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I’ve been using Windows 7 since the 7000 beta. Now that the Release Candidate is out, it’s in my download queue and I’ll be installing it this weekend. My Windows 7 experience has been really good, so I’m excited to see the higher polished version. One big plus for the business side is the XPM feature, which allows applications that run on XP to run on Windows 7 without hiccups. This is great for me at work as there are a handful of apps we use that aren’t Vista/Win7 compatible.

My IR lasers arrived yesterday. I can now get back to hacking the multi touch table. I’m actually tired of saying “FRICKIN’ LASER BEAMS” every time I mention them The only thing left to purchase for the multi touch table are a couple of sheets of plexiglass to protect the LCD matrix. Once I start some testing this weekend I may opt for some miniature prisms for the lasers so they can be hidden from view underneath the table. We’ll see. I may be able to incorporate them into the table top without looking to gaudy.

I haven’t posted a photo yet, but I did pick up a console stereo to use for the table. It needs to be cut down in height and after getting it home and looking at it, I will probably strip the fascia off and try and reproduce the 50’s look to match the TV. It’s a little too 70s for my tastes.

This weekend was a very busy SAR weekend. We took two boats to the Mississippi River for some training on Sunday morning and had a blast. We went up river a good bit and took a hard close look at the river in the daylight. We made close approaches to buoys and day markers as well as discussed the dangers of shipping traffic and how to identify hazards in the water like rock dams and such.

Once the boats were loaded up and back at the CDO, Alpha came in for their GPS practical. They started at the CDO and had to complete a three leg course in order to get to the final. Of course, I had to switch up coordinate types and map datums to throw them off

Monday we had a PR Event at the Southaven Police Department’s Firing Range for the Citizen’s Police Academy. We brought our dive trailer, ATVs, our new boat and Rescue 5 which is a mobile command center and HAZMAT response vehicle. We had a group of about 25 people to talk to and they all showed interest in what we do for the county.

You can find pictures from Sunday and Saturday in my Flickr Photostream… check out the photos on the right of the page to get there!

Hopefully the next update will have action shots of the multi touch table in action!

The Multi Touch Coffee Table project has officially begun! Yesterday I went to Best Buy and picked up a 23″ Dell widescreen LCD monitor to use for the table. I had mixed feelings about tearing it apart right as it came out of the box.

I started by removing the plastic housing of the monitor. This was a lot more straightforward than I was expecting! Once the stand was removed with two screws, there were two more underneath it that had to be removed.

The front and back halves are merely snapped together. I started with the lip of the bezel near the bottom of the screen and worked it loose. After the first clip popped loose, the rest followed suit with no problems. The power and adjustment switches need to be removed from the case or unplugged from the control unit to really get the case out of the way.

Once the case and power supply were out of the way, the hard part started. The plastic case is like an insurance policy for the LCD. You can bang up against the plastic with a screwdriver like a clumsy doofus, but once it’s removed you’ve got to be gentle with what’s inside.

Separating the layers was difficult. Not physically hard, you just had to find a method to get the metal frames to unsnap from each other without damaging the screen in the process. Once I was able to get the frame to separate, it was gravy from there on out.

The intimidating part about the whole ordeal is holding the LCD matrix in your hands. It’s wafer thin and you just know you’re gonna do something stupid and wind up breaking it!

Luckily, I didn’t do something stupid since the LCD array is still in one piece! In the photo to the left you can see the LCD array (black screen) and the light panel with the diffuser and opaque sheet laying on top of the metal frame that holds them all together.

At this point, I’ve got to do some more research, but I think I have to remove the polarizing filter from the LCD screen. IR LEDs will make it through and show up on camera, but I’m not sure if the image will be good enough.

With everything in pieces, I decided to wire it all back up and see if it worked.

I used the LCD array, backlight, metal frame and a t-shirt for insulation purposes and rigged it all up so it would stand up.

It works! I didn’t damage anything – which is a good thing! I checked the view from various angles and all looks good so far. Now that it was working as I had hoped, I disassembled everything and secured it all in a towel until it came time to do some testing with IR stuff.

I then turned my attention to the PS3 Eye cam which will be used to “see” where the screen is being touched. I disassembled it and removed the lens. I don’t know where my Exacto knife is at so everything is on hold until I can find it and remove the IR filter.

Since everything is going rather swimmingly at this point, I need a table to house it all in. I initially thought about building my own table, but after mulling it over last night I decided to try and find a vintage coffee table from the 50’s – or at least one that looks vintage! My other project is a 1957 RCA Victor Deluxe television that is identical to the one on the left, but has a darker wood case. My plans are to replace the guts with an LCD Flat Panel TV.

It’s a color set, but something is amiss with the electronics. Maybe someone let the Magic Blue Smoke out of it at some point. The audio is ASTOUNDING, but it has no picture. I’m not a TV electronics guru, so when I opened the back of the TV I just sort of grunted and closed it back up.

I’d like to find a coffee table that would match or go along with the theme of this TV to add some 21st Century tech to some cool retro style. It needs to have storage underneath to house the PC, camera and backlight setup.

Check out the photos below for what I’m looking for. Do you have something like this in the Memphis area you’re willing to part with? if you do, let me know!

So, the Roomba, as awesome as it is, is quite stupid actually. I never took the time to really research it considering it was only on sale for about 15 minutes and I needed to make a quick decision. Now that I’ve got it and have been able to dig a little deeper, the A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) that it uses is very, very basic. Almost an insect level AI. It has two major sensors that it uses to navigate and one other sensor used for docking in the charging base and communicating with Virtual Walls and Lighthouses (iRobot speak for guards and traffic cops.)

The way Roomba operates is it primarily uses the bumper to bounce off of things. When it encounters an object that it runs into, the bumper senses it and the Roomba will pick a random number, turn that number of degrees and continue on until it hits something else. I never really put any thought into how it could navigate by itself, but it works – most of the time.

There is a much more expensive alternative to Roomba vacuums and their rudimentary AI, and that is the Electrolux Trilobite. Besides the fact that Electrolux is an awesome name, their Trilobite is the Roomba killer – except in the price department. It uses sonar, much like a bat to build a virtual map in order to navigate its way around but it comes at a cost. A Trilobite costs TEN times as much as the Roomba.

OK, I can deal with a robotic vacuum cleaner that’s a little slow upstairs compared to his sophisticated cousin with the upturned nose.

Roomba has also managed to get itself tangled up two days this week in the exact same spot – the power cord to my 1956 RCA Victor Whitman Deluxe TV. The RCA is another project of mine I haven’t done anything with yet. I can’t get an image on the tube, but it otherwise works great. I think a late model flat panel stuck in place of the old tube will be pretty rad.

The Roomba is supposed to be able to free itself when it gets stuck in wires, but mine has been snagged and required freeing from them a total of three times now. Maybe it just takes a little more thought in keeping the wires out of Roomba’s reach.

The final GPS practical is this Sunday. I’m going to bring my DSLR to get some really good photos of the new boat and some general pics to use in our PR stuff. I’ll be sure to share the good ones!

OK. That robot scares the HELL outta me. I can see it now… Skynet takes over, all the Roombas and Rovios are running around by themselves in their attempt to take over the world and bumping into walls and banging against your ankles as you walk around them. But THIS thing… this thing sneaks around your house with it’s stealth, all-black finish and uses those huge pincers to bite you to death!

Just a short update today. I’ve got a ton of stuff to post in all sorts of subjects, but I’ll get to them in due time.

Robot status: Rovio has been lurking in the spare room. I haven’t had time to start hacking on him yet, but I will. I bought Rovio a buddy – a Roomba 535. The Roomba KICKS ASS way more than I thought it would. I’m here to tell you it’s not just a “cool trinket” to have – it actually vacuums the heck out of your floors. I’ve got a post dedicated to Roomba coming up.

New gadgets: I picked up a few gadgets from a friend’s shop. He let me have them for a pretty good deal. I’m the proud owner of a Compaq TC1000 Tablet PC. It’s not super fast by any means, but the price was right and it will let me try out the “Tablet PC Experience” and determine if a Tablet PC is for me or not. So far I like it, just waiting on a battery to be shipped so I can go mobile with it.

While I was there I also picked up a Canon 20D DSLR. It’s an older model, but it’s still a DSLR. I’ve shyed away from $2000 cameras because I couldn’t justify the cost. After playing with the camera, I’m kicking myself for not getting a DSLR sooner. It’s AWESOME. I will definitely post photos I’ve taken with it as I get some decent shots.

Future projects: I’m going to build my own version of a Microsoft Surface table. It isn’t going to be a monster, I figure a 20-22″ screen embedded in a coffee table will be just right. I’m sourcing the materials I’ll need at the moment. I’ll document with photos and a writeup as it comes together.