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Garriott talks riding rockets, Man on a Mission movie
Richard Garriott may not be making the MMO sequel that many of his fans crave, but he is the subject of a new documentary film called Man on a Mission. VentureBeat.com recently corralled the elusive creator of the famous Ultima franchise for an extensive interview. The piece is mainly focused on the film, which is currently playing in select cities as well as various on-demand internet outlets. The documentary presents Garriott's career as an underdog triumph, and highlights the fact that he was rejected for NASA's astronaut program due to his poor eyesight. Garriott had the last laugh, however, as he bought his way to the international space station in 2008 and became the first second-generation astronaut in American history (and a noted supporter of private-sector space flight). While there's precious little info regarding Garriott's current and future gaming pursuits, the interview does offer up some geeky nuggets for those interested in rockets and rocketmen. "For example, launch you think of as this loud, shaky, scary moment," Garriott explains. "In fact, on a liquid-fueled rocket like the Soyuz, it's almost perfectly silent and smooth on the inside. It's much more cerebral, it feels much more like a ballet move, lifting you ever faster into the sky, than it does a sports car dropping the clutch at a green light."
Computer plays Pong all by itself
User-created content is so last year. The new craze: videogames that play themselves. Ashish Derhgawen wrote an image recognition program and connected a webcam to his computer. The camera watches the ball by detecting borders on the screen and adjusting the paddle's position to compensate. Not exactly a portent of the impending machine uprising, but the program could easily be modified to detect human-shaped borders and the camera could swing a 2x4 with a nail in the end. Food for thought.[Via Engadget]
