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This week on Crave, NASA awards a $125,000 grant to 3D-print a pizza; UCLA Health live-tweets and Vines a man as he has brain surgery; and we wish the Ethernet a happy 40th birthday.

Crave stories:

- NASA funds attempt at 3D food printer for pizza

- Microsoft unveils the Xbox One

- Xbox360 games won’t work with the Xbox One

- BASE jumper’s terrifying 1,000-foot fall caught on GoPro

- Watch a brain surgery over Twitter, Instagram, and Vine

- Teen’s science project could charge phones in 20 seconds

- Boom! NASA captures massive moon explosion on video

- Ethernet celebrates 40 years

- Crave giveaway: Boombotix Boombot Rex portable speaker

Social networking:

- Stephen on Twitter

- Stephen on Google+

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A younger Kaiba Gionfriddo, with mom April. The child suffers from tracheobronchomalacia, a rare respiratory condition.

(Credit:
Video screenshot by Leslie Katz/CNET)

A 3D printer saved the life of a baby boy with a rare disease that kept him from breathing properly, doctors are reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The boy, Kaiba Gionfriddo of Ohio, had been diagnosed with severe tracheobronchomalacia, a rare respiratory condition that caused his airways to collapse, blocking the flow of air to his lungs daily.

About 1 in 2,200 babies are born with the condition, but only 10 percent of them have cases as severe as Kaiba’s, according to his doctors. The boy’s parents, April and Brian, learned something was wrong when he was 6 weeks old and the infant turned blue while the family was out to eat.

By the age of 2 months, Kaiba had to be intubated to breathe. Despite the breathing tube and a ventilator he also required, his breathing could not be maintained sufficiently. He needed to be resuscitated on a daily basis.

“Quite a few doctors said he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive,” April Gionfriddo, mother of the now 20-month old Kaiba, said in a written statement. “At that point, we were desperate. Anything that would work, we would take it and run with it.”

A model of Kaiba trachea and bronchi. The splint was designed to slip over the top of the bronchus.

(Credit:
Video screenshot by Leslie Katz/CNET)

Kaiba’s doctors reached out to Dr. Glenn Green, an associate professor of pediatric otolaryngology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Green and his colleague Dr. Scott Hollister, a professor of biomedical and mechanical engineering at the university, had been developing a “bioresorbable device” that might help the infant.

The device was made using a CT scan of Kaiba’s airways, which was then used to custom-fabricate an airway splint with the help of a 3D printer and a polymer called polycaprolactone. The design is similar to the hose of a vacuum cleaner in that it’s strong enough not to collapse while at the same time being flexible enough to expand with growth, the doctors wrote in the May 23 letter to the editor published in the journal.

With little time to spare, the researchers turned to the institutional review board of the University of Michigan, which sought an emergency exception from the Food and Drug Administration to implant the airway.

The surgery took place in February 2012 at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich. The splint was sewn around the boy’s airway to expand it and aid its natural growth. Doctors saw a change immediately.

“It was amazing,” Green said. “As soon as the splint was put in, the lungs started going up and down for the first time and we knew he was going to be OK.”

Seven days after the surgery, doctors began to wean Kaiba off the ventilator and two weeks later, he was released from the hospital. He hasn’t turned blue since, his mom said.

“We are so thankful that something could be done for him. It means the world to us,” April said in the statement.

The splint is supposed to reabsorb into the boy’s body over three years as his windpipe remodels and grows in a healthy manner, Hollister explained.

“Kaiba’s case is definitely the highlight of my career so far,” said Hollister, who is also an associate professor of surgery at U of M. “To actually build something that a surgeon can use to save a person’s life? It’s a tremendous feeling.”

The two researchers have been testing other 3D-printed bone structures, including ears and noses.

“It’s the wave of the future,” Dr. Robert Weatherly, a pediatric specialist at the University of Missouri in Kansas City who was not involved in the boy’s care, told the Associated Press. “I’m impressed by what they were able to accomplish.”

