One of the problems with a large site, is that when files go missing, it can take a while before they are recovered, simply because nobody is aware they have gone. Almost a year since our move from the disastrous data centre and 'professional' backup services, we are still stumbling across files that were omitted from the 'complete' backup tapes they provided at the conclusion of our proceedings against them.

Whilst we do have an array of file tracking tools at our disposal, even these can only do so much when it comes to tracking down precisely what a missing file should be, and in what context it relates. So, we are relying on the human element to a fair degree, still. If you access one of our resources, and it seems to be incomplete, please drop us a line to let us know which one.

Chances are it feels incomplete because it is incomplete, and once we are aware of the issue, we can take steps towards rectifying it.

Our Simone related resources are now back online, and mostly complete, greatly restoring our motion capture and motion translation resources – eleven articles were affected in total. In the process, we have determined there are still large sections of our MoCap data missing, but are still in the process of narrowing down precisely which ones. Replacements will be online as soon as possible.

Latest Term: Piezoelectricity

Piezoelectricity is the accumulation of a charge in a solid in response to mechanical stress. Deform the piezoelectric material and electric charge results. This is increasingly important as a source of power for embedded prosthetic devices and for wearable electronics. As the most intimate and most successful sensory interfaces have to be tied directly into the peripheral or central nervous system, piezoelectricity is the most promising means of powering such interfaces long-term.

Visit the Dictionary

Other recent entries:

ISAM

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Microscopy

Real Time Radiography

Virtual Output >> Apple Image Recognition Patent
(added 15/05/2012)
On the 10th of May 2012, Apple corporation filed a new patent, building on earlier patents they have filed, and more importantly, turned into actual technologies. It focuses on improved machine vision and image recognition algorithms. Specifically, facial and other 3D object recognition from 2D data only and in any light, on minimum computational power devices.


Embodied Avatars >> Link Between Deafness and Speech Deterioration
(added 15/05/2012)
A physical link between the loss of a given sense and changes in the wiring of the brain for other output modalities has been discovered in songbird studies. It gives us more reason for caution when embodying for any length of time in a body other than that we physically possess.


Augmented Life >> Shopping Sensors to Determine Produce Quality
(added 15/05/2012)
A prototype spectrometer, smaller than a sugar cube, cheap as mud, and designed to fit inside the next generation of mobile phones, brings the possibility of scanning fruit, veg, meat, fish, and many other items in real-time, to determine how fresh and healthy they are, before you purchase them - without damage from the scan.


Avatars and Personification >> Large Image Display: Simone: The End of Deathless Death
(added 15/05/2012)
An avatar persona can be a quite complex thing. It is not physically connected to you, yet it is you, or at least an aspect of you. Yet, because it is not physically connected, if it can be ursurped by another then they take over a part of you, as completely as if they had ursurped your physical body.


Embodied Avatars >> Large Image Display: Simone: Mocap Synthespian
(added 14/05/2012)
A scene from the film Simone, describing the merging of human and machine elements, creating an avatar embodiment which is half her human operator, and half artificially sourced. A scene showing something that is all too realistic, and very likely to occur for real.


Sensation >> The Symphony of Smell, A New Approach to the Sense
(added 13/05/2012)
We have never truly succeeded at a VR scent interface. All those we have, bar none, physically release a scent into the room around the user, because we have never been able to grasp how the brain processes the sense of smell. A novel study tracing individual nerve firings with mice in controlled conditions, reveals that the actual organisation of the sense of smell is far more complex than we ever dreamed.

Embodied Avatars >> Futureworld
(added 16/04/2010)
Futureworld is the sequel to Westworld, yet it takes an entirely different direction. Meant to be the film that spun the Westworld franchise into an anthology set, instead it was the film that buried it. Futureworld has some great ideas, and like many films of the era, is a goldmine of nuggets concerning robotic technology, virtual reality, augmented reality and social implications.


Pure Research >> Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos
(added 25/03/2010)
Programming the Universe is a Simulation Argument book. Lloyd, a professor at MIT, works in the vanguard of research in quantum computing: using the quantum mechanical properties of atoms as a computer. He contends that the universe itself is one big quantum computer producing what we see around us, and ourselves, as it runs a cosmic program.


Pure Research >> Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information
(added 25/03/2010)
Decoding Reality is very much a Simulation Argument book. In its pages, physicist Vlatko Vedral argues that we should regard the entire universe as a gigantic quantum computer.


Teaching and Training via VR >> Women and Gaming: The Sims and 21st Century Learning
(added 21/02/2010)
Video games have become both big business and a technological focal point for new forms of learning. Today games are not just played; players engage in game design, write fan fiction, and organise themselves into collaborative learning communities. In these communities players acquire 21st century skills in technology, but, in the best of these communities, they hone these technical skills and strengthen emotional and social intelligence.