I know it's not 'quite' the same, but for Windows, Irider, an internet-explorer rejib (like avantbrowser) has a tree-based history view in the left-hand pane. Sort of like a cross between what's seen in this story, and tabbed browsing.
It's pretty neat, but I actually like having a billion different windows open, so it wasn't for me.
Similar to the personalized search, I built a bookmarklet+backend to allow you to easily build a list of predefined sites, then search just those sites.
It was built after noticing that certain sites generally hold all the results I want (eg experts-exchange, wikipedia and libsdl.org), and allows me to cut a whole lot of crap out of my search results.
Most firewire video cameras, and some USB ones just automatically show up as attached video devices, and so can be accessed through VFW or WDM, in the exact same way you grab an image/stream off a webcam. It makes no difference that it's Firewire, or that it's a DV cam as opposed to a webcam.
For example, many of my users use Sony, Canon and JVC DV cameras in my machine-vision application, Freelook.
Unless you attached it to your head and used mouse-look in a first-person shooter.
Doesn't work - I have a Gyration mouse, and I tried this when I was researching headtrackers - the problem is that the gyro is 2-axis, so it doesn't take into account rotation of your head around the z-axis (the one from your nose to the monitor). This wouldn't be a problem if users didn't tilt their head to the left or right when turning their head, as it results in vertical motion on the screen.
This motion is not cancelled out when the user turns their head back, as they usually tilt their head in the opposite direction before turning, and so the vertical motion continues in the same direction.
Therefore, turning your head left then right usually results in your viewpoint zig-zagging up or down the screen. In in the end, I wrote freelook, to accomodate my head-tracking needs.
Dime a dozen = buy twelve thoughts for a dime, therefore one thought is worth 1/12th of a dime.
Dime a X = each thought is worth a 1/X * a dime, therefore as X increases, the worthiness of the thought goes down. So where X = 1 bzillion, the thought is quite worthless and you're better off eating KFC.
Even Planetside feels a bit plasticy when it comes to the whole 'dexterity' thing - because of the techniques it uses to counter lag, you never really avoid bullets, you just have to move into a position where you're not in another player's massive 'cone of fire'.
I'd always thought that a MMORPG that gives a player captain-level control over a giant ship (naval, space, whatever) would be a nice middle ground between the first-person MMORPGs and the MMORTS games - the fact that the ship is so massive and has so much inertia can make up for the lag - then the action really boils down to short-term tactics, which is what most FPS games come down to in the end anyway.
Anyway, thoughts like this are a dime a bzillion, so I'll just go shush now.
I got my wife a beginning PHP book and an account on my server. Worked a treat, I can tell you
I gave my girlfriend a domain and an account on my server for Valentine's day just after we got together two years ago. She had just bought a PHP/MySQL book, and had no place to work it. She seemed to like it at the time (but didn't seem to appreciate the 'got root?' t-shirt I gave her as a followup present later in the year).
The best part of it is that the domain expires at the end of each year, so I know what to get her EVERY Valentines day! It's the gift that keeps on giving!
It's also insurance; If she ever breaks up with me, no webpages and email for you, missy! *kapow*!
And if she's reading this right now, er.. I love you, honey:*
For dimming the monitor outside of 'frontal view', get the 3M Privacy Filter.
You can solve the keyboard noise issue by buying a quieter keyboard (duh) - laptop style (scissor) keyboards tend to be pretty quiet as long as you cut your nails. Mouse button noise is going to depend on the device you use - while my Dell laptop's mouse buttons are louder than Jackhammer Tuesdays at The Taco Palace, my IBM Thinkpad's mouse buttons are virtually silent.
Another vote for JC here; I have one personal and one work server set up with them - the customer support is FANTASTIC, they give discounts to open source developers, and the virtual machines are blazingly fast.
It is a bit disconcerting, however, when every email you receive from them is signed 'John', no matter what time of day it is:D
My gosh. You're right, it's not there. I wonder how I did manage to get my IE to use google instead, then - I know the google toolbar can do it, but I don't have that installed.
Either way, I was terribly wrong, so please feel free to mod my original post off the face of the planet (my point remains, however).
When you type in a wrong address at the moment which doesn't exist, you are automatically taken to either a site search engine, which is pure crap.. or to the microsoft auto search [...]
Or you can just use the Microsoft created and provided TweakUI to change this to go whatever page or search engine you desire. The key is it's user-controlled (heck they can just use another browser), not a change to the core system as this Verisign shenanegans is.
While this is a generic utility, I've found that Shoot, by Martin Traverso provides an excellent way to add voice control to any Windows game, and it's free. Once trained, the accuracy is phenomenal.
-- Freelook - A Free Headtracker for Games and Disabled Access
It's a collectors item - in addition to all the second hand $15 copies on eBay, it's still possible to see a unopened mint-condition Freespace2 go for over US$80.
If thats the case, then why don't I see games with camera input for my PC?
Webcams used to come with such games - I remember basketball games and so on, all pretty similar to what the Eyetoy has (although less polished). Problem is, these sorts of games are really dead boring, and it's just not as exciting seeing yourself sitting in a chair in front of a monitor as it is dancing around in front of the telly.
-- http://freelook.org/ - A Free Webcam-based Headtracker for Computer Simulation and Disabled Access.
Last year I completed a similar project using a standard webcam and some cheap LEDs. It was no great suprise to find that using the computer by waving your arms around in the air was a pain in the rear.
If you're wanting non-curved shapes (architectural models especially) I do believe sketchup might be what you're after. The interface is even better than they say it is.
