Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: text stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi there, everybody,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I am the tech editor here at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com. Sitting across from me, as he always does,
Speaker 1: is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, guys, we're having
Speaker 1: a bit of an identity crisis today. Who is Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about some some very strange
Speaker 1: combinations of things actually, uh one that you might not
Speaker 1: expect gaming and super computing, super super computing. Yeah. This
Speaker 1: actually comes a courtesy of a little listener text message Liz,
Speaker 1: queue something up, will you? This text message comes from
Speaker 1: Tim who says, what's up with the U. S. Army
Speaker 1: buying p S three's for a parallel supercomputer cloud system? Question? Mark? Well, Tim,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's not the U. S. Army, it's
Speaker 1: the US Air Force. And it wasn't twenty two hundred
Speaker 1: p S three's It was actually twenty five hundred. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we get the point of the question here, which is
Speaker 1: what is up with buying p S three's and how
Speaker 1: does that make a supercomputer? It all boils down to
Speaker 1: the PlayStation three's processor, which is a cell processor. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is a custom chip. UM actually spent quite a
Speaker 1: lot of money in in development and it was under
Speaker 1: development by a joint venture of three companies. In addition
Speaker 1: to Sony, IBM and Toshiba were both involved with this
Speaker 1: with this chips manufacturer. And uh, it's a pretty interesting device.
Speaker 1: It's what gives the p S three it's mph and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, allows it to do what it can do.
Speaker 1: It can crunch lots and lots of numbers, right, and
Speaker 1: so let's uh, let's just do a quick overview of
Speaker 1: what a processor does and then we talk about why
Speaker 1: the the cell processor is slightly different. So, in general,
Speaker 1: a processor's job is to take a uh information, So
Speaker 1: it's taking data and executing any sort of function upon
Speaker 1: that data to get a result. So there are two
Speaker 1: different lines of data going into a processor at any
Speaker 1: one time. There's the source information and then there are
Speaker 1: there the the the functions, the various code that comes
Speaker 1: in and says, all right, add these numbers together, or
Speaker 1: divide this number, or find the uh the largest two
Speaker 1: prime integers of this number. Um. And so that's what
Speaker 1: a processor does, is it It It executes the command
Speaker 1: upon the data and then gives the result. Uh. So
Speaker 1: that's the basic function of a processor. Now the cell
Speaker 1: processor is a little different. It's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: specialized processor and uh it has a cup of different
Speaker 1: elements to it that allow it to behave in a
Speaker 1: slightly different way. Um. In a way, it actually kind
Speaker 1: of acts like multiple computers working together on a single problem.
Speaker 1: It's just it's all been consolidated onto a single processor chip. Now,
Speaker 1: this processor chip has a power processor element or p
Speaker 1: p E. The