Tag Archives: Minority Report

Status update #1 on your favorite new and returning shows

We’re nearly one month into the 2015 fall TV season, so there’s no better time than now to check on the status of your favorite shows, new and old. I’ll break it down by network.

At CBS, its summer fare was taken under the microscope and only one series made it out alive. Zoo, the animal-themed thriller based on the James Patterson novel starring James Wolk, is coming back for a second season next summer. Sci-fi dramas Extant and Under the Dome are ending after two and three season runs, respectively. The Halle Berry starrer underwent a creative reboot in season 2 and simply couldn’t drum up the ratings needed to continue. Dome, based on Stephen King’s novel, ran out of steam fast as the show quickly exhausted its source material.

NBC is the first network to grant a new fall series a full-season order. Blindspot, starring Jaimie Alexander as an amnesiac Jane Doe who’s covered head-to-toe in mysterious tattoos that are connected to a larger conspiracy, will live on to air a full 22-episode first season on the Peacock network. The FSO follows a pickup of nine additional scripts ordered more than a week prior. Elsewhere, Debra Messing and her crime procedural The Mysteries of Laura has been awarded five additional scripts as its second season aims to go the distance (read: May sweeps).

Fox is showering its Animation Domination fans with love by renewing cult comedy Bob’s Burgers for a seventh and eighth season. As far as new programming is concerned, and in a fairly surprising move, Fox is handing out a full-season order to the Morris Chestnut crime procedural Rosewood before making decisions on higher profile offerings like Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens and sophomore The Last Man on EarthRosewood‘s FSO comes a week after Fox ordered three additional scripts for it. Elsewhere, things are looking up for new sitcoms Grandfathered and The Grinder. The John Stamos and Rob Lowe comedies have both been tasked to pump out six additional scripts apiece. Monday night sci-fi drama Minority Report, on the other hand, reports a gloomy forecast; due to low ratings, the network has cut three episodes from its original 13-episode run. Episode 10, which was written as a fall finale, will now serve as a season (or series) finale, according to Deadline.

More updates from ABC, The CW, FX, and AMC after the break. Continue reading Status update #1 on your favorite new and returning shows

Affordable 3D handtracking brings out the Tom Cruise in all of us

Researchers at MIT have discovered the key to gesture-based computer (a la Minority Report):  a multicolored Lycra glove that costs about $1 to manufacture.  The glove is covered with 20 irregularly shaped patches that use 10 different colors that are all picked up by a standard webcam.  Using a “new algorithm for rapidly looking up visual data in a database” the glove can be used to “gauge hand position in three dimensions — including the flexing of individual fingers — as well as a possible application in mechanical engineering.”  Love it.

[Via Gizmodo; MIT]

MIT students watch Minority Report, make the “glove mouse” a reality

Controlling a computer using nothing but your hands.  A feat we’ve all seen done before by Mr. Cruise in Minority Report.  As part of a final project in a digital media course, a couple of MIT students have created an extremely crude version of what we saw in the sci-fi movie.  Using gloves with LED tips and a webcam, the students demo how an on-screen image can be manipulated with various hand gestures.  So we’re not there yet, but at least we’re moving forward.  Take a look at the gloves in the gallery below.

[Via MIT; Engadget]

Navigating a 13.3 gigapixel image, Minority Report style

Students at the University of Tromso in Norway have put together a ginormous interactive display wall.  The 22-megapixel display utilizes 28 projectors to spit out a resolution of 7,168 x 3,072.  It’s multitouch capabilities allow users to interact with the wall in a myriad of ways, Tom Cruise-style; gestures include hand swipes for panning and snapping fingers for zooming in.  And all of this can be down without actually touching the wall.  But how is that possible?  A number of floor-mounted cameras pick up your gestures in 1D and a 30 node computer setup manages to group together the various perspectives to determine 2D location.  In the demo video above, the wall outputs a 13.3 gigapixel highly detailed image of Trosmo.  Check it out and be blown away be its awesome power.

[Via University of Trosmo; Engadget]