Ah! New Technology.....

A browse around the magazine shelfs tonight brought me up to date on a few of the technology things on the near horizon. A little web browsing got me a little more info: I ran across a tidbit about a Human Interface Technology lab at the University of Washington. It seems they are working on some very interesting virtual reality stuff, to include hardware and software stuff...looks interesting in the virtual reality dispaly work for Navy pilots. I wandered a little more and found that motion based simulators may not be too far from the home market, at least for gamers who have more money than sense...we're talking 2DOF, 3DOF and even 6DOF stuff. If you consider the that $60K is a lot less than an F/A-18 (and not to mention the flight hour cost of a real JP-5 burning thing). From surfing to aerial gunnery, they have some stuff done already. The systems can already take data from several commerical games, both flight simulators and car racing types. Are you looking for a special present for someone? Laser Crystal Works can take a picture and then etch it into the middle of a block. I saw the ad in an aviation magazine, which showed a plane picture, complete with the pilot's name engraved in the clear plastic cube. Looked pretty cool. Check the site out for the work they have done. Advertized cost ($50-75) sounds pretty reasonable... Maybe the next web browser will be Flock. Not only will it be like most other browsers, it will be easy to mkae and save your blog postings very easily to your own hard drive. You will also be able to be looking at a web page and easily into your own blog posting via a method called "aggregation."