On May 17, 2011 Ryersons’ Interactive Computing Applications and Design Group (ICAD) demonstrated their latest projects. The session starts with a demonstration of using Microsoft Kinect hardware to control a computer mouse. Next, the group shows the use of a gestural interface to control Google Earth, followed by a demo of using Kinect to control a avatar in Second Life.

The session continues with a demonstration of a potential application to control a small arduino based robot over bluetooth using gestures. Following this the ICAD staff show the use of Kinect as a tracking and control mechanism for a Point-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera. This approach allows them to track up to five people without active trackers. The data from the Kinect camera is used to instruct the PTZ camera where to “look”. Once a person is identified (by putting up their hand) the kinect will try to track the person around the room and make sure the PTZ camera follows the person as well. Switching the tracked person is done by raising ones hand.

Their last demo will show a gestural based keyboard that will eventually be tied into a interactive phonebook application where the user can type the name of a contact using gestures and automatically dial the number through a voip application (ie: google talk).

Individual project videos below….

1) Kinect Windows Mouse Interface

2) Kinect Google Earth Interface

3) Kinect Second Life Interface

4) Kinect Bluetooth Robot Interface

5) Kinect Tracker-Cam Interface

6) Kinect Interactive Phonebook

Absolutely awesome art piece by James Cochrane (who just happens to be from my hometown….Toronto). For the nerds out there following bits of technology make up the “orchestra”:

• Atari 800xl and Floppy Drive
• 3.5 Inch Hard Drive
• Adaptec 2940UW SCSI Card
• TI-99/4A and Tape Drive
• 8 Inch Floppy Drive
• HP ScanJet 3C
• Eico Oscilloscope

The USB-powered Beagle Board is a low-cost, fan-less single board computer utilizing Texas Instruments’ OMAP3530 application processor that unleashes laptop-like performance and expansion without the bulk, expense, or noise of typical desktop machines.

Beagle Board is based on an OMAP3530 application processor featuring an ARM® Cortex™-A8 running at up to 600MHz and delivering over 1,200 Dhrystone MIPS of performance via superscalar operation with highly accurate branch prediction and 256KB of L2 cache. Focal to Beagle Board experience is the high-speed USB 2.0 on-the-go (OTG) port that can be utilized to provide power to the board or to deliver highly flexible expansion. Standard PC peripherals can be connected to Beagle Board using the USB with a mini-A to standard-A cable adapter, DVI-D using an HDMI to DVI-D adapter, or through the MMC/SD/SDIO connector enabling a complete desktop experience. The picture below should give you a good idea of it’s size beside the tiny Pico Projector.

Hardware Specifications are as follows:

• OMAP3530 applications processor featuring the ARM® Cortex™-A8
• 128MB low-power DDR RAM
• 256MB NAND flash
• USB 2.0 high-speed on-the-go port
• DVI-D output
• NTSC/PAL TV via S-Video output
• 6-in-one 8-bit MMC+/SD/SDIO connection
• Stereo audio in/output
• JTAG header
• I2S, I2S, SPI, MMC/SD expansion header
• Power via USB or alternate jack

Looks very nice and complete, a good alternative to Gumstix Avero stuff we covered earlier . And did I mention it’s only $149. Perfect for your next project.

 Yep, you can do it now…..The open source hacker community GizmoForYou is shipping a Linux hardware/software kit for building a modular touchscreen smartphone. Using the OMAP35x-based Gumstix Overo Earth single-board computer (SBC), the Flow phone offers numerous customization modules including GPS, 3.5G cellular, Bluetooth, WiFi, and a camera. At around $1300 for the complete kitchen sink version, it’s not exactly cheap, but since they offer multiple choices for each component, you can pick and choose what you like to have inside your smartphone. Really neat stuff.

For those of you who are not tuned into Gumstix, the Overo line is a new line of Computer-on-Module devices designed by Gumstix based on TI’s OMAP Processor. Overo Earth comes with  the following specs:

Processor: OMAP 3503 Application Processor with ARM Cortex-A8 CPU
Clock(MHz): 600 MHz
Performance: Up to 1200 Dhrystone MIPS
Memory: 256MB RAM , 256MB Flash
Features:

• Pin-out compatible with future OMAP 35x-based Overo motherboards
• on-board microSD card slot
• I2C, PWM lines (6), A/D (6), 1-wire, UART, SPI, Camera in, Extra MMC lines.
• Headset, Microphone, backup battery,
• USB OTG signals, USB HS Host

Connections:

• (2) 70-pin AVX connectors
• (1) 27-pin flex ribbon connector

Size: 17mm x 58mm x 4.2mm (0.67 in. x 2.28 in. 0.16 in.)
Expansion: Expansion boards for Overo motherboards. Or, custom design from open specifications.

