So, as researchers, something that we often do is use immense resources to achieve certain capabilities, or achieve certain goals. And this is essential to the progress of science, or exploration of what is possible. But it creates this unfortunate situation where a tiny, tiny fraction of the world can actually participate in this exploration or can benefit from that technology. Something that motivates me, and gets me really excited about my research, is when I see simple opportunities to drastically change that distribution and make the technology accessible to a much wider percentage of the population.
做为一个研究人员,我们经常用极大的资源 来实现一些特定功能、或目标。 这对科学进步和可行性探索是必要的。 这对科学进步和可行性探索是必要的。 但是,这种方式造成了一个不幸的情形, 就是只有世界很小很小的一部分人, 可以参与这个探索, 或从科技中获益。 一个激发我, 让我对自己的研究充满了热情的原因, 是当我看到了很简单的机会 可以显著改善这种分布不均的局面, 让更多人接近科技。 让更多人接近科技。
我准备播放两段视频,
I'm going to show you two videos that have gotten a lot of attention that I think embody this philosophy. And they actually use the Nintendo Wii Remote. For those of you who aren't familiar with this device, it's a $40 video game controller. And it's mostly advertised for its motion-sensing capabilities: so you can swing a tennis racket, or hit a baseball bat. But what actually interests me a lot more is the fact that in the tip of each controller is a relatively high-performing infrared camera. And I'm going to show you two demos of why this is useful.
最近很多人关注它们, 而且它们也体现了我之前的观点。 它们其实用的是任天堂游戏机Wii的遥控器, 如果你不熟悉这个小玩意的话, 它是一个40美元的游戏机控制器。 它最出名的地方就是它的运动传感器。 你可以像这样挥一个网球拍,或者是棒球棍。 但其实更让我感兴趣的, 是这个遥控器顶部的 一个比较高性能的红外照相机。 我这就做两个演示来告诉你为什么它很有用。
So here, I have my computer set up with the projector, and I have a Wii Remote sitting on top of it. And, for example, if you're in a school that doesn't have a lot money, probably a lot of schools, or if you're in an office environment, and you want an interactive whiteboard, normally these cost about two to three thousand dollars. So I'm going to show you how to create one with a Wii Remote. Now, this requires another piece of hardware, which is this infrared pen. You can probably make this yourself for about five dollars with a quick trip to the Radio Shack. It's got a battery, a button and an infrared LED -- you guys can't see it -- but it turns on whenever I push the button. Now, what this means is that if I run this piece of software, the camera sees the infrared dot, and I can register the location of the camera pixels to the projector pixels. And now this is like an interactive whiteboard surface.
这是我的电脑,连着投影仪, 我把一个Wii遥控器放在上面。 比如说,一所学校, 没有很多钱,大概大部分的学校都是这样, 或者是办公室, 如果你想有一个交互式电子白板, 一般要花上2000到3000美元。 而现在我就要演示, 怎么用一个Wii的遥控器来做一个电子白板。 这还需要另外一个硬件, 一个发射红外线的笔。 你自己做一个只需要5块钱, 元件可以在Radio Shack(美国电器公司)买到。 它是由一节电池,一个开关和一个红外发光二极管组成的。 按开关可以让它发射红外线,当然肉眼是看不见的, 但是我一按开关它就会发射。 这就意味,如果我运行这个软件, 红外照相机就可以看见这个红外线的点, 软件把红外摄像机的像素位置对应到投影仪的像素位置。 现在它就变成了一个电子白板。 (掌声)
(Applause)
所以只用50美元的硬件,你就可以做自己的电子白板了。
So for about $50 of hardware, you can have your own whiteboard. This is Adobe Photoshop.
这是 Adobe Photoshop(著名图形软件)。 (掌声)
(Applause)
谢谢。
Thank you.
(笑声)
(Laughter)
我把这个软件放在了我的网站上,
The software for this I've actually put on my website and have let people download it for free. In the three months this project has been public, it's been downloaded over half a million times. So teachers and students all around the world are already using this.