3D printers have been used increasingly in medical care in recent years. Cases of 3D printers making implants of jawbones, portions of skulls, ears, and bones for dental work have been reported.

This story originally appeared on CBSNews.com.

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The Last Of Us Preview

Platform: PS3
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

The Last Of Us is about scarcity. It’s about making do. That’s not just key to the way combat’s designed, it’s true of the entire development process. Seemingly The Last Of Us is about discovering what else you can provide in a game besides shooting another human. Figuring that out makes the moments where killing is inevitable stick out that much more prominently.

It’s probably not a coincidence that this echoes the setting. It’s a Cormac McCarthy-esque post apocalypse where only remnants of the current world still stand, ravaged by time. The majority of the population have been wiped out by a plant-borne infection that turns them rabid, but they’re only a portion of the threat to those that are left. Bandits roam the world trying to survive in less than admirable ways. There’s little to find in the world but danger.

Our preview build showed two brief slices early into the game’s narrative. The first contains an extended walk without seeing a single human that isn’t your character Joel or companion Ellie. They intend to meet with a friend holed up further into an abandoned town, in an attempt to barter for a car. The player is totally denied any sense of threat along the way, making it incredibly disturbing as the tension ratchets up in anticipation of what will inevitably come.

Along this walk there are a few puzzles. You have to get over a fence but it’s covered in barbed wire. You’ll notice a long plank of wood leaning against a wall which sure enough you can pick up. By climbing atop other nearby structures you can use the plank to create a bridge. Easy.

However, dropping the plank just slightly out of range of the correct position means that Joel will lay it down on the ground next to him. It’s a peculiar break in the sense of immersion; one minute the world feels real and malleable, the next you realise you’ve encountered something akin to a quicktime event. For a game that presents itself as so cinematic to suddenly remind you of the medium’s flaws makes them all the more notable. Hopefully in the full game these moments will be the exception rather than the rule.

While on your travels you can scavenge for supplies along the way. Everything you find is a consumable and mostly they’ll be converted into more useful materials. There’s a crafting system that you can access at any time, but terrifyingly it doesn’t pause the game. As such you’ll want to make preparations when you think you’re safe, especially as the equipment you’re crafting is important during combat.

On top of the risks of creating in real time, you’ll also have to choose carefully what you craft. Many items can serve multiple perhaps and be combined in a number of different ways, such that you could create a health pack or a molotov cocktail, say. For example, you can duct tape a pair of scissors to your melee weapon for two instant kills with it before they snap off, or you could fashion a shiv that can either be used for a single silent kill or break open the lock on a door. Even the weapon you’ve selected needs to be considered before a fight breaks out. You’ve a variety in your pack, but you’ll need to lay it down and root around for the one you’ll grab when necessary. That’s your choice and you don’t have the luxury of knowing what you’ll need for the situation, nor the time to decide once you’re up against it.

We do take umbrage with some of these decisions as it’s just as “unrealistic” that you wouldn’t think to fashion useful holsters for key weapons, or keep items in pockets, rather than have them all tucked away in a bag. Likewise it’s nonsense that a shiv should be single-use. Again, it’ll be interesting to see how these slight irritations feel in the full game.

When, in this preview, you’re finally attacked you’re vastly outnumbered and your only option is to run, briefly thinning out attackers who get too close to you or Ellie. Here she runs the risk of being too dependant, in stark contrast with the way that Bioshock Infinite handled the secondary protagonist of Elizabeth. Whenever she’s attacked she’ll require your help. This does of course make sense as Ellie is a young girl without the ability to rip holes in spacetime, but still. At best this’ll force you to be more bold in your combat to save her and make for better gameplay, but if it follows most other games the entire game runs the risk of feeling like an escort quest. It’d be a shame, because through dialogue Ellie is made about as great a character as only Naughty Dog appears to be able to provide. She’ll win you over the first time she calls someone a Motherf*cker, trust me.

