Author: Matthew Wilber

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nod.js

nod.js

Google’s Cardboard viewer standard has no standard control scheme. This is what led me to write nod.js, a simple gesture based event system for Google Cardboard enabled web apps. It uses device accelerometers to detect a sharp motion in one of four directions: up, down, left and right. With nod.js you can implement actions such as next, previous, confirm and cancel without the need for an external controller.
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Predator Vision

Predator Vision

A recent project I worked on involved a thermal camera. At first it wasn’t clear whether or not we would be able to wire it into a web app. I decided to create a few alternative prototypes to fall back on, one of which involved motion detection. Anything moving is likely to produce heat. The effect works by capturing two frames, 3 seconds apart, from the live video feed. Even someone holding still to pose for the camera moves a little. Cheating, for sure, but the effect works really well.
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War of the Worlds Broadcast

War of the Worlds Broadcast

On the night of October 30th, 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the Air presented a dramatization of the HG Wells Classic “The War of the Worlds”. Their play took the form of a series of news bulletins portraying a realistic-sounding fictional Martian invasion. Those who tuned in late missed the introduction of […]
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The Prize Inside

The Prize Inside

The idea was born out of my love of fast food, and my need to get out of the office every once in a while. I’d always pick my venue based on what toy I could bring home to the kids (or sometimes keep for myself). The food didn’t matter, a burger was a burger. […]
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The Problem With Twitter Cards

The Problem With Twitter Cards

I never paid much attention to Twitter Cards, the nicely formatted breakouts which accompany tweets. Most contain website details scraped from social sharing metadata. I recently found out that these cards have their own set of metadata that you can customize for Twitter. Twitter recently announced the release of a few new cards, including one […]
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JAWS Converter apps released

JAWS Converter apps released

JAWS Converter has just been released on the Google Play store and the Chrome Web store. Both are free, because sharks deserve to be free. Check out the links below and start measuring your world in terms of sharks! And for iPhone/iPad users, JAWS Converter has always been installable as a web app.
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Measure Your World In Terms Of Sharks

Measure Your World In Terms Of Sharks

Using length of the shark from the movie “JAWS” as the base unit, everything in the universe can be measured in terms of JAWS. The JAWS system was first proposed by Writer/Director/Podcaster Kevin Smith of Smodcast.com as a superior method of visualizing distances: From Smodcast #206 (1:04:00) ‘A newlywed bride who saw her husband killed […]
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The New iPad Hyperopia

The New iPad Hyperopia

According to an article from TechCrunch I read the other day, standard resolution graphics look like crap on The New iPad. This struck me as odd. Apple prides itself in visual presentation and an overwhelming number of apps would look terrible on the New Screen. I didn’t believe it at first, so when a friend […]
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How to Make a Custom Google+ Share Button

How to Make a Custom Google+ Share Button

Every social network has a url which allows you to easily share your site. Facebook’s sharer.php and Twitter’s ?status= are the most common examples. Google plus has one as well: https://plus.google.com/share?url=https://mywebsiteurl.com Using that url you can easily make a quick share popup with just a few lines of javascript: function GPlusShare(pUrl){ // Set up the […]
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Paper.js

Paper.js

Paper.js aims to simplify the html5 <canvas> element, and does a really good job of it. The <canvas> element is arguably the most powerful new feature of html5, but it’s not without its problems. It lacks a straightforward drawing instruction set. Rather than laying out vector art in a simple notation, developers are forced to […]