Tag Archives: projection

Laser Diffraction Plate Turns Frickin’ Laser Beams into Frickin’ Art

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Laser pointers are cool, especially the bright ones that you can use for popping balloons and harassing the cats on the next block over. After a while all that gets a bit boring though and you need something new and cool to do with your laser. This is when you will want this laser diffraction plate kit.

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It looks like little glass slide with some etched areas on it, but It does some very cool things when you shine a laser through it. If you can believe it, that long section on the bottom projects a spinning globe.

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Other areas project a star field, another shows a constellation, and another shows a series of concentric circles. Sadly one of the areas is wasted on a company logo, presumably the guys who make this thing. The laser art diffraction plate sells for $15.99(USD) at ThinkGeek. Laser pointer not included.

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Watch code and projections bring a paper sculpture to life

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Paper art doesn't have to be flat and lifeless... just ask Aristides Garcia. The artist recently created an interactive sculpture, Tesela, that uses a combination of 3D projection mapping and tesselation algorithms to cast real-time, viewer-influen...

Project Nimbus Projects Images from Airplane onto Clouds

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These days, everybody stores their videos “in the cloud.” Now some clever folks in the UK are actually projecting video on real clouds.

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Recently, on the clouds floating over Nottingham, England, residents saw the spooky green image of a man riding a horse in the night sky. The images were projected onto the clouds from a Cesna 172 which was carrying a laser-enhanced version of a very early cinema camera called a zoopraxiscope, which was a simple rotating disc through which light was flashed to simulate movement. (It was developed by photographer/cinema pioneer Eadweard Muybridge, whose subject was often racehorses, hence the choice of what to project.)

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Appropriately dubbed Project Nimbus, it was started by artist Dave Lynch in 2007, who got the inspiration when he read an academic paper during his graduate studies that detailed efforts by the U.S government to develop ways to project images onto clouds that would frighten their enemies.

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Lynch, however, wants to achieve delight, not fright. According to Lynch, “We specifically stayed away from commercial requests to keep the clouds a sacred space, away from logos and social media stunts, which many are pursuing. We all have a relationship to the clouds, the sense of looking up and dreaming, we hope Project Nimbus inspires people to believe in big ideas and consider that through collaboration we can all push the boundaries of what we know.”

The video of Lynch’s projection onto the clouds shows a lot of potential (and might actually be pretty scary for a kid to see from his bedroom window), but I will say that his desire to keep his technology away from corporate concerns seems pretty naive. As this technology gets sharper and more precise, I can guarantee you that you will begin to see giant corporate logos dancing all over the clouds.

[via New Scientist via Gizmodo UK]

Coolest Clock is a Smartwatch for Your Wall

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After years of not wearing a watch because my mobile phone had a clock on it, I adopted a smartwatch. You won’t find me without my Pebble any more. It makes it very easy to tell if I need to send my wife to voicemail while I am working rather than digging my phone out of my pocket first. I’m not a fan of wall clocks, they seem to have tick magnifying tech inside that makes them incredibly loud just when I want quiet.

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A new wall clock has surfaced that sort of makes me feel for the wall like my smartwatch made me feel for the wrist. The Coolest Clock can project the time and other information onto your wall, and the best part is that it has no hands to tick loudly and wake me up at 2am.

It also will project all sorts of other info you can choose via a smartphone app like weather, tweets, news, and reminders. Plus, the display is completely customizable.

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The Coolest Clock project is on Indiegogo and has already raised over $230,000 blowing the $20,000 original goal out of the water. You can still order one for $199 before April 10 with shipping in December. I really want one of these.

Creepy “Hologram” Invades London Railway Station

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Scott Beale over at Laughing Squid encountered something downright unsettling on a recent trip to London. No, it wasn’t a killer robot, but something else that is downright creepy.

