Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Back from the Edmonton DemoCamp

There were some very cool things being shown tonight.

First up was a Runners program that you can use to track your distance, elevation changes, plot run routes and share them via perma-links.

After that was a demo from Titan Gaming and their tools for creating and managing game tournaments (online). A very solid project, slick interface, tons of tools and ease of integration. I think this one will be a project to watch.

Following on the previous project was an AI developer who developed a very in-depth AI for a board game called Pentago. A very ambitious project with exceptional results.

Next up was a group that was contracted to develop an interface (and much more as the story unfolded) for Cisco and LinkSyS. It was a dual-hardrive media centre of sorts. Allowed you to browse, listen and watch many formats of music and video. Also an option for Remote access.

Lastly was a demo of a very unique instrument, the Seizure Violin. An instrument connected to Ableton Live using midi controllers and various sensors to allow playback of a set of samples with various parts of the instrument. Very cool stuff.

After the DemoCamp was over, I felt very out of place. I'm a techy and once-programmer that has just lost interest in the ever-changing development world. Fast paced changes coupled with far too many new tools created a landscape of constant learning, but little chance to use that knowledge. I'm feeling strangely depressed after this event. Maybe it's because I just don't have the drive or the knowledge to involve myself in the industry any longer...

1 comment:

  1. I don't go into DemoCamp with the same perspective as the programmers of the world. I had wanted to be a programmer at one point, just not enough to do anything about it! :)

    I think that there's a lot of room in the business world for people who can help market those great ideas and further develop them.

    It's not always easy to get over the feeling of needing to know everything. If you pick a niche you like and has a future, you can do really well. There's just too much out there for anyone to know it all. Those people who claim to are just blowing smoke. :)

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