors, optical systems that can capture motion data without markers, and wireless sensors that can measure body orientation without the use of cameras. It would not be surprising if in the near future, much of the process now performed with expensive, high-end technology becomes available in the form of affordable lightweight portable sensors coupled to a smartphone app.

Motion capture skate suit

Most people associate motion capture with animated blockbusters like Avatar. To make those films, actors are outfitted with special sensors designed to track their bodies at hundreds of frames per second. The information they gather is fed into a computer, where the human movements can be used to animate the body of an artificial character like a Na'vi princess.

Sculpted skate suits debut at Sochi

But motion capture is also useful for sport, in particular for getting super-precise data on the movements of all kinds of athletes, from runners to high-jump skiers. For these Olympics though, the US speed skating team have used motion capture in a different way. Clothing makers Under Armour, based in Baltimore, Maryland, teamed up with engineers at US aerospace and defence firm Lockheed Martin and used the technique to build the skaters a better suit.

First, the team used motion capture to track Olympic-level speed skaters as they zipped around an ice rink. From the data collected, they built fibreglass mannequins in various poses that mimicked the ones adopted by the skaters. The team then dressed the mannequins in hundreds of different suits and put them through hundreds of hours of wind tunnel tests. This allowed them to examine how different materials and designs affected the air whipping past them.

Given the results, the team used moulded polyurethane shapes to block airflow at certain parts of the body, as well as a different material on the thighs that reduced friction. They also moved the zip and added tiny dimples to the back of the hood to make the suit more aerodynamic.

This isn't Under Armour's first experiment with motion capture – they have used it to make other products, including a line of sports bras.

Details about the final ski suit, named the Mach 39, have been carefully guarded – though images have been released, as shown above. US speed skaters will sport the suits for the first time in public during the upcoming races at Sochi, starting on Saturday at 3.30 pm local time.

Will the use of motion capture seal a win? Other teams are sure to have their own innovations – but historically, fractions of a second have made all the difference when it comes to speed skating.

'When I sat down to write The World is Flat:Facebook didn't exist, Twitter was still a sound, the cloud was still in the sky, 4G was a parking place,LinkedIn was a prison, applications were what you sent to college, and Skype was a typo.'

Thomas Friedman, the author of the excellent book on globalisation, The World Is Flat, explained this better than most.

In the video link below on Richard Branson's Blog, he talks about moving from a connected to a hyperconnected world. 

The whole thing is well worth a watch, but particularly one striking comment about the revolution of social media.

Video link to the Red Knight's blog.

"Google ... has managed to deliver a budget smartphone that doesn't feel like a budget smartphone."

With Wednesday's news that Google is selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, it's very possible that the Moto G — the budget smartphone the company launched back in November — could be the last smartphone that ships under Google's tutelage.

SEE ALSO: Moto X: The Phone That Really Listens to You

If that's the case, Google can hold its head high because it has managed to deliver a budget smartphone that doesn't feel like a budget smartphone. Although I tend to think that the Motorola acquisition primarily strengthens Lenovo's ability to make inroads in the U.S. smartphone market, the Moto G is the type of product that could help Lenovo expand the Motorola brand overseas.

BY CHRISTINA WARREN3 HOURS AGO

  See full post. By Christina Warren.

Russia’s BAZLELVS' text-to-speech; now comes text-to-animation-to-speech.

Write some funny text and let the computer do the work to turn the descriptive narrative into a cartoon character. Such text based CGI is constructed via artificial innovation code turning a description of a character’s features: ‘funny grey boddied blue eyed mouse...etc.’ And out pops the picture cartoon character.

But this goes further.

This new artificial (intelligence) innovation automation converts text into animation/ speech. 

Because it’s means fully constructed text, you get the little funny mouse to 'Skweek' as well.

There is a Russian company called FilmLanguage by Bazelevs which does a part of it. But the future development is to move the idea on to make any text and analyze it just like in some Google Translate - text is analyzed,

Plus added text to speech makes the audiovisual playback of any text.

Basically, FilmLanguage is a text-to-animation translation technology. It converts textual input of a natural language (English, Russian) into 3D animation, which can be then manually adjusted.

There are 3 different end-user products on the basis of this technology.

▪ Visual instant messaging service (including mobile applications, social networks and on-deck messengers);

▪ Movie pre-visualization software kit for feature film producers;

▪ Educational kit. The technology will be licensed to third parties for specific industrial applications such as forensic animation, defense and news visualization tools for TV broadcasters.

FilmLanguage will enable users to create their own animated shorts featuring 'Chromosapiens' characters by converting natural language text directly into animation. This platform will be released on Paramount Comedy’s Russian web site and available to fans across the country.