Wiimote Innovations - TED 2008

Johnny Lee is the man that bought you head-tracking with the Wiimote. He now demos his amazing Wii Remote innovations, which transform the $40 game piece into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer. A multi-ovation demo from TED2008.

[Tony240ZT]

I think it was called Mr Wizard. I wonder if in the next episode Johnny Lee will put the Wii remote into liquid nitrogen and break it into a million pieces with just a wooden hammer, woohoo.

[Rourker]

I'm pretty sure this kind of stuff can be done with the playstation eye, if one were to develop software for it. and if this game for the wii does well, I'm sure sony will work on that technology, except they can use face tracking so the user wouldn't have to where glasses or anything. all around that video was pretty interesting.

[Lyan]

The PS Eye does not use an infrared camera, which is the main proprietor of Johnny Lee's design and the concept behind this successful technology. The fact that it is Infrared is what allows it to be successful. Utilizing a different wavelength of light to eliminate background interference, i.e. other colors, objects, people, etc., reduces the needed programming to make adjustments based on input.

What I mean by that is you may be able to do something close to what is shown with a regular camera, but the amount of programming you have to put in to filter out unneeded variables is excessive. Simply put utilizing an Infrared camera allows many more input variables and without interference.

You really shouldn't underestimate what was shown and allow your bias to create assumptions on something you did not pay much attention to in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

To add, the below link is to his website that I just found for you. You should check out what is possible with this interface and think about how this would impact gaming.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~john...

[BIGELLOW]

All that was needed was a simple little filter which was placed on the PlayStation Eye (similar to how high quality cameras can have UV filters put on to protect the lenses.)

The filter (which was very inexpensive) blocked out all light except for infrared light. The result? It turned the PlayStation Eye into an infrared camera.

Then, everything else worked exactly like the Wii example. In fact, all other parts are designed exactly as if they were designed for the Wii example.

So, I could easily see Sony coming out with a little lens-cap that you place on the PlayStation Eye, converting it into an infrared camera, to allow for this type of functionality. Then, when you want a regular camera again, you just remove the lens again. Eventually, I could see Sony coming out with the PlayStation Eye 2.0, where the camera can switch between being infrared only or a standard camera automatically.

Remember, though, that accessories are only as popular as the games... and the games are only as popular as the accessories. In other words, it is almost as difficult to get people excited about a new accessory as it is to get them excited by an entirely new console. So, while all of this technology is great, it is about as likely to catch on as the power glove or that Nintendo robot thing from a long time ago. This time around, Nintendo took the gamble by essentially requiring a unique new accessory (the Wii-mote) with their new console. The gamble paid off and they are laughing all the way to the bank. Don't expect this type of success from yet another new accessory... on the Wii... or on any other console. It's possible, but not likely.

[poopsack]

way to get owned for being an a-hole. Kinda ironic you were the uninformed one.

On topic- this is pretty awesome, i wonder if johnny knows about the playstation dev that did what BIGELLOW mentioned.

[H2Os]

Johny Lee sounds like Marvin the Martian. Oh and the video is cool.

[Skinnylynn]

Very cool - there are other free Opensource Software projects popping up around the Wiimote Whiteboard as well namely Kindlelab & Edusim -> http://kindlelab.com & http://edusim3d.com

[NOTORIOUSzeke]

They yanked the vid before I could watch.