I See TED People

At TED|India the genius that is Pranav Mistry revisits his sixth sense device, shares other human interface devices he’s worked on in the past and shows us a possible future of ubiquitous information and gesture based digital interaction.   He also reveals that the software behind sixth sense technology is to be released as open source.

If you’ve seen sixth sense before – there’s more here, as well as an unusual use for a regular sheet of paper.  If you can’t wait, the real fun starts at about 8:00 minutes in.

Where does this guy get his ideas?

Gravatar & Avatars

I discovered Gravatar over a year ago and have used it to represent me visually on blog comments and to give my online identity some consistency in other online spaces.  A few weeks ago I changed my Twitter avatar and, after recently leaving a blog comment with an avatar that didn’t match, I decided it was time for a Gravatar update.  If you’re not using  Gravatar why not give it a try?

Looking over the history of my evolving Gravatar avatars-

I remembered that between

and

@rakt had asked…

and the simple answer is… I don’t use an avatar creator.  I make them from photographs in a variety of ways.

I usually start with a full face colour portrait.  Then I’ll change the colour/contrast/fill settings using Picasa.  After that I open the photo in an older version of Paint Shop Pro, Paint.net or GIMPshop, copy half of my face and play with the effects until I create something I like.  Sometimes I’ll flip the tablet screen and use ArtRage to draw or trace over a photo.  When I’m semi-satisfied I copy and mirror my half face, tidy things up and finish off in Picasa or whatever suits me.  Mostly it’s just playing and experimenting until I’m happy with what I see.

Here’s a few samples to demonstrate a little of what I do.

Of course it doesn’t always work…

Games and Future Learning

In this video from Edutopia, James Paul Gee talks collaboration, problem solving, knowledge creation and much more. Eleven minutes well spent.

Thanks George.