Even the chimps!!!

Nice to see that even zoo animals have a working Vive before we do....

Still waiting on the MAC programmers' tools :(

New Tool in School

I've developed a new tool that presents the user with 9 letter tiles on screen. Any list of words (8 letters or less, preferably 7 or less) can be used.

On startup the program will choose 9 tiles offering the user as least 10-15 possible words hidden within. When the user finds a word the program will replace ONLY the used tiles and will replace them in such a way as to maintain around 10 possible words hidden within. 

The first version of the game is already on the site and contains a list of animals. There are around 245 animals in the list and the list is all the program requires. It can even work with as little as 35 words in the original list.

In the current version there are 4 360° backdrops featuring the four seasons and some ambient animal sounds. Even so, the game is around 10 megabytes.

With a simple change of the backdrop and word list we would have a completely new game.

I am working on improving the algorithm and extending it to 4*3 and 4*4 tiles to allow for longer words in the near future. However as this version was aimed at the younger kiddies I kept it as simple as possible. 

In school the results so far have been positive with the kids playing in small groups with little or no prodding or instruction.

Here you can see 'under the hood'. The possible answers are listed on the left.

Programming Playground

Apple App Teaches Kids to Code, And It's Free

futurism.com · June 15, 2016

In Brief

Apple has announced that the new iOS 10 will come with Swift Playgrounds, a platform that will teach kids the basics of coding "in a seriously fun way."

Apple announced that the new iOS 10 will come with Swift Playgrounds, which would teach kids to code “in a seriously fun way.”

Apple believes that coding is an essential skill, with their slogan “Everyone Can Code,” they think…well, that everyone can learn the basics of coding—and that everyone should.

Swift Playgrounds introduces kids to coding using a graphical and playful interface that challenges the user with puzzles and goals to keep it entertaining, much like a game. A special keyboard with shortcuts and features will aid in making it as easy as it is fun.

Learn more about how it works in the video below:

Pre-made templates are available to demonstrate advanced codes, and an additional feature allows sharing and editing projects through Mail, Messages, or Airdrop. You can also import and export between Mac toolkit and Playgrounds.

Swift Playground is now open source, with the developer preview already out and the final version that comes with the new iOS 10 free of charge.

References: TechCrunch

Written By

Cecille De Jesus June 15, 2016

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Written By

Cecille De Jesus June 15, 2016

Passion Projects and the Future of Education

IRISH PHRASALS

While working on the phrasal verbs with Suzanne, I realised that there must be an additional 500 or so we use in Ireland. Add the colloquialisms we use there and it's enough for us to hold a conversation that can't be understood by other nationalities.

There are some in this quick comedy sketch..

ASTEROIDS : THE PHRASAL VOID

The first Asteroid game is up : HERE

This is the Q&A version of the Asteroid app (the blue box version)
The FlashCard version which uses a simpler word pairing system where you simply type an answer will be up next week. With this second version just about anything that works on FlashCards can be added with speed. For example : Capitals of the World, Morse Code, Flags, Kanji, Foreign words etc...

Next weeks version called BACKWORDS will vastly improve words pattern recognition, spelling and typing speed. It is a remake of a game from 2001 which became one of the more addictive and highly played games I have made.


Phrasal verbs:

The questions are based on the curriculum and do not go beyond it.
The game contains around 1500+ questions over 7 weeks. Each week (or rank) has 5 phases:

• Choose the correct phrasal verb for the blank
• Select the correct meaning
• Select the correct tense to fill in the blank
• Separable or not?
• A selection of all the above with emphasis on any questions that were troublesome


Tactical Revision:

The game is designed to take the edge off revision but even though it is heavily disguised they still answer one question every 10-20 seconds.
If a student doesn't know the answer to a particular question (attached to an asteroid) they can use a number of tactical methods to destroy it. The answer will appear and the asteroid will come back a number of times later. Therefore, every question must be answered correctly before ranking up.
There is no judgement in the game. The students can even change the speed of the asteroids if they find the initial settings a little difficult.


Under the hood:

A number of new methods were used to create the questions and read human documents and can be reused for future subjects. Even with all the questions, graphics and sound the entire game is under 20 megabytes online. Almost half of this is standard plugin stuff so if you've played any game on the site before then the download is closer to 12 megabytes.

The questions were generated by the new system but were checked by real human people.
Only small changes were required but still a little time consuming.