大家都可以免费下载。 在这个设计面世3个月里, 已经有50万人下载了。 全世界的老师和学生们 都已经用到了它。 (掌声)
(Applause)
我想说明一下,虽然50美元的硬件能满足大部分要求,
Although it does do it for 50 dollars, there are some limitations of this approach. You get about 80 percent of the way there, for one percent of the cost. Another nice thing is that a camera can see multiple dots, so this is actually a multi-touch, interactive whiteboard system as well.
这个方案还是有它的局限和不足。 但是你实现80%的功能, 只用了1%的花销。 另外一个优点就是红外摄像机可以探测到多个点。 所以, 这其实是一个多点触控的电子白板。
(Applause)
(掌声)
For the second demo, I have this Wii Remote that's actually next to the TV. So it's pointing away from the display, rather than pointing at the display. And why this is interesting is that if you put on, say, a pair of safety glasses, that have two infrared dots in them, they are going to give the computer an approximation of your head location. And why this is interesting is I have this sort of application running on the computer monitor, which has a 3D room, with some targets floating in it. And you can see that it looks like a 3D room. kind of like a video game, it sort of looks 3D, but for the most part, the image looks pretty flat, and bound to the surface of the screen. But if we turn on head tracking -- the computer can change the image that's on the screen and make it respond to the head movements. So let's switch back to that.
第二个演示,我把这个Wii遥控器 放在电视旁边。 对着屏幕的反方向, 而不是面对着屏幕。 它有趣的地方是 如果你带上一副保险眼镜, 眼镜上有两个红外发光点, 这两个红外发光点 可以让电脑知道你头部的大概位置。 它有趣的地方 是在于这个电脑上运行的软件, 一个三维的空间,有一些靶子在里面。 你可以把它看成三维房间, 就像在游戏里的三维一样。 但是,这个画面看起来还是平面的, 它被屏幕的表面所局限。 但是如果我们打开头部跟踪, 电脑就可以改变屏幕上的画面 让它随着头部运动而改变。 换回原来的那个。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
(Applause)
(掌声)
So this has actually been a little bit startling to the game-development community.
这个发明小小震动了一些人, 尤其是游戏开发的圈子。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Because this is about 10 dollars of additional hardware if you already have a Nintendo Wii. So I'm looking forward to seeing some games, and actually Louis Castle, that's him down there, last week announced that Electronic Arts, one of the largest game publishers, is releasing a game in May that has a little Easter egg feature for supporting this type of head tracking. And that's from less than five months from a prototype in my lab to a major commercial product.
因为这只需要额外10美金左右的硬件, 如果你已经有了任天堂Wii游戏机的话。 我很期待一些游戏的推出, 其实Louis Castle,他就在下面, 上星期宣告了Electronic Arts,(美国著名游戏公司) 世界上最大的游戏发行商之一,在5月要推出一款游戏, 里面有一个小惊喜的彩蛋功能 支持了这种头部的追踪。 所以,不到5个月, 从我实验室里的样品,成为一个商业成品。
(Applause)
(掌声)
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
但是其实,对于我来说,更有趣的
But actually, to me, what's almost more interesting than either of these two projects is how people actually found out about them. YouTube has really changed the way, or changed the speed, in which a single individual can actually spread an idea around the world. I'm doing some research in my lab with a video camera, and within the first week, a million people had seen this work, and literally within days, engineers, teachers and students from around the world were already posting their own YouTube videos of them using my system or derivatives of this work. So I hope to see more of that in the future, and hope online video distribution to be embraced by the research community.
比这两个产品更有趣的, 是人们怎么发现了他们。 YouTube(美国视频网站) 改变了 一个个体 可以向这个世界传播想法的方式和速度。 你知道,我不过是用摄像头记录了自己实验室里的一些研究, 一个星期之内,有百万人看到了我的工作, 在几天之内,来自各个地方的工程师,老师,学生 都在YouTube上传了视频 演示他们使用我的系统,或者是这个系统的延伸。 我希望将来能看到更多这样的视频。 同时也希望网上视频的发散 可以被研究圈子采纳。 非常感谢。
So thank you very much.
(掌声)
(Applause)