My project Kinect on PS3 got featured in this month’s Chip magazine . They have a special gaming edition of Chip Insider which featured the project along with a 2 page interview of mine. If you buy chip, do look out for it on pages 46 and 47. I also have a scanned image of the pages below.

Interview Page 1

Interview Page 1

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Featured in Chip India August 2011 Edition, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

This post describes my first attempt at making Kinect work with a PS3. Microsoft’s new XBOX 360 accessory, kinect has made a powerful entry into the market, becoming the fastest selling gadget of all time. Looks like their “You are the controller” tagline is working. Of course, Sony’s “similar” accessory Move is selling well too but is far behind kinect adoption probably because nothing beats the lure of making something work with just “The Force” .

Now, of course, kinect doesn’t work with PS3 obviously but then if we can’t break the rules, we can at least bend them a little towards our way. I’ve  created a mashup that allows you to use kinect as an input controller for the PS3.

Please note that this is pre-alpha quality software currently. I haven’t updated to a lot of recent code for the below libraries and also haven’t done most of the performance/feature improvements yet. The axis performance specially needs lot of tweaking and it works well only while sitting. Putting this out purely as a proof of concept. For the things that I plan to add soon, please see the Todo section below. Follow me at @shantanugoel for latest updates.

VIDEO IN ACTION

The program makes use of several other programs in order to provide this functionality. To compile/use it, you also need the following programs:

1. OpenNI Libraries – To get data from kinect

2. NITE Libraries (Choose “Middleware” on the page) – Builds on top of OpenNI to provide gesture detection etc

3. PrimeSense Libraries for kinect – Kinect drivers to get raw data

4. DIYPS3Controller – The main component for PS3 connection and also known as sixaxis emulator. This emulates a DS3 on the PC and send the inputs to PS3 through bluetooth.

Installation/Compilation/Usage

1. Make sure that the above 4 things are installed on your machine and working fine.

2. Download the source of this project to the NITE Samples directory. You can even place it anywhere else but you would need to tweak the makefile to account for the changed paths.

3. Make any changes to the source that you need.

4. Change the included ps3 controller config xml file and place it in one of the locations where diyps3controller can find it.

5. Run make -f kinect-ps3.mak

6. The executable will be available in Samples/Bin directory of NITE.

7. Run kinect-ps3 (without any arguments)

8. Run emuclient (from ps3 controller software) and choose the new xml config file

9. “Become the controller”
Default Config:

Menu Profile – This is the default profile that kinect-ps3 starts with and allows to operate the PS3 menus. Moving hand in any direction will move the ps3 menus as if you were using the DPAD with those directions keys pressed. If you run out of the kinect’s watched space, then just do a backward push with your hand, bring your hand to center and then again do the backward push and continue scrolling. This is like you lift your finger up and then start dragging from edges of a laptop’s touchpad.For selecting any item, make two successive push movements with your hand without changing any x-y direction.
Game Profile – This profile can be switched to by doing 3 successive backward movements of the hand while in Menu profile. Right now I’ve implemented only directional controls in game profile because I’m still struggling with multiple hands detections and skeletal tracking. A full profile will be activated soon enough. Currently, the your hand’s x/y movements and directly translated to right stick x/y movements (e.g. this is looking in different directions in various FPS games). Moving the hand towards or away from kinect (z-axis) translate to left stick y movements (e.g. this is moving fowards or backwards in most FPS games).
Issues/Queries/Suggestions

Please direct them to me by commenting here or emailing me at shantanu AT shantanugoel DOT com

Coming Soon/ToDo

-Full Menu and Game profiles

- Skeletal tracking for better game profiles

- Switching back to menu profiles from game profiles

- Easier way to specify user custom profiles instead of changing code for the same

- Performance improvement for game profiles

Full source code of the project has been released at https://github.com/shantanugoel/Kinect-PS3 under GNU GPL v2.

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Making Kinect Work With PS3, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

Update: I did some more digging and the email and the links actually seem to be legitimate. Good news for many, but bad for those who actually got this email.

BEWARE!! In wake of the recent announcement of a potential Playstation Network ban wave by Sony for the people who are hacking it’s gaming console PS3, some nefarious elements seem to be using this as an opportunity to pry on your PSN passwords. Many folks are receiving emails like below:

Notice: Unauthorized circumvention devices for the PlayStation®3 system have been recently released by hackers for the PlayStation®3 system. These devices permit the use of unauthorized or pirated software. Use of such devices or software violates the terms of your “System Software License Agreement for the PlayStation®3 System” and the “Terms of Services and User Agreement” for the PlayStation®Network/Qriocity and its Community Code of Conduct provisions.  In addition, copying or playing pirated software is a violation of International Copyright Laws. A circumvention device and/or unauthorized or pirated software currently resides on your PlayStation®3 system. Immediately cease use and remove all circumvention devices and delete all unauthorized or pirated software from your PlayStation®3 system. Failure to do so will result in termination of your access to the PlayStation®Network and access to Qriocity services through your

PlayStation®3 system.