The second glimpse of combat, a little later in the story, focused specifically on an attack by a manageable but still massive number of bandits. The combat is brutal and meaningful. It’s not something that you’re going to want to get involved in and you’re going to have to think carefully about how to handle yourself. Breaking line of sight and catching an attacker unawares is the only upper hand you have. You’ll run out of bullets if they aren’t used sparingly and you’ll be beaten bloody in any melee encounter if there’s more than one person around. You don’t want to get in fights, but you will. You’ll have to deal with the consequences when it happens.

Overall we’re so far impressed with what The Last Of Us has to offer and if the full game lives up to the preview build it’ll be well worth picking up. As one of the last major new titles for the PS3, before the PS4 arrives, it could make for a superb swansong for the console.

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Unity Basic, the free 3D game engine and software development kit, can now deploy to iOS and Android platforms free of charge – if you’re an indie, at least.

Game engine giant Unity Technologies has announced that its suite of mobile game development tools will be made available completely free of charge to indie devs.

Announced late yesterday by chief executive David Helgason, the move sees the Unity software development kit (SDK) for Android and iOS platforms released completely free of charge. Previously, mobile support was a chargeable extra to the free Unity Basic software release. Those who have already downloaded Unity need do nothing aside from run the update tool to unlock the new features.

‘There are no strings attached, no royalties and no license fees,‘ claimed Helgason. ‘This is just an extension of Unity Free which we launched in 2009.‘ Using the tools, developers are able to write games using the Unity Engine and publish them to iOS and Android platforms as well as the usual desktop and laptop targets – and not have to worry about licensing, even if they come up with the next Angry Birds. ‘You can make as much money from your games as you like – this limitation is about large companies not using our free products, not about sharing your future revenues,‘ Helgason added.

The iOS and Android extensions to Unity Basic will be followed in the coming months by similar deployment tools for BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone 8, which will again be made freely available under the same terms. As a result, independent game developers will soon be able to publish for all four popular mobile platforms without having to pay a penny in licensing costs for the Unity engine or its toolkit.

Despite Helgason’s reassurances, however, there is a definite catch to the offer – but it’s one that should come as no surprise: designed for smaller indie devs, the offer does not extend to a company or other incorporated entity with a turnover over $100,000 in its last financial year. Anybody meeting those criteria will need to pay for a Unity Pro licence, at a cost of $1,500 for the basic software and an additional $1,500 each for the iOS and Android deployment tools.

Those who had already splashed out on the Unity Basic iOS and Android extensions in the last 30 days will be offered discounts on future purchases by way of compensation, Helgason announced, as well as the usual discount offer for upgrading to Unity Pro.

Unity Technology’s move is a clear response to growing interest in rival Epic’s Unreal Engine for cross-platform development: the Unreal Engine has long since been ported to mobile devices, while work is well under way on a browser-based version for client-agnostic gaming. With smartphone and tablet gaming spend beginning to exceed that of dedicated hand-held gaming devices like the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS, mobile is clearly to be the next battleground for engine and middleware providers.

If you fancy giving Unity a go yourself, you can download the software free of charge from the official website.

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Call of Duty Ghosts is expected to be one of the Xbox One’s first bit hits.

While the XBox One hardware and its new TV connection look reasonably impressive, a console is nothing without great games and thankfully plenty of next-gen titles have already been confirmed for the platform. Here’s the full rundown.

Call of Duty Ghosts

Release Date: 5th November 2013
Quite simply the biggest game franchise of the last several years, a new Call of Duty title is sure to be high on many a gamer’s list of anticipated titles. And, it looks like Infinity Ward won’t be letting us down, at least on the graphics front.

Shown for the first time at the Xbox One launch, the new title runs a completely new game engine that supports much higher textures, more sophisticated models, fluid-dynamic modelled water and much more. With academy award winning writer Stephen Gaghan penning the script, there’s good reason to be hopeful for the story too.

