Deeper Video Game Radio

While playing through the campaign of the videogame, Saints Row IV I was impressed by the music selection found on the various radio stations accessible from vehicles in the game.  The songs that were chosen by the developers are quite enjoyable and diverse, unfortunately the game is limited to a single albums worth of music per station.  One way for gaming company's to increase the available music to the game, without increasing their licensing costs, would be to integrate real world and internet radio stations into the game environment, so long as the game is connected to the internet.  For games that are attempting to have quite thematic stations, the game would integrate with digital music services like Pandora and Spotify to create radio stations that are based on the games offline playlist.  Alternatively during the install process of the game could ask users where they are in the world and would attempt to access any radio broadcasts that are shared online, and provide the option of integrating said media into the game in real time.  A third option, find or create an open radio station software package that allows for gamers to share their music selection from anywhere in the world, by making the standard open, any game could share its music experience, for larger games, ex. EVE online, various factions could produce music and media that could more readily integrate with the game directly, minimizing the potential for programs causing each other to crash.

Make Spy Movies Less Nerve Wracking

Contrary to the title of this post I think suspenseful spy movies are amazing and more should be made, this post is inspired by movies where the main character is caught with an electronic bug on their person as a result of the radio emissions produced by the system.
Traditional bugs are designed to transmit audio information, either continuously or only when sufficient sound is made for the system to determine that there is something worth sending.  As technology gets more sophisticated newer solutions should be considered.  What this article suggests is a system designed to transmit digital data as opposed to analog audio signals.  Using electronics optimized in converting speech to text the "wire" would create a continuous audio recording as well as a text based transcript of the conversation had between the informant and the suspect.  When the informant determines that they are about to be scanned they can use a predetermined phrase to cease all transmissions, later if the informant feels they need to communicate with their support crew they could use a different phrase to activate a text message asking for assistance.  Other code words could allow for the transmission of intermittent data bursts including transcripts of what has just been said.  Ideally the system would emphasize software flexibility to promote a robust platform that could be improved as the user base developed new capabilities. The critical challenge of this system is to make it small enough that it would not readily be detected by pat down and other standard forms of search.  This means that  the computer, power supply, microphone, and transmitters would need to be extremely small.  (I won't make any estimations as to how small that would need to be)

Seeing the Seas

Paddleboarding is a fun way to explore the shores of your favorite vacation spot or your home waters, unfortunately traditional stand up paddleboards block their riders ability to see underneath.  A smarter paddleboard design would integrate a viewing window into as much of the body of the board as possible as well as integrated illumination systems designed to allow for night time viewing.  The render below (to be added later) shows a conceptual design that is intended to ensure that the viewing segments minimize the possibility of scratches and scrapes that might interfere with the viewing experience.

It turns out that while writing this article I found a few existing proposals/patents for a paddleboard intended to have a transparent viewing bottom, but as far as my research has gone there is no consumer product currently available.

Links

Illuminated Paddleboard

http://www.floridasportsman.com/2013/12/19/night-ops-recon-underwater-lighting/

Patent for a Paddleboard with a viewing windo

http://www.google.com/patents/US4925417

Kickboard(s) with a viewing system
http://www.gizmag.com/snorkelboard-snorkeling-flutter-board/30885/
http://www.gizmag.com/zayak-sea-sled-underwater/29740/

Short one, more of a question on Lithography style 3-D printing

Would it be possible to make a photo-curable resin, that would behave differently depending on what frequency of light it was exposed to during the curing process?  Even more ideally could you tune more than just the color, maybe even the mechanical/chemical properties.

Stereo Lythography onto Existing Items

So I finally remembered an old idea and I'm kind of excited so I'm going to go reasonably technical.

  Current 3-D printers are designed to start from nothing and by extruding material, sintering metal, curing a photo reactive resin with light, etc....  On their own these various technologies for rapid prototyping can create a range of wonderful items, a big trade off for these existing rapid prototyping technologies is how long it takes to make an item and the cost of the materials used.*  Make Magazine recently posted about a software package that reworks item designs so that the majority of the item can be made from, relatively, cheap lego bricks, with only the most complex components actually made out of printed parts.  This is a fantastic step in decreasing the prototyping time of an item, but I feel more sophisticated and flexible solutions can be developed.

Imagine you are a tourist destination store or amusement park, your profits greatly benefit from being able to provide unique items for people to commemorate their visit.  While a standard 3-D printer would be excellent at providing the unique aspect, the necessary turn around time could drastically reduce sales, especially if the customization is rather minimal.  You need a 3-D printer that is smart enough to add material to an existing item, you also would need it to be easily handled so that any of your employees would be able to fabricate the memento without supervision.  What I would like to suggest is a printer that integrates the requisite technologies to do just that.

Figure 1
Step 1:The base item being inserted
 into the printer to be scanned

This proposed 3-D printer would need a 3-D scanner capable of accurately mapping and positioning whatever item was placed inside the printer, it would also need a grip system capable of holding whatever items were placed inside the printer and keep the object stationary enough that the object would not move during the print process.  Of the existing 3-D printing technologies I believe that stereo-lithography is most likely to be able to integrate this concept in the near term**.  Once an item is secured inside this new lithographic printer it would be scanned and mapped by the inbuilt 3-D scanner, this scanning would ensure that the computer has a very clear idea of where it would need to add material.  As each layer of material was cured the object that was being added to would be lowered further into the bath of resin, layer by thin layer the starting object would be transformed.  A formless basic action figure becomes a custom hero, showing all of the traits chosen by a family to commemorate their visit to Action Universe.

Figure 2:
Step 2-10,000: Layers of resin are cured onto the
selected item

I believe that an extrusion style 3-D printer could integrate this approach, but the system would require far more mechanical precision than a stereo lithographic printer.  For technologies like laser sintering I am more dubious that you could directly print onto an existing item and have it make sense, in theory a manufacturer could first print on a small containment wall, then deposit a layer of the material that they actually want to add, fuse the target material, add another layer to the containment wall, and repeat the process, but it feels like it would be less likely to actually save time in manufacturing.

Originally I had planned on using this post to improve my chances for applying to work at FormLabs, they have a 3-D printing system that uses stereo lithography, but I realized in writing this article that the approach I am suggesting for adding printed material to an existing object, would be more difficult to impliment considering the FormLabs printer uses a shallow resin reservoir design, Figures 4 and 5 show scenarios where it wouldn't be feasible to print directly onto an object using Form Labs style of printer and where it would be, respectively  In Figure 4, someone wants to print onto an existing object, but the desired start point for the print cannot be covered by the photo curable resin, consequently they will not be able to print directly onto the item.

Figure 4

Figure 5

In Figure 5 the user has selected an object with a flat surface that can lie flush with the resin reservoir, this would allow for printing onto the existing item.

In the majority of cases where users are simply trying to create something akin to a hood-ornament the could use 3-D scanners to create a mount that would then allow for the addition of other printed objects.  This concept makes the most sense for fully covering an existing item, like a Lego model.


*a kilogram of plastic for an extruding printer= $35/kg
Photo-curable resin = $150/L
Sintered Metal=$8/cm^3 (I couldn't find the price of pure feed stock, so I am providing the price per printed cubic cm (hey better than nothing))

**I haven't had a chance to work with stereo-lithography and so I am  making some light assumptions on the flexibility of the technology, if it turns out I am wrong please let me know.
*** the idea of priting custom toys for amusement park guests is not my own, I recall reading about it in both the book Makers, by Corey Doctorow and this article on Disney Parks unique princess toys.

