Category Archives: Software

Software & Web 2.x

DxR Clinician

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The Mousetrap session with Dr. Myers from DxR Development Group was especially beneficial to me because of the similarity between my research and his business direction. According to him, DxR has been doing “tracking of learner progress” for years… but I have learned that most of their product are of the CDRom/DVD/online tutorials sorts. I am hopeful that he will like Information Trails and what it can do with MUVE. We’ll see.

After checking them out online, I discovered that their online DxR is a shockwave file (from Authorware, or Director?) and the following is the Student Activity Record (or, SAR). Many of the things on the screen is good, but I also believe they need a technology upgrade, soon… (but it may be not what they want to hear)

DxR Clinician: Student Activity Record

Year of 3D-Entertainment

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New Alienware 3D-ready monitor

The 2010 CES has just ended, and already, it appeared that this is the year for 3D TV. All manner of 3D glasses and technology were being showcased.

  1. New 3D TVs line up from Sony, Panasonic,….
  2. New Blu-Ray 3D software players from Cyberlink and ArcSoft.
  3. More 3D games line-up: Avatar: The Game, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Dark Void, Just Cause 2, Need for Speed: Shift, Resident Evil 5, Dirt 2…
  4. A new Blu-Ray 3D spec for your new PS3! Finally, with 3D movie playback capability (see report and photo here). You don’t even have to buy a new PS3 as Sony is committed to a forward-compatible firmware update for existing PS3 (link).
  5. Alienware announced a new 23″, 120Hz monitor (1920×1080) that works with nVidia’s 3D vision glasses. The new OptX AW2310 is priced at $599 (online price) and will probably go for $550 (street price) when it become available. (link)
  6. Not forgetting that iZ3D is already selling 120Hz monitors that will allow you to view 3D games/movies with any video cards with dual-output. Comes with cool shades, too!
  7. ATI supporting 3D! Mobo maker MSI has already posted a beta version of Catalyst 10.1 on their web site (as reported by Guru3D). You can download XP, Vista and Windows 7 (32/64bit) drivers from the previous link). The new Catalyst driver will allow 3rd-party manufacturers (such as IZ3D) to use their 3D solution with 120 Hz screens. The new driver will officially support Bit Cauldron glasses (see #8).
  8. Instead of using the nVidia style (IR controlled) 3D active-shutter glasses, the Bit Cauldron’s glasses are wirelessly controlled passive-shutter glasses. The wireless signal is supposed to be more stable than IR and can support more glasses with a single emitter. You also don’t have to worry if having a Nintendo Wii in the same room will interfere with the IR signals. (see YouTube CES coverage here).
  9. NVidia supporting surround game! Interestingly, Nvidia announced that they too are going to support surround gaming, with their 3D Vision Surround technology. (see the first report here). Will ATI and Nvidia now compete for the same 3D, (multi-monitor) surround gaming market, or converge?
  10. How about YouTube 3D? Soon to come to a desktop near you, playable with a new 3D-capable Flash Player, and viewable with NVIDIA 3D Vision glasses…

You Tube 3D: Join the secret testing!

But for me, the best news of all is the remaking of Star Wars (George Lucas) and the Lord of the Ring (Peter Jackson) in glorious 3D!!!

Digital 3D Movie

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Fan Made Poster of AVATAR

Fan Made Poster of AVATAR

I was hoping to watch Avatar in IMAX glory, but since the nearest IMAX is 5 hours away, I must settle for Digital 3D.

Like many people who reviewed it, the story is similar to Dances with Wolves, and The Last Mohican. Also, as my wife commented, there are glimpses of Pocahontas, and Star Wars in it. (Is it just me? Or did you see World of Warcraft in there as well? Especially the florescence night world on Pandora?)

[Side thoughts: If you watched carefully, you will noticed that many of the 3D scenes (with in-your-face objects) are filmed in such a way as to maximize the 3D effects. So watching the same scene as 2D will be kind of meaningless. And just in case you are sucked in by the "it took James Cameron 10 years to film this because the technology has just caught up..." Don't be fooled.

Depending on who you talked to, it's not so much the 3D technology that has improved (as some would say the 3D technology has not changed much within the last 6-10 years...) but the CGI technology to be able create a (3D) CGI world that looks both real and believable. (A technology that George Lucas "pioneered" in his Star Wars III, refined by Peter Jackson in LoTR trilogy, and now 3D-ize by Cameron.) It is mostly the software-side that's been improved due to faster processors.

Anyhow, it is not the movie I want to comment here, but the Digital 3D technology. First of all, if you visit the offical website, you will notice RealD's logo. Now RealD is a 3D technology company not unlike NVidia. It looks like RealD is to movie world what NVidia is to the PC world.

Now, will Avatar be enough to create a demand for the 3D glasses technology? (I wonder.)

