A demonstration of head-tacking using the WiiMote was show on YouTube. It’s frankly amazing. Vr 3D in a way that isn’t going to mess with your head, and doesn’t mean waring some stupid googles to do it.
You’d have thought that it was built and designed by some boff from Nintendo in his spare time, or someone looking to break into the industry. It’s not. It’s written by a quite mild-mannered (from his blog at least) computer engineer and Carnagie-Mellon University. There are now, appacently, even games using this idea.
Want to know what kind of roylaties he’s getting? None, Zip, Nadda. NOTHING. That’s right. Take a look at the video again. Amazing isn’t it? He makes the idea seem very simple. The idea, is, infact, very simple. Building the application, demonstrating that it can be done on the other hand? Not so simple.
His blog says that he’s quite happy to help the front-end of the technological development. Groovy. I figured I’d sent him a couple of quid to help him along. Just a token of my appreciation, taking advantage of the fact that the pound is strong against the dollar. Perhaps then he can get a bit of pleasure from seeing that his inventions and developments are actually making a difference. But guess what? he only accepts donations for the products. Not for himself. HE wants to keep this stuff free for the world. I sent him $5 anyway. I have to say, that he’s the first person I’ve actually felt compelled to send money too.
This is what the free software revolution is all about. I hope that he can earn enough money with his little ventures like the steadycam.
Amazingly, and on a compleatly different tangent, he also takes some interesting photographs. These, again, he does for free (or at least, hes’ not for hire), he’s interested only in the medium, and the challenge.
I wish I knew where he finds the time, and the energy to do all these things.
Check him out.
Black Xanthus
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