Izmir International Fair 2016 - theme Innovation

We recently attended the annual Izmir International Fair. The theme this year was innovation and the exhibits included a mini maker faire.

Suburban train simulator

Virtual reality parachute

Virtual reality cycling

Virtual reality submarine

Mini Maker Faire 

Lots of 3D printers on display

Solar powered boat

Solar powered car

A drone motorcycle?

Robot arms

Intricate laser cutting laminated to produce interesting geometric effects

Robots

Octocopter

CNC producing a label

Laminated cardboard and LEDs 

Laminated cardboard sculpture

Wooden construction blocks. Not available on the App Store

Animatronics

Model of Artemis Temple constructed from sugar cubes

Color for the colorblind

EnChroma in association with Valspar has developed glasses which transform colors for people with color vision deficiency.

Learn more about the technology used at http://enchroma.com/technology/.

Hearing colors

Imagine having your senses rewired. Neil Harbisson was born color blind and can only see in grayscale. His "eyeborg" allows him to hear colors including infrared and ultraviolet.

See and hear his experiences in this fascinating TED talk:

Dynamic Remote 3D Shape Display

A team from the Tangible Media Group at MIT are working on the inFORM system, a Dynamic Shape Display that can render 3D content physically using Microsoft Kinects and a matrix of actuators. The system allows video conference participants to physically interact remotely.

Pinokio - lamp, robot, friend?

Pinokio is a humble anglepoise lamp created by Shanshan Zhou, Adam Ben-Dror, Joss Doggett with the ability to be aware of its surroundings and behave in an attention seeking manner.

Pinokio from Adam Ben-Dror on Vimeo.

Read more at http://www.behance.net/gallery/Pinokio/5914541

A Day Made of Glass

Glass is amazing stuff and this video shows just some of the technology made possible with glass.



Watch these other adverts from Corning Glass:
Corning® Gorilla® Glass: Cooking Up Tomorrow's Kitchen
Corning® Gorilla® Glass: King of the Office?
Corning® Gorilla® Glass: Channel Surfing

Riding the Robot Caterpillar

My kids rode a robot caterpillar at the local mall the other night.

The guy controlling seemed to have a wireless remote control to start and stop it, but otherwise it followed the black lines on the floor.

Automatic Projector Calibration with Embedded Light Sensors

Another interesting project from Johnny Lee.

How to make a cheap steadycam

Johnny Chung Lee describes how to build a cheap camera stabilizer for about $14. If you are good with tools and know what you are doing you could make one in about 20 minutes otherwise you can buy them pre-built. Basically a weight on a three pipes connected in a T, this gadget is useful for capturing smooth looking video even when the camera and operator are moving. Read more about this gadget and get the instructions here.

Mobile spycam

Remember the Bond film where 007 remotely drives his BMW from his cell phone. A student has developed a mobile phone controlled mobile spy surveillance camera.The Smart Eyes robot designed and built by Massey University graduate Tom Yu Guan has a standard remote control rally car providing the wheels, but it has a modified video-capable mobile phone inside providing the live video feed and controlling the car. The remote operator can view the video and control the car by pressing buttons on their video capable phone.

One of the MuzGadgets filmed the story for the TV news. Read the full whole story.

Looking for games and 3D stuff...

I'm doing some consulting with Yetkin Telesystems and for one project I'm trying to find PC multi-controller games that would be suitable for playing in 3D on big screens.

Most of the console gaming machines are designed for sharing around a TV so two player games on these platforms are available. However, the average home game player is not likely to have the sort of money yet for 3D screens so the consoles don't have stereoscopic technology.

With the P in PC meaning "personal" finding two or more player games is not easy. But PCs are good for running 3D displays. A PC with the right nVidia graphics cards, drivers and software can convert 2D into different 3D (anaglyph, interlaced, shutter glasses etc) technologies.

Please comment if you know of any suitable games for this project. I'm also interested in any 3D movie or image production gadgets.

Yetkin Telesystems to the rescue

We accidentally got a 3D movie for Christmas. Like most of the DVDs we buy here in Turkey there is a Turkish translation with Turkish dubbing, subtitles and the DVD cover in Turkish.

Someone had forgotten the important "D" in the title of this movie "Spy Kids 3D". There was no mention of 3D (or 3-Boyutlu = the Turkish term for 3D) on the DVD cover.

It is a good movie. There are a lot of 3D effects in the movie and a behind the scenes section on the production of the movie and the history of 3D movies but it gets difficult to watch the 3D sections without (red/blue) anaglyph glasses. Because of the missing "D" these were not included with the movie, but thankfully I am working with my friend Oğuz from Yetkin Telesystems on a web project.

Yetkin Telesystems are the Turkish suppliers of everything 3D, from 3D monitors and projector systems to holographic, lenticular and custom 3D photography and they have sorted us out with some 3D anaglyph glasses.

Thanks Oğuz.