Video mapping a human face is not entirely new—we’ve seen Zach Lieberman and friends do it using a Kinect and an LED projector in the video for BELL’s “Chase No Face.” But this video ups the game a little and completely immerses the actor in the projected visuals, covering the whole head and upper body so he becomes a human chameleon. Turn him into a cyberman, a bearded metaller, even a human Google map, making it a great tool for Halloween, if you had the spare cash—and you sat still, in a room, while people stared at you.

See thecreatorsproject.

A bit out of my league, but still. Cool to see the use of the Kinect this way.

One of the reasons I bought an XBOX and not a PS3 was the Kinect. "gestures are the new touch" and all that jazz. And it when comes to a cheap household device that can do wonders in Augmented Reality, the Kinect is -no pun intended- a Game Changer.

For example, coverflow is one of the first things one imagines when one talks about gestures, ever since iOS 3 or so it was on the wanted list. And windshield Augmented Reality is what everyone comes up with. Both are however not the best candidates. In the coming weeks, I'll give some examples of real use of the Kinect beyond those two.

My favourite and still working on it myself? Be a DJ, never miss a beat, be the beat. Take a look at this video:

I am still in the proces of getting all this to work on my Macs but will post before I am done some more Kinectar implementations.

Aart searches brecht :-)

Created with cinemagr.am

Third attemp with cinemagram tool and not staged, rather well I think.

Google Maps done in ASCII art. See http://tllabs.io/asciistreetview/ for yourself, well done.

When I parked my car at a Park and Ride this summer in Kent, I saw this sign. My first thought was “Whisfull thinking of the city planners to warn about deers”. Only when I saw that there were a dozen of these signs I understood that it wasn't a warning but an indicator for where I parked. I saw that another area of the parking space had a realistic wolf. This is where someone didn't understand how pictograms / metaphors should work, they should be abstract and translate the environment towards the reality, indicate your space or actions via something else so one can predict what the result of the action should be or for example where one is. When I see a traffic sign of deer, I don't think “I parked in the deer section”. I think -stupid as it may sound- be careful when parking there are deers here.

Take for example the pictograms for the parking lot of Schiphol Airport, worldwide known for the best use of abstract pictograms and metaphors. What the London tube did for abstract maps, Schiphol did for icons. Clear abstract pictograms. Not drawn to resemble traffic signs and thereby confuse the reader but the Schiphol icons are clearly an indicator by themselves. All in the same language, pictograms of what foreigners think as “Typical Dutch”, wooden shoes, tulips, windmills etc. Borrowing from that was is good for the purpose of the objects but not steeling bad metaphors like a traffic sign with a red border generally associated with “forbidden”, not like blue sign that is associated with “information”

What you can learn from this if you use graphical metaphors IRL or in an application.

1. Think about what you want to say
2. Think about how you want to say this
3. Think about how someone else will and can read this
4. and do hire a designer :-)