consumption addict

if i tried to explain what you’re about to watch myself, i’d surely muck it up. i’ll let the inventor preach the propaganda:

Using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), you can accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen. This effectively transforms your display into a portal to a virtual environment. The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space. By Johnny Chung Lee, Carnegie Mellon University. For more information and software visit http://johnnylee.net

three dimensional video game play? WHAT?

granted, you have to do a little bit of modification to your system… but if your set-up creates results like the ones displayed on this video, isn’t it worth it?

skip to 2:30 to watch the effect.

props to johnny chung lee for even figuring this out (and big ups to marv for posting it on tehbored).

i’ve never been a big fan of first person shooter video games. however, if nintendo can figure out a way to incorporate mr. lee’s innovations into upcoming wii games, i’m definitely going to give them another chance. how could i miss an opportunity to give those sort of games another shot if they’re going to be rendered realistically?

when i was a kid i used to imagine what the future would look like. a lot of the things i dreamed of are not even close to reality in 2008. flying cars? laser guns? robot vampires? x-ray perv glasses? racial harmony?

yeah, not so much.

but this advance – in tandem with the wii console – is a first step in making futuristic video games a reality. a message to super mario: stop punching gorillas and eating mushrooms for a second and think about hiring this guy to work at nintendo. video game nerds everywhere will love you.