• RoboHand: After losing his fingers in a work accident, South African carpenter Richard Van As set out to design replacements that could be made on a desktop 3d printer. Working with a designer in Washington State, Ivan Owen, they collaborated over the internet and developed the Robohand project. Now the project has grown beyond just replacing Richard’s fingers, as it now helps children all over the world that are born without fingers or hands (Amniotic Band Syndrome) with easily printable mechanical fingers that can be replaced as the child grows or the parts get damaged.
• Eidos Technology: Students at the Royal College of Art in London have been experimenting with a number of different technologies (called sensory augmentation) that could some day lead to wearable tech not unlike what Tony Stark has in his Ironman suit. They’ve prototyped a vision enhancer that processes an onboard camera and gives the wearer a number of filters to see patterns in a form of timelapse vision. The other device allows you to filter out voices and background noise to allow you to focus on one person to hear them via vibrations that make it appear they are voices inside your head.

• Wearable tech for your dog: Popular devices like the FitBit and Nike Fuelband have been used by people to measure their physical activity levels for a while now. Now you can ensure that your dog is also getting the right amount of exercise thanks to the FitBark. This $99 device consists of a little plastic bone that clips onto the dog collar (recording up to 3 weeks of activity) and a little USB powered base station in the shape of a dog house. An app for your smartphone can display the activity level for your dog and you can monitor it remotely from anywhere so you can make sure it’s getting it’s walk while you’re at work. No word on the FitMeow.
• Turn your smartphone into a laptop: Soon you’ll be able to turn your smartphone into a laptop for only $250 with three times the battery life of typical laptops. Compatible with most smartphones, the Casetop from Lividesigns is basically a keyboard and screen that you connect your phone to via a pull out bar at the front of the device. Your phone then becomes the trackpad. The Casetop also contains it’s own battery that will keep your phone charged while you have it connected.

I’ve just spent a good chunk of time playing with the very simple to use WatchFace Generator and created some simple watchfaces using various images and different date/time elements.

The tool lets you select size, position and brightness of images, the date, the time and any custom text you want to include on the watchface using simple sliders. I was able to throw just about any kind of image at it and was able to resize and center the image with no trouble. You may need to invert the screen or adjust the brightness to get a usable image. As well, you get a live preview on the left and then generate the file. To get it onto your watch, you can either use the QR code on the device that is paired with the Pebble:

or click on the link directly and get a downloadable file:

I found it easier to download the files on my laptop and save them to a folder on Dropbox and then load them on my iPhone directly into the Pebble app from the Dropbox app. This also is a good backup of the generated files since the files aren’t available for very long after generation.

Most of the watchfaces on MyPebbleFaces seem to be generated using the above mentioned web tool but there are also a number of custom coded faces or games mixed in there that were built with the Pebble SDK. The “Nyan Watch” face is a slick, animated watchface although I’m not sure if there are any battery implications with the animations:

There are a number of games as well that you run from the menu on the Pebble. It’s very cool to see the community springing up around the watch…I was skeptical at first but it’s just begun and it’s already pretty impressive considering many people are still waiting for their watches from the initial Kickstarter run.

My thanks to everyone that has sent me feedback about the show…I’m constantly trying to tighten things up and make it easier to produce these with as little fuss as possible and your feedback and suggestions have been great.

You can find Tekeh on Facebook, subscribe and rate it on iTunes, or comment about the show here.

The run and gun nature of red carpet events is always a fun place to test your abilities at capturing an event. With many photographers trying to get the attention of sometimes large groups of people (often looking in different directions) and fast paced setups is always a great learning experience for me.

A two-hour special of the Canadian Videogame Awards is scheduled to air on Citytv on April 27, 2013 at 9:00 pm, and on G4 Canada on April 28, 2013. If you can’t wait, here’s the winners and the nominees in each category:

Game of the Year: Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)

• Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal)
• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• Mass Effect 3 (Bioware/Electronic Arts)
• Papo & Yo (Minority Media/Sony Computer Entertainment)

Best Console Game: Mass Effect 3 (Bioware/Electronic Arts)

• Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal)
• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
• FIFA Soccer 13 (EA Sports)
• Mass Effect 3 (Bioware/Electronic Arts)
• Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games/Square Enix Ltd.)

Best Downloadable Game: Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)

• Incredipede (Northway Games)
• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• MechWarrior Online (Piranha Games/Infinite Games Publishing)
• Shank 2 (Klei Entertainment/Electronic Arts)
• Waveform (Eden Industries)

Best Game on the Go: Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)

• Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition (Beamdog)
• My Singing Monsters (Big Blue Bubble)
• Shellrazer (Slick Entertainment)
• Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• The Bard’s Tale (Square One Games/inXile Entertainment)

Best Social/Casual Game: The Secret World (Funcom Games/Electronic Arts)

• i saw her standing there (krangGAMES)
• Jurassic Park Builder (Ludia)
• Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth (Ubisoft Quebec)
• Rubber Tacos (Sava Transmedia/Zygna)
• The Secret World (Funcom Games/Electronic Arts)

Best Animation: Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)

• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• Prototype 2 (Radical Entertainment/Activision)
• Shank 2 (Klei Entertainment/Electronic Arts)
• Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games/Square Enix Ltd.)