Some screen shots:

Well, there goes the neighbourhood.....

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I just can't tell anymore :)

SCHOOL BUS TO MARS

Games: Good, Social Media : Bad

Online gaming can boost school scores

Online gaming can boost school scores

09 Aug 2016

(Original Link : HERE)

Teenagers who regularly play online video games tend to improve their school results, according to new research from RMIT.

Playing video games may sharpen skills learned at school.

But school students who visit Facebook or chat sites every day are more likely to fall behind in maths, reading and science.

Associate Professor Alberto Posso, from RMIT’s School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, investigated the results of testing by the globally recognised Program for International Student Assessment.

PISA tested more than 12,000 Australian 15-year-olds in maths, reading and science, as well as collecting data on the students’ online activities.

Posso said video games could help students to apply and sharpen skills learned at school.

“Students who play online games almost every day score 15 points above the average in maths and 17 points above the average in science.

“When you play online games you’re solving puzzles to move to the next level and that involves using some of the general knowledge and skills in maths, reading and science that you’ve been taught during the day,” he said.

“Teachers should consider incorporating popular video games into teaching – so long as they’re not violent ones.”

Posso said teenagers who used Facebook or chat every day scored 20 points worse in maths than students who never used social media.

“Students who are regularly on social media are, of course, losing time that could be spent on study – but it may also indicate that they are struggling with maths, reading and science and are going online to socialise instead.

“Teachers might want to look at blending the use of Facebook into their classes as a way of helping those students engage.”

Posso said it was important to recognise that other factors could have a major impact on teenagers’ progress.

Repeating an academic year or skipping classes could be as bad or worse for scores than high use of social media.

Indigenous students or those from minority ethnic or linguistic groups were also at greater risk of falling behind than those using Facebook or chat every day.

The research, “Internet usage and educational outcomes among 15-year-old Australian students” has been published in the International Journal of Communication.

Story: David Glanz

Associate Professor Alberto Posso.

VR ENVIRONMENTS

As the headsets gain traction the quality of 'off the shelf' environments for VR is improving exponentially.

For example this 'Ancient Rome' scene : once purchased (for about $90) you could be in it in less than 15 minutes of work.

I have the HTC VIVE on order and once I get the pure curriculum games out of the way I am looking forward to finding places to visit.

Touch Screens and Beyond!

While researching ways to make the iMacs into touch screens I found and updated an old technology that can go much much further than a simple touch.
The Leap motion system can detect hand gestures, positions, fingertips and so on in minute details.
Although discontinued, I was able to take an old version and update it with my own 3D hands.
It successfully detected 2 hands and 10 fingers (or thumbs), and at one point detected Suzie's third hand.

Here is an initial test of the device which incidentally will cost only 3,000 yen per computer!

So instead of touch screens we get this! And exceptionally cheap too.

It is even accurate enough to play a virtual piano!

Don't shoot the Messenger

Originally I was calling this system The Messager until I realised that there is NO SUCH WORD!

The Messenger system is something I built that will allow anyone with access the ability to change what is playing on the School or Schools' computers. Sound can be on or off and a custom message is displayed at the bottom. This can be as generic as 'Check out KAISKOOL.com' or something specific like 'Remember, Project X needs to be finished tomorrow!'.

There are a number of modules already built into the system and after I finish the Asteroid curriculum game I will be updating the MESSENGER system further with more modules, the ability to target individual machines and the ability to schedule a days worth of changes. Many of these modules are finished or nearly so. As I said though, the Asteroid game takes priority for the moment.

Changes are made with the HEADMASTER interface and, once sent, the new information, module change and preferences will appear on the screens within 60 seconds.

The controller is very simple and can be accessed online from anywhere

As it stands there are 5 modules installed:

1. BUBBLES - This is interactive and allows the kids to take pics that are kept and float around.
2. CUBES - This is non interactive but provided eye-candy and a hint of games, interactives and curios to come.
3. CLOCKS - Just a big old analogue clock. KA on one side KAIS on the other. Obviously the time is displayed and the background will change according to the time of day.
4. KIDS/LIVING LOGO - A living version of KAIS logo. A large tree and some free-range AI kids. The time of day effects the graphics.
5. KANGS - this is only something to look at but interesting enough. There is also a playable version of this available on the computers.

