TV Goggles, 3D Video and Augmented Reality

I was recently at the Edinburgh TV Festival and from this it seems alternate realities, anything to do with GPS/Geo, and 3D video glasses are the next big multiplatform thing.

Video Glasses
I won a pair of the video glasses at the festival and they are amazing http://www.icuiti.com/ They give a "virtual 72 inch feeling" like watching a big TV for a few metres away - so your eyes focus into the distance. Based on military technology they don't appear to strain the eyes and I've been watching the girls aloud videos for the past few weeks... on the bus, on the beach - they are great. I've also connected them to my PC when playing games like Doom3 and they really provide for a more immersive gaming experience.

Because they operate on two screens they have the capacity to deliver 3d stereoscopic content and also allow an added level of interactivity with augmented reality - several companies are selling these video glasses in the states and Asia and they are just about to be launched in a big way in the UK. I wouldn't be suprised if they became as popular as ipods during the next couple of years - particularly as they can take your mini-ipod screen and turn it into a virtual 72inch TV screen (I used my video specs with my archos but I can also connect it to my DV cam and get a live feed).

These extend the potential for delivering natural history in 3D, really allowing landscapes and animal behaviour come alive to the viewer like never before. What's more, as was being preached by Vint Cerf from Google at the TV festival, delivery of video over the web trhough services like the iPlayer allows for multiple layers of content and data to be delivered and hidden behind the video - each layer activated by different technologies, or methods of viewing.

3D Filming
The age of digital media has allowed for a development of products which can take 2D material and convert it to virtual 3D. IMAX and Warner Brothers did exactly this with Superman Returns in 2006 with 20 minutes of 3-D images converted from the 2-D original digital footage, and George Lucas has announced that he may re-release his Star Wars films in 3-D. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was also released in IMAX theatres with 20 minutes of 3-D content.

James Cameron is planning to shoot his new films Avatar and Battle Angel (planned for released in 2009) in digital 3-D. Filming will use HDTV cameras and the Sony Fusion Camera system.



21st Century 3D provide the worlds smallest and lightest, HI-DEF, stereoscopic 3D camera system and they have just announced the released of 3DVX–H and 3D-SSR which are solid state stereoscopic recorders. http://www.21stcentury3d.com/



The 3DVX–H is particularly useful for long-shot natural history as it had a "modular hyperstereoscopic camera system" that allows maintains a strong stereoscopic 3D effect and high quality at long distances. "With ordinary camera separation, discernable stereoscopy diminishes as the camera’s distance from the subject increases. The 3DVX–H compensates for this by allowing users to increase the interoccular distance to as much as three feet or more."

Augmented Reality

I am going to be playing around with this - the way I see it working is if you strap a webcam to your forehead with the image playing through an augmented reality application and into the goggles you can create the illusion of projecting virtual 3d graphics into the real world whch you can then interact with. Cool!!

Stranded in Grizzly Country

Saturday 1st September, C4, 8pm
1.3 M Viewers, 6.1% Audience Share

Radio Times:
The reliable Alive strand ends with the tale of Blake Stanfield and his father Neil, whose rafting holiday on an Alaskan river hits a snag when they slam into an ice shelf and lose the raft. It's almost as if they're trying to get into a gripping Saturday-night drama doc: they haven't got a radio or a phone, Neil's 65 with a dodgy ankle, the place is bristling with bears, and there's nobody else about because the rafting season hasn't started yet. (It hasn't started yet because everyone else is waiting for the ice shelves to melt.) As Blake decides whether to stick with his ailing dad or risk hiking 60 miles for help, we're treated to the usual suspense, terror, relief and tears in that order, as superb narrator Zam Baring outlines a series of outrageous misfortunes with understated relish.

Attenborough Explores Our World

Monday 3rd September, UKTV Documentary, 2/6pm

UKTV Online:
Attenborough Explores... Our Fragile World
In an exclusive TV premiere, Sir David returns to UKTV Documentary in Attenborough Explores... Our Fragile World, a documentary looking at the impact of climate change in the UK.

Our planet is the hottest it has been since records began - and it's getting hotter. Many predictions have been made about the future fate of a warming planet and its wildlife but, Attenborough Explores... Our Fragile World takes a look at the impact on the animals and habitats affected today. Global warming isn't a future phenomenon - it is happening right now. Sir David Attenborough said, "We are heading for a great worsening of the conditions of this planet for life of all kinds and I have no doubt whatsoever of the cause, which is the by-products of humanity's activities, and that therefore we should be curbing them." The United Kingdom offers unique insights into the effects of climate change on our planet. It has a long history of nature observations - particularly the timing of seasonal events such as flowering and bird nesting. So, with the UK as his platform, Sir David Attenborough takes a look at the effect of global warming, both local and global.