Destiny

Release Date: Unknown
Destiny is sure to be one of the most highly anticipated games coming out for the Xbox One. Developer, Bungie, drew fame from developing the Xbox exclusive, Halo, though this time around Destiny will be cross-platform.

The game is an FPS but always-online and with role-playing elements thrown in too. It’s set in a “mythic science fiction” universe that will change and develop as the game goes on, and not in ways the developer necessarily plans. It sounds like fascinating stuff and we can’t wait to see more.

Quantum Break

Release Date: Unknown
One of the more intriguing titles set to debut on the Xbox One is Quantum Break, a brand new title from Max Payne creator Remedy.

The exact nature of the game is still something of a mystery at the moment but the teaser trailer shows a girl performing some sort of telekinesis type of trickery, causing a massive boat to crash into a bridge – sounds joyous! The visuals are pretty spectacular though and we’re certainly intrigued to find out more.

Watch Dogs

Release Date: 22nd November
Watch Dogs is an open-world adventure in which you play Aiden Pearce, a skilled hacker who is able to control the city around him via his smartphone.

The game looks stunning and has some innovate and fun looking gameplay elements to it – we’re pinning our badges on this one to be a big hit when it launches.

Forza Motorsport 5

Release Date: Xbox One launch
Unveiled at the Xbox One announcement, the latest instalment in the Forza series looks… well much like any other really but the teaser trailer did highlight some advancements in the graphics engine such as impressive metallic paintwork and highly detailed tyre treads.

The gameplay will be classic Forza with semi-realistic driving simulation and a generally fun driving experience.

Fifa 14, Madden NFL 25, UFC and NBA Live 14

Release dates: Xbox One launch
EA representatives took to the stage at the Xbox One announcement to showcase a raft of upcoming new EA Sports titles, which will all be launching around the time of console hits shops.

The titles promise more dynamic movements thanks to better biomechanics simulation and EA also claims ten times the animation ‘depth’ of previous titles, with elements like the crowds rendered in detailed 3D.

Battlefield 4

Release Date: 29th October
Like Call of Duty, Battlefield is a stalwart of the FPS genre and the next instalment in the series looks set to be worthy of its forbears.

Running on the Frostbite 3 engine, it isn’t breaking new ground like with Call of Duty but if it holds up to the visual fidelity of Mass Effect 4, which is also set to use that engine, we’ve high hopes.

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag

Release Date: 29th October – 1st November
The latest instalment in the Assassin’s Creed series sees the action take to the waters as the protagonist, Edward Kenway, battles his way around the high sees plundering by means of both brute force as well as trademark sneaky assassin moves.

Not expected to break new ground for graphics, the title will be coming to multiple platforms, but equally it’s looking like it could be a fun few hours… me hearties.

Which Xbox One game are you most looking forward to?

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(Credit:
Amanda Ghassaei)

Step aside, home photo printer! The age of the 3D printer is just beginning. But then what are you supposed to do with all those digital photos sitting on your hard drive?

Well, thanks to Amanda Ghassaei of Instructables — who showed us how to make a 3D-printed record — you can try printing them in 3D. Using an Objet500 Connex 3D printer that prints at 600dpi, along with ModelBuilder library and the Processing open-source programming language, Ghassaei converted her photographs into a printable topography.

How do they work? When printed, the semitransparent material used in the Objet500 Connex is printed thicker in the darker areas of the photograph, such as black areas and shade. When held up to diffuse light, it penetrates the thinner parts of the picture more easily, keeping the thicker areas dark, and letting the image emerge in monochrome.

Ghassaei achieved this by rendering the image in gray scale, then assigning a thickness to each pixel based on its shade. This is then converted into a printable file, all done algorithmically using code written by Ghassaei.

It looks fabulous, and we’re dying to try it. We’d especially love to see a large image broken down into panels, then assembled to create a large light-screen.

Grab the instructions for how to do it yourself on Instructables.

(Source: Crave Australia)

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This schematic shows how the 3D food printer would function.