There are many more modules planned including :

• Robot Football (you just watch it). 
• Fact of the day (something to chew on at lunchtime) - With a nice backdrop.
• Face Facts - another version of the module above but can only be unlocked by a face looking directly at the camera. If no face is detected after 5 minutes then the doors will close onscreen awaiting another face detection. A different fact will appear.
• Karaoke Manga - Interactive, you strike a pose, make a power noise and the computer will transform the image into a manga picture with action word overlaid.
• Question Injection - A simple question is asked but it will be one that is difficult to google and really gets a hold of you. I will provide some samples soon.
• Latest News - Interesting and safe factoids from the days' news with photos.
• Rotator - interactive. Any object can appear in 3D with info. Movement in front of the camera will rotate the onscreen object. Could be a planet, a brain, a robot or just about anything. Facts will change with different orientations.
• Quotes - Famous quotes. As simple as it gets. These can change every hour.
• The Watcher - A large eye, Robot or human head will appear. It will look toward any movement. Like the plastic policeman this can quieten a noisy room. Great for the cafeteria.
• Equaliser - This can be a number of abstract, familiar or even animated character that will react to ambient noise. Great if you're having a party or playing music.
• Holograms/Artistic/Pixels/Hall of Mirrors - the camera display is filtered and displayed. Just for fun.
• Cool Videos of the week. Just as it says, relaxing, arty videos, science related or outer space.
• And much much more!

The modules and some previews of what is to come :

InfraRed Fun

A certain person had a certain birthday celebration recently.
Phil Nichol the comedian provided the entertainment.
I took a few photos with my weird cameras but this one of Phil more or less sums up the night.
Enjoy!

New Flashcards - Massive new game.

We're calling it Asteroids for now but that will probably change.

Phase 1 will be a game not unlike the TaskMaster rocket, at least the way you answer questions but with a lot more pzazz. It will also be able to take word-pairs, true & false question sets and, more importantly, can also get the students to spell or type answers to the questions.
Students who invest some time in the learning part of the game will also have the opportunity to play some simple mini-games. This will enhance logic, cognition, memory and motor skills as well as serving as a quick break so as not to be as monotonous as the Rocket game.
The game will track progress for both students and teachers and can take just about any type of input.

Phase 2 will have many more mini-games, collectibles and upgrades. I'm also writing a back story and creating a BASE.

Phase 3 is the most ambitious. The questions will write themselves!

I've made a silly intro to test the amount of rocks, space and graphics I can squeeze into a webpage and this entire demo is only 10mb (or less). After about 40 seconds part of the new interface will appear with the words coming soon.

Phase 1 of the Asteroid game will be complete within the week and I will be taking many of the interface and scoring elements from it and putting them back into the original TaskMaster rocket game.

Have a look in a web browser here (mac or pc) : ASTEROID TESTtp://www.kaiskool.com/ASTEROIDS/

There are over 1500 asteroids in the test

A shot from the actual game in progress

Building words from cards... VR

A nice idea but we will probably be able to make better versions ourselves. Why is he sitting at a desk? Why isn't he in the world as he is creating it? Look at the rest of the world around the designer ?!?! It takes a lot of effort to make VR seem a bit boring.

Fascinating Use of A.I. from Waseda

AI learns how to colorize photos, makes old Japan pictures look like they were taken today【Pics】

en.rocketnews24.com · by Scott Wilson · June 1, 2016

And the process it uses to color them isn’t what you might expect.

We’ve seen before how artificial intelligence is already on its way to beating humans at playing Go and giving dating advice, but now it seems like there’s another area that machines will soon take us over in: colorizing old photographs.

Waseda University recently showed off some old Japanese photos that have been fully-colorized by AI that learned the colorization process through analyzing large data sets full of categorized photos. That’s the really cool part: the AI is coloring photos based on previous photos that are similar to it. Black and white photo of a garden? Well then the AI colors it similarly to a color photo of another garden. Black and white photo of a birthday? The AI will color it similarly to other birthday photos.

How does it actually work? Well, maybe this chart will help clear some things up:

▼ Um… uh… so… yeah, it’s actually really complicated. Let’s just concentrate on that box in the lower right showing the preexisting photos that the AI is thinking about when it colors the new one.

For those who are interested in how the AI works, the full source code is available on GitHub, but for the rest of us, we’ll just enjoy these photos of old Japan that the AI masterfully brought to life using its colorization intelligence.

▼ A black and white original photograph from 1935…

▼ …and the result after it was colorized by the AI. This looks like it could’ve been taken today, if some eclectic wardrobe choices were made.