Outrageous Wasters

Tuesday 4th September, BBC3, 9pm
197,000 viewers, 1.06% Audience Share

Radio Times
Series in which a team of eco-experts are on a mission to transform Britain's most wasteful households. The Buchanan family from Glasgow are packed off to purpose-built eco boot camp House of Correction, where they're forced to face up to the impact of their wasteful ways and learn to live a carbon neutral lifestyle. While they're away, their home undergoes a radical eco-makeover, designed to shock them into changing their ways on their return.

Forever Blue - Blue Planet you can take part in

This Wii game looks absolutely amazing, a totally immersive and mesemerising experience - Blue Planet you can take part in!

Forever Blue is a new Wii game that lets you navigate through the deep blue sea with your remote. You're a deep sea diver, and you're surrounded by whales, sharks, manatees, and all kinds of giant, cool sea creatures. You start on a diving boat that takes you out onto the water—then you step into your gear and go..

See a clip (with added Enya music) on Youtube here

Read more on Wikipedia

The BBC developed something called Dinosaur World, which used the same graphics engine as Walking with Dinosaurs, about 6 years ago. Dinosaur World had a concept very similar to Forever Blue (although it was never fully released) - essentially you roamed around a 3-D island exploring the prehistoric vegetation and animals.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/games/dinosaur_world/

Geo-Blogs: Jane Goodall & Shackleton are doing it

Spice up your blog and turn it into a GeoBlog. Here's a couple of examples that I am fond of.

The Jane Goodall Institute has a Google Earth-based geoblog. This allows you to open the blog entries in their relevant location on Google Earth providing a geographical context to the writing.

The Shackleton Geoblog is another great example. This time taking a historic adventure and putting it in its geographical context, based on the diary entries and ship logs of Ernest Shackleton during the Endurance expedition.

More information on this geoblog can be read on the Google Earth Community page

Breathing Earth

Breathing Earth gives you a realtime look at the effect that different countries have on climate change. Showing you the amount of Co2 being produced as you watch. It also includes, death rates, birth rates and other interesting data.

Flickrvision & Twittervision

Twittervision and Flickrvision are projects that mashup their communities in real time with Google Maps. A 2-D or 3-D globe shows where people have just uploaded images to Flickr or have updated their Twitter status. Amazing and totally addictive.

Big Brother - Why It's not social documentary (it's just a bunch of hyped up celebrity wannabees pratting around!)

When Big Brother started, I, like the rest of the UK was captivated, the Truman show brought alive! We could relate to the housemates and the encounters they faced, warming to some and despising others. But this is manufactured entertainment more than social documentary – these people are the extremes of society, placed in an extreme environment, the episodes are manufactured, the players are manipulated.

We see some housemates as freaks, bullies, scapegoats who we can blame for societies degradation, while some are the loveable characters – the victims; Nadia “the transsexual” or Pete “the tourette’s sufferer”, whose exposure helps to make society more accepting of difference. In many ways the show does reflect the society we live in, different classes or social groups, elements of the characters reside in all of us. However, it is the meaning and controversy that we extract from the show, issues bubbling under the surface of society, rather than the characters themselves, that we use to construct totems for society’s ills.

Unlike Truman, the housemates know that they are being watched, they know that they could leave BB into a life of “celebrity” and win a huge cash prize, they perform and create parodies of themselves which might just strike a chord with the public – is Jade Goody really as dumb as she would have us believe?

- Paul Williams

Why Geo-tagged content is the NEXT BIG THING

A year ago I would have said that podcasting and blogging are the most significant developments on the web, with regards to public engagement and access - but technology evolves so fast that I now consider these to be “old school” and linear, the current fads are in social networking, global positioning and mashups. When geotagging is mixed with blogs, podcasts and facebook, we have a dynamic way of navigating content, our friends and media - spatially through Google Earth, which has revolutionised the way we view our planet.


When on location I have a little gadget which tracks my GPS coordinates as I go about my work. Back at base I can use this geotrack to geotag my media, view it on Google Earth and remotely share it with my friends over the web. Geotagging is the next big thing and it is how broadcasters and producers can extend the life of their content, making it more dynamic, more immersive and placing it in a global context – particular with regards to natural history and travel.

Audio trials have been carried out with GPS tagged narration to guide you through the streets of a city, and interactive games such as Pacmanhattan carried out on the streets of Washington, but this is just the beginning. As KML files become more common, and wifi networks and GPRS becomes more widespread, our TV and Radio audience will be able to access our geo-tagged content from the exact location in which it was captured, creating audio-visual location based experiences.

- Paul Williams