Sugar Pills

From MSNBC: "Ten years ago the government set out to test herbal and other alternative health remedies to find the ones that work. After spending $2.5 billion, the disappointing answer seems to be that almost none of them do.  Echinacea for colds. Ginkgo biloba for memory. Glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis. Black cohosh for menopausal hot flashes. Saw palmetto for prostate problems. Shark cartilage for cancer. All proved no better than dummy pills in big studies funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine."

My first question is: Where is this taxpayer funded information available? Turns out it's http://nccam.nih.gov/ !  Pretty catchy, right?  I would like it, although I'd never expect it, if the government created some sort of portal web-site to locate any and all information that they produce.  A while back my complaint was that even in locating the information as to where the stimulus bill funds would go, I was linked to an outside web-site and had to do more searching to find the full text.  This really shouldn't be the case.

The other problem the article raises, and is clear even from the echinacea research prominently posted on the front page is that this government body lacks the backbone to stand up for its research.  If the researcher was bad then they shouldn't have gotten the money, but the research had a person test 3 different delivery vehicles for a type of echinacea at a specific dose.  When the results showed no improvement they were published, and because of backlash the "Research Challenges" section was added, which is almost as long as the article itself, suggesting that there are different varieties and doses of echinacea that they can't speak for that may work!  Useless.

Miracle Fruit 3 month Comparison

There's my change in 3 months. Not much growth in the height department but plenty of foliage. In the very top right is the strange long sprout I've recently blogged about with a small leaf at the end.

Seeing the future of entertainment

I'm not sure when exactly "augmented reality" went mainstream, but I remember when I first saw it in practice.  Mini ran a print advertisement that, when viewed on a web-cam through their web-site would show a 3D car that could be rotated when you turned the magazine.  Since that point Sony has toyed with the idea by combining their eye-toy with cards to create 3D creatures with the future promise of them coming to life.

Sony's Eyepet has not yet been released, but seems destined to come out eventually and be the first program to put this into practice.  A 3D creature that you interact with by looking at your television and observing the augmented reality of your own world with a pet wandering around that you can interact with.  While the demos all suggest that you will either need to play this on the floor (as most pictures show) or have a table in front of you, the idea of looking into what is effectively a mirror, but seeing an altered reality is clearly a glimpse into the future.  This isn't far from the star trek holodeck!

Since the Sony camera is limited to a 2D understanding of the world, the interactions with this pet will be limited.  You may not fully get the sense that you're in this world because you could grab your pet from various angles and the system would not know the difference.  That's why the 3D camera from the xbox makes the technology all the more promising.  From all accounts the 3D camera has no problem identifying one or more people and converting them into a virtual stick-figure and moving them in a 3D space.  Clearly the "augmented reality" portion of the exercise is nothing incredibly complex since it has been run in web-browsers and even on the PSP.  So now that we have the technology for the holodeck remind me, what did they do on that?  I never actually watched star trek... Sorry!

Microsoft Free Idea Day

Since I'm already giving out free ideas to Microsoft, here's another one for their camera:

Minority Report style menus.  Forget the slow scrolling through pages on the dashboard.  With a 3D camera and recognition of hands you can easily allow for full navigation of menus, etc. with no controller.  Gamers would dig that shit.  It's like Surface without the Surface (I know it might be hard to drown that baby already but it's worth considering).  Here's the hint: open hand = nothing, closed hand = click/grab functionality.  Your camera should be able to pick up the five distinct dots for fingers vs. a closed hand.  Alright, ponder that for the weekend.

State of the Motion Controllers Address

Engadget put together a very nice summary to all 3 console makers ideas regarding motion controllers so I'm simply linking to that in the title.  Now, here's my take on the potential for actual implementation.

The wii is the easiest.  The only controller they have is a motion controller.  Adding additional information to make it more accurate can only help developers program for it, and if they choose to they can ignore it, but they'll still use some form of motion control.  The other big point is that it gets the job done and gives people a tangible enough feel for what they are doing that they feel satisfied with the result.

The Playstation camera approach is novel, but as the tech demo showed, while you can achieve a similar 1:1 movement that other motion control approaches have, it's still missing elements.  Nowhere in the demo did the character move.  The person shot arrows, threw ninja stars, and fought with a sword and shield, but they didn't move.  This is clearly a problem because they can't easily tack on a thumbstick to the controllers like the wii's nunchuck to give that free movement, when it's also supposed to be your shield arm (or they could, but it would feel odd.  I think the Playstation solution serves only as a tech demo that could sell with a minigame collection just as the original eyetoy did, but it can't and won't get widespread appeal, especially considering the number of controllers one would theoretically have to buy in order to get a group of people playing.

And then there was the Xbox solution of a 3D camera with no controllers.  Playstation was right in my opinion when they said sometimes you just need buttons.  That's the fatal flaw in regards to project Natal gaining widespread adoption on the level of the wiimote for playing games.  Sure, some minigames might be created like the breakout game they demonstrated, but the most practical applications will be those like EA is already pondering, which have a workout focus.  I think the reason Peter Molyneux demoed a boy that could react and respond to you was that he realized that this was the most elegant and useful implementation of the technology.  It shouldn't be an extension of the controller, it should be an extension of the experience.  If Microsoft handed out simple instructions for even the most straightforward thing, headtracking where every character would tilt or turn their head towards the direction of the person playing, even that little element could make a game more immersive.  Letting you actually speak to characters in role playing games would also add to this.  These are things that could be implemented without a lot of effort on the 3rd party programmers, but might lead to gamers picking it up, just so they can experience it.  Maybe I'm just the one lacking imagination for this technology.  I wouldn't mind an elebits style tech demo just for fun, but in the end I just want the game to be a little more aware of the player.

Miracle Fruit 6-1-09 Alien Growth

I've added colors to draw attention to what I observed this Monday morning.  Over the weekend these long growths developed (circled in red) and to the best of my knowledge there was nothing there before the weekend.  This is in addition to the new leaves I've had sprout recently (circled in blue) due to my hardcore misting every few hours.  The plant is certainly liking the treatment, but I'm very curious about its intentions given that there isn't much vertical growth going on but plenty of foliage developing.  And what will come of the new spindly growth?  While it appears similar to the branches that come from the main stalk, this would be a first coming from an offshoot (for reference, the top red circle is coming off the main stalk and therefor just resembles a new branch, the bottom one is coming off an already well established branch).

GM Restructuring

Since the goverment is going around "rescuing" whomever it wants with taxpayer money and now the government owns 60% of GM on our behalf, how about all taxpayers get a 60% discount on GM vehicles?  Then maybe they'll actually sell better than foreign cars.  I feel like that's about the only fair way for this whole thing to shake out because there's no other way that money is going to get back to the government.  So yeah, that $50B in taxpayer money?  Split the difference with voucher subsidies and GM could get rid of all the cars they've made and we'd have something to show for this whole debacle.

I'll get me one of them new Cameros that look kinda like the old Cameros.  Thanks.