Recent Multimedia Technology

Using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), you can accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen. This effectively transforms your display into a portal to a virtual environment. The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space. By Johnny Chung Lee, Carnegie Mellon University.

A few months ago I found that someone had done something really interesting with the Nintendo Wii. The thing in question is a virtual reality display basically this means that with head tracking you can turn your flat dimensional screen into a full 3D world that will move depending on where you yourself move (you move to the right and you see more to the left and so on). As stated in the demonstration though this effect will only be stunning to the one with the head tracking which is a bit of a shame that no more than one person can experience it. I think that this break through with the Nintendo Wii technology will have a big impact on the way we play games in the future and it has the potential will no doubtfully change the way we play games. With this technology apparently possible it is a shame that Nintendo did not opt for the Wii to have better graphics and match say the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 but in any case pursued in properly they will defiantly come up with something interesting, perhaps a re-release of Far Cry Instinct but with motion tracking.

Motion tracking technology dose not have to end with games it could be used for educational purposes. What if using what if you could walk around the world galleries and see some of the most famous paintings in the world. A person in France could walk around the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and see a Jackson Pollock painting or a person from New York could walk around Le Louvere and see the Mona Lisa. As for how easy is it to feel if you’re actually there, there are already companies producing full peripheral vision monitors, you could though just create a wall of monitors about 6 foot high and there you go you’re really there. I think there is still a lot of work to be done with this technology but as it stands despite the lack of a mighty graphics card and processor Nintendo’s Wii has a massive advantage over its competition.

What do i want to get out of my course

I want to expand on my current strengths and learn some new ones as far as what I want to specialize in if I knew that (coming from an HND) i would probably be in the second year. Obviously i want a digree but mainly I think its a personal goal.

What did i do on my first week?

Monday - Monday was slightly boring mainly because I spent the best part of the day sitting in a hot lecture being talked to. The worst meeting has to have been an hour long meeting listening to a woman describe every last thing about NOW. Annoyingly enough when I got home to have a look for myself I didn't have a clue what to do. Oh also I watch Fringe the new JJ Abrams (the creator of 'Lost') TV series and it is very very good.

Tuesday - Tuesday, what can i say other than I now know i don't like dark, crowded rooms and my short term memory isn't to good (due to dyslexia) so Tuesday was rather interesting. I am really fond of photography and whenever an opportunity comes along for me to take some photos I jump at the chance so Pinhole photography was probably one of the most interesting things iv done. All in all a pretty good day.

Wednesday - Today I set up my online journal and had to write two past tense posts about what I have done this week and one about what I want to get out of the course its going to be a challenge keeping up to date with this whole blog thing as I have never really been keen on the idea of the blog but I can see the reason behind this one so I am more than happy to try looking forward to tomorrow as I get paid and can buy pretty things... Yay.