Fixing Traffic Circles

According to traffic safety records replacing traditional intersections with a traffic circles will have a measurable reduction in property damage and accidents, what these statistics ignore is how frustrating it is to help people navigate a traffic circle.  In the personal experience of the author, knowing which road to exit onto at your first encounter of a neighborhood's traffic circle, effectively describing where to go may cause confusion.  For this article we will look into two potential standardized ways for labeling traffic circles to aid in communication.  The first version of this concept takes inspiration for the how runways are designated, every 10 degree point along the circle of the roundabout has a new value of 1/10th the angle, for example if one of the turn offs from the round-about exits in an easterly direction, it will be 90 degrees off of the true north orientation and be labeled exit 9.  For an exit that turns off towards the southwest, you would technically have the angle be 215 degrees, but for ease of communication it is preferable to use whole numbers, it would be up to the discretion of the city planner whether the number is rounded either down to become exit 21, or rounded up to 22 as shown in the example image below.

Runway Style Labeling of Roundabout Exits

Alternatively the traffic circle could be labeled more simply where each exit is named alphabetically, with A being designated as the first exit clockwise from geographic north.  The advantage of this labeling approach over the runway style labeling is that drivers are more immediately warned that their chosen exit is coming up.  Drivers getting off at exit C know that at exit B they need to make sure they are getting in position to turn off.  The challenge that might face this approach would stem for the need to relabel exits if a new exit is added to the roundabout, but from a practicality standpoint this is a relatively negligible concern.  

Example of the Alphabetic Labeling Approach

Both of these concepts are simply the author's suggestion for how we might improve roundabouts to aid in communications.  Suggestions for improving these concepts or alternative approaches are always welcome. 

Robotic Logistics in 30 Minutes

Jeff Bozos' announcement on "60 Minutes" that Amazon intends to implement 30 minute deliveries in select markets by 2015 created quite the buzz over the Thanksgiving Holiday.  The idea of rapid item delivery has tremendous appeal to busy consumers, did you forget to buy a bottle of wine for the party you were invited to, order a rapid drone to bring a bottle of your choice right to your door right on time.  The, currently, science fiction sounding concept does have some rational concerns that need to be overcome, the concerns include: what is the additional cost incurred on a delivery that must have such a rapid response time, ensuring accurate item delivery, noise, legal, etc..... (insert more later, sorry a bit brain bonked right now)

In the Amazon video a special orange box is used to contain the item(s) that would be delivered from the distribution center to the consumer.  Critics have asked how Amazon will retrieve these special boxes after deliveries.  Options might include, having the boxes simply be made of a low cost recyclable material, cardboard for example, and have the price of the delivery box be part of the overall cost of rapid deliveries, another option could include a Netflix style return service, where customers are asked to send the boxes back to Amazon through the US Postal Service, this approach would allow for more sophisticated packaging.

Another concern is the transit distance between Amazon's primary distribution centers and clients.  (This part of the concept has varying degrees of roughness)  Instead of relying on a single primary distribution hub there is the potential to implement multi-roll distribution nodes.  Advanced vending machines might be one potential approach, several classes of vending machine would fill different rolls, the more traditional vending machines would still operate as a normal vending machine, selling snacks, supplies, or drinks, but with the addition of a docking node that would allow for a drone to dock with the vending machine, loading up on whatever item customers have asked for while recharging their batteries.  The second class of vending machines would serve as a corner holding center, capable of taking deliveries and holding them until clients either picked up items in person or had them delivered at a later time, via either drone or ground services.  The third class of distribution machines would be intended to work with physical retailers, they would serve as mini smart warehouses, providing access to the items in their inventory that could be carried by the robotic delivery services.  The physical store system would need to account for the cost concerns of store owners who would want to avoid having the items they sold online having to compete with Amazon's price and in the store sales price suffer as a result, to this end, Amazon could list prices so that customers were first shown the price for the rapid delivery items in their area and then given a chance to order from Amazon's logistic services (this assumes Amazon makes money on the rapid delivery service).

The network of in community delivery services would allow for rapid delivery services to integrate themselves into regional economies to the benefit of the majority of players, so long as the legal framework is there.  Ideally the underlying technology for the localized distributions nodes would be open sourced, this would help to minimize the barrier of entry forMom and Pop shops.  Additionally this could allow for users to automatically make  their wares available for consumption both locally and internationally.