(Credit:
Systems and Materials Research)

“Star Trek” food replicators will always be the holy grail of space-snack technology, but we could be edging a step closer to the dream thanks to the work of mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor with Systems and Materials Research in Austin, Texas.

Systems and Materials Research recently received a $125,000 grant from NASA to make a pizza. OK, it’s a little more complicated than that. Contractor already created a proof-of-concept printer that can print chocolate onto a cookie. His next goal is to print out dough and cook it while printing out sauce and toppings.

Contractor isn’t just planning to use cartridges full of red sauce, but rather the building blocks of food products. Cartridges full of powders and oils could be combined to make different foods. These cartridges would have extremely long shelf lives, making them appropriate for feeding astronauts during long-distance space travel.

“The way we are working on it is, all the carbs, proteins and macro and micro nutrients are in powder form. We take moisture out, and in that form it will last maybe 30 years,” Contractor told news site Quartz in an article posted Tuesday.

This doesn’t sound like a sublime foodie experience, but it could be a practical way to keep people fed all the way to Mars. It could also offer a lot more variety than the usual freeze-dried fare. Five months into your trip to Mars, I bet a hot 3D-printed pizza with a mystery protein layer would taste pretty dang good.

Contractor is starting work on building the prototype pizza printer. In case you’re hungry right now, you can check out his chocolate printer below.

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It’s incredible to think what has happened since the Xbox 360 was launched. In the same year it debuted a little site called YouTube was launched, Facebook was but 18 months old and had a mere 5 million or so users and Twitter was but a glint in the eye of Jack Dorsey. But, more importantly in the time since then Nintendo has released the Wii, the Wii U, the DS Lite, the DSi and the 3DS meanwhile Sony has released the PS3, countless versions of the PSP and the PS Vita.

All of which means the new Xbox makes for quite a significant moment in the history of console gaming, to put it mildly. Moreover, if Microsoft is to achieve anything like the same longevity for this console it’s going to need to get a great many things right.

So, with the launch mere hours away, we’re going to take one last look at just what to expect from Microsoft’s big announcement tonight.

Hardware Specs
Where we have most certainty about the upcoming next generation Xbox is in what hardware it will sport. It is strongly expected the console will, like the Sony PS4, use an AMD APU with an 8-core 1.6GHz CPU and 800MHz GPU, backed by 8GB of DDR3 RAM. This would roughly would put it on a par with the PS4, though that console uses GDDR5 memory that has a very high bandwidth of 176 GB/s – some 16x faster than on the PS3 – that could give it the advantage.

Elsewhere there will be a Blu-ray drive and a high-capacity hard drive as well some form Live TV connection. Whether the latter is simply a pass-through in the form of an HDMI input or a more active connection is not yet known.

There has also been talk of a scalable, modular hardware system that would allow for multiple versions of the console, depending on price. Whether this goes beyond simply having different size hard drives seems unlikely as developers will be reliant on the core hardware being consistent. Perhaps this could also account for whether Kinect is included.

Backwards compatibility is unlikely as the next Xbox is switching to an x86 architecture, but it’s still possible Microsoft has come up with some workaround.

As for whether we will actually see the console tonight, it’s a tough one to call. It could one-up Microsoft against Sony if it reveals the look of its console, but equally this would give it less to talk about further down the line. There is talk of some hands-on like experiences at the launch but we suspect these will be with the consoles locked firmly away.

Controllers
While we know a fair amount about the core hardware of the new Xbox, next to nothing has been revealed about the new controllers. There is talk of a touch panel of some description, and presumably there will be some form of motion tracking – beyond the visual tracking of Kinect – but beyond that there have been few clues.

In terms of ergonomics, it seems likely that the new controller will be largely the same design as existing Xbox controllers. Who knows, though, maybe there will be a Share button! Unlike the main console, we expect to find out all about the new controller at today’s event.