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It was a hologram-like projected woman at the Kings Cross railway station, beckoning him to come closer. She waves, then points and gestures to come over. Oh poopy. This is the kind of situation where you just know you screwed up in some way and the illuminati are about to rub you out. They have chosen a holographic servant to either kill you dead or invite into a super secret meeting for some weird ritual, where you find out you are the chosen one.

That’s what Scott may have been thinking as he slowly walked toward it, gulping and adjusting his collar. But once a human approaches, she/it just politely instructs you not to take your luggage on the escalator.

The situation could have been much worse if this had been the illuminati, but it is creepy enough that these things exist and interact with us. The second video is a similar hologram type being he encountered in 2012. Soon these things will be everywhere.

Virtual Pong Played with a Light Orb

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Remember the old days when you played Atari’s Pong console? That was all that the console played, and we loved hitting that square shaped ball back and forth. We just didn’t know any better. It seems so slow now. Well, this isn’t your grandfather’s Pong.

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This Virtual Pong game from Shaper Image is a real-world version of the game with a digitally-projected ball and everything. At last we are living in the TRON future, my friends. You have two wireless paddles to hit the virtual ball with. You might even lose a few pounds as you get off the couch and compete.

The center base station projects an orb of colored light back and forth between the players. You hit it with your “rackets” trying not to make a racket as you destroy mom’s knick knacks. It works like the Wii, though it looks more dangerous to your surroundings. Virtual Pong is available now from Sharper Image for $59.99(USD).

[via SlashGear]

Spray Paint Clock: It’s Graffiti Time!

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While it’s illegal to spray-paint graffiti in most places, as far as I know, there’s no law against painting with light. And while you’re not going to be creating any masterworks with this spray can, you’ll at least be able to tell the time.

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GamaGo’s Spray Paint Clock looks just like a can of Krylon, but instead of spraying paint when you press the button, it projects the current time on the wall. As an added bonus, time has a tendency to last longer than paint.

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Shake up a browser and head over to Amazon where you can grab a can for just $18.88(USD).

Navdy HUD for Cars Helps Keep Eyes on the Road

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I’ve long wanted to have a slick heads-up display in my car to show me things like speed, RPM, and direction. That would be much cooler than having my iPhone attached to the windshield with a RAM mount. I’d also really like it if the device would stay put so when I am driving a car on the racetrack so I could use it to see how fast I was going and the RPMs of the car without looking down.

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Navdy might be exactly what I need. It is a small device that links to Android or iOS smartphones via Bluetooth 4.0 and gives you a HUD to look at. It will show GPS directions from Google Maps, and connects to your vehicle’s OBD II port to get speed, RPMs and other data about the car. Navdy can also display information from your smartphone, including text messages, and allow you to screen and answer phone calls.

It uses a projector to throw an image on a 5-inch screen that appears to float 6-feet in front of the driver, and is controlled using simple gestures, so you don’t have to reach in your pocket to grab your phone.

For the next month, the pre-order price of Navdy is $299(USD) – with the normal price being $499. Shipping is set to start in 2015. I think I want one of these.

The Face-Stealing Robot

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Robots can be awesome. They also can be creepy.  This robot fits firmly into the latter category. While most robots have expressionless heads, this one has a face. But not just any face – this robot can have YOUR face on it.

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By mounting an LED projector inside of its head, the SociBot can change its face to suit your every whim. It can be loaded with a library of standard faces, or in minutes, your face can be scanned and uploaded to its head. Each face then is mapped with a library of expressions, and mouth movements for talking. The robot can also track gestures, faces, and speak in over twenty languages. Using an IR depth sensor, it can even track the position of up to 12 people in a crowd.

The robot was designed by Will Jackson and his colleagues at Engineered Arts - who are also behind RoboThespian. He says the intent is to provide greater social interaction from the electronic devices we use, and the technology could be used for things like information kiosks or for jobs like automated bank tellers. Oh and if you think that’s creepy, get a load of SociBot with its head off:

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[via New Scientist]