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Stardate: 20200902.0010
Location: Sub-level Home Office/Game Room
Input Device: ASUS laptop with cracked screen, connected via X2GO.
Audio: Everything But The Girl: Tempermental
Visual: Terminal, ambient colored LED desk lighting cycling through
colors.
Emotional State: Exhausted but too much coffee, man!
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During lunch yesterday, I had a chance to crack open the 74th volume
of MAKE: magazine. Yes, I still subscribe to the dead tree version.
Just something about the analog experience I still enjoy...and plus
my subscription keeps auto-renewing. I haven't had a reason yet to
cancel.
Along with vol. 74 was the annual Make:'s 2020 Guide to Boards, which
has the latest list of microcontrollers, single-board computers, and
FPGAs in a nice table where you can compare specs, pricing, etc. I
enjoy seeing this each year to see where it's at, which is where I'm
usually not. I'm usually more than a year behind and don't really
need to be where it's at, but it is nice to see how things progress.
Anyhow, one of the things I noticed in this issue was that it
featured an augmented reality version of the insert. There is a QR
code that takes you to their site when you opened it up with your
smartphone. I used my work iphone(ugh) since I was curious. At the
site is an app that you install that basically allows your phone and
its camera to be a viewer of the AR content. The AR content has
a few 3D versions of the featured boards that you can zoom and flip
around in the viewer and has callouts pointing the various parts of
the board. [2] Pretty nifty!
It also had a 3D menu with links that open in 2D Safari browser for
more info on the other boards. On one of the pages was an AR video
of ladyada from adafruit talking about the boards with an AR video
menu for the controls. [3] Cool stuff!
Interesting what they can do with the advertising and how they
make it interactive. I can see the readers of Make: installing the
app like I did, but most people wouldn't bother if it was in a more
main stream periodical. I wonder what kinda trackers and stuff they
put on there. I should probably scrub my phone.
I tried hooking up a monocular display and view via the wireless
display option, but the feed was too slow and I didn't have much
time to troubleshoot. So no cybah there.
Speaking of which, have you ever picked up a cool piece of
technology, only to find that it is not really what you expected
and you're not sure what you're gonna do about it now? I have a
few of those, one of them being the Vuefine+ monocular display.
I find uses for it but I'm still trying to find the appropriate
use for it in things I do. Lately, I've been using it for Webex
and Zoom meetings during COVID-19. It works OK, but kinda lame
use case.
Anyhow, the AR experience reminded me of a game I used to play
called Arcade Reality [1] on the Palm Treo 650. You basically shot
space invaders-like aliens while moving around with your camera on.
I thought it was cool back then and I wonder where the state of the
art is these days. I see blurbs about it here and there, but have
not really looked into it.
I guess that I do kinda use AR for work...the virtual backgrounds
for Webex and Zoom meetings. I guess that's something. Now what I
wanna see are those 3D holographic images and animations, like they
show in the moving pictures! Like for consumers or use at home.
That would be so k-rad! I wonder if there's a DIY version that
could be fabricated. I'd prolly just use it for gopher.
HTML [1] Arcade Reality
Here are some pics
IMG [2] Make:'s Guide To Boards 2020 AR with ramen
IMG [3] AR with ladyada video
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