As for Kinect, a new version is expected to accompany the new console and it is to sport increased resolution both in terms of depth and motion tracking and in terms of its cameras, plus it will track up to six players at once. Contrary to what we said early about different hardware specs of the new Xbox, it is expected that the new Kinect will be supplied, and required, with every new console. However, it may be the case that it’s only required for certain features to work.

Software
Just as Sony hasn’t yet revealed much of the software side of its new console, so we expect Microsoft to steer clear of the interface and extra features of its new console and instead focus on the core gameplaying abilities. As such, we expect to see a number of game demos focussing on the graphical abilities of the hardware. We’ll maybe see the new core interface but we’re not expecting to see how the new Live TV feature works, for instance.

In terms of games, we’re expecting to see the bulk of the new titles revealed at E3, but we suspect at least a few shots of a new Halo to be shown tonight. Further suggesting there will be little time for software features, today’s presentation is supposed to be only an hour long, leaving little time for those extras.

The Name
Surprisingly the jury is still out on exactly what the new console will be called. For a long time the rumour mills were using Xbox 720 but this now appears to be out of favour. Instead simply ‘Xbox’ or ‘Xbox Infinity’ are looking the most likely candidates. Ultimately, it’s about the least important thing about the console, just so long as Microsoft doesn’t stick with the device’s codename, Durango.

Release Date and Price
It’s a pretty good bet we won’t be seeing any mention of exactly when the new Xbox will be arriving nor how much it will cost at tonight’s presentation. In the world of drip feed marketing we live in today it’s extremely likely Microsoft will save such details for later announcements, either at E3 or even later.

That said, it’s a dead cert that the release date will be in time for Thanksgiving and well in time for Christmas, at least in the US. The rest of the world may well have more of a wait on their hands.

The only counter to these ascertains is that Microsoft will be looking to one-up Sony, with the Japanese company already having got a several month headstart on revealing some details of its new console. As such Microsoft may choose to reveal just that bit more at this early stage.

As for price, we’re left to speculate and, in fact, rumours are still wildly varied. Frankly, there are too many variables to really pin this down any further – the device could be subsidised, it could loss lead or Microsoft could go all out and ask for a premium for early adopters. The most likely scenario that we’ve heard about is that the console will be released at two price points – $499 (£330) and $299 (£200) – with the cheaper option including a fixed two-year Xbox Live Gold subscription.

So there we have it, our final thoughts on Microsoft’s new console before it is finally revealed. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Just think, after tonight we can be rid of next generation console rumours for at least, what, a year?

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Leap Motion’s eponymous controller has been demonstrated interacting with Microsoft’s Windows 8 Modern UI without the need for a touch-screen display.

Leap Motion, the company behind the eponymous gesture-sensing human-machine interaction (HMI) system, has released a video demonstrating how the technology works in conjunction with Microsoft’s undeniably touch-centric Windows 8 operating system.

The latest in Microsoft’s long-running Windows software series, Windows 8 came in for a great deal of flak at launch when it introduced the Modern UI. Previously known as Metro, Modern UI is a tile-based user interface developed from that originally created for Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. While tweaked for larger screens, Modern UI retains its focus on touch-screen interaction – a focus shared by Microsoft, which is currently working hard to bring touch-screen technology from tablets into mainstream computing.

The problem, Modern UI’s detractors claim, is that most laptops and almost all desktops do not currently have a touch-screen. An interface that works great on a tablet does not, therefore, translate to the desktop terribly well – a fact Microsoft has tacitly acknowledged with a promise to revisit the keyboard-and-mouse experience when it launches the Windows 8.1 update later this year.

With most users not willing to trade in their monitors for touch-screen versions, Leap Motion had a bright idea: the development of a gesture-based control system that can sit unobtrusively in front of the screen and pick up the user’s fingertips with a claimed accuracy of 0.01mm at a claimed 290 frames per second. The device works with any monitor – technically, it works fine without a monitor, too, but you won’t be able to see what you’re doing – and, because it’s contact-free, doesn’t need you to stop and clean mucky fingerprints off the screen every half-hour.

