I still remember seeing the innovative head-tracking demo Johnny Chung Lee showed off in late 2007 using a modified version of the infrared sensors for the Wii. Over 9.6 million views later, Johnny since joined and left Microsoft but the same technology has been ported for the Microsoft Kinect after the SDK released early this year.

Even though there’s a number of pretty good implementations of Kinect head-tracking out there already, some even have full source-code available, Second Story Labs took the idea to the next level with a Planar transparent electroluminescent (EL) display. The end result is a simple but effective simulation of a holographic 3D display.

Although it’s a display limitation to display simple line-based graphics in a single color, the effect is reminiscent of something from the TRON universe. Now it just needs a shade of cool blue.

After spending a good amount of the past month with the Windows Runtime (or WinRT as it was also known before the drunken “Windows RT” branding bus decided to crash the party), it had occurred to me the other day there is still a big unanswered question mark over how exactly Windows Runtime will evolve.

With some practical development experience under my belt now, I believe I can say with some credibility that the Windows Runtime “framework” in its current state is sufficiently primitive – it works and has the basic APIs and controls you expect, but there’s still fundamentals (*cough* no Flyout control in XAML) and nice-to-haves missing with no expectation this will change by RTM.

Of course that’s expected when you’ve essentially reset decades of evolution which has matured frameworks like Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight, replacing it with one that is more modern and simplified. That’s not an issue. But what is worrying is how little we know of how quickly Windows Runtime can “catch up” to its predecessors and evolve over time.

An important aspect of this is the fact that for all intents and purposes Windows Runtime as the framework and Windows 8 as the operating system are interlocked. For example, in Visual Studio 11 when creating a Metro-style app, there’s no “Target framework” for a version of Windows Runtime. There isn’t one. You’re just writing an app for Windows 8. Case closed.

In comparison, this is no different to platforms like Apple iOS and even Microsoft’s Windows Phone which also have this framework-OS tie-in. The APIs and the operating system are tied. However there’s one exception – they can and do deliver more frequent platform update/refreshes.

As iOS has shown, Apple was able to update and release new developer framework APIs with every major iOS release on a yearly schedule. Similarly Windows Phone has done the same with NoDo and Mango updates which has drastically evolved the APIs.

If the traditional 3-year-ish refresh cycle for Windows is to be expected, that’s an awfully long time to wait for updates to Windows Runtime APIs. Not only might the framework limit developers what is possible (or practical) for a very long time, it would also slow adoption of newer technology trends that occur between the cycles (which has always been a problem for Windows).

To get around this issue, I would imagine Microsoft is considering or has considered a few options – each with its own pros and cons. They could be,

• Deliver toolkit-based package – Like the Silverlight Toolkit, which is a separate but frequently updated library of controls and helpers. This is limited to mostly frontend controls and the platform is still limited by the underlying APIs.
• Update Windows Runtime through Windows Update patches or service packs – If patches contained changes to Windows Runtime, it would allow fast and easy deployment of API changes to a large userbase, but it would introduce app compatibility issues if adoption of updates isn’t as quick or widespread as new iOS or Windows Phone releases.
• Quicker Windows refresh cycles – self explanatory with its obvious issues in enterprise deployment and adoption

If Microsoft has chosen a strategy, they’ve sure kept that to themselves and will continue to do so well after the Windows 8 general availability. After all, no consumer would or should care. But now with a developer hat on, it’s a question that beckons to be answered sooner than later. What will happen to Windows Runtime after Windows 8 is “done”?

Those who know me well would know of my love for video games. Unfortunately this doesn’t align well with certain circumstances including but not limited to my sensitivity to motion sickness and lesser free time. But that’s where I think the future of video games will not just be about playing them, but also watching them.

Just because I don’t want to play certain games doesn’t mean I can’t experience them.

Over the past month, I’ve watched something called “Uncharted The Movie”. What it is is a video recording of someone’s complete playthrough of a Playstation-exclusive game series Uncharted 1, 2 & 3. I have heard good things about these games, but had no motivation to play them nor do I even have a PS3.

YouTube user morphinapg explains, “Considering this is the best game series I’ve ever played, and certainly the most cinematic, I decided to make them into movies.“. And he did very well.

The result is a 2-3 hour immersive movie experience for each game that I thoroughly enjoyed. And if the 144,000+ view count is to be believed, I’m not alone.