▼ So peaceful. This 1917 one almost looks like a painting.

▼ I’m not sure if that hat matches the rest of the outfit, but this guy doesn’t look like he cares what we think.

When tested on users, the Waseda research group found that the photographs were colorized with “90 percent naturalness,” which is pretty good considering I’m lucky to get 60 percent or so when I take a phone photo.

▼ Man, these end-of-Meiji-period plants look just like the plants we have today! Imagine that…

▼ A fine group of 1905-era people, posing with their plants.

▼ The plants seemed to have done a lot of nice growing five years later, in 1910.

The Waseda University research group hopes that the colorization AI will eventually get to the point where it can be released to the public and anyone can use it for their own photos. It would be great to be able to just use a colorization program to automatically bring old family photos back to life…although we have to wonder: is feeding the AI all this information about human families and friends really such a good idea? Won’t that just make it easier for it to blend in and eventually destroy us?

I’m just saying; if we’re ruled by AI colorization overlords a few years from now, we know who to blame.

Source: Waseda University via Japaaan Magazine
Images: Waseda University

Sweet

Japan in tears over elementary school teacher’s emotional homework assignment about love and loss

en.rocketnews24.com · by Casey Baseel · June 9, 2016

”Make your parents cry” may not have been the assignment, but it was definitely the result of this important lesson.

Japan, famously, puts a lot of educational pressure on its kids. Between their regular courses, cram school classes, and highly competitive entrance exams for private secondary schools and universities, some kids are studying almost constantly.

But while it’s important for young children to nurture their minds, all of that time spent in pursuit of academic improvement can sometimes leave kids with little time to spend interacting with their parents. That’s an imbalance that the teacher of Twitter user Marie’s elementary-school age daughter wanted to address, which led to a very unique homework assignment.

On Monday, the younger of Marie’s two daughters came home from school, and when asked what sort of homework she had, told her mother that she had no arithmetic drills or kanji-writing exercises to do that day. Instead, she and her classmates had been given these instructions by their teacher:

“Hug your parents for one full minute.”

次女の今日の宿題が、算数ドリルでも漢字練習でもなく「1分間抱っこ」というものだったんだけど 「先生がね、小学生のころにお母さんが死んじゃって、抱っこしてもらいたくても叶わなかったから、キミたちはいっぱい抱っこしてもらいなさいって言ってた」 て聞いて、鼻水まみれで姉妹を抱くババア。

— 
marie (@izakayamarichan) June 06, 2016

It turns out the teacher had a touching reason to encourage this sort of physical affection, explaining:

“My mom died when I was in elementary school, and even though I wanted her to hug me one more time, we didn’t get the chance, so all of you make sure to get lots of hugs.”

Online responses have included:

“I can’t wait or my kids to get home so I can hug them.”
“What a wonderful teacher.”
“I think this is the kind of educator we need.”
“I totally understand. I lost my mom when I was in the sixth grade.”

It’s an important reminder that for as much time as kids have to spend with their nose buried in a textbook, we shouldn’t forget that sometimes they also need to spend a minute wrapped in their parents’ arms.

Follow Casey on Twitter (but make sure you hug your loved ones first).

Source: Jin
Top image: Codograph/@aya

Interesting and powerful

Just found this website and it's truly fascinating.
I've been searching for ways to make creating questions for the games easier, where I get AI's and some algorithms to create and test sentences.

What I like about this site is that the breakdown happens as you type and it even has a politeness level.


https://foxtype.com/sentence-tree

Hopefully in Japan soon too

HTC Vive Is Investing $100 Million in Virtual Reality Startups

futurism.com · April 29, 2016

In Brief

HTC has announced Vive X, an accelerator program designed to help support startups looking to develop virtual reality content for the HTC Vive VR headset.

The Vive X Program

Startups looking to develop virtual reality (VR) technology using the HTC Vivecould be getting support from HTC itself. The company just announced a $100 million accelerator program called Vive X.

The program will launch in San Francisco and Beijing for a start, with HTC looking to expand the program to many more cities.

The Vive X program is designed to offer startups mentorship and help them secure investment opportunities while providing access to VR technology. HTC would even go so far as to give companies temporary office spaces and host demo days for investors. The pilot program is set to begin in Beijing in May of this year.

