From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Jul 05 2002 - 02:53:58 MDT
On Thu, Jul 04, 2002 at 05:07:57PM -0700, Max More wrote:
>
> Health clubs are constantly looking for new ways to hook those wanting
> aerobic exercise. Instead of jazzercize -- aerobics that involves dance,
> yoga, and tai chi and martial kinds of movements combined using an
> interface a bit like that in Minority Report, but intended for far more
> expression -- sort of a Kai's Powertools/Jackson Pollack
> action-art/Kata/Dance activity. Could be relatively simple, or highly
> advanced requiring a combination of somatic, physiological, and creative
> abilities.
Sounds very fun. I recall anecdotal evidence that orchestra conductors
tend to live long and never have any heart trouble, most likely through
their gesticulating.
If one uses a computer vision system to find out where the head, arms
and maybe feet are (fairly doable in an indoors environment, especially
if these are the only parts not covered - one can tune the system
depending on gym dress) that could drive plug-in modules for the
graphics. Different training programs/background music etc could run
different plug-ins, which would be adapted to stimulate certain kinds of
movements. Hmm, a layer of feature detectors and a simple API - it
shouldn't be that hard to write. The real trick is to make the plug-ins
good enough. That is more of an artistic/training design problem.
Overall, it seems this wouldn't require any truly weird hardware: a
camera (or more), a computer, a wall projector and a white wall. I want
one! :-)
> Hmmm. This seems like the kind of serious fun that Primo Posthuman would
> engage in. <http://www.natasha.cc/primo.htm> I could also see it working
> well if they made a movie out of Walter Jon Williams Aristoi -- still one
> of my favorite SF novels.
Yes, Aristoi is such a visual novel that it would be amazing as a movie.
Unfortunately it mustn't be dumbed down, and that makes it much harder
to do. I think the daimones would be tricky to show - this is where we
need a good director to get the idea across.
One use for wearables is to be able to do computer work while walking. I
seriously think that would be beneficial to many of us, since walking
seems to stimulate certain forms of thinking (motor system crosstalk?)
beside the healthy exercise. Kinesthetic computing - sounds like it has
potential.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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