Here’s why I think watching video games is not such a crazy idea and why I would recommend it to anyone.

• A lot of modern AAA-title video games are story-driven with a three-act structure that is no different to books or movies. The fact that modern games are heavily judged on story compels game-makers to create more interesting storytelling.
• Modern graphics rendering capabilities combined with ever-growing budgets for game visual and audio productions has led to movie-grade character models, animations, virtual sets and even voice acting.
• Cutscenes and quick-time events, especially in adventure games, were always cinematic experiences in small chunks. The uncanny valley between formerly pre-rendered cutscenes, in-game cutscenes and real gameplay is shrinking and it’s no longer such an obvious transition between cinematics and game.
• Video editing is easier and more accessible. These aren’t just videos of someone’s shakycam of them playing for 20+ hours – it’s an edited and refined version of the game enough to make the story coherent.
• Last but not least, it’s free and requires little time and resource investment. You can watch it for a few minutes to see if you like it and stop it if you don’t. You can also pause and resume on a mobile device riding public transport like I did.

If you even have the slightest itch to watch Uncharted, I’ve embedded the third movie above, but the first and second are linked respectively.

Turns out there’s a lot of weird and crappy gadgets out there. HP Australia have selected the three winners of the HP ProLiant MicroServer giveaway I kicked off on this blog last month which asked Aussies to share their stories of a really poor gadget they own and would trade for a new home office server.

The competition received quite a few interesting submissions. To give you a taste of the weird and wacky, someone submitted a photo of a “banana protector” – a gadget with a very specific function, just not one that had crossed my mind before. But then again, it was from Japan.

Without further ado, the three winners are winners are Ali R. from VIC, Jimmy P. from NSW and Chris J. from QLD.

Their respective entries was a 4GB North Korean PDA which is the “second most utterly hopeless piece of technology I have ever had the misfortune to own”, a closet “cardbox server rack” that holds a defective Macbook and attached storage, and a Windows XP Calculator which stopped working on the “announcement of mainstream support ended for XP”.

Hopefully the HP ProLiant MicroServer will deliver some more functionality and usefulness to these lucky winners.

Image credit: Nokia Australia & Telstra

Easter might have passed but that hasn’t spotted the Nokia bunny from leaving goodies all around Australia for people to find. In fact the prize is much better than chocolate eggs, there are 10 white Lumia 800s up for grabs.

The competition called “Nokia Lumia Quest” is happening this week throughout 5 major cities (sorry Canberra) with two phones in each city to find. Brisbaners had its chance yesterday where Alex and Tony found the phones at a park and school respectively.

(Alex) sprinted all the way from Central Station in thongs and with a backpack. He was so breathless he literally collapsed in the garden when he found the phone!

The clue for this location was: “Originally home of Expo ’88 but now the views from here will amaze every day, by night it spins and illuminates the skies”

(Tony) was a former BGS boy and walked past the ROCK statue every day on his way to school. He happened to be visiting the school yesterday and took a punt on it being the ROCK statue! The punt paid off and he won!

Melbourne’s Devon and Billy took the spotlight and phones today at the Art’s Centre and Rod Laver statue respectively.

Good luck to everyone else in Perth, Adelaide and Sydney for the rest of the week.

I just saw this on Reddit, it’s a Kinect-application like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Using the depth capabilities of the Kinect in conjunction with a projector, it turns a sand pit into a virtual environment model for water simulation SimCity style.

The video description explains,

Video of a sandbox equipped with a Kinect 3D camera and a projector to project a real-time colored topographic map with contour lines onto the sand surface. The sandbox lets virtual water flow over the surface using a GPU-based simulation of the Saint-Venant set of shallow water equations.

We built this for an NSF-funded project on informal science education. These AR sandboxes will be set up as hands-on exhibits in science museums, such as Lawrence Hall of Science or the Tahoe Environmental Research Center.

Although the video demonstration shows a delay in the environment from reacting to changes to the sandpit, the author explains this is actually on purpose to filter out moving objects such as the hand when reshaping the environment. The rendering is currently powered by a Geforce 580.

There is also a second video which simulates a dam failure using the same system.

After seeing this I would imagine there are many more engineering-related simulations this sort of Kinect-augmented reality could make more interactive if not fun. If all else fails, who doesn’t like to play god.