A woman tries out the HTC Vive, the next big thing in virtual reality technology. Credit: REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

While HTC has been clear that it is not the only company backing this program, the company is declining to list its other investors. HTC says that their goal is to “support a healthy and vibrant ecosystem for the Vive.”

Any companies that get into the Vive X program will receive anywhere between $50,000 and $200,000, while HTC gets what they are calling “a small amount” of equity.

Taking VR Seriously

The Vive X program is a clear sign that HTC is taking VR and its own future in it very seriously. While the Vive VR headset is still considered an early adopter’s project, it is the biggest thing that HTC has done in years.

The company has been turning most of its resources toward VR, and so far it’s doing great. The HTC Vive is currently the only VR headset available that comes with motion trackers, and its partnership with Steam helps establish the company as the big VR gaming platform of the future.

The Vive X program also sees HTC getting into the huge Chinese market, planting the seeds for what could be their biggest VR market.

Interested companies can apply now.

Source: VRFocus

Might be nice to have one or two.

Touchjet Turns Any Surface Into a Supersized Touchscreen

futurism.com · by Jolene Creighton · April 29, 2016

In Brief

Touchjet's Pond uses infrared technology to recognize movement and transform any surface in your home or office into an interactive touchscreen.

The age of the screen is fully upon us. Whether we are working on laptops, watching YouTube videos on our phones, or checking Facebook on our smart-TVs, a vast majority of the time, we aren’t looking at one another, but at our screens.

This, as it turns out, is kind of a problem.

Fortunately, there are a number of individuals who are working to change things. Case in point, Touchjet. They have made a device that lets you turn any flat surface into a touchscreen. And it’s changing the way that we interact with technology and with one another.

Meet Touchjet

Touchjet Pond Projector. Credit: Touchjet

When I met with Helen Thomas, the CEO of Touchjet, at the 2016 Edison Awards, she stated that one of the company’s major goals is to bring people together.

She notes how screens are increasingly overtaking our lives, stating, “more and more people, especially young children, are using touch technology because of smartphones, but as much as smart devices are connecting people around the world, people are isolated because everybody is sucked into a small screen.”

This is where the idea for the Touchjet Pond comes in.

In short, the Pond is like a tiny wireless projector. It’s an interactive Android PC that transforms the surfaces around you into 80” touchscreens, and it does so for a rather affordable $599, which is far less than many other technologies.

As Thomas notes, “large touchscreen technologies are very cost-prohibitive. An 82-inch touchscreen costs some $22,000.” To that end, part of the goal at Touchjet was to make something that the everyday consumer—the everyday family—could afford.

Thomas clarifies, “As a mother, I think parents and grandparents are increasingly frustrated by the fact that they cannot get their family together anymore because everybody is used to doing their own thing…. So that’s really the mission of the company, to create a shared experience. Now, when a family goes on vacation, they can watch a movie together wherever they are—if they are at a beach house, in the wild, or in a camp.”

Thomas also notes that, as opposed to one person sitting and Clashing on their phone alone, this technology also lets individuals play interactive games together: “You can play Fruit Ninja. You can play Angry Birds. You can play multiplayer games. It’s really shared entertainment built into a device that fits in your hand.”

Of course, you can do a lot more than watch moves or play games. You can do presentations, take notes as a team by writing on the projection with a stylus, and basically anything that you can do on a normal computer…except that it is easier to do with others.

Features

Thomas begins outlining the features by starting with the wireless nature of the device: “I can bring my presentation or material from the cloud without connecting to any laptop or tablet. I can share my presentation just using the projector. It’s truly a wireless experience. At the same time, we allow you to participate using your individual devices.”

And she details how it works, stating that infrared light is ultimately the key to the technology: “The stylus is really a digital pen that ejects infrared light. The light gets captured by the infrared camera on the projector. So we built an infrared camera right next to the projector lens so it sees where the stylus is, and that is simulated as a touch signal. So utilizing the pen allows us to basically have the touch screen anywhere.”

She concludes by noting Touchjet’s vision of the future, and what they hope their role will be in this new age: “We think the world is going to be digital. What we’re providing is an enhanced experience for people to do things together. That’s what we do, and we do it in a way that everybody can afford…and so everybody can enjoy the fun.”

You can get the Pond here.

Neither Futurism nor the author of this article received monetary compensation (or any other form of compensation) in exchange for writing this piece. This interview has been slightly edited for clarity and brevity.

futurism.com · by Jolene Creighton · April 29, 2016