Even their CrystalEye 5 glasses looked like NVidia's 3D stereoscopic glasses. No, not the older, Anaglyph (Red-Cyan) glasses from the days of Jaws-3D (right image, below), but the newer, polarized glasses with liquid crystal display (left and middle image, below).

3D glasses

(left to right): RealD's CrystalEye5, NVidia's 3D-stereo & 3D vision (anaglyph) glasses

Curious: Will I be able to use the RealD glasses with my NVidia-based 3D generator?

Let’s try. (Will report later.)

“Avatar” in Games

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In the latest blockbuster, the term AVATAR was used to refer to the 10-foot tall, blue skinned alien-human clone that was mind-linked to the marine corporal, Jake Sully. So when Jake Sully performed a mind-link, his “Avatar” is able to roam the world of Pandora, and interact with the native, the Na’vi.

Jake Sully trying out his new Avatar (a hybrid body of a human/Na'vi: a Dreamwalker to the Na'vi)

Even though the origin of the word is Avatara in ancient Sanskrit (see entry in Wikipedia), the term: Avatar, has been used in the video game world for a very long time. The earliest I can remember, when avatar was taken to mean a person’s “virtual” representation within a ‘game world’ was Lord British’s Ultima. The story-line involved the player character (a kid) who was sucked into the computer… and became the ‘hero’ in the Ultima series. The hero character in the ‘game’ was simply known as the Avatar.

The original Avatar from the game, Ultima.

Nowadays, there are some confusions involved with this term. For example, most teenagers (and those below 12) will probably associate the term Avatar with “The Last Avatar”, an animated series which is to be release on the big screen soon (directed by Night Shyamalan, to be released in 2010). (see link)

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Win7, NWN2 Gold & Virtual Box

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Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold

I have migrated to Win 7 about a month before the official launch because my institution has it. (Not widely supported, but hey, I have heard and read enough about the new found stability to use it, without too much concern). And really, I was 97% happy with Win 7 since Day 1. (I can only hope that Microsoft will not fix something that ain’t broke from this point on.) Thus far I have had only two annoyances:

Annoyance #1 has to do with NWN2 Gold. Some how, the toolset (from NWN2 Gold installation) will crash on my office machine (a new Mac Pro running Win7-64) — this is pretty strange as I don’t have the same problem at home (another Win7-64). (Well, I did not have Gold installed at home because I have the OC and all three expansions).

After some search through the forum about the cryptic CLR20c3 error that pops up, it is pretty clear that the “error” was Atari’s and it was introduced into the Gold Disc. Arrgh! NWN Diamond error flashback!!! :-x

Looks like it is either a NET 2.0 (64) problem, or a corrupted Direct X 9c driver. Since it is easier to reinstall Direct X, I went with that first; using the Direct X SDK (Aug 2009) on my machine.

Sure enough, after I re-install Direct X , the NWN2 Toolset worked again. (Yay!)

Now, annoyance #2 has to do with EM’s Epoc Control Panel. Since it is the only thing I need (for research) which will not run on Win7-64, I definitely must have a way to make it work! (Interestingly, all other Epoch tools ran without any glitch. Hence the need for two OS’es mentioned in my last post.)

After installing and removing several versions of Windows (XP, Xp64, Vista32, Vista64, Win7-32, including MS’s very own virtualization manager), I finally “gave in” to Dual Boot, which worked! (Fortunately, I have kept Vista64 on my home machine in parallel to Win7).

Considering that the CP will work with Vista64 but not Win7-64, it is mighty strange! Of course, I am suspecting again for some kind of version control problem. But knowing that EM had a lot to chew during this pre-launch period, I understand that they can not spare anyone to look into this issue. (After all, only a small percentage of their customers are currently using Win7.) So, I will wait.

Fortunately, the EM Forum is quite active on this case, and all Win7 using pre-launch adopters (like me) have been busy trying to find a way for CP to work with Win7. And reporting what does not yet work.

Finally, someone on the forum posted about running CP successfully in Win7 using Sun’s Virtual Box. Okay, something new to learn. Guess what? It worked! But you need to be running Vista64 in a Virtual Box within Win7-64, with lag time involved. Aai-ya-yah! 8-O

Thank goodness this workaround was short lived. After EM launch their product and updated the licensing scheme for Researcher (just before Christmas), I found a new CP ready for download on their website.

It worked without any problem on Win7! After comparing the installed files on both version of CP, it looks they have replaced vcredist.exe (old installation) with util_vc90.dll. Was the pre-release CP compiled using a Visual Studio that is not compatible with Win7?

Anyway, the issue is moot and what’s important is that EM got the new program out for all the pre-launch adopters… and in time for a Christmas present, too. Thank you EM!

Bye-bye, Virtual Box!