The Mars landing party, at my local Science Museum, and the panoramic 3D images, got me to thinking about telepresence.

NASA’s Maestro program lets you look at Mars the way NASA does. It’s the primary software tool used by scientists to operate the Mars Exploration Rovers from JPL. Anyone can download Maestro for free and use it to follow along with the rovers’ progress during the mission. Maestro can view pictures from Mars in 2D and 3D and create rover activity plans. Slashdot has more, including a link to a pdf white paper and Spirit’s first stereo images.

Carneigne Mellon’s EventScope provides first-hand access to 3D data right from NASA. The software is free and gives the user the ability to download unlimited Remote Experience files to learn about and explore Mars. By using EventScope, educators can collaborate with both students and remote scientists within an immersive virtual environment.

The EventScope Authoring Tool provides advanced users with the ability to author and edit navigable 3D remote experiences, science lessons, and compelling scientific presentations. It can use any VRML model. Or start with EventScope models based on NASA data. It’s a free download!

The The October 2004 rover mission to the Chilean Desert to Search for Life happens right here on Earth. And YOU can participate.

The Jason Project, spearheaded by everyone’s favorite oceanographer, Bob Ballard, delivers similar “telepresence” with live, 2-way adventures. It allows classrooms to ask questions even steer a Remotely Operated Vehicle. The next LIVE expedition is January 26th-February 6th. It goes to South America with JASON XV: Rainforests at the Crossroads.

Jason uses three-screens; one screen can be the origination program, one can be the local area, and one can be an internet webpage or chat session. The one-piece, EDS-designed Jason cart includes three satellite tuners with switchable inputs/outputs, a PC and printer. Our science museum, OMSI, bought it with a grant and used it for the Mars Party.

Now, with MPEG-4 compression chips and 802.16a community antennas, originating live, 2-way programing may be within our grasp.

A van might have 4 inexpensive cameras ($3,000) or a 24P DV Cinema Camera ($3,000), an A/V switcher ($2,000), a live MPEG-4 encoder ($1,500) and a 2-way 802.16a bridge ($1,500) pointed at a nearby community antenna. The 802.16a bridge might terminate through a local T-1 line. Alternatively, a high-speed DSL connection or Wireless Cable Modem Gateway might be used directly, skipping the “last mile” wireless connection. Microsoft Portrait, runs on both PCs and handhelds. It delivers portrait-like video in low bandwidths and full-color video in broadband. Sprinkle a few viewer-controlled netcams around, too.

A $1200 Segway clone like the RAD to Go costs $1500 and might use DARPA’s MARS software which enables the roboticization of the Segway. It includes a user-controlled camera. With Mobile Autonomous Robot Software (MARS), a $500 user-controlled camera like the True Look and a $500 Vivato repeater, a $5,000 robot would make money for everyone. A science museum like Portland’s OMSI might bring in an additional $20,000 annually in ticket sales just running it up and down Waterfront Park. Here’s free money to webcast the Waterfront Blues Festival from a WiFi robot. OMSI gets the robot. PersonalTelco and the city get a “free” unwired park. Portland has a couple of 360 degree video companies, one just 4 blocks from Waterfront Park.

Broadcast-quality MPEG-4 requires only 1 Mbps. Cable stations could pick up and cablecast the 2-way webcast using cable modems. Schools could utilize 2-way videoconferencing. In Oregon, 2-way webcast adventures might travel to the Coast, Mt St Helens or even live from forest fires. How about a swarm of robots inside the crater of Mt Saint Helens? You could do it. Right now. Today.

Big Signal used data from the Robotic Search for Antarctic Meteorites. Many schools participated.

The first live video from Antarctica is available. They use CONTACT 2.0 software ($900) which runs on a small PDA or laptop. It allows you to snap a digital picture, write a dispatch, and upload it to your website where viewers can follow your adventure. With CONTACT 2.0 you can upload video clips to the internet, even from super slow connections like the Iridium satellite phone. Gateway’s tiny $200 camcorder records MPEG-4 videos on SD chips and can be slipped in a PDA. TextAmerica, the free moblogging solution, now offers the ability to post short videoclips to a moblog (via phonecams).

Upload your video-filled chip on a Wi-Fi-enabled PDA or laptop at Starbucks. Cell phones can upload your text, audio and video — everywhere. Verizon has a 300 kbps mobile service while AT&T has a 130kbps service. Microsoft’s Portrait supports live video, voice and chat on a PocketPC. Imagine a 2 week bike trip this spring with daily audio and video uploads, live chat and videoconferencing or live webcasting from the Seattle To Portland bike ride with a PocketPC running Portrait on your handlebars. This is not rocket science. This is reality. Now.

Pine Mountain Obervatory, 26 miles SE of Bend OR, has a T-1 internet connection that allows the telescope to be controlled (and viewed) remotely. Slooh has positioned high-powered telescopes at 7900 feet on Mt. Tiede, in the Canary Islands, one of the world’s best locations for astronomical viewing. Slooh is available online for a 7-day free trial and requires only a 56K modem and Flash 7, which will download automatically when you log on. Slooh membership costs $49 per year for unlimited group missions.

The 2004 Consumer Electronics Show, January 8 to January 11, will showcase many 2004 innovations and portable multimedia devices – including Video on mobile Devices, Wireless Media Gateways and Tachyon & Datastorm Satellite Uplinks.

• The PRISMIQ MP/R is a wireless digital media hub for recording and playback of personal media stored on home PCs.
• NETGEAR’s WGT634U Super Wireless Media Router offers 108 mbps data transfer speeds using Atheros’ “Super-G” chips with increased range and multimedia features.
• On2′s VP6 codec will use the new Texas Instruments DM642 chip. On2 will also show its new high-definition VP6 decoder running on the Equator BSP-15.
• Envivio’s broadcast-quality MPEG-4 encoders integrate TI’s DM642 digital media processors.
• LynuxWorks’ embedded operating system supports MPEG-4 technology and “virtual reality” on game terminals.
• GoVideo’s VR4940 Dual-Deck DVD Recorder + VCR and Networked DVD players, are popularly priced.
• Equator’s BSP-16 works with Microsoft Windows Media 9 (in standard definition and 720p), Real Video, MPEG-4, H.264/AVC, DivX Video, MPEG-2, MP3, AC3, AAC, H.263, JPEG, MJPEG, and On2 VP6.
• Sand Video is on track to deliver AVC/H.264 encoder-decoder chip in early 2004.

Why not MPEG-4 Cable News state-wide? Why not swarms of robots running races in international competition? Why not under sea adventures. Why not drive a Rover on Mars? There’s no reason not to explore these capabilities. They’re here. They’re doable. And they’re cheap. Even free.

Oakland, California, artist Andrew Johnstone has built an interactive, 3D Burning Man simulation using the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 and 2004 platforms. In the spirit of Burning Man’s no-commerce, gift economy, he’s making his project available for free. Johnstone’s Virtual Playa provides free 3D building tools that Burners can use to model a version of their own camp or art project, which they can then upload and incorporate into the complete Virtual Playa version available to everyone.

“I can see down the line that a virtual Burning Man could exist cross-platform,” says Allan Lundell, CEO of Virtual World Studios. “You could cruise around in Flight Simulator, you could interact with other avatars and click on a window that opens up into Adobe Atmosphere” — a forthcoming 3D virtual world platform which could foster a social dynamic not available in Flight Simulator.”

Macromedia Director MX 2004 builds interactive content for CD/DVD-ROMs, kiosks and the Web. It supports JavaScript, DVD-Video, Windows Media, RealMedia, QuickTime, and Macromedia Flash to create rich content and stand-alone projector files for both Mac and Windows.

Advanced Collaborative Environments can be immersive and originate from a van.

The Virtual Control Van (above), and OSU’s Virtual Research Vessel aren’t toys. They’re working tools with frame-by-frame reconstruction of explorations – for everyone. Right now. Off the shelf. They could come in handy when someone flys a 747 into a nuke plant, too!

NSF’s EarthScope and the NIH Biomedical Informatics Research Network put terabytes of 3D volumetric data online. The OptIPuter, a virtual parallel computer, reads it. TeraVision (above) is a hardware-assisted, network-enabled “Powerpoint” projector for the AccessGrid.

Tie into the U/W’s Hit Lab and GIG-BE, the world-wide, 10 Gbps fiber network. The 10 Gbps “lightwave” network circumnavigates the entire northern hemisphere. The network begins at the StarLight facility in Chicago, transits the Atlantic Ocean to the Netherlight facility in Amsterdam, continues to Moscow and to Novosibirsk in Russia, then across Siberia to Beijing and Hong Kong before crossing the Pacific Ocean and completing the ring in Chicago. Portland s INET, on Comcast cable, uses a combination of FastIron Layer 2/3 switches, NetIron metro routers and FastIron Edge switches to link hundreds of government offices, schools, universities, libraries, police and fire departments.

In 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to jump-start U.S. technology and find safeguards against a space-based missile attack. (Later the D was added to the acronym for defense and it became DARPA.) This initiative led to the development of the ARPANET seven years later, and then to the NSFNET and the Internet we know today.

Linking the five NSF supercomputer centers in 1985 created the NSF backbone. TCP/IP led to the global internet, greatly accelerated by the Mosaic browser. Larry Smarr’s OptIPuter links Linux clusters to large data objects while 802.11b and multi-player video games are evolving into Wireless VR. Grid computing could drive broadband demand.

Xybernaut’s wireless webpad, the Atigo T, links through CompactFlash and PC card slots. A Bluetooth, one-handed keyboard coupled with head-mounted displays like Leadtek’s consumer-priced X-eye enable the OLED display to be powered by a USB connection without separate batteries or AC power. It can be cheaper, more useful and more fun than a wall of monitors.

Wireless VR will change the world. From the bottom up and from the top down.

Location and context-based marketing architecture may arrive next. The new television.

Posted by Sam Churchill on Sunday, January 4th, 2004 at 7:00 am.