Ok, so this isn't late breaking, but while in my Interactive Authoring class today my instructor went off on a tangent about 3D development within Adobe Director to talking about some colleagues of hers at Carnegie Mellon University. Her friend created a cheap version of the Star Trek Holodeck(a post I will add later)...but long story short she mentioned that she found some very interesting hardware hacks Youtube. One of these hacks is taking an ordinary, $40 Nintendo Wii remote, and creating a digital whiteboard. If you are not familiar with what a digital white board is, allow me to take a moment to give a brief explanation. We are all familar with dry erase boards...they are usually white and can be found in business, schools and many homes as well. They are convienet due to their resuablity...but what happens if you have filled your entire board up and don't have enother board to keep writing on? Well the obvious answer is you have to erase it...but let's suppose you need to reference that information still or better yet, you would like to make a copy of it for future use or to print off and have a hard copy of it. Short of taking a photograph you would be forced to erase it and start over.
Well, that is where the digital white board comes in. They allow you to write just like you would with a traditional whiteboard, but you are using a computer screen as your "canvas" instead of the whiteboard itself. I have seen them as cheap as $799 but most retail for around $1499. What's more is that you are limited to the size of the board. What if you want a whiteboard that is 12' x 12'? This is where I introduce you to a guy by the name of Johnny Lee.
Johnny Lee managed to take a $40 Wii remote and create a virtually unlimited in size whiteboard. He uses an LCD projector, connected to a PC as his canvas. The only limit to the size of the canvas is how far away you can get the projector from the wall to display a larger picture. There is an amazing video which you can view below:
To find out more information on projects by Johnny Lee, visit his website at Carnegie Mellon University - http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/ This is also the link where you can download the software to make the whiteboard work!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
$40 Wii Remote Hack - Save Thousands!!
At The Beginning
I figured my first blog post should be a completion of my profile...so here it goes....
A life of solitude would be no fun. That is why I have so many friends. I could never have survived the last 19 months in Pittsburgh without them. I moved to Pittsburgh in February 2007 after some relationship issues in Erie, PA Its kinda funny actually. You see, I was always the person who said believe in faith and let it take you where it may...for once I was the one who needed to heed my own advice. I decided to make the trip down to Pittsburgh to visit my cousin Mike. Seemed like an innocent plan on the surface...little did I know that the weekend trip would turn out to be a life changing trip. I spent the weekend on his couch, only to find out on Sunday that I would not be leaving. I would find myself sleeping on that couch for the next 7 months. Prior to moving to Pittsburgh I was living a life full of confusion and self-doubt. Prior to moving to Pittsburgh, I lived a life as a straight guy. A guy who I thought was making everyone in his life happy...especially his family. It is something I did to keep my family happy. Its something you may not understand if you are not gay...not to stereotype or anything, but I think its the same as saying you understand how a mother feels after she looses her child, you can sympathize, but you can't fully understand. I believed that my family could only me proud and happy with me if I was straight. I am not about to go down the road of coming out in this blog, I will save it for its own...I feel it deserves it.
However, I ask you to draw your attention to the advertisement in this blog for The Trevor Project. This week is National Suicide Prevention week. Within the GLBT community, the youth are most targeted subjects of hate. I can't imagine the GLBT youth of today and the struggle for acceptance they must face. For some it leads them to feel they are backed into a corner with suicide being the only place to turn. I implore you to click on the ad and educate yourself about the signs. No money or any compensation for that matter is received by me for you doing so. So many lives could be saved by simply taking 5 minutes to read one site. If you are in crisis now and need immediate help please call 1-800-273-TALK(8255)
If you would like to reach me further you can check out the following link:
