"Smart building blocks plus Microsoft's Surface interactive table-top computer have taken touch-screen interaction into the third dimension. Engineers or architects could use them to develop designs, or it could become a new kind of building toy.
Touch screens are becoming standard for smartphones and beginning to appear in personal computers too: last year, Microsoft launched Surface, a computer in the form of a table with a touch-screen top. But, as the name suggests, touch screens only work with direct contact.
Now, Patrick Baudisch, Torsten Becker and Frederik Rudeck at the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam in Germany have lifted the interaction away from the screen. When their building blocks, or Luminos, are stacked to form complicated structures on top of a Surface screen, the computer can map the building as it grows.
Vertical Presence
Each Lumino block has a pattern on its base that identifies its 3D shape, and the Surface table can read them using its four internal cameras that peer up at the acrylic top. That means the computer can build up a 3D picture of what lies on its surface.
The Luminos can also make themselves known to the Surface when they're ... ...." ~ NewScientist
Read the complete article: Smart 'Lego' Blocks Take Touch Screens Into 3D
"WHILE global economies have endured a torrid time of late, business is booming in the virtual economies of Second Life, Facebook and Everquest. As the economic boundaries between virtual and real worlds continue to blur, the supposedly liberated virtual worlds are now running up against some very real-world legal problems.
Financial analyst Piper Jaffray estimates that US citizens will spend $621 million in 2009 in virtual worlds; estimates of the Asian market are even larger. Research firm Plus Eight Star puts spending at $5 billion in the last year.
Over in Second Life, trade remains robust. The value of transactions between residents in the second quarter of this year was $144 million, a year-on-year increase of 94 per cent. With its users swapping virtual goods and services worth around $600 million per year, Second Life has the largest economy of any virtual world - which exceeds the GDP of 19 countries, including Samoa.
Thousands of users make money selling virtual goods from clothing and furniture to art and gazebos, as well as services such as virtual wedding planning, translation or architecture. Several hundred make thousands of dollars from the trade; the most successful have become millionaires." ~ NewScientist
Read the complete article:
Virtual World Disputes Heading for Real Courtrooms
Gnip - Multi-platform Application for Tracking Social Networking Services
Hello, Everyone! Gnip, is a company based in Boulder, Colorado that provides a “multiplatform application” for companies trying to keep track of their user-generated content on the Web's plethora of social networking services. This application is relatively simple to set up and funnels information for companies tracking and generating content for those social networking services.
Some of the amazing features of Gnip are:
- cloud-based service
- rule-based filtering
- real-time delivery
- normalized data delivery
Video courtesy of Building43.
