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Latest Augmented Reality Demo Turns You into Optimus Prime

Paul Lilly — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:00:30 -0500

Guaranteed to help close the deal during your next video conference (just maybe not in your favor), you can now transform your mug to that of Optimus Prime without investing in any head gear. It's all made possible through the wonders of augmented reality, with a little help from www.weareautobots.com.

The Active X applet takes over your webcam and goes to work using face and eye detection to render a 3D head of Optimus Prime around your noggin. It's just like all those other parlor tricks that shipped with your webcam's software, only prancing around as Optimus Prime is a little cooler than wearing a digital pirate patch or bobbing up and down with a fish face.

Topps Getting in on Augmented Reality with 3D Live Baseball Cards

Paul Lilly — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:50:13 -0500

If all you can remember getting with your baseball cards is a stick of hardened bubble gum, then maybe you were born into the wrong generation. Or the right one, depending on your outlook. Today's baseball card collectors know nothing of the chewy goodness that came with the hobby years ago, and instead are being encouraged to sit in front of their webcam to bring their cards to life.

It's all part of Topps' new 3D Live series. Place one of the special cards in front of a webcam and a three-dimensional avatar of the player appears on the computer screen. As you rotate the card, so too does the avatar. By going to ToppsTown.com, you can play a catching or batting game with the cards you acquire. There's a term for this meshing of real-world and computer generated data, and it's called "augmented reality."

"This is the 'Beam me up, Scotty' version of a baseball card that will get kids to buy more," said Steve Grimes, chief digital officer at Topps. "We see this baseball season as a redefining moment for us."

And not a moment too soon, either. The sports trading card business has plummeted from a $1 billion per year business to a comparatively small $200 million per year. Technology is seen as hurting the industry, as collectors can easily and quickly look up sports facts online for any player.

On a related note, if you happen to score a 3D Live card of Manny Ramirez and find that his avatar refuses to play on your PC, nothing is amiss - it's just Manny being Manny.

Image Credit: Topps

Hawaii's Online Health Care Service Launches

Paul Lilly — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:18:48 -0600

Hawaii residents can now visit their physician without ever leaving their home. It's not that house calls are making a comeback, but the 50th state becomes the first one to offer online physician visits. Available 24/7, ailing patients and hypochondriacs alike can spend one-on-one time with a doctor over IE7 or Firefox 2 and above, and even load up a webcam to show exactly what that nasty infection looks like.

Hawaiians insured through HMSA (Hawaii Medical Service Association, the state's largest insurer) are charged a flat $10 fee for a 10 minute online visit, while non-members pay $45. In return, doctors are instructed to apply the same standards of care and to address only issues that can adequately be handled over the phone or web. Prescriptions can also be written, if there's a definitive diagnosis during the 10-minute visit. But while this new practice will cut down the number of people cluttering emergency rooms, proponents warn that it's not a replacement for real emergencies.

"I don't think this situation can completely replace one-on-one doctor's visits," said Michelle Shimizu, a family practice doctor who has been helping test the system. "It's an adjunct to that."

For the most part, doctors receive $25 for each session, an amount which "has been received tremendously," according to HMSA marketing VP Michael Stollar.

Would you feel comfortable visiting your doctor online? Hit the jump and post your thoughts.

Image Credit: American Well via CNet

Logitech Acquires Video Communications Service Provider for $30 Million in Cash

Andy Salisbury — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:04:26 -0500

When most people think of Logitech the first thing that comes to mind is hardware. Webcams, mice, keyboards, just about anything that you can consider a peripheral. But all that is about to change thanks to their latest acquisition, SightSpeed, which they hope will take them right into the software game.

So what’s it cost to for a hardware giant, such as Logitech, to get their fingers deep into the software game? As it turns out, only $30 million in cash (the deal is expected to close in early November). The addition of the 25-person company to Logitech’s roster comes with the goal of creating solid video communication software to go along with their extremely popular webcams. Current users of SightSpeed are open to use a free version of their software, or a premium version that costs either $9.95 per month or $99.95 a year.

As of right now there’s no telling if the software of the fancy new acquisition will cost anything to use, or if it’ll be an upgrade on the software bundled with the cameras, but with any luck more details will emerge soon.

Image Credit: SightSpeed

Cool Touchless SDK for Webcam Interfaces Released by Microsoft

Alex Castle — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:35:35 -0500

Image Credit: Mike Wasserman

Today seems to be a pretty big day in the (previously small) world of touch-screen devices that you don’t actually touch. Microsoft has released a demo showcasing a technology called Touchless which allows an everyday webcam to emulate the functionality of an expensive multi-touch screen. They’ve also released an SDK for Touchless, allowing developers to start creating their own sorta-multi-touch apps.

Mike Wasserman, the creator of the Touchless, has released a video demonstrating the technology in action. The technique involves using the webcam to track the position of “markers” manipulated in the air or on the surface. In the video, Mike uses all sorts of things as markers, including stuffed toys and a lollipop, which makes it seem like anything sufficiently colorful can be used. The video shows off how Touchless can be used to manipulate photos, draw, and play some rudimentary multi-touch games like 4-player Pong.

So far, Touchless is just a neat demonstration of an idea. With the SDK released, though, we might see some very cool things built on the technology in the future.

Check out the video or try the demo for yourself and let us know what you think.

Minoru 3D Webcam Has Double Vision, Looks Like ET

Alex Castle — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:36:30 -0500

Image Credit: Novo

Have you ever thought to yourself “I like my webcam, but it really doesn’t look enough like a creepy little man staring at me over the top of my monitor?” If so, Novo has a new webcam that’s perfect for you. It’s called the Minoru (Japanese for “reality,” the website proclaims), and in addition to looking like a bright red extraterrestrial, it takes videos in anaglyph 3D.

That’s right, now you and your friends can slap on your favorite pair of red-blue shades and video chat in glorious, color-distorted 3D. The camera achieves the effect by capturing video with two lenses placed about as far apart as a pair of human eyes and combining the videos into a single, 3D stream. The camera will also be able to capture in plain old 2D, using just one lens.

Engadget reports that the device will be launching in December for less than $100.

New 'Clickjacking' Threat Could Compromise Your Webcam, Interrupt Striptease. NoScript to the Rescue?

Paul Lilly — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:46:57 -0500

Those kooky hackers, what will they think of next? The latest fad sweeping the underground community involves a new type of attack (new in how it's being used, anyway) dubbed 'clickjacking,' whereby surfers click on seemingly harmless websites only to end up unknowingly forfeiting control of their webcam and microphone.

So far, clickjacking has been confirmed to affect Adobe's Flash player and for every major browser, such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, and yes, it affects Google's Chrome browser too.

"It is a very serious problem," said Giorgio Maone, author of the NoScript Firefox extension. "Clickjacking is a very simple attack to build, and now that the details are out, any script kid can try it successfully. There's no estimate to the number of trap sites."

Maone went on to warn that clickjacking is impervious to signature-based scanning. Adobe has recognized the threat as being "critical" and is instructing users on how to turn off Flash access to webcams and microphones. But is it a cure all? According to Robert Hansen, CEO of SecTheory, Flash clickjacking represents but a single variant of what could turn out to be a widespread threat, and that the only real fix will be in changing existing web standards, not the individual applications themselves.

Not all hope is lost, though, and an update to Maone's NoScript extension purports to eliminate most, if not all clickjacking attempts. NoScript 1.8.2.1 features anti-clickjacking countermeasures, the most aggressive of which is called ClearClick. The updated extension can now detect if there is a hidden, embedded element in a web page and will then display a warning. That's great for Firefox users, but no such fix exists for everyone else, at least not yet.

Anyone inclined to think twice before firing up that webcam for an intimate 'I miss you' session the next time you're away on business?

Image Credit: Flickr mofeto

Trendnet TV-IP422W IP Camera

Michael Brown — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:30:51 -0500

Trendnet’s TV-IP422W wireless IP camera reminds us of the Zonet ZVC7630W camera we reviewed a few months back. Both cameras have night vision, both offer the same fuzzy video at VGA resolution (640x480), and both use the same unintuitive software. Trendet’s camera costs about $50 more, but it offers two important features that Zonet’s doesn’t: motorized pan and tilt.

The pan and tilt functions enable one camera to cover much more area, which can reduce the total number of cameras you need to deploy. The TV-IP422W can pan in a 330-degree arc, tilt up 90 degrees, and tilt down 15 degrees. Trendnet includes a kit that allows you to mount the camera to any vertical or horizontal surface, but you’ll need a weatherized enclosure if you decide to install the camera outdoors.

You can remotely control a single camera using Internet Explorer and an ActiveX control. Multi-camera management must be performed using the bundled SecurView software. Repositioning the camera’s focal point with this tool is a simple matter of clicking anywhere in the video window. You can also have the camera memorize up to eight positions, enabling you to quickly swing the lens around to focus on a specific spot. A “patrol” mode will automatically cycle the lens to each of its extreme once. Infrared LEDs encircling the lens delivers very effective night vision.

A built-in mic enables you to monitor what’s happening around the camera; plug a powered speaker into the line-level output and you have a functional intercom (in multi-camera configurations—the software supports up to 16—only one can record sound at a time).

The camera has a 100Mb/sec Ethernet interface, but it can also operate wirelessly over an 802.11g network; unfortunately, this will prevent you from operating your 802.11n network in N mode only. A motion detector can activate the recording of video sequences or snapshots; you can also schedule recordings. The software can send event-based email alerts (with still images attached), and a trigger output can be used to activate an external device, such as an alarm. There’s a USB 1.1 port for local storage or for uploading the settings the camera needs to connect to your Wi-Fi network.

You can access the cameras remotely, too (i.e., over the Internet or on a cell phone that supports the 3GPP specification), but if your broadband ISP uses dynamic IP addressing, as most do, you’ll need to sign up with a dynamic DNS hosting service (establishing a unique hostname for each) and configure your router for port forwarding to make this work. And then you’ll need to open a separate browser window to view each camera.

We really dig the Trendnet TV-IP422W’s pan/tilt and intercom features, but the bundled software is the same dreck that Zonet ships with its product. As we mentioned in our Zonet review, Logitech’s Wi-Life camera system has far superior software, particularly in the areas of remote management and multi-camera support; that’s the one reason we remain so enchanted with Wi-Life.