Hasta La Gadget!

Last year when I saw YEI Technology’s Unreal Engine demo of their 3-Space Sensors, I mentioned how it might be able to integrate with the Oculus Rift for a more immersive virtual reality experience. Turns out the company had the same plan all along. YEI recently launched a Kickstarter fundraiser for PrioVR, an improved and affordable version of the 3-Space Sensors.

The PrioVR sensors are significantly smaller than the 3-Space Sensors and will also include an input unit. The latter is for plugging in additional external input, i.e. physical controllers such as a joystick or a gamepad. Data from sensors and input units will be sent to a “centralized wearable wireless hub architecture”, which in turn will beam the data to a base station that has a USB output.

PrioVR currently comes in two developer kits: PrioVR Lite includes 11 sensors, 1 input unit, the wireless hub, the base station plus the straps needed to wear all of the electronics. The PrioVR Pro kit adds 6 more sensors and 1 more input unit to the Lite kit. As expected, the kits will come with SDK and API so developers can adapt or build games around PrioVR. YEI Technology also said that “major game engines will be supported” and that they will also release “demo projects and open source code examples.”

Pledge at least $450 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a PrioVR dev kit as a reward. I wonder what gaming companies and console makers think of all these virtual reality hardware. The Omni VR treadmill in particular seems to be in direct competition with the PrioVR. I also find it hilarious that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft seem to have given up on motion-controlled gaming when in fact they popularized it with their respective efforts, especially with the Wii and the Kinect. I guess they weren’t able to connect the dots to virtual reality. Perhaps no one really did until the Oculus Rift hit the scene.

However, while the PrioVR and other VR hardware have immense potential, I think it’s safe to say that we’re still years away from seeing consumer versions of any of them. I think the manufacturers need to sort out who their partners will be and eventually release a complete package for consumers and game developers alike. They can’t expect us to buy various VR hardware separately without knowing which games they’ll work with. Remember, as of now these sensors and headsets are separate from PCs and consoles – you know, the machines that actually run games. If folks are already balking at the Xbox One’s price, imagine how they’ll react when they find out you have to shell out hundreds of dollars for a console or a gaming PC, $300 for the Oculus Rift and then $450 more for the sensors. Holy crap. A subscription-based cloud gaming setup – with free-to-play games – almost makes sense from my wallet’s perspective.

[via PrioVR]

When the proverbial cow kicked over the proverbial lantern on a Tuesday night in 1871 Chicago, it set in motion an urban transformation that would see its hodgepodge of wooden buildings replaced with the Windy City we know today. Now, thanks to the data viz wizards at Esri and the patronage of The Smithsonian, you can compare the two cities block-by-block.

Read more…

Does your face look saggy and sallow? Do your facial muscles feel strained, even when you make the simplest of facial expressions? It probably lacks exercise and one way you could get it is with the Facewaver Exercise Mask.

It looks like a ski mask, only it doesn’t cover your entire head. Its product page claims that it “gently stretches the skin and muscles in several directions, improving and increasing blood circulation to the surface of your face.” All you have to do is put it on and make different faces for five minutes a day.

This is another strange facial-exercise-related contraption available for import from Japan Trend Shop, who previously brought us the Hana Tsun Nose Straightener, the Eye Slack Haruka, the Rhythm Slim Chin Exerciser, and the Face Slimmer Mouthpiece.

No guarantees if the facial mask will work, but I guarantee you will scare a child or two when you’re making faces with this pink mask on your face. It sells for $60 (USD). That may sound expensive, but the expressions on the faces of others who see you wearing this will be priceless.

[via Laughing Squid]

Is your feed full of stupid memes you don’t care for and pictures of your friends’/relatives’/acquaintances’ babies? Are you sick of looking at selfies and random people making that annoying duck face on your Facebook feed?

If the images on your screen are getting too much to take, then you might want to install the Hey Girl app in your browser.

Hey Girl automatically swaps out all of the photos on a website with images of Ryan Gosling. There’s some of him acting goofy, there’s a couple of screenshots from movies, and there’s one where he’s canoodling with a girl (don’t you wish that were you?)

The app was developed by Katherine Champagne when she was at Dev Bootcamp Chicago. At the start, the app involved using Channing Tatum but Katherine eventually switched to Ryan Gosling.

Katherine explains: “I hope that heygirl.io inspires more women to get into web development- there needs to be more of us, ladies! It’s not all math, it’s not boring – as I hope heygirl.io evidences, I’ve found programming to be an incredible creative outlet.”

You can install the Hey Girl bookmarklet or Chrome Extension here.

[via Incredible Things]

A year ago, pod-shaped recycling bins were installed all over the UK by Renew London. The so-called “smart bins” definitely look better than your average trash can. Now, you might be wondering, why would trash cans have Wi-Fi capabilities and an LCD installed on front?

The answer, my friends, is advertising. Targeted advertising.

The bin looks for smartphones nearby that have their Wi-Fi turned on. It then logs their MAC address and calculates the “proximity, speed, duration and manufacturer” of each device. It tracks the phone owner’s actions to then display targeted adverts on the screen, which will play as they walk past the bin.

Sounds smart, right? Yeah, definitely, but it’s rubbing a lot of people the wrong way because of privacy issues. To be honest, I’d be pretty irked, too, if this phone was tracking what I was doing just so it could show me an ad or two when I walk past the bin.

So it was only a matter of time before the bins had their Wi-Fi and tracking capabilities pulled. The City of London has called on Renew to stop recording people’s movements, so Londoners can breathe a sigh of relief now.

The City of London released the following statement:

We have already asked the firm concerned to stop this data collection immediately. We have also taken the issue to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Irrespective of what’s technically possible, anything that happens like this on the streets needs to be done carefully, with the backing of an informed public.

[via C|NET]