Just Outta Beta
Moonraker Meets Main Street
NASA analyzes full-body images to monitor the biomechanics of astronauts in space and to better understand human movement at zero gravity. That's why the Feds are ponying up big money to finance the development of motion capture technologies, devices that allow them to study the body under those conditions.
Motion capture, in fact, is nothing new and has countless applications, including designing kick-'em-to-death video games and putting realistic animated movements into effects-heavy movies. Indeed, it's in the starry world of Hollywood that this technology will eventually shine the brightest.
CyberSuit, from Virtual Technologies, is the latest advance in motion capture. Shipping in December both to NASA and to movie studios, CyberSuit "represents the technological breakthrough our customers have been demanding," according to Dr. James Kramer, president and founder of the Palo Alto-based high tech couture shop. And he should know: the company's previous product, CyberGlove, was certainly revolutionary - the Talking Glove version translates sign language into speech through a computer interface.
With its patented sensing methods and devices, the lightweight ankle-to-neck Lycra CyberSuit is easy to use. This outfit digitizes human movements of every kind: stick a person in the suit, get them jumping around, and all the motion from their hands down to their feet is captured.
Hollywood will no doubt bank on the CyberSuit to render new, more realistic special effects, and perhaps someone in the entertainment industry will even create new types of avatars for immersive environments. But the applications that others will ultimately dream up are anybody's guess. Can a talking suit - one that translates body language into words - be far off? What about the virtual porn potential? Hey, watch where you put those sensors!
Binary Yeas and Nays
The authors of the new book Cyberdemocracy take a glimpse at the future of representative government by examining the history of communications technology, contemporary case studies for an emergent electronic democracy, and the coming age of universal access.
Mars on Earth
A NASA-sponsored research project locks four people inside a chamber for 90 days, forcing them to grow dwarf wheat for food and oxygen. When the participants emerge, University of Houston scientists hope to have a food and air system for long space travel, with an eye towards feeding astronauts on a mission to Mars.
Brain on Crumb
In the book Trips: How Hallucinogens Work in Your Brain, Cheryl Pellerin delves into the the neuroscience of psychedelia. Even better, she does so with the aid of scientific illustrations by Zap Comix cartoonist R. Crumb, which should add color to the notorious bad trip.
Basement Area Network
Set up a wireless LAN at home with the Thiin Line Thin Server. For less than US$1,000 - with router, wireless hub, and print-server capability - this scaled-down gateway will eliminate the wirelines that connect PCs and Internet appliances to each other and the Web.
Da 'Hood
Neverhood's Skullmonkeys, developed for the PlayStation, features cute but violent clay-molded characters and more than 40,000 frames of stop-motion animation. Other gamers hope that Doug TenNapel ports the retro-styled title to the PC.
Nail-Gun Redux
Quake rocked because it hinged on a fast engine and evil design. Quake II follows in that vein - even if id misses the direction of pentagram-art aficionado John Romero. Featuring larger mission levels, new enemies, and 32-player deathmatches, the new title is one of the most anticipated games of the year.