A sudden, sustained surge in traffic will slow an Australian news site drastically over the next few hours.;)
I know you're joking, but a friend yesterday pointed out that despite theage.com.au getting several stories linked off slashdot, it's rare for those stories to ever appear in its 'top 5 most-visited articles' list. It seems we need more slashdotters to RTFA.
Slashdot Mirror
I know it's not 'quite' the same, but for Windows, Irider, an internet-explorer rejib (like avantbrowser) has a tree-based history view in the left-hand pane. Sort of like a cross between what's seen in this story, and tabbed browsing.
It's pretty neat, but I actually like having a billion different windows open, so it wasn't for me.
Bit of self pimping:
Similar to the personalized search, I built a bookmarklet+backend to allow you to easily build a list of predefined sites, then search just those sites.
It was built after noticing that certain sites generally hold all the results I want (eg experts-exchange, wikipedia and libsdl.org), and allows me to cut a whole lot of crap out of my search results.
Most firewire video cameras, and some USB ones just automatically show up as attached video devices, and so can be accessed through VFW or WDM, in the exact same way you grab an image/stream off a webcam. It makes no difference that it's Firewire, or that it's a DV cam as opposed to a webcam.
For example, many of my users use Sony, Canon and JVC DV cameras in my machine-vision application, Freelook.
Although anyone who's watched Requiem for a Dream will find its use in LOTR
This motion is not cancelled out when the user turns their head back, as they usually tilt their head in the opposite direction before turning, and so the vertical motion continues in the same direction.
Therefore, turning your head left then right usually results in your viewpoint zig-zagging up or down the screen. In in the end, I wrote freelook, to accomodate my head-tracking needs.
Well, I had always assumed that it was
Dime a dozen = buy twelve thoughts for a dime, therefore one thought is worth 1/12th of a dime.
Dime a X = each thought is worth a 1/X * a dime, therefore as X increases, the worthiness of the thought goes down. So where X = 1 bzillion, the thought is quite worthless and you're better off eating KFC.
Even Planetside feels a bit plasticy when it comes to the whole 'dexterity' thing - because of the techniques it uses to counter lag, you never really avoid bullets, you just have to move into a position where you're not in another player's massive 'cone of fire'.
I'd always thought that a MMORPG that gives a player captain-level control over a giant ship (naval, space, whatever) would be a nice middle ground between the first-person MMORPGs and the MMORTS games - the fact that the ship is so massive and has so much inertia can make up for the lag - then the action really boils down to short-term tactics, which is what most FPS games come down to in the end anyway.
Anyway, thoughts like this are a dime a bzillion, so I'll just go shush now.
The best part of it is that the domain expires at the end of each year, so I know what to get her EVERY Valentines day! It's the gift that keeps on giving!
It's also insurance; If she ever breaks up with me, no webpages and email for you, missy! *kapow*!
And if she's reading this right now, er
I think I totally have this Cyberchondria thing!
For dimming the monitor outside of 'frontal view', get the 3M Privacy Filter.
You can solve the keyboard noise issue by buying a quieter keyboard (duh) - laptop style (scissor) keyboards tend to be pretty quiet as long as you cut your nails. Mouse button noise is going to depend on the device you use - while my Dell laptop's mouse buttons are louder than Jackhammer Tuesdays at The Taco Palace, my IBM Thinkpad's mouse buttons are virtually silent.
Another vote for JC here; I have one personal and one work server set up with them - the customer support is FANTASTIC, they give discounts to open source developers, and the virtual machines are blazingly fast.
:D
It is a bit disconcerting, however, when every email you receive from them is signed 'John', no matter what time of day it is
My gosh. You're right, it's not there. I wonder how I did manage to get my IE to use google instead, then - I know the google toolbar can do it, but I don't have that installed.
Either way, I was terribly wrong, so please feel free to mod my original post off the face of the planet (my point remains, however).
When you type in a wrong address at the moment which doesn't exist, you are automatically taken to either a site search engine, which is pure crap.. or to the microsoft auto search [...]
Or you can just use the Microsoft created and provided TweakUI to change this to go whatever page or search engine you desire. The key is it's user-controlled (heck they can just use another browser), not a change to the core system as this Verisign shenanegans is.
While this is a generic utility, I've found that Shoot, by Martin Traverso provides an excellent way to add voice control to any Windows game, and it's free. Once trained, the accuracy is phenomenal.
--
Freelook - A Free Headtracker for Games and Disabled Access
when i can get it for 15$ on ebay?
It's a collectors item - in addition to all the second hand $15 copies on eBay, it's still possible to see a unopened mint-condition Freespace2 go for over US$80.
Here is an example from Jan 6 this year, where it went for US$92.
--
Freelook - A Free Headtracker for Games and Disabled Access
If thats the case, then why don't I see games with camera input for my PC?
Webcams used to come with such games - I remember basketball games and so on, all pretty similar to what the Eyetoy has (although less polished). Problem is, these sorts of games are really dead boring, and it's just not as exciting seeing yourself sitting in a chair in front of a monitor as it is dancing around in front of the telly.
--
http://freelook.org/ - A Free Webcam-based Headtracker for Computer Simulation and Disabled Access.
I highly recommend you check out Jewelboxing and Burgopak for some stylish CD/DVD packaging options.
Self pimping, here's a really short write-up about an HUD I built for my car:
Try it out now, using actual singers: http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/p1/src/sing/default.asp :)
Last year I completed a similar project using a standard webcam and some cheap LEDs. It was no great suprise to find that using the computer by waving your arms around in the air was a pain in the rear.
If you're wanting non-curved shapes (architectural models especially) I do believe sketchup might be what you're after. The interface is even better than they say it is.