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| TermKit Fuses UNIX Command Line Pipes With Visual Output |
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posted by Editor
on Thursday January 19, @04:51PM
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TermKit is a visual front-end for the UNIX command line. A key attribute of the UNIX command line environment is the ability to chain multiple programs with pipes, in which the output of one program is fed through a pipe to become the input for the next program, and the last program in the chain displays the output of the entire sequence - traditionally as ASCII characters on a terminal (or terminal window). The piping approach is key to UNIX modularity, as it encourages the development of simple, well-defined programs that work together to solve a more complex problem.
TermKit maintains this modularity, but adds the ability to display the output in a way that fully exploits the more powerful graphics of modern interfaces. It accomplishes this by separating the output of programs into two types: data output, which is intended for feeding into subsequent programs in the chain, and view output, for visually rich display in a browser window.
The result is that programs can display anything representable in a browser, including HTML5 media. The output is built out of generic widgets (lists, tables, images, files, progress bars, etc.) (see screen shot). The goal is to offer a rich enough set for the common data types of Unix, extensible with plug-ins. This YouTube video shows the interface in action with a mix of commands that produce both simple text-based output and richer visual displays. The TermKit code is based on Node.js, Socket.IO, jQuery and WebKit. It currently runs only on Mac and Windows, but 90% of the prototype functions work in any WebKit-based browser.
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| Everything You Need To Know About Peer-To-Peer Networks |
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posted by Editor
on Wednesday January 11, @05:47PM
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Peer-to-peer expert Arnaud Legout has released a new version of the presentation for his course on peer-to-peer networking. It is available as a PDF file, but get the PowerPoint version to see animations. With more than 500 slides, the presentation provides a concise overview for each of the major issues with P2P, including the basic mathematical theory and technology that enables P2P; peer allocation strategies; parallelism; load balancing algorithms; network traffic impact; privacy concerns; seeding & trackers; and many other topics. Its case studies are primarily based on the increasingly dominant BitTorrent, and it also looks at Murder, a new Bittorent-based tool that Twitter uses to distribute files during its own software updates.
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| D-Wave Praised For Selling First Quantum Computer |
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posted by Editor
on Thursday December 22, @04:41PM
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The supercomputing site HPCWire just released its top 10 hits and misses for 2011, and D-Wave Systems earned a "hit" for selling the world's first commercial quantum computer. The system, called D-Wave One, uses a superconducting 128-qubit (quantum bit) chip, called Rainier, which is designed to bring quantum performance to artificial intelligence applications such as natural language processing, computer vision, bioinformatics, financial risk analysis, and other types of highly complex pattern matching (see this article for an overview of how quantum algorithms can be used to implement machine learning).
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| Displair Combines Gesture Interface with 3D Volumetric Fog Display |
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posted by Editor
on Tuesday December 13, @06:09PM
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For some time, researchers have been working on fog displays, in which images & video are projected into a controlled mist of fine water droplets, so that the images appear to float in the air (see Fogscreen for an early commercial application of the technique). The technique has been extended to Volumetric Displays, allowing 3D computer-generated objects to appear as if they were floating in the air (in some cases, at very large scale, like the huge 3D fog display that was seen by 200,000 people at the Glow 08 festival in Santa Monica, CA - see video). Now, the Russian company Displair has coupled a desktop-sized 3D volumetric fog display with a 3D gesture interface, which allows users to manipulate the projected interface in the air. It's not clear from the site what the commercial status is of the system, but there is a great demo video of the interface in use.
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| Zoom-Tube Searches YouTube Visually With Zoomable Canvas |
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posted by Editor
on Thursday December 08, @05:21PM
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Zoom-Tube is a Zooming User Interface (ZUI) to visually search for YouTube videos. It displays the results of YouTube searches with a zoomable canvas, in which playable thumbnails of each discovered video are organized in a series of concentric frames. Users can zoom in and out of results with the mousewheel, and pan across them with drag-and-crop mouseclicks. Zoom-Tube was developed by Bevodesign, which has been doing work on several other ZUI projects.