Best Audio: Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal)

• Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal)
• Incredipede (Northway Games)
• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• My Singing Monsters (Big Blue Bubble)
• Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)

Best Game Design: Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)

• Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal)
• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• Mass Effect 3 (Bioware/Electronic Arts)
• Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)

Best Game Innovation: Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)

• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• Papo & Yo (Minority Media/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Waveform (Eden Industries)

Best Indie Game: Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)

• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• Papo & Yo (Minority Media/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Shank 2 (Klei Entertainment/Electronic Arts)
• Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Waveform (Eden Industries)

Best New Character: Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft) – Vaas

• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft) – Vaas
• Nun Attack (Frima Studio) – The Nun Squad!
• Papo & Yo (Minority Media/Sony Computer Entertainment) – Quico
• Prototype 2 (Radical Entertainment/Activision) – James Heller
• Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games/Square Enix Ltd.) – Wei Shen

Best Original Music: Mass Effect 3 (Bioware/Electronic Arts) – Leaving Earth

• Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal) – Main Theme Song
• Mass Effect 3 (Bioware/Electronic Arts) – Leaving Earth
• Papo & Yo (Minority Media/Sony Computer Entertainment) – Liberation
• Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games/Square Enix Ltd.) – Sleeping Dogs Score
• Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment) – Cities

Best Technology: Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal)

• Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal)
• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• MechWarrior Online (Piranha Games/Infinite Games Publishing)
• Prototype 2 (Radical Entertainment/Activision)
• SSX (EA Sports)

Best Visual Arts: Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)

• Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal)
• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
• Incredipede (Northway Games)
• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• Mass Effect 3 (Bioware/Electronic Arts)

Best Writing: Mass Effect 3 (Bioware/Electronic Arts)

• Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal)
• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• Mass Effect 3 (Bioware/Electronic Arts)
• Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games/Square Enix Ltd.)

Future Shop Fans’ Choice Award: Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)

• Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal)
• Batman Arkham City Armored Edition (WB Games Montreal)
• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft)
• Mass Effect 3 (Bioware/Electronic Arts)
• Papo & Yo (Minority Media/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Prototype 2 (Radical Entertainment/Activision)
• Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games/Square Enix Ltd.)
• Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Waveform (Eden Industries)

My thanks to Future Shop for hosting me on the red carpet.

• Samsung Galaxy S4: Samsung is set to unveil the latest version of their wildly popular Galaxy smartphone, the S4 on May 3rd. Smaller and lighter than the previous model, with a beautiful, larger screen thanks to a smaller bezel, the S4 is also lighter due to new materials while still feeling like a solid device. Other improvements include a 13 megapixel camera, new eye tracking features that let you scroll through emails and websites simply by lightly tilting your head, handsfree, new optical reading software that can look up any word the camera can see and S Translate which can translate any spoken or typed words into many different languages, without having to be online which makes it perfect for travelers.
• The Future of Gaming is here: What do you get when you combine a 3D virtual reality headset with a passive omnidirectional treadmill? The future of gaming, today. Virtuix has announced plans to build a new treadmill specifically for gaming that when combined with the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, offers gamers one of the most immersive experiences ever. Run and gun gaming will actually make you sweat. Pricing and availability coming soon.

And then this happened (cue my inner fanboy):

Elvira and me (!)

I was taking a pretty close up photo of Star Trek’s Uhura, Nichelle Nichols and she kind of punked me…as I was framing the shot, she said under her breath “Get that camera out of my face!” and I pulled back from the viewfinder and she just smiled at me and said she was kidding.

Nichelle Nichols (Uhura)

Update: Here’s a few more photos from day 2:

You find all my photos from this year’s event on Flickr. See photos from Fan Expo Vancouver 2012.

Me and Steve at my first live show.

You can listen to it here, on the Tekeh site or on iTunes.

It was a great chat and we recorded it just before heading to the studio for a live App Wednesday show (I lost to the new guy, Connor, but it’s okay, he’s cool) which was followed by the first post-show meetup that had a bunch of people that listen to the show come out for some beer and wings with everyone from the show.

I should mention that Tekeh now has the beginnings of a Facebook page so feel free to like it there, subscribe and rate it on iTunes, or comment about the show here.

• Port Coquitlam gets Canada’s first Digital Classroom: Last week, Samsung Canada unveiled their pilot program, “Samsung Class”, the first digitally connected classroom in Canada. Using 31 Galaxy Tab 10″ tablets, a 65″ digital e-Board and custom software, the program at Riverside Secondary allows teachers to see where students are in their coursework, send any student’s work onto the big screen for discussion, and lets students collaborate with others wirelessly. The tablets also provide course materials including e-textbooks, learning apps and timetables, as well as delivering school notices and forums for extracurricular activities, which can be accessed by students at any time.
• Highspeed internet from a ceiling lamp: The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute has been working on providing wireless internet spectrum from visible light technology for a number of years. Their latest milestone has been to deliver 3Gbps network speeds from LED lighting. The main purpose of this research is to provide wireless networking in environments that has interference issues with traditional wifi such as hospitals. Products and prices are expected to be released later this year.

I was at the media launch event at Riverside Secondary for the Samsung School. I thought it was pretty cool that a school in my own backyard was the first to experience this technology. Here’s a few photos from the event: