NUI: Natural User Interface

English: The Microsoft Kinect peripheral for the Xbox 360. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The NUI will be a bigger departure than the GUI, Graphical User Interface, was. This is a big one. Microsoft has some advantages here. But it will not be any one company thing. This will be a tectonic shift.

Intel Says Laptops and Tablets with 3-D Vision Are Coming Soon

Laptops with 3-D sensors in place of conventional webcams will go on sale before the end of this year ...... Partners already working with Intel include Microsoft’s Skype unit, the movie and gaming studio Dreamworks, and the 3-D design company Autodesk ....... a startup called Volumental, lets you snap a 3-D photo of your foot to get an accurate shoe size measurement—something that could help with online shopping. ..... data from a tablet’s 3-D sensor can be used to build very accurate augmented reality games, where a virtual character viewed on a device’s screen integrates into the real environment. In one demo, a flying robot appeared on-screen and selected a landing spot on top of a box on a cluttered table. As the tablet showing the character was moved, it stayed perched on the tabletop, and even disappeared behind occluding objects. ...... the front-facing 3-D sensors can be used to recognize gestures to play games on a laptop, or take control of some features of Windows. ...... reminiscent of Microsoft’s Kinect sensor for its Xbox gaming console, which introduced gamers to depth sensing and gesture control in 2010. Microsoft launched a version of Kinect aimed at Windows PCs in 2012, and significantly upgraded its depth-sensing technology in 2013, but Kinect devices are too large to fit inside a laptop or tablet.

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Ingress: The Creators Of The Game Are Unimaginative About Its Use Cases

In short, I am saying the people who created the game and are still updating it every few weeks do not know. Only the players who are pushing the game's limits can know. They need to be listened to. A mindless capturing and recapturing of portals gets boring fast. How many L8 farms can you attend?

The poor portal approval mechanism is getting in the way. And the game should allow each agent so many new invites per month like clockwork. You get new portals approved to change the very map on which you are battling. And you have the levers with which to actively recruit and build a team. You do these two things and the game stays challenging. Otherwise, yawn.

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Ingress: Portal Submissions: The Glitch

The Glitch

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Ingress: The Squad: Values

I am currently not playing. I am not out, but I am not active. I am waiting for my 1,000 portal submissions to go through. Then I am going to build a team, The Squad. For the longest time I thought I would keep mum about it. But I am at a point when I feel I should open source the value system I have written about The Squad. And so here goes.

June 6, 2013
The Squad Values

(1) We believe in Life/Work/Ingress balance. If you are playing for less than 10 hours a week, chances are you are not intense enough for The Squad. But if you are playing for more than 20 hours a week chances are you are messing up your Life/Work/Ingress balance. That is a no no.

(2) We believe in sportsmanship. The mark of true sportsmanship is that you truly enjoy meeting agents from both sides. You play as hard as you can, but then you truly enjoy meeting people from the other side. Be respectful of others on both sides. This is a game. It is supposed to be fun. Don't take the game too seriously.

(3) The Squad is 100% AP driven. We want our agents to get to 10 million in AP as fast as possible. We constantly look for ways to help agents do that. So when we come across a green L7/L8 farm, our first instinct is to hack it to burnout, not to take it down. Because we are AP driven.

(4) Most agents prefer not to join teams. And even those who join teams mostly play solo. And so The Squad will have a very limited agenda.

(5) You don't talk about The Squad outside The Squad. You can say things like "I am a member of The Squad" to recruit people, but that's about it.

(6) When you play solo, you play any way you want. You have the option to tap into The Squad's knowledge base of tips and the collective wisdom of the top agents, but there are no rules. It is a game. It is supposed to be fun. Go have fun your way. When you play solo there is only one rule: We don't talk about The Squad outside The Squad.

(7) The Squad is focused around events it organizes. All socializing happens during Action Time. There is a formal start to an event. And there is a formal end to an event. When the event is over, we go back to Life/Work. We don't hang out, we don't have beer. But if members choose to informally hang out that is fine too, but that is not part of the formal event.

(8) G+ socializing is largely a waste of time. COMM socializing is largely a waste of time. This game is played out there in the field. Your 10 hours a week is about action time in the field not staring at the Intel map at home.

(9) The Squad is a thinking kind of team. We have our tips, our knowledge base, our tactics, and strategies, but all are subject to challenge, and all are subject to empirical evidence. We shift our tactics as necessary. And new ideas can come from anywhere on the team.

(10) We are part of the global Resistance.

(Image: my newest portal submission.)

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Ingress: Enjoying Not Playing

It has been a few days but by now I am really enjoying not playing, surprisingly. As soon I hit Level 8, my thought was, now I wish to slow down. But I still kept racking up AP, month after month. Then when I left timtomhuze behind like so much exhaust fume one of the values I wrote down for the team I wanted to build was Life/Work/Ingress balance. As in, less time playing Ingress. I think it is unhealthy to play for more than 20 hours a week. 15 might be a better limit. 10 might be the most healthy amount. But right now zero hours is making the most sense to me.

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