The core of the Flow phone is the Flow motherboard, which is designed to integrate the separately available Overo Earth module. You can also use the more expensive Overo Water, Air or Fire modules. Other modules attach to the motherboard, including a 3.7-inch 640 x 480 Sharp LS037V7DW01 touchscreen LCD and Flow Sharp LCD module.

Connectivity modules include GPS, USB, and a choice between a plain GSM cellular module and a HSDPA-ready 3.5G/GPS/GSM/GPRS module. (WiFi and Bluetooth are already supplied by the Overo SBC.) Additional options include a 1GB MicroSD card, camera, power supply, battery, and enclosure, with various options available on several of the modules. Flow motherboard features include:

• 2 x 70 pin connectors for the Overo module from Gumstix
• 80-pin connector for the GSM, GPS, and 3G modules
• Stereo amplifiers
• 2 x speakers and GSM audio amplifier for speakers
• Microphone and GSM preamp for Mic
• PIC16LF877A UI Init (with Bootloader preloaded)
• 2 x general-purpose buttons linked to the UI Unit
• Orientation sensor
• Light sensor
• Level translation for GSM serial connections
• 3G USB HS power supply
• Luxeon 1W LED for the camera flash features
• Dual SIM/MicroSD slot (experimental)
• Camera connector and camera power management
• Power management circuits fully controllable by the UI unit
• Additional pins for connecting external power sources
• Dimensions — 3.0 x 2.6 inches (76 x 65mm)
• Operating system — Linux

GizmoForYou does not say much about software, but there are a growing number of Linux development platforms supporting the Overo Earth and OMAP35x platforms, and according to a project member, the group is working on an Android implementation.

Great video showing a bizarre and novel way of creating a gesture based interface. You literally touch nothing….Air…..and the interface does the rest. Pretty interesting project. According to Justin Schunick of the team at Northeastern University, the interface uses an array of copper electrodes to sense a certain change in the electric field created by the device. The black material covering the electrodes shows how the interface can be hidden beneath surfaces to create a completely invisible interface. It is simple black felt you can buy at any fabric store. The total cost of this prototype was around $60.00 USD.

They created custom software to communicate with the microcontroller running the show with C++. This enables the use of the device as a new type of XYZ computer mouse. Think nintendo wii controller without the controller — or minority report without the gloves. This can potentially be revolutionary as far as HCI goes.

Not sure if this madness will be the next big thing for the Demo Scene, but it sure is nice to see some the younger generation using their talents to come up with these circuits. In the old days — yeah I’m gonna date myself now — I used to do Demo programming on the C-64 and the Amiga 1000 later on, we had dedicated processors and although we did some heavy duty low-level programming, it wasn’t too bad.

The stuff that Linus Akesson and his buddies have come up with are actually brilliant in that they are very analog in nature. Don’t get me wrong, it is a micro doing all that, but the thought process behind the algorithm is very analog…..here is a excerpt of what it all entails:

One display line takes 24 μs, and is followed by a 7.75 μs break called the horizontal blanking period. After 480 such lines, there’s a longer break (1428.75 μs, equal to 45 full display lines) before it all starts over. Two digital signals are used to synchronize the sender (graphics card, custom demo hardware etc.) and the receiver (monitor).
[...]
Sound is generated during the horizontal blanking periods. That gives a sample rate of 31496 kHz. Of course, only the really timing critical part (waveform generation) is performed during the horizontal blanking. Melody, rhythm, amplitude envelopes, arpeggios etc. are handled by a playroutine which gets called once for every video frame, during vertical blanking.

Have a peek at the video…..It’s mind blowing :-)

The people over at 5VoltCore have put together a PD installation that really tests your courage and trust in machines. The installation sets up a feedback loop between computer, robot and the user. The user is right in assuming that the machine can fail, the machine can fail because the user assumes.