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| CogSpace 3D Mindmap Visualizes Methods To Study Cognition & Consciousness |
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posted by Editor
on Wednesday December 07, @05:45PM
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CogSpace is a 3D mindmap of collective approaches for understanding the human mind and consciousness. The model visualizes the interdisciplinary knowledge domains of Cognitive Science and Consciousness Studies, using a 3D axiomatic conceptual framework to represent the primary knowledge domains of interdisciplinary Cognitive
Science, including Psychology, Anthropology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Philosophy, and Linguistics. Various sub-domains are placed in the map, with the position of each sub-domain corresponding to its relative magnitude of association to the six primary terminal points of the framework. Each sub-domain is also colored in a way to match it with other sub-domains that have a similar relationship with the primary knowledge domains, thus correlating semantic context with both spacial position and color value. The result is a synesthetic experience of the entire model. You can try out the interface here (requires Flash), and here is a paper explaining its design.
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| Aurasma Visual Browser Places Virtual Content In Real World |
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posted by Editor
on Monday December 05, @05:22PM
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Aurasma is an augmented reality browser that senses opportunities to reveal virtual content in real-world environments. Content providers place "Auras" in physical locations (i.e. billboards, magazines etc. - see examples), which come to life wherever they are found through a mobile device's camera. The Auras appear like regular images when viewed normally, but when a mobile device detects an Aura, an app converts the image to a video, animation, or other content when viewed through the device's display.
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| Basilar Turns Web Surfing Session Into 3D City |
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posted by Editor
on Thursday December 01, @05:25PM
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Basilar is a web browser that gradually builds a 3D cityscape as the user visits different sites. Every site visited causes a new building to be created, whereby the height of the building is based on the site's importance as determined by its pagerank. The building's exteriors are created with text and images from the visited site. Here is a screenshot, and demo video. The idea was inspired by Flavia Sparacino's City of News, which sought to apply the classical concept of memory palaces, theaters and cities to information spaces.
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| JavaScript Library Enables Direct Data-Driven Transformations of Web Pages |
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posted by Editor
on Thursday November 03, @04:16PM
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JavaScript remains a popular language used by developers to create dynamic and interactive web sites. D3 is a small, free JavaScript library that allows web documents to be directly manipulated based on data. The library can be used to bind arbitrary data to the Document Object Model (DOM) structures underlying web pages, and then apply data-driven transformations to the document itself. Thus, rather than trying to introduce a new web-based graphics system with a lot of drawing features, D3 specifically targets the manipulation of web documents based on data, thereby taking advantage of the full capabilities of underlying web display technologies such as CSS, HTML5 and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Here are some examples of the kinds of visualizations that can be implemented with D3, and here is the documentation.
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| iPhone Attachment Records Continuous 360-Degree Panoramic Video |
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posted by Editor
on Wednesday October 26, @10:30AM
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Kogeto has announced the release of Dot, a lightweight attachment for iPhones (4 & 4S) that records continuous 360-degree video. The device has an optical design, so it does not require batteries or external power. Instead, a cone-shaped mirror projects a warped image of the 360-degree view into the iPhone's camera, which then uses an app to unwarp the image and convert it into custom-generated video streams based on the perspective that is controlled by the viewer (see examples - note that you can drag inside the videos to change perspective as the clip is playing). The Dot has a list price of $79, and it will be available in Apple stores. Kogeto is also planning to offer online services for processing the generated 360-degree feeds. One possible service would be to combine feeds from multiple cameras held by spectators of sports or concert events, which could deliver different perspectives of the event to remote viewers.
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What comes after the file/folder metaphor?
The superficial "look-and-feel" of an interface is distinct from the more fundamental issue of how it represents data to the user. In this regard, potentially dramatic improvements are possible.
Read More
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