Day 29: One reality is not enough?
I spent a good part of today trying to figure out a good way to stream video from the Raspberry Pi camera to a remote display. Sad to report I haven’t found a solution yet.
Software I’ve tried:
- VLC media player’s Network streaming. Not sure what went wrong here but after following instructions to the tee and tinkering with options for a full hour, I’m giving up on this route.
- VNC or Virtual Network Computing desktop GUI mirroring (Raspbian’s official VNC is TightVNC. I used RealVNC just because they have an app.) Clear cut problem with this one: video overlay. Video processing is handled by the Pi’s graphics card, and overlaid onto the GUI environment. Apparently VNC only mirrors the GUI, not the graphics-card-run overlay, so I can’t see the streaming video on a remote display.
Others that might work that I haven’t tried:
- RPi cam interface open source project. Looks promising. I think this one comes with a graphical interface for ease of operation, which would make it very similar to ccrisan’s motionEyeOS surveillance camera project that I’ve written about.
Problem solving continues tomorrow.
Thoughts on VR
Earlier today I stumbled on the latest Bloomberg Newsweek profile on Mark Zuckerberg’s quest for VR domination through Oculus (thanks Pocket recommendation!). It was a fascinating read. I had no idea Facebook had so much going on.
So Mark Z is trying to “own VR the way Apple and Google own mobile”. I wish them luck. My curiosity led me to wonder about what the early adopters of the Oculus think about Facebook’s plan and I found that a lot of them aren’t happy, as usual with big corporate acquisitions. Facebook paid $2 billion for Oculus in 2014.
All that tells me is that the first sea-worthy VR ship has left the harbour. It means that VR is now officially a big deal in tech. Some time needs to pass before it matures as a tech and even more time before the industry has top-guns. I think this means VR is now somewhat ripe for an exponential increase in interest in the developer/entrepreneur/early adopter complex, and it’s a good time to foray into the VR wilderness. Couple of years later, competition will be strong and entering the fray will be messier.
I can think of many applications for VR, as I’m sure many people can and indeed already have. Gaming has been hailed the “gateway drug” for VR to become mainstream and the allure is obvious, but I’ve been out of the game (ok, I’m sorry) for so long that the prospects of gaming in VR don’t look quite as exciting to me as I thought it would.
Health and lifestyle on the other hand look like good candidates for VR application. There are already multiple social running apps that come pre-installed in gym treadmills and Stair Masters, so why not VR social running apps? Imagine how much better a cardio workout in a gym would be if it felt like a run in Central Park, especially if you’ve never been there.
I am just talking off the top of my head though. I mean, really, it’s so top-of-my-head that I think VR is awesome based on what I imagine it to be — not once have I strapped that black box around my face. Still excited about it though. Also, I’m borrowing a friend’s Google Cardboard tomorrow.
30 days of something else
A thought sprang up today while I was doing the post-dinner dishes: could it be a good idea to do another 30 days of something?
This month of writing every night has been an interesting experiment. I’m close to the finish line now with July coming to an end. The feelings of accomplishment are now palpable, as premature as it may be. But it really wasn’t that hard to keep my promise of 30 days of chronicling my technical growth. Of course there were nights that felt like crap, where nothing came to mind, occasionally but not always caused by impasses with my learning. I’ve felt like weather this past month.
That said, it was interesting because now I have kept my promise and know what it’s like to be a writer, reporting to the keyboard every day trying to craft a story of my life. With 31 days of writing nicely logged somewhere, I’m also now able to inspect my progress. Did I learn a lot? Was I slow at learning on some days? Why? How does that compare to the lifelong learners I admire?
Zooming out and entering the meta, I’m also able to use these blog entries to get a sense of whether writing excites or bores me. (Mostly, I’m excited by the prospect of writing.) I’m thinking for my next 30-day challenge, should I so choose to put myself to it, should explore a different medium. That way I’ll learn a skill while learning about myself simultaneously.
This post is part of my 30-day commitment to write about my journey learning technical stuff.
Posts can be found on the Medium publication, Getting Technical.
