tv

Dexter 3D logo in Sketchup

Because I like Dexter (own wiki site), because I like Sketchup, a quick sketch of the logo (drawn, not vectorised!) in 3D.

Available as source in the warehouse.

Labyrinth van Peter Jan Rens, de eerste Augmented Reality game op TV


Afgelopen Donderdag was ik bij Beeld en Geluid met een van de mooiste panden in Nederland. In de centrale ruimte hadden ze een aantal oude TV spellen in het echt getoond waar je mee mag spelen. De Pisa toren van de Honneymoon quiz, zenuwspiraal uit de 100.000 Gulden Show maar ook een oud spelletje "Labyrinth", door Peter Jans Rens destijds gepresenteerd.

Laybrith was een spelshow waarbij aan het einde een speler op een grote blauwe ruimte van boven gefilmd werd en het beeld geplaatst werd op TV over een laburith. Een speler moest dan de ander de aanwijzingen geven om zonder de randen te raken in het centrum te komen.

"Lopen, Lopen, Lopen, Lopen... STOP!"

Zie hier een filmpje uit die tijd:

(zie ook de biografie site van de vara)

Overigens zie ik nu voor het eerst dat mijn geliefde Amiga 500 -mijn tweede computer- werd gebruikt als computer om dit geheel aan te sturen. Voor meer informatie, zie het zomerprogramma van Beeld en Geluid.

De spelshow liep van 86 tot 1993. En nu ik er over nadenk, dit is waarschijnlijk een van de oudste Augmented Reality games die ik ken. Ver voor Layer en anderen was de Vara al hip.. met laarzen aan. Dat dan wel weer.

Prediction, scandal to come: Internet TV's send all data to the mothership


With "scandals" like the apple (and lesser know: google) locationgate, one can wait for the next scandal coming to a theatre near you; your living room!

Google, Apple and others have been in the IT business for long, they understand End User Licenses, the fine line between behavioral marketing and privacy. Not that I trust Apple, Google or any other big enterprise that they will behave. But companies like these (but alse newcomers like dropbox) have at some time had the experience of a backfire. Where the outrage over what they collect and how they analyse my data or usage has really put the marketeers in the back of the room and the techies back to the front-row. If the risc of potential imago damages are bigger then the benefit of selling or using the data, companies tend to avoid the risc.


However, television makers know nothing about security, IT and privacy. Televisions used to be a dumb tube that receives broacasted material over the air or cable with no information being send back and due to this the lack of information about the usage, created an own industry by itself. Now all this has changed, I have an "Internet TV" that recieves a digital EPG, can be updated over the air by the vendor, sees if I am in the room and I can even tweet from my television!


I am sure, really really sure, that within one year we will see a scandal about this. Because the marketing guys at BigTVVendor Inc. thought it was handy to send back what channels were watched, by how many people, what Youtube movie was looked at, for how long and what commercial breaks were skipped by flipping channels. I have sniffed the packets yet (will fire up wireshark real soon :-) but trust me, i this data isnt already being send back to the mothership, it will be. Because marketing people will always be in the front rows of the class and have no sense about privacy.

Hint: I can not remember that I ever agreed to a Terms and Conditions on my TV and never saw hence accepted a new Terms and Conditions when I upgraded to a later version...

Druplicon rules Rotterdam (and the Rest of the World :-)

As an update to a recent post on this site about a huge Druplicon animation and in regard to this issue:

It has happened! A nearly 100 meters high Druplicon watched over Rotterdam to celebrate the launch of D7. The video is out on youtube

See the D7RA.org site! If you have pictures or footage of the Druplicon on the KPN building, be sure to tag them with "D7RA" (Drupal 7 Release Animation).

Thanks SqyD, thanks KPN and thanks VDMi for making the video.

Now lets party!

Whats next? EyeTV, Plex and twitter integration?

EyeTV and Plex integration!!">

As you might know, I am a big fan of using EyeTV as well as Plex on my mac mini hooked to my telly. Plex is the best mediacentre for the mac, EyeTV a way to view live TV on your Mac with EPG and much more.

Sometime ago I posted about integrating them, watching live or timeshifted TV on your mac within Plex on this post. Though the code is very rough and far from finished and seems to be orphaned already, I would like to suggest a cool feature.

Wath EyeTV in Plex and have Plex look in to the EGP and searches for tweets about the program you are watching, live or timeshifted. I do not watch much TV let alone live TV, but part of the joy of watching TV is seeing what others have to say about this via twitter. And watching this on a TV with live tweets updates about the program you are watching sure sounds something that TV's will have in half a decade.

BTW: follow me on twitter on @bertboerland.

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