Let me explain, it all starts with a PD patch that controls a knife held by a robot that will try to hit the space in between the users fingers. Once the user places his/her hand under the robot, the program takes over and the knife movements slowly speed up. At this point the user will either trust the machine or they will get nervous and start sweating. The sweating will then trigger a series of short circuits inside the computer that will cause the knife to move in a more erratic manner. The question is, will the user manage to hold still and not break into a sweat as the machine is doing it’s thing. Pretty scary stuff…….

We’ve been covering quite a bit of Opensource/Linux/Hack-your-own GSM phones (some even with GPS), but here is the ultimate phone for the N.E.R.D’s out there….From the Press Release:

“Portola Valley, Calif., July 10, 2007 – Gumstix, Inc, today announced its integrated, open source cellular communications platform: the GoliathTM line of expansion boards. The Goliath-vx board provides GPRS/EDGE function while the Goliath-GPS-vx board combines GPRS/EDGE and GPS. Each Goliath board attaches to a gumstixTM motherboard (verdex only) using a 60-pin connector and includes audio, LCD, touch screen, USB host, 3D-accelerometer, and battery management. General availability is planned for late July and the company will begin taking pre-orders at gumstix.com starting on 16 July.

The Goliath boards are by far the largest gumstix products at 105.5mm x 67.3mm, the same dimensions as the Samsung 4.3” LCD touch screens that Gumstix will also sell. Goliath gives verdex motherboards full-speed USB access to the Siemens MC75 GPRS/EDGE module, the u-blox NEO-4S GPS module, and one external USB device.”

For those of you who don’t know, Gumstix has been manufacturing a couple of different embedded platforms around the XScale processor family. Their boards runs an opensource embedded Linux exclusively. Recently they have branched out into building lots of expansion boards. These expansion boards when combined with their motherboards can truly allow you to create just about anything. Sounds like you’ve got everything you need to build the “real” Iphone :-)

Alex over at Tinkerlog has hacked together the coolest E-goodie I’ve seen in a while. A GSM powered GPS mobile tracker. Yeah I know, you can do it with your $1000 Nokia N95, well no you can’t….you see this little guy actually sends out SMS messages (over GSM) with it’s current location and since Alex has a AVR ATmega8 controller in there you can probably do some other neat hacks as well. All this for about $550, not bad. Detailed instruction/parts list to build your own are on his site.

If this is boring you it is not my fault….Here are some more Goodies :-)

• Abstractmachine is a very cool site owned by Douglas Stanley. Lots of Processing…YUMM :-)
• Ladyada.net and the sister site Adafruit Industries are THE place to hang out if you enjoy hacking/creating things. Limor has some of the coolest interfaces and electronic gizmos on the net. For those of you who are lost and are having a deja vu moment….Yes she’s the creator of x0xb0x, MintyMP3 and MIDISense (among others).
• Scrapyard Challenge keeps track of the scrapyard challenge events that happen all year round, all around the world. That said, I think someone should do one in Toronto (I know they had one in Montreal).
• Face Recognition Homepage is a great place to find everything you ever wanted to know about Face Recognition. Lots Algorithms, Papers and Source Code.

More to come later….

Okay this is more for me since I keep having to digg this stuff up…..but if any of it is useful to you please help yourself:

• Tom Igoe’s Resource page has a lot of good links I won’t duplicate.
• Arduino, the current king of all prototyping platforms.
• Gumstix, these guys make some of the best embedded platforms out there. Runs linux and has a very active developer community.
• DSMI Nintendo DS Music Interface (Needs DS-Xtreme device).
• Acroname Robotics for all your Robotics needs.
• Parallax….you know the Basic Stamp….right?
• Sensor Wiki is the right place for all your sensor needs.
• Sparkfun Electronics has lots of neat boards and a great News page.
• CUI or CREATE USB Interface is perfect for Media Arts students/Artists.
• Makethings has the Make Controller Kit.
• MIDITron is a MIDI to real world interface.
• Arduino mini is ready for your prototyping board.
• Monome is a reconfigurable grid of 64 backlit buttons. Ultra cool MIDI/OSC controller.
• Peripheral MIDI Controller for Windows translates onscreen motion to MIDI.
• VVVV‘s Sensor howto page.
• PD….You know PD….
• Processing…the latest cool kid on the block….really nice and powerful.
• Eyesweb is a cool Visual Programming language for Windows.
• Quartz Composer comes with every copy of OSX but alot of people don’t know about it. Check out QuartzCompositions.com, Quartonian and fdiv.net.

Okay enough for now…..I will add more stuff as I come across them…