This email has been delivered from a send-only address.  Please do not reply to this message. If you have any questions, contact Consumer Services using the following link: http://playstation.i…HvEHWTPlTnHqJPH

LEGAL

“PlayStation”, “PLAYSTATION”, and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment LLC.

© 2011 Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC.

919 E. Hillsdale Blvd., Foster City, CA 94404

I have intentionally removed the complete link in the email to save anyone else from falling into the trap. Basically this email (and it’s many variations) take you to a site which looks like Sony US site but it is not. So, do not put your password into it. If you have already clicked on the link, then change your psn password and remove any credit card info linked to it, immediately.

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled PSN Ban-Wave Phishing Scam, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

Rovio Mobile has been pretty considerate for the Android lovers and has released their Angry Birds game for free on the Android market. Many people love it but quite a few are annoyed by it because Rovio chose to monetize it by in-game advertisements, and that too placed at awkward places which can hinder the gameplay. Many users have also reported that they are being forced to view video ads as well these days. Another drawback is that if there is no network connection (e.g. if you are in a no-signal area, roamin, in-flight, or just don’t have a data plan), then the game won’t run at all. So far all the queries about this or pleas to have a paid app have been skirted around by Rovio. But this will soon be history.

One of my friends at work received an email recently from Rovio announcing the new “Seasons” edition for Christmas and Halloween levels. But that is not the important thing, something else is. Read this:

Angry Birds Seasons Available For Android

Today, we bring you Angry Birds Seasons, a special edition spin-off of Angry Birds!

Season?s Greedings consists of 25 daily surprises for fans of Angry Birds to enjoy while counting down the days until Christmas.

Included in the game is also the 45-level Halloween special edition, now packaged as a separate episode called Trick Or Treat.

Angry Birds Seasons is available for Android devices through GetJar and Android Market.

Payment option and performance  upgrades to follow

We are still working on two things for the Angry Birds games on Android:

First, we are bringing a graphically lighter option in the game, to enable better performance on older phones.

Second, we will introduce a payment system to opt-out of advertising.

Both of these upgrades will be included in later updates.

So as you can see, Rovio is about to bring out a paid option for Android folks as well so that we can kill those pigs in peace

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Ad-Free (Paid) Angry Birds For Android, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

This is just to let you know that a few of my friends have started Overclocked, a haven for PC enthusiasts in India. Overclocked is an online store for the people who like to stretch the performance of their machines to the maximum. They store a lot of high end computer stuff that isn’t easy to find in India and that too for a reasonable price. They also assemble mean gaming machines while giving you quite a bang for your buck with gauranteed satisfaction, shipped anywhere in India, and that’s not all, they can personalize it too with a variety of custom modifications (I really like their laser engravings).

Apart from the computer hardware, they also sell a lot of games (Primarily PC but consoles as well, and that too for a cool discount from the MRP, again shipped anywhere in India). They also have a forum where people can hang out and discuss how to eek out that last bit from their PCs.

Do check them out. I’m sure you will like the stuff they have on offer and if you have any comments/suggestions or queries, don’t hesitate to contact them via their contact page or the forums. I’m sure they will be glad to listen to you. I’d say that a word of kudos will be great as these guys are doing this along with their full time professions and such places are hard to find in India

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Paradise For Overclockers, Gamers and PC Enthusiasts In India, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

I recently got hold of a Guitar Hero controller for my PS3 but the game still had some time to come so I tried it out on my laptop with Frets on Fire (rather FoFix). But when I started it, it was crashing with some weird error about not being able to open mixer devices. Searching on the google, I came to know this is happening because of Pulse Audio as this application needs direct access to the sound devices and finally I came upon pasuspender. This little tool allows you to do that with ease. Just run it in the following way:

pasuspender — ./FretsOnFire

And it will start working just fine. You can use the same trick for any other application that needs direct access to the sound devices. What pasuspender does is that it will suspend pulse audio and allow the application to access them directly and when the application is terminated, normal functioning will resume.