The company’s concept proved popular: it raised nearly $43 million in funding and has the support of hardware and software partners from Asus to ZeptoLabs – the latter being the company behind popular swipe-based tablet and smartphone game Cut the Rope.

Gaming isn’t the only feature of Leap Motion, however. As well as promised plug-ins for Autodesk software that claim to make 3D modelling significantly more straightforward, the company has worked hard on interfacing the system with the underlying operating system – a task made easier by Modern UI’s focus on gesture- and touch-based interaction.

A video released by the company reveals how far the technology has come from the early prototypes it has previously displayed. ‘From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you’ll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air,‘ a company spokesperson crowed at the release of the video. ‘With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that’s possible with multi-touch inputs — without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements.‘

The company has promised to release a second video demonstrating the controller’s interaction with Apple’s OS X platform, but these teasers are likely to leave fans concerned about repeated delays. Originally scheduled to launch last year but delayed for last-minute tweaks, Leap Motion claimed in February that it had a May release in mind. Now, however, the company is claiming that pre-orders – some of which it had received nearly a year ago – will not be shipping until the 22nd of July.

The company’s demonstration video is reproduced below, while more information is available on the official website.

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The Technical Illusions CastAR system combines projectors, a camera, shutter glasses and more to create an immersive augmented reality system.

A pair of former Valve employees have announced the formation of a new company dedicated to one thing: bringing to market the augmented reality technology they were hoping to develop for Valve’s hardware arm.

Hackers Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson, formerly employed by Valve prior to the layoffs in February that saw 25 employees leave the company, have launched the company Technical Illusions with a view to releasing a system of augmented reality gaming devices called CastAR.

Unveiled at the Maker Faire in San Mateo this weekend, and written up by Make, the project uses LCD-shutter glasses with two tiny projectors mounted on them to produce a virtual reality environment that is projected wherever the wearer is looking.

The system works by having the viewer peer through the glasses at a specially-constructed retro-reflective panel edged with infra-red LEDs. The projectors, one mounted over each lens, send out the augmented reality images while the shutter glasses work to ensure that each eye only receives images from its own projector – creating the illusion of depth. Finally, the webcam – mounted on the nose-bridge of the glasses – tracks the LEDs to allow the system to adjust the projected images according to the motion of the user’s head, in a similar manner to the famous 3D demos created by Johnny Chung Lee using Nintendo Wiimotes.

The result: the reflective surface becomes a window into a virtual 3D world, with users able to move around a virtual objects, peering round its corners to view areas that would otherwise be invisible. The head-tracking system can also be used to directly control a game, with visitors to the Technical Illusions tent at the event being treated to a flying game. Accessories are also in development, with an LED mounted on the end of a chopstick creating a ‘magic wand’ that allows the user to play a Jenga-like title and RFID-enabled playing cards already in the prototype stage. The system even allows for multiplayer gaming on a single surface, ensuring that users only see their own perspective.

‘These demos are the start and the glasses are early prototypes,‘ the pair have announced. ‘Each system not only lets you play, but also includes a complete development kit. You can get up and running quickly using our simple scripting language, or go as deep as you want by connecting our API to your game. And don’t worry, this is an open platform. If you make something, you can give it away or sell it anywhere you want.‘

As with most such projects, CastAR combines a series of existing products into a single, innovative creation: a pair of liquid-crystal shutter glasses, familiar to anyone with an active 3D monitor or TV, is combined with two pico-projectors, a reflective surface, a small webcam and a shedload of infra-red LEDs to create a highly complex new creation.

It is this complexity that is likely to be the major barrier to the technology taking off. In particular, the requirement for a retro-reflective surface (one that aims the reflection straight back at you) makes this technology unusable in a normal living room, for instance. However, it could be used in a “holo-deck” type environment where the walls and ceiling are covered in reflective material and the user – indeed multiple users – are able to navigate a virtual world.

Thus fair, Technical Illusions has not provided a release date or pricing for the hardware.

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