Innovations by Johnny Lee - Carnegie Mellon Uni

I'm indebted to Dale Hinch of Edexcel for switching me on to some of Johnny Lee's work that tackles what are typically expensive technology problems with ultra low cost solutions.

Fancy an Interactive White Board for $50? A steadycam for $14? Gesture and head tracking using a Wiimote? Then read on...

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

Quote

As of September 2007, Nintendo has sold over 13 million Wii game consoles. This significantly exceeds the number of Tablet PCs in use today according to even the most generous estimates of Tablet PC sales. This makes the Wii Remote one of the most common computer input devices in the world. It also happens to be one of the most sophisticated. It contains a 1024x768 infrared camera with built-in hardware blob tracking of up to 4 points at 100Hz. This significantly out performs any PC "webcam" available today. It also contains a +/-3g 8-bit 3-axis accelerometer also operating at 100Hz and an expandsion port for even more capability. These projects are an effort to explore and demonstrate applications that the millions of Wii Remotes in world readily support.

Tracking Your Fingers with the Wiimote
Using an LED array and some reflective tape, you can use the infrared camera in the Wii remote to track objects, like your fingers, in 2D space. This lets you interact with your computer simply by waving your hands in the air similar to the interaction seen in the movie "Minority Report".

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/0awjPUkBXOU&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/0awjPUkBXOU&rel=0</a>

Low-Cost Multi-point Interactive Whiteboards Using the Wiimote
Since the Wiimote can track sources of infrared (IR) light, you can track pens that have an IR led in the tip. By pointing a wiimote at a projection screen or LCD display, you can create very low-cost interactive whiteboards or tablet displays. Since the Wiimote can track upto 4 points, up to 4 pens can be used. It also works great with rear-projected displays.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/5s5EvhHy7eQ&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/5s5EvhHy7eQ&rel=0</a>

Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the Wii Remote
Using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), you can accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen. This effectively transforms your display into a portal to a virtual environment. The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jd3-eiid-Uw&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Jd3-eiid-Uw&rel=0</a>

Johnny Lee's talk at TED 2008 in Monterey

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/QgKCrGvShZs&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/QgKCrGvShZs&rel=0</a>

Johnny's blog: http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/

WOW!

Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

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