Demo Spring 2011: And the Oscar Goes To...

Demo Spring 2011 kicked off at 5:30 pm Pacific Time on Sunday, 27 February, the same time as the Academy Awards telecast. So it’s not surprising that I had the Oscars on my mind as I watched the presentations at Demo Spring, a showcase for new technology that ran through Tuesday in Palm Desert, Calif. Or that I was inspired to name a few award winners of my own.

And the DemOscar goes to:

Special Effects: Swivel from FaceCake

Are shoppers more likely to buy clothes online—or in a store—if they can try them on virtually? Two companies introducing technologies at Demo Spring say they are—FaceCake Marketing Technologies and Zugara. Both let shoppers use gestures (captured by webcam or Kinect) to grab virtual clothes off of a rack and try them on; Swivel’s version, in my testing, was a lot more responsive and realistic than Zugara’s. Do they make sense? Neither gives you a clue as to how the item might fit, and fit is usually my biggest problem in virtual shopping; they do let you play with accessories, and perhaps there is something to be said for seeing a style pasted on your image, even if the pasting can be a little clumsy—the “Oh my, that’s definitely not for me” reaction comes a lot faster than it does when paging through images of models. I test the Swivel system in the video above.

Achievement in Sci-Fi: Cyclic Variations in Altitude Conditioning (CVAC) Systems
The CVAC system, a futuristic personal pod, takes a single user up to a simulated 20,000 feet or so in altitude and back down to the ground in a matter of minutes.

Demo Spring 2011: Brain Control

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I’ve tried a number of EEG brain wave devices over the years; most designed to control video games, or as simple tests of relaxation. Most didn’t exactly impress me with their potential usefulness.

I’ve even tried a version of the brain wave monitor Neurosky brought to Demo Spring 2011 this week in Palm Desert, Calif. That was the Mattel MindFlex, based on Neurosky technology, requiring me to navigate a ping pong ball through an obstacle course by varying my concentration levels; I found it more frustrating than fun.

So I didn’t have particularly high expectations when I strapped on the latest Neurosky gizmo, the $100 MindWave headset.

First on the screen—a series of math addition and subtraction problems. My job—solve them as quickly as possible. I struggled a little, confused by the positions of the number keys on the computer (“where is the 3???”) and adjusting my glasses to focus alternately between the keypad and the large screen above me; I missed a problem, then added when I should have subtracted.

After the short—less than a minute, I would guess—test, I looked at Neurosky’s report of my experience. The graph showed my concentration levels rising and falling, a dip just before the missed problem, then a big jump as I clearly amped up my efforts to make up for the mistake. Towards the end, my concentration held steady and I had completed the problems rhythmically—I was in the zone.

Wow. I could immediately see how useful this kind of information would be to a teacher—or a parent wondering why what seemed like simple homework was taking so long. This EEG monitoring peripheral no longer looks like just a novelty product.
I switched over to a shooting game (a benign shooting game—it used a bubble gun, when you hit an animal it floated up in a bubble). Concentrate to target a creature on the screen, and then, when the crosshairs stabilize, blink to fire; no hands. Very cool.

Video above: Spectrum Editor Tekla Perry tests the Neurosky MindWave.