Rift AR

Here is a fantastic project that adds stereo webcam's to the front of the Oculus Rift to enable AR applications! This is another thing I keep meaning to get around to building - and here he goes through and shows how he built it and with what webcams.

http://willsteptoe.com/post/66968953089/ar-rift-part-1

XCode UIAutomation - Why no recursive search?

OK, I love that Apple support a UI automated testing without having to add custom hooks into your app.

I also love the efforts by projects such as Appium to enable cross platform testing using any test framework you like (eg: Cucumber Ruby for me).

But why oh why must Apple require us to traverse complex hierarchy of elements (which may change) to find the element we want to test? Why no simple withPredicateRecursive(..) ?? That would make our lives much easier!

I spent a while expecting surely there is a way, but couldn't find it.

The simplest way was suggested in the book Test iOS Apps with UI Automation: Bug Hunting Made Easy which is to make a javascript function to recursively search the hierarchy.

Here is how (taken from the books publicly available sample code):

 function recursiveSearch(predicate, startElement) {
            target.pushTimeout(0);
            // ...

            var elements = startElement.elements();
            var found = elements.firstWithPredicate(predicate);
            target.popTimeout();

            if (found.isValid()) return found;

            for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) {
                var element = elements[i];
                found = recursiveSearch(predicate, element);
                if (found) return found;
            }

            return null;
        }

Use it like this:

var add_button = recursiveSearch("name matches 'Add'", 

UIATarget.localTarget().frontMostApp().mainWindow());

Capture 360-degree video with DLSRs and GoPros, viewable on an Oculus Rift

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/95342015/360o-for-gopro-dslr-video-and-compact-cameras-ocul

I've been wanting to do this project for a while. Particularly around streaming sporting events / concerts to people wearing the VR headsets.

Anyone want to do this?

InfinitEye HMD Brings 210 Degree FOV

Using the same idea as the Rift (counter-distortion of the display) this new prototype HMD brings a massive massive massive 210 degree field of view. Wow.

http://www.roadtovr.com/infiniteeye-worlds-first-ever-hands-210-fov-hmd-video/2/

And they created the perfect demo - the Death Star trench run...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7gjCUWfoTk

(There are hints that a similiar trench run demo would be out on the Oculus Rift - but it still hasn't materialized yet. C'mon).

Transmissive Carpet

Philips recently announced a new carpet that acts as a display.  Good story at geek.com.

This looks like it could be a very compelling way to augment the space of many spaces.

I'd love to see how much of the display can be controlled, it opens up opportunities for coupling this technology with tracking users. Maybe a personal follow-me sign that leads you to where you need to go? Or display the price of products?

Due for release sometime in 2014!

Anyone have a project for it?