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RESound: Interactive Sound Rendering for Dynamic Virtual Environments

RESound: Interactive Sound Rendering for Dynamic Virtual Environments

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About 15 years ago, people noticed that rendering virtual scenes with ray tracing was a lot like how sound propagates through an environment. Light rays travel through open spaces, hit objects and then reflect, refract, and bend. Sound waves follow many of the same principles.

What if you use the same ray casting methods to simulate sound traveling through an environment? Instead of standard hacks on sound to make something sound like it’s in a tiled bathroom or a big orchestra hall, you could accurately simulate it – reducing artist time. Simply play the sound and let the algorithm figure out how it should sound.

Not sure what other research has happened since. It was too computationally expensive for real time back then, but it was a cool idea and maybe we have the compute for it with today’s GPU’s.

Paper: https://gamma.cs.unc.edu/Sound/RESound

Neat visualization

Neat visualization

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This could make a fun little demo – flying through a cityscape with buildings that are constantly generated by AI – getting funkier and funkier as you go along

The future of truck pulls is electric?

The future of truck pulls is electric?

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Instead of ear-splitting roar of an engine, this Tesla cybertruck quietly pulls as far as 2500-3500 diesel engines.

Honestly, it’s probably inevitable. I mean, trains use diesel-electric combo where the diesel engine powers the electric motors that do the actual pulling. If someone hooked a few train motors into a frame, slapped a auto/truck body on it and took it to a pull, it would likely out-pull anything out there…

The Driver’s Way helps drivers in Sierra Leone

The Driver’s Way helps drivers in Sierra Leone

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In Sierra Leone, there is a step in learning to drive – playing a board game. The game is called The Driver’s Way and is a “Roll and Move” type game where players to roll traffic-light-themed dice and move model cars around a board.  The game aims to teach learners the rules of the road in a more entertaining way than standard textbooks.

Makes me wonder if there’s an opportunity for a board or teen-oriented video game like this for learners – even children to learn how to drive, walk, and bike in shared traffic spaces. Maybe it could be structured like the Oregon Trail or something quite fun.

Transparent LCD’s

Transparent LCD’s

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LG OLED Signature T announced at CES it is going to be the first commercially available transparent TV. It definitely could add a lot to minimalist living spaces. Samsung, not to be outdone, introduced its micro-LED display technology which seems to deliver an even brighter, better image.

Transparent OLED and LCD screens have around for a while – in fact, you’re probably using one. People were making cool transparent panels by taking a standard backlit LCD, remove the LCD antiglare coating, do a little wiring, then put a lot of light behind it.

LG also has large transparent OLEG signage as well.

Personally, I don’t think just making a standard TV out of a transparent display is understanding what new things are possible with this technology. The Verge review even points out that the tv came with a movable backing screen that slid behind it to help it act more like a traditional TV – so why go transparent? I personally think this opens up a lot of new ideas for innovative new products and experiences instead of just being a minimalist TV.

To that point, the LG Dukebox showed up at CES 2024 and is one of the first devices to make use of a transparent LCD as part of the product design. It’s essentially a re-imagined jukebox. You get to see the internals of the system while the user interface is displayed on the transparent display.

While a good start, I can think of a number of interesting new products that simply COULDN’T really be made in other ways than using a transparent display. Those are the kinds of product ideas that I think are ripe for this kind of technology.

Genius: AI generated comic books

Genius: AI generated comic books

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I gotta hand it to Nathan Truesdell. He has a whole line of AI based coloring books – that likely took him all of an afternoon to create. It’s highly likely it only took him an hour or two with some prompts to make the line art. He then probably worked with an online physical book publisher – who may even be printing them up on demand for him to avoid handling stock or shipping – and now sits back and watches the money roll in with pretty much zero effort.

He didn’t even bother to fix the 7 fingers and thumb.

Off-the-shelf electronic warfare

Off-the-shelf electronic warfare

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LoRa (Long Range) radio uses little power and can communicate at up to three miles in urban areas and five miles or more in the open. Many drone operators now use a repeater, carried on another drone, to extend the reach

First-person view (FPV) drones are quickly becoming a key weapon in the Ukraine conflict. There is rapidly developing drone warfare involving thousands of drones every month. Both Russia and Ukraine have fielded jammers and drone guns firing radio waves to knock out drone communications.

Most recently a Russian group claims to have developed a ‘magic radio’ for FPVs which is highly resistant to jamming. A physicist with the handle DanielR evaluated the device minutely in a detailed Twitter thread. While the technology is not astounding, what is interesting is that the device uses cheap, off-the-shelf components.

Would you pay $48,000 for in-game content?

Would you pay $48,000 for in-game content?

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It’s no secret that Star Citizen is a cash cow who’s development and loyal following has been nothing short of astounding. Driven by fans and that success, they’re now introduced an in-game content pack that’s even more mind boggling.

The Legatus Pack is the Cadillac of all Star Citizen ship packages; it includes every single ship in the game as well as all of their associated paint schemes. It also includes all of Star Citizen’s limited edition/special edition ships that are virtually impossible to buy otherwise. And it costs a whopping $48,000.

This seems like a brazen cash grab by the developers – but ironically the Legatus pack was inspired by the Star Citizen community itself. There was high demand for a package like this from several Star Citizen backers, many of whom utilize their ships across corporations (a guild) which include hundreds, if not thousands, of players. And these players spend money. LOTS of money.

The studio is a cash cow. It brought in $113 million in 2022 and $104 million in 2023. Most of this revenue comes from ship sales and from their ‘Intergalactic Aerospace’ event put on each year. The virtual convention held in game allows everyone to play the game for free and to fly most of the ships in the game for no additional cost. Star Citizen also features ship sales during the event, further incentivizing gamers to buy ships.

This brings up an amazing set of ideas. You now have conventions selling ships. In-game whales that have corporations/clans that might all pitch together to buy packages like this. It reminds me of the same real-world economics of vehicle fleets from rental cars to delivery services use. Could a person create a monthly subscription and ‘rent’ these ships out to their – or even other – guilds/guild members? It could be a fascinating way to make some side money running your own version of Hertz Rent-A-Ship for those that need some extra horsepower for particularly big cargo deal or big battle. Just don’t forget to buy the insurance – space ship windshields are expensive. 😀

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