Head tracking for VR with the Wii remote

It's pretty freaking neat. I think someone needs to write an SF love story about a couple who can't touch, but can see each other through such a virtual window. Thanks to Chriz for the link.

Flight Gear 1.0.0 is finally out

I've been waiting for this for a while now. Flight Gear is a free, fully featured flight sim created by volunteers. While it's not as graphically polished as the juggernaut of Flight Simulator X, it's got really good flight modeling and is quite fun. It also supports multiplayer. Check out the screenshot gallery!

You can find the download links (there are three mirrors) under "Quick Links" on the Flight Gear homepage. It's only about 175MB.

Vectors - An FSX Film

Here is the new video from Lotus! You can get the high-res download here.

Alter egos in a virtual world

The unplugged world is having to wrap its head around the notion of online avatars, and how they relate to the people playing them. Here is NPR's "huh, what?" piece on the phenomenon. (Thanks to Hiro Protagonist for the link.)

Oh, but look out! The online world is a big, scary place filled with crazy people, even terrorists! Better shut down all online games, just to make the world safe for our ruling elite, so they can play harmless games like "blow-up-the-WTC-to-scare-everyone-into-submission".

Fuck that noise.

These avatar-enabled explorations of identity are a sign that the real world has become deeply, inescapably un-free whether we consciously admit it or not. People have given up almost all their freedom, at this point. Why can't they be allowed this one last escape? Because it's the nature of tyranny to want more power, always more.

Wii Fit Parody commercial

This is hilarious! It's a real ad with new, sarcastic voiceover.