No, I'm not talking about the fabled beast that eats unsuspecting sea travelers , but the amazing new way to view photos. Seadragon is a new software that challenges the traditional conventions of viewing photos on your screen.

Why should the amount of data held on your screen be constrictive? They only thing that should effect your viewing experience is the amount of pixels on your screen at any given moment! How is this possible? Zoom... We have had it for years... but now it is finally being used to its full potential.

How much space do you need to view a book on your screen? Well, to read it you need more than one; its too much information. But with Seadragon the entire collected works of Shakespeare could appear in one photo, and you could zoom in and out of each work, each act being a chapter, or read each work one word at a time if you wanted, but that you have free reign to zoom in and out upon it until the desired resolution is found. When you zoom out all the way, it is just one photo of maybe 30 or 40 on your screen, each of varying sizes in reality but blown up or shrunken to fit on your screen according to you wishes. It is very fluid and intuitive, and clearly the next step in photo viewing software. It has been bought by Microsoft, which means that we should see it in commercial products soon.

Demo of Seadragon

It appears the best gaming system in the world (pardon my bias) is been updated in ways that correlate directly to class subjects of old.

Among insanely cool features, like offering previously incompatible original XBox games, such as the first Halo, for download, they try to encourage more friending among XBox Live. A group in our class did a social networking project on XBox and had trouble justifying that the friend system was viable. Clearly, Microsoft agreed. Now, you can view your friends' friends as you can in similar social applications. They also made the dashboard even more intuitive than it was before, and more pervasive.

With the original Dashboard, you could unlock achievements in a game that gave you points. Your total points created a Gamerscore, which was essentially your bragging rights. Now, instead of having to leave your game to find out what it is you did, it tells you over your game in real time. Also, Praise Jesus, DivX an XVid are now supported!! For all the technologically impaired, this video format allows you to watch partially a long video as it loads the rest of it, or buffering.. Now the videos, trailers, full length movies, or Youtube (possibly) that you watch from your couch and your 360 don't take forever and a day to load! This is furthering Microsoft's goal for the 360 to be more useful in all of your needs, making it a gaming and an internet entertainment platform. it also earns them money, because all these things cost money, and they already have your credit card..

XBox Live has really changed the way I game. Its king of like Gaming 2.0. There are Maps or mission extensions that Game developers can just add as downloadable content - removing the need for the gamer to go out and buy another gaming disc. The downloadable content section also carries TV programs, movies, trailers, acting more like direct tv +. This really paves the way for the future possibility of a multitude of user generated game data, something the pc gaming world has been doing for generations.

All in all, things like this encourage me that playing games isn't considered "mindless" now. Someone finally noticed that the experience of playing a video game with others, either in a multi-player platform or a "one plays, others watch" scenario, is an extremely fun environment. Improving on THAT is just as important as improving the games themselves.

What will they think of next? I personally as a musician cannot reconcile this act. If you have ever seen IRobot, I take after Will Smiths opinion that machines aren't meant to perform works of art, but functions in which they naturally excel. I can't build a building by myself, but a machine can. I like that humans emote, and machines don't. I say this because if you have ever performed any piece of music, you know your goal is to feel it, to emote within it, and to portray the message of the song to your audience. It takes an empathy that is inherently human, not science.

Music is a Science. The Science of pitch, notes, chords, sound vibration, etc.. it's all highly scientific. But a piece of music is just notes and rythms until emotion and passion lay behind them. It acts as a foundation for the bridge between science and art. You cannot reduce the genius of Mozart to a series of violin strokes at the right times. The only way a machine could perform it is if a human being interpreted the passion for it!

As you can tell, I love Music. I guess Robots will do a lot of things in the future that I don't want them to do, but I still stand by the old adage:

"What is easy with the human mind is hard for a Machine. What is easy for a Machine is hard for the Human mind. Thus, let the Human mind do what suits the Human mind and the Machine what suits the Machine."

UPDATE: There was a video released. This is what i'm talking about when I say no Passion...

For all those who play guitar, you can now breathe a little easier.. Gibson has invented a guitar that can string and tune itself. This is an example of technology that facilitates the making of real music, not hinders.

Just letting to know to the powers that be that my exploration of Second Life post was crashing my website, so it has been removed. If you would like it, it can be found here. Also, my company analysis can be found here.

Join me in my latest addiction. I have been going crazy playing tetris all over again (when I thought I finally kicked the habit) because of a third party application version recently added to Facebook's growing compendium of ways to waste time online. It includes a social networking function that takes your best score into a database, so when you play the top ten on Facebook (all but one currently Asian- I'm not racist but come on) or the top scores of your friends!

I challenge you to beat me. You all already have Facebooks anyway...

Several government projects across the world have started to work with the disconcerting concept of reading minds. The technology, seemingly from the belly of Science Fiction itself, is a lot closer to reality than you may have realized...

Dr. Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, a University of Leicester researcher, has outright proclaimed that his team "can read human thoughts from neuronal activity." Quiroga and his colleagues were able to optimize a decoding algorithm and use it to "infer the stimulus from the neuronal firing," and during tests in which patients were presented with a vast database of images, the team was seemingly able to "predict what picture the subject was seeing far above chance." Basically, al that mumbo jumbo means that we are making giant leaps towards thought prediction. Currently the team is calling for an ethical debate on the use of such technologies in fields such as interrogation and law. But perhaps most interestingly, the possible application of it with bionic limbs would allow the limb to respond to the user's thoughts as if it were the original appendage! There not the only people clamoring for a debate either.

U.S. and U.K. governments are doing their own research in the field as well, and are reporting succss in predicting which scenes the test subject was watching based on data collected from fMRI. As if this weren't creepy enough, the whole Minority Report-esque scenario just got even more real, with a group of neuroscientists this year claiming to read intentions before you act on them. Microsoft released that they planned to use the technology in a subliminal survey context, reading your thoughts of the UI to create a better user interface experience.

Why the ethical debate? Well, thoughts are not actions. Actions are the result of following impulses. If you an read the impulse, you can surely read the thought, but would knowing what you thought about doing taint some law cases? For example a man on trial for murder may have thought about killing the victim, but what if he didn't... How would this technology know the difference between an impulse and an action? Furthermore, maybe we don't want are thoughts read... Does it violate your First Amendment rights? Maybe its tme we took a look at an Amendment to what laws there should be about free thinking. It is truely scary- and we thought waterboarding was bad...

My view of this class is, as already mentioned, very posative. We have just finished our final unit on virtual reality, mainly Second Life. Ironically, I did not do as well in this unit on the whole with my individual assignments. I usually do very well on our assignments. What did me in? This blog, I hope, is read with a certain amount of pleasure by some people, not just people hunting for an easy comment. I think that I write about things that are really interesting. I guess this is obvious from the energy thrown into the posts themselves. I was surprised as I read my Second Life posts to be kind of dry. Let me try to spice it up a bit...

Second Life and I never hit it off, but were not enemies. Quite frankly, the most fun I had in SL was fooling around with my classmates. Nothing was more entertaining than the "who can make the biggest robot" contest, right down to the floating Transformers and South Park characters. I wish SL had a video mash-up tool (echemm! Google Metaverse, are you listening?) so I could make a highlight reel of all the fun times I had. I don't think the same enjoyment would have been derived from solitary exploration.

As with so many projects we have done in this class, the dynamic of my classmates defined the pleasure of the activity. Remember the Social Network for Calvin and Hobbes? The Celebrity Jeopardy of the future? Your first RSS Feed?

Awww yeah.... Good times man, good times!

According to my not so reliable memory, All of the greatest moments of this class are attributable to the students, not the curriculum. We put out some really interesting and entertaining work projects.

Speaking of projects, I would like to give a shout out to Team Wintermute...

You guys are great. Thank you for all of the great moments, discussions, and cooperation. What each of you has added to the group dynamic is greatly appreciated.

To Matt, you're the man. There is no other way to describe it. You never drop the ball. I have never been more comfortable divvying up work in a group setting, and 90% of that is thanks to you. You always have an option, or an idea, or an answer. Best of luck pursuing your dreams. I hope our paths cross again.

To Eric, the most friendly, I have learned a lot from you. Yes, I'm serious. You always have the laugh, and are so interesting. I will always remember how chill that first lunch at Chik-fil-a was with you. You were my first connection to this team. Just because I can't get away with calling everybody "Son" like you can, doesn't mean that the sentiment is not shared. Best of luck in your future!

I saved the best for last.. Martha, (oohhh Martha) We are both very stubborn, obstinate, argumentative free thinkers. But our group would be nothing without you. even though we were sometimes at odds, the discussions that grew from the argument always enriched the project we were working on. You kept my head screwed on straight. I learned a lot from you, things that have nothing to do about technology or class, but about life. I wish you luck in your quest to return to Israel, and I hope that what awaits you outside of PSU is everything you hoped it to be.

Without all of you, I would not have enjoyed this class half as much as I did. thanks again!!

" People have that effect on life. What good is a universe with no one to share it with? "

- Stephen Schwartz

Can't remember anything you need to do before it had to be done? Missing the helpful hints to get stuff done that Mommy used to send your way back home? Already a email / internet junkie? HassleMe is for you. the thanks / compliments go to Lifehacker, for bringing this to my attention, this site based in the U.K. specializes in semi random spamming to remind you to do those pesky activities you just cant remember to get done.

Now I've tried planners and scheduling programs, even the old school books and PDAs. It boils down to the fact that I don't want to nag myself. So If you tell HassleMe what to hassle you about they will send you emails when you least expect it - with a frequency you set prior, to remind you do do what your supposed to be doing. As I get older, i seem to let more things slip through the cracks- forgetting appointments, or not being able to make a change in daily routine to get specific work done that can't wait. Lists were the answer of the past. I am (sadly) to lazy to keep active lists. It has been very helpful to me this semester in reminding me to go excercise instead of spending all of my time on the internet playing tetris and similar distractions that would ruin my life and waste my wonderful metabolism.

Features coming in the future include HassleMe IM's, specific time features such as specifying the hour, minute or second to hassle you, and a translation tool for other languages. All in all, I'd try this out if you're lazy like I can (sometimes) be. It might be the difference in remembering to call home enough to convince your parents you miss home, or getting yourself to write in a blog with any sort of consistency (ironic how I find this now...)!

If you read the Collegian today, you might have seen the article about the group of Penn State graduate entrepreneurs that have garnered a lot of attention in the Web 2.0 department. Weebly, their drag and drop web design tool, allows you to create a multitude of beautiful features for a sleek website over the internet, all using drag and drop techniques.

It is a little slow, but it is in its infancy stages and has recieved funding from several big names, like the Y Combinator Program. It is very efficient, and if you don't mind the loading times, almost zero skill is required to do the site. It can be registered as a sub-domain of weebly.com or you can purchase a domain name at a discount without having to leave the site itself.

I have been utilizing the site for two reasons. First, to create the engine to share our Dance Party. I invite you to visit the Dance Party Website at your leisure. It is the skeleton from which we can display all the information we'd ever need in a clean format. Any suggestions for the site please send me a comment via the "Contact us" tab. As a general aside, I would love to know how we arranged to have sign-ups for the contest. I could link to it from the dance party site. If I could receive that url that would be swag.

The other thing is I am building the continuation of my blog. I might just buy a years worth of a dot com for it. I seem to have fallen in love with blogging and don't think having a real audience would hurt... A little patience, and you could get a lot out of this useful tool. I highly recommend reading the help files off of the website in conjunction with your first build. They definitely help.

We should support PSU grads... Especially when they are doing something so helpful to the future of user generated content!

NOTE:: until a conflict is resolved, the wesite is really here. If you go to http://istdanceparty.weebly.com, you get an old homepage. The new one is http://istdanceparty.weebly.com/index.html.

Hello, my name is Paul Langdon, and I have a Blogging Addiction.

All: Hi Paul...

I can't believe that my blog days with this site are coming to an end. With the class ending, my audience is flying out the window. Now, anyone that knows me knows one thing: I like to talk. I save all of you precious headaches by writing instead of babbling here, allowing you to read it, or not read it. But that doesn't matter to me! I've caught the spirit of it! I like the idea that I (possibly) have a faithful audience, and I want to expand upon that good feeling.

So I have created a new blog. I used Weebly, as mentioned in a previous post. I will follow the theme of blogging about technology, but in a more open setting. This is for anyone who has ever complained about the constraints of this project: if given the ability to write whatever you want, what would you write? I think I would write about Gaming News, as well as cool Technological advancements, and things that keep me up at night. This is the realization of a dream - to be heard.

My blog, Techno-Geekdom, opens with this quote:

Welcome To Techno-Geekdom. A Paradise for those that are obsessed with gadgets, future technologies, and the like. For those who know what MMORPG and KOTOR stand for. For everyone that has ever read Scifi or Fantasy, sat in deep thought, or wondered how the world works with technology for you. You can find refuge here.

It hosts a blog, which will handle similar topics as Filtered Judgment, and a Gamer's Corner, which will be updated weekly with a montage of that weeks news, pic/video of the week, and tributes to what I feel are great games. It has an RSS Feed, and a "contact me" section for ideas. I implore my fellow gamers in this class to visit, and use the contact for to write me comments. If you look the site over and want to see something added, a section, a topic to be covered, anything, let me know. It is already on the world wide web and I would love to see it develop a following, but it needs to be garnered to a gamer's needs. IF you are interested in working on collecting news for the game section, my mail is always open. I only ask that you use the contact form (even though so many of you know my email already) because I have a separate email dedicated to it. Thank you in advance for your advice.

And thank you to this class for giving me a new hobby/addiction!

Wow, I'm completey shocked that this idea went off like it did. Here will tell you all about it... I just danced the night away with my friends in IST. I was very impressed with the dance space, the selection on dance moves, and the attendance size. Way to go class of IST110H! I will try to get all of the pictures I get in the mail up by Sat., at the latest, so don't be alarmed. As soon as I discover the contest winners, they will be posted on the blog at that site. Here are the pictures I took:

Don't forget to visit the Dance Party Website to reminisce in our final act as a class in IST 110 H. I got a lot of great pctures, and am still going through them. The photogallery will be updated accordingly by Sunday, the 16th, I promise. In the mean time, I encourage you to read the posts and comment - be immortalized as a participator! Charles DuBois has asked to meet with me to get photos and information from the dance party tomorrow at 11 AM so he can use it to advertise IST to incoming freshman and on the IST website. I plan to hand him this website to that effect. If you comment, you might be seen by countless others and influence young mind's college decisions. Any pics not sent to me can still be emailed to pml5035 in a zipped folder. I know I had fun, and that it is experiences like this one that makes me glad I chose IST as my major. Give a shout out, and share that love with future college students!