Simon Says

"Simon's a computer, Simon has a brain, you either do what Simon says or else go down the drain." That was Simon, the addictive stupidly simple toy thay every child had to have. I remember having one and I loved it. Check out the cool digital version I've added to the right nav, with many thanks to Paul Neave.

Watch out, it's a Tie Fighter!

ICT Graphics Lab at USC has announced the creation of a low-cost volumetric 3-D display. Ex-squeeze me I hear ou say! Essentially they're able to creat 3D static images similar to that seen in Star Wars (R2D2's message to Leia, the schematics of the Death Star).


It all works using rotating mirrors, DLP Projections, and some top end super geek maths that calculates "the correct axial perspective needed for a 360-degree image construct by linear perspective to an observer's positioning. I said it was super geek maths!

Various companies have been trying to create a viable 3-D technology for years, but it has proved to be a constant difficulty. The main road blocks have been: small viewing areas and high costs. With the USC technology renders individual projections at different heights on the rotating mirror and traces each projected beam back to the display area to find the correct position of the viewer. This allows simultaneous viewing from multiple angles/distances. The system also updates itself in real time (at 200Hz).

Twitter from Mars

Last Thursday (19th June) Nasa announced the discovery of Water Ice on Mars.

Seriously, Water Ice!

Next to actually encountering an alien, this stuff is the Holy Grail of space exploration. This is pretty much the biggest news they've had since Neil Armstrong uttered those famous words. So how do you let the world know about this historic event?

Twitter.

Honestly, NASA announced to the world that water-based ice had been discovered on another planet Via this tweet:


NASA are using Twitter to feed constant information about the Mars Phoenix Rover to over 20,000 followers!

Cool USB Keys

I may have missed the 70's but I still see myself as having grown up with Star Wars, and I love these!

Dance Matt, dance

Imagine travelling the world. Imagine visiting new cities, seeing breathtaking landscapes and meeting the diverse cultures of the globe. If you could do all this, and become part of the kaleidoscope of humanity, what would you bring to them? What would you teach them?

A funny dance seems as good as anything else!

Matt visited 42 countries in 14 months, and in each of them he danced.



Visit Matt's own site or the section of the Stride Gum (his sponsors) site all about him.