The era of holodecks approaches!

[Zachstar]

No I am not saying in 2010 we are going to be able to tell the computer to create a holo simulation of a movie (Or "other" kind of movie :P )

But the first very small signs of such are starting to show up. The Wii which while greatly inferior. Proved that the market is ready to move away from the traditional controller.

Now Sony and Microsoft are responding and their efforts are really pointing the way towards a future of emphasis on immersion.

Sony's system seems to be a mod on the eyetoy with greatly enhanced abilities.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...tation-3/50623 (Part 1)
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...tation-3/50620 (Part 2)

The possibilities are almost endless with this thing. It opens the door to a whole new market out there for Sony and it will force game developers to be more creative. (Or aggressive depending on the dev :P )

But that can't hold a candle to what Microsoft is developing.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...ct-natal/50017

This is nothing less than a revolution. For decades there have been attempts to abandon the controller completely but most have fallen to failure due to expense and due to being mostly gimmicky ways to push buttons on a controller rather than true body tracking.

The technology behind this is nothing short of amazing because of the "Duh!" factor. Two cameras. One in the Color range and one in the IR range for depth tracking.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/03/p...ils/#continued

If it is indeed in the 100 dollar price range it will mean the 360 will win the console war and set the target for the next gen. Sony's is great but it is only an evolution compared to this revolution.

This is the first step. Of course holographic technology is years behind but when you think about it. Holographic technology can only project an image. Unless you have the means to interact with it.. It only stands as a gimmick.

[danlisa]

Yay for the interwebs!!:rotfl:

Lets get a few things correct shall we.

1) What M$ are proposing is nothing new and was actually pre-demoed at E3 2005 by Sony.

2) Natal was not even working at E3 and what you saw on screen was actually being manipulated by a person using a controller siting at the desk on stage no less.:rotfl:

This is nothing less than a revolution. For decades there have been attempts to abandon the controller completely but most have fallen to failure due to expense and due to being mostly gimmicky ways to push buttons on a controller rather than true body tracking.

3) ^^ This technology with depth of field and realife person manipulation of a 3d environment is not new to consoles. Infact I own 5 games that use it now on the PS3. NO CONTROLLER NEEDED!!!

As far as I'm concerned Sony proved a working system with a tech demo which, albeit uses controller or controllers, but also offers much more scope and accuracy than M$ can ever hope for basing responses on body part movement.

That said, I'm in now mood to continue the M$ vs Sony vs Ninty E3 debacle which, quite frankly, spans at least 4 of the forums I'm membered to and is getting very boring. Each to their own etc. I'll side with Sony based on what they showcased through the whole E3 conference, nobody even came close.

[Zachstar]

Well since you slandered MS with your

2) Natal was not even working at E3 and what you saw on screen was actually being manipulated by a person using a controller siting at the desk on stage no less.

Bull

I treat the rest of your post as not even worth reading. Its one thing to be a Sony fanboy. Its another to be a conspiracy theorist.

[danlisa]

Lol!

Did you watch the live feed of the M$ presentation? I did, it was obvious.

Regardless, you bots (touche) are all the same. Praise and laud M$ for some revolutionary hardware progression that was developed by another IP years ago and is in actual use today.

Oh wait, did I just accuse M$ of plagiarism, add that to the slander rap.

If you continue to think that Natal is anything more than an attempt by M$ to take some of the users from the Wii then you are deluded.

[ajrimmer42]

Sony ftw!!!!



*runs away*

[Dowly]

LMAO @ Danlisa, Coup de Grâce

[ReallyDedPoet]

Maybe if the OnLive thing works out it will put the console wars to bed. Though I hear MS maybe interested in purchasing it

But there are many, many, many unknowns with regards to it.

http://news.cnet.com/onlive-could-th...x-ps3-and-wii/

[danlisa]

Originally Posted by reallydedpoet

Maybe if the OnLive thing works out it will put the console wars to bed. Though I hear MS maybe interested in purchasing it

But there are many, many, many unknowns with regards to it.

http://news.cnet.com/onlive-could-th...x-ps3-and-wii/

Oh, god I hope not. Cloud Gaming is doomed to fail if brought out before everyone is on FIOS connections. For consoles alone that would mean that a game stream would need to maintain around 40mb/s and even that is a compressed signal @ 1080p. Not to mention the input lag.....

I have no doubt that M$ are interested in this tech as they are also developing their own version and what's the easiest way to ensure your method is adopted?.........

Console wars are a misnomer, it should fanboy wars. Unfortunately too many people act like sheep and follow the herd rather than making an informed decision based on the hardware merits and future prospects. For example, if M$ had demonstrated to me that the 360 had superior hardware, adaptable future goals and provided me with the tools/addons I require as standard then I would have gone 360. Thankfully Sony offers all of that. :p

[SteamWake]

Wait till the Porn industry gets this figured out. !

[ReallyDedPoet]

Originally Posted by danlisa

Console wars are a misnomer, it should fanboy wars. Unfortunately too many people act like sheep and follow the herd rather than making an informed decision based on the hardware merits and future prospects.

Yeah, good point

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Originally Posted by ajrimmer42

Sony ftw!!!!



*runs away*

On a serious note though, I liked the look of the racing thing. One person drives the other works in the pits. I can almost see stabiz and I playing on X-Box Live and me having to work overtime everytime he ruins the tires

[SUBMAN1]

The real holodeck is coming. It just needs a little something called utility fog. Only problem is, if you could design one, you would also have the capability to build the morphing terminator from terminator 2 - complete with its intelligent killing ability.

http://www.nanotech-now.com/utility-fog.htm

-S

Question 5: Tell us about Utility Fog. How did you come across the concept, and how extensively could such a technology be used?
I invented Utility Fog in a typically serendipitous way. Virtually everyone working with nanotechnology has had ideas for a polymorphic material to make objects out of. But I was driving in to work one day and became conscious of my seat belt. I began wondering how good a seat belt you could make with nanotechnology. One of my pet peeves about safe cars is the they're built to collapse in an accident; the crumpling of the structure gives you a longer deceleration path, which is what makes it safe.

Suppose your vehicle looked more like a living room inside, with lots of space around you. It would be a lot more comfortable than a conventional car, and there would be room to decelerate without trashing the vehicle. Next thought: the cases they ship delicate equipment in, with form-fitting foam interiors. Suppose you could do a similar thing as a seat belt, in such a way that it didn't appear to be there when it wasn't needed. Once the basic notion was there, it remained only to figure out how to implement it.

Utility Fog consists of a mass of tiny robots. Unlike water fog, they do not float in the air but form a lattice by holding hands in 12 directions (corresponding to the struts in an octet truss). Each robot has a body that is fairly small compared to its armspread, and the arms are relatively thin. Each arm is telescoping, an action driven by a relatively powerful motor, and can be waved back and forth (2 more degrees of freedom) by relatively weak motors.

The material properties of this mass depend on the programming of the robots. The geometry is such that stresses in the material all appear as longitudinal forces along the arms. Each Foglet can sense the force along each arm, and do something depending on the magnitude and relation of those forces. If the program says, extend when the force is trying to stretch, retract when it is trying to compress, you have a soft material. If it says, resist any change up to a certain force, then let go, you have a hard but brittle material.

If the programming says, maintain a constant total among the extension of all arms, but otherwise do whatever the forces would indicate; and when a particular arm gets to the end of its envelope, let go, and look for another arm coming into reach to grab; you have a liquid. If you allow the sum of the arm extensions to vary with the sum of the forces on the arms, you have something that approximates a gas within a certain pressure range. Note that because the Foglets can use their own power to move or resist moving, the apparent density and viscosity of the fluid can anything from molasses to near vacuum.

Now you can begin to get cute. Run a distributed program that at a specified time, changes a certain volume from running water to running wood. A solid object would seem to appear in the midst of fluid. It can just as easily disappear. Now fill your entire house with the stuff, running air in background mode. Have an operating system that has a library of programs for simulating any object you may care to; by giving the proper command you can cause any object to appear anywhere at any time. You could carry a remote control, which might happen to be shaped like a wand with a star on the end...

[SUBMAN1]

This will explain how a real holodeck will be made:

http://autogeny.org/Ufog.html

-S

[Zachstar]

I personally feel that the ST way with a way to project "force" and "energy" within a local environment will be more like it. In 2050 or so.

That stuff you posted seems to be a GREAT idea for industry tho. I hope they get that going quickly as just about every industry could benefit from it.

More about Natal http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...51219?type=flv

It is confirmed in the video that it wont be out in 2009. But dev kits are already being sent out so I suspect the remaining issues are more on the software side than hardware side and Q1 and Q2 2010 look very good for this in my view.

[Zachstar]

You know just to see what PS3's future is I went ahead and had a look around the various forums and blogs about the PS3.

Most are betting their hopes on a new cheaper "Slim" PS3.

The rumored photos show a nice looking console but what do they mean by cheaper?

Just going down to 300 USD isn't enough. People don't have that kind of money to blow on just the console. Granted it is quite easy to do the same with a 360 but that is only if you are in a situation where you need to such as I and wireless as opposed to a well hidden ethernet cord.

250 USD needs to be the target. As that is low enough for someone to purchase a single quality game with. Or 300USD with the stuff needed for that moton control system. I will break and purchase the PS3 at that price.