Maybe I'm just missing something, but iPhone is running an embedded version of OS X which has a full blown development environment and has Dashboard widgets for even simpler applications. What else do you want? Full hand holding?
Leave the laptop and travel as light as possible. Rick Steve has a nice book on backpacking (mostly through Europe) which has good check-lists of things that you really need to take with you and what you can leave behind.
I would bring a iPod photo-sync adapter to copy your photos off the camera for backup purposes (and depending on how many photos and how large an iPod you have, possibly a second iPod). Another life saver is to pack powder laundry detergent in a ziplock bag. Regularly doing your own laundry in a sink, creek, lake, whatever means you can get away with taking fewer clothes which take up valuable space. It really helped me survive a trip in Asia which went from a planned 3 weeks to an unplanned stranded 5 weeks.
I think that anyone who has had even a rudimentary training in VR systems has probably considered creating a sphere. One of the bigger problems with a spherical "CAVE" system is that, until you get to a fairly huge size, you end up with disorientation and balance problems. Some of these are compounded by the inertia of the sphere, but most of the problem is that we expect to walk on relatively level surfaces. So, unless the simulations which you are walking through are all up-hill then the tactile sensations of walking verses what you are seeing are going to be out of sync.
If I recall my University experiments on this, I believe that our group determined that 15m diam sphere would begin to have a level enough surface. A 3.5m diam sphere would be claustrophobic and you would have to be relatively short not to have head space issues, or just not move around very quickly. What we really concluded was that a better system would be to have a deformable sphere, such that the walls of the sphere were not ridged and could be manipulated to create a flat walking surface, or by extension, an inclided surface as well. How that would be accomplished is left as an exercise of the reader.
AOL is just acting in the same way that any other common carrier operates. Which is every ISP in the US (along with phone companies and backbone providers). They only release information if there is a subpoena or a warrant and your local ISP probably operates the same way (or should legally). If the police (or anyone else for that matter) gets a warrant or subpoena for logs, user information, or anything else that an ISP keeps on their servers then the ISP has to legally give that information up. Did you actually read the article and realize that AOL's policy is just that? They only release information requested in a subpoena or warrant. It is not like they are giving it away. The only information which they do give out to the FBI is in their chat rooms. Additionally, that information is the screen name of the individual and what kind of complaint some other AOL user made against that person. Notice, an AOL user must make a complaint before they forward any information on to the FBI.
The only reason this even makes the news is because AOL is so huge. If you would actually read the article and understood even the basic laws that telephone companies and ISPs have to operate under then you would know that AOL is operating no differently then your mom & pop ISP shop in the middle of nowhere when it comes to dealing with the law. So if you would get your head out of your ass and actually think, you would realize that AOL is not the problem in following the laws, but the laws themselves are what are not protecting your privacy.
If you are really worried about your privacy and you are worried about who is giving out your personal information, then maybe you should find out how that information is protected (or is not, depending on your pov) and then work to have the laws fixed.
No, I don't have an AOL account, I don't care to have an AOL account, and I could care less if AOL lives or dies. But I have worked for ISPs in the past and I know how they are bound legally and what is stated as the AOL policy for giving out information to the authorities is precisely what is required by law.
The only reason I felt the need to even make this post was because the comments that I saw were so knee-jerk and unthinking that, aside from the lack of all-caps, they could have come from AOL users. If AOL was voluntarily giving out user information without the benefit of a warrant or subpoena then this would have actually been newsworthy.
They were demonstrating a similar system at SIGGRAPH last summer in Orlando. It worked so long as you were about 8inches from the screen and were looking straight ahead. Otherwise the images did not line up properly and the effect doesn not work.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe I'm just missing something, but iPhone is running an embedded version of OS X which has a full blown development environment and has Dashboard widgets for even simpler applications. What else do you want? Full hand holding?
Leave the laptop and travel as light as possible. Rick Steve has a nice book on backpacking (mostly through Europe) which has good check-lists of things that you really need to take with you and what you can leave behind.
I would bring a iPod photo-sync adapter to copy your photos off the camera for backup purposes (and depending on how many photos and how large an iPod you have, possibly a second iPod). Another life saver is to pack powder laundry detergent in a ziplock bag. Regularly doing your own laundry in a sink, creek, lake, whatever means you can get away with taking fewer clothes which take up valuable space. It really helped me survive a trip in Asia which went from a planned 3 weeks to an unplanned stranded 5 weeks.
All brought to you by the guys who supplied to electic side of the drivetrain, AC Propulsion.
I think that anyone who has had even a rudimentary training in VR systems has probably considered creating a sphere. One of the bigger problems with a spherical "CAVE" system is that, until you get to a fairly huge size, you end up with disorientation and balance problems. Some of these are compounded by the inertia of the sphere, but most of the problem is that we expect to walk on relatively level surfaces. So, unless the simulations which you are walking through are all up-hill then the tactile sensations of walking verses what you are seeing are going to be out of sync.
If I recall my University experiments on this, I believe that our group determined that 15m diam sphere would begin to have a level enough surface. A 3.5m diam sphere would be claustrophobic and you would have to be relatively short not to have head space issues, or just not move around very quickly. What we really concluded was that a better system would be to have a deformable sphere, such that the walls of the sphere were not ridged and could be manipulated to create a flat walking surface, or by extension, an inclided surface as well. How that would be accomplished is left as an exercise of the reader.
AOL is just acting in the same way that any other common carrier operates. Which is every ISP in the US (along with phone companies and backbone providers). They only release information if there is a subpoena or a warrant and your local ISP probably operates the same way (or should legally). If the police (or anyone else for that matter) gets a warrant or subpoena for logs, user information, or anything else that an ISP keeps on their servers then the ISP has to legally give that information up. Did you actually read the article and realize that AOL's policy is just that? They only release information requested in a subpoena or warrant. It is not like they are giving it away. The only information which they do give out to the FBI is in their chat rooms. Additionally, that information is the screen name of the individual and what kind of complaint some other AOL user made against that person. Notice, an AOL user must make a complaint before they forward any information on to the FBI.
The only reason this even makes the news is because AOL is so huge. If you would actually read the article and understood even the basic laws that telephone companies and ISPs have to operate under then you would know that AOL is operating no differently then your mom & pop ISP shop in the middle of nowhere when it comes to dealing with the law. So if you would get your head out of your ass and actually think, you would realize that AOL is not the problem in following the laws, but the laws themselves are what are not protecting your privacy.
If you are really worried about your privacy and you are worried about who is giving out your personal information, then maybe you should find out how that information is protected (or is not, depending on your pov) and then work to have the laws fixed.
No, I don't have an AOL account, I don't care to have an AOL account, and I could care less if AOL lives or dies. But I have worked for ISPs in the past and I know how they are bound legally and what is stated as the AOL policy for giving out information to the authorities is precisely what is required by law.
The only reason I felt the need to even make this post was because the comments that I saw were so knee-jerk and unthinking that, aside from the lack of all-caps, they could have come from AOL users. If AOL was voluntarily giving out user information without the benefit of a warrant or subpoena then this would have actually been newsworthy.
--Andrew
They were demonstrating a similar system at SIGGRAPH last summer in Orlando. It worked so long as you were about 8inches from the screen and were looking straight ahead. Otherwise the images did not line up properly and the effect doesn not work.