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