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Making Frets On Fire Work With Pulse Aludio – pasuspender, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

Killzone 2 (KZ2) is one of my most favourite games for the Playstation 3. Killzone 2 is a very different game as compared to the other run-of-the-mill FPS’s out there. Now, I might not be the best player out there but I’ve played my fair share of it. So, I thought of jotting down some quick points for the different classes, how to play them and how to make the most of them according to my opinion. I hope to make this a series where I would discuss the strategies for a class and its primary and secondary abilities and once all classes are covered, I’ll probably touch upon the rest of the aspects of the game. Please read them and supplement them with real practice to see the benefits. And yeah, do not hesitate to point out the flaws if any and I’d also love to hear about the tactics that you follow as well as KZ2 is a game where the element of surprise is very important which calls for unusual strategies many times .
So without wasting any more time, here is a really really basic set that you should follow:

• Engineer’s Prime Role: Understand that your role is not that of a front line assault. An engineer is best suited as a defender or a support class.
• Engineer’s Weapon – Shotgun: The shotgun is called the one shot killer. It fires a burst of various pellets resulting in a much larger hit area and so you need not be extremely accurate. But it has some salient points to be noted while using it.
• Shotgun is useful only in a very short range. Avoid long range combat because 99% you will find yourself dead without even getting a single hit point at the opponent. This means lurk around in corners or alleyways, take the less travelled routes to your destinations, and let your turrets do the most of your job for you
• Shotgun is slightly heavy as compared to other weapons and hence you will find yourself moving that right analog stick quite a bit more for aiming.
• Shotgun has a high reload time between bullets and especially the full magazine. So if you are in middle of a fight and run out of a mag, it’s best to take out your M4 revolver instead of waiting to reload (or just run away if you are not confident enough of your revolver or haven’t unlocked it yet)
• Engineer’s Primary Ability – Turrets:
• Find elevated places. It has two advantages. First, it is more difficult for the opposition to take it out because it is above the eye level and second, your turret has more chances of getting headshots leading to faster kills and more points.
• Cover up alleyways/alternate routes which the enemy can take to flank your team. This is more important than you think. You are, in effect, forcing the opposition to take a route where most of your team mates can easily take them down.
• Don’t place them close to walls as it makes them more susceptible to damage.
• Don’t bunch up your turrets, keep them a safe distance apart. This has two advantages. First, it is more difficult for the enemy to take out your turrets (otherwise they can take them out together easily), plus each turret can give cover to the other and also attack the enemy from two sides taking him down quickly.
• For rounds like Search & Destroy/ Defend or assassination, don’t place turrets very close to the objective point but at a slight distance, at a place where the turret has clear line of sight to the objective point and/or the path to it. This will make it safe from the enemy while raining hell onto him while he is concentrating somewhere else.
• Engineer’s Secondary Ability – Repair: 
• Repair ability is a very underrated ability. It might not give you a hell lot of points by itself but it is very important for your team.
• Repairing ammo crates is a natural thing as your team mates might need it but that is not the most important thing to concentrate upon as people might not need them too often as people die often in KZ2 and moreover they might not want to waste time taking stuff out of the crate and risking their life.
• First important use of repair ability is to repair your own turrets. Your turrets go under wear and tear as time progresses or when attacked by someone. It is of utmost importance to keep repairing them because you have to wait for a lot of time before you can set up another turret while repair ability recharges much faster.
• Second is to repair the emplaced/mounted machine guns at various places in the maps. Repair them and use them to take down the enemy quickly (especially useful for S&D). But make sure that another guy/turret is protecting you from out of peripheral-view attacks.

So that’s it for now. But keep in mind that just reading these tips won’t help unless you practice. Let me know if you found these tips helpful or if you have any map/situation specific queries and if you would like to add your own strategies. I’ll take up a new class next time.

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Killzone 2 Tips Tricks Tactics And Strategies : Engineer, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

Note: Please DIGG this post by clicking here or Reddit this post by clicking here.

I’ll be one of the proud owners of a very special steel book edition of Killzone 2 very soon. The cool part being that it’d be much before most of the rest of the world gets to even see these little babies because the official release date is still five days away. And the icing on the cake “A free classic Art Book”. Everything courtesy our dear old Sam from GamingIndians. Aren’t you all jealous of me? There there..In the meanwhile, you can feast your eyes on a few screenshots of the bundles of joy waiting to be shipped out. KILLZOWNED!!

 [tags]Games, Gaming, Gaming-Indians, GamingIndians, Killzone 2, Killzone 2 Steel-Book Edition, KillZone Artbook, Killzone 2 Collector’s Edition, Killzone 2 Steel Case[/tags]

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled KillZone 2 Steel-Book Edition is here, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

I’m going to be bespectacled and have been advised to reduce and limit my computer usage considerably. A bit of nostalgia set in on hearing this and I thought about my short journey so far in this wonderland of solid-state and otherwise.

First time I touched a computer.
> 1989, at school in 2nd standard

First command I typed on a computer.
> “dir”, 1990, 3rd standard

First game I played on a computer.
> “bricks”, 1991, 4th standard

First Colored game I played on a computer.
> “Dangerous Dave”, 1991, 4th standard

First program I wrote on a computer.
> “Hello, Ankit!” in basic, 1992, 5th standard(The pre-teenage rebel in me substituted the “world” by “Ankit”. Why “Ankit”? That’s a mystery )

First time I held a mouse.
>1992, 5th standard, Windows 3.0

First Windows Program I used
>PaintBrush (MSPaint today), 1992, 5th standard

First “3d” game I played
> Wolfenstein 3D (or Wolf), 1993, 6th standard

First hack
> “Remote controlling” friend’s school PC by swapping the mouse cords, 1993, 6th standard

First movie I watched on a computer
> “The wonderful world of Plants” or something similar, 1993, 6th standard

First introduction to the internet
> 1994, 7th standard, A demo by an ISP to the whole school.

First site I opened on the internet
> disneyland.com, 1994, 7th standard

First commercial movie I watched on a computer
> “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, 1995, 8th standard

First introduction to Linux
> Suse 4.x, 1996, 9th standard

First self-taught language learnt
> HTML, 1997, 10th standard

First Computer at home
> Celeron 466 MHz, 64 MB RAM, 8GB HDD, for around 60k, 1998, 11th standard

First C program
> “Hello, Shantanu!”, 1998, 11th standard (Now, do you get it?)

First net connection at home
> 1998, 11th standard, ISP:Glide dial up. around 250 bucks for 5 hours at 56 kbps + telephone usage charges.

First Quake III Arena game
> 2000, almost at the end of 12th standard

First major gaming session
> 2000, QIII Arena, 11 hours straight, Tier1-Tier5, 2 days before my CET exam (Entrance test for my engineering college). For the record, I was so obsessed with QIII back then that I even had a quicky 5-minute game (DM17 map) in the 45 minute break I got during the exam as my home was quite near the exam center.

First “real” hack
> 2001, B.E., First year. Wrote and installed a TSR onto a friend’s system to print out “U R Doomed” whenever he typed something.

First Linux self-install
> Red Hat 7.0, 2001, B.E., First year

Longest Gaming Session till date
> December 2001, B.E., 2nd year. Deus Ex, 26 hours with 4-5 breaks spanning from 2-15 minutes max. Finished with all the alternate endings.

First major Q3 Arena lan-tournament
> Early 2002, B.E. 2nd year. At NSIT Innovision tech fest.

First Blog
>http://iamhuman.blogspot.com, 2004, B.E., Final year

First program in the corporate world
> Optimization and multi-channelization of H.264 stitching, 2004

First real project in the corporate world
> Epsilon, the new low cost BTS (Base Transceiver Station) by Nokia, 2004

First Laptop
> 2005, Compaq Presario R4025, AMD64 2.0 GHz, 1GB RAM, 128 MB gfx Card. US$1300

First Windows Mobile Program
> ShantzTodayChanger, 2007

Finally bought first domain name
>http://shantanugoel.com, 2008

These “firsts” aren’t anything big in themeselves but have been an important part of my life in one or the other way making my love for computers growing at an even faster pace. So what are your nostalgic moments with your beloved machine?
[tags]computers. nostalgia, history, games, programming, linux, corporate, commands[/tags]

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled My Brief History With Computers, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

“Alpha to Bravo, over. Come in, Bravo, over.. We are under attack, over.. Send reinforcements asap. over and out”.

Well, if you dream about conversing like this, then you are better off playing something like COD4 or BF2, but if you are into a little bit less intense military warfare, and are a fan of games like worms, tanks, etc (I’m a convicted Worms World Party addict on my HTC Wizard) then you are in for countless fun-filled, sleepless nights. With Wormux.

In the words of its developers:

Wormux is pre-eminently a “convivial mass murder” game where, turn by turn, each member of each team attempts to produce a maximum of damage to his opponents.

But whats a murder strategy game without a big arsenal of close and long range weapons at your disposal. So, you get baseball bats, guns, bazookas, dynamite, grenades, mines, bouncing balls (and you can make your own, if you can code). Gameplay, sticking to the original theme, is turn based. You have to kill your opponent before he kills you. And the innovation to achieve that is limited only by the limits imposed by your mind. You can play locally against bots or on network to have some cartoony fun with your friends, or to watch your super tux draw first blood of your rivals.

Its available for a plethora of platforms including linux, windows, mac and FreeBSD, and the clincher, its F-R-E-E (as in speech as well as in lunch, beer, whatever). You still here? You should have rushed to the Wormux Downloads before I got to the first “E” of FREE.

[tags]worms, wormux, tans, worms world party, games, strategy games, military games, turn based strategy, artillery games, convivial mass murder, weapons, free games, free linux games, super tux[/tags]

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Games: Wormux Reporting to Action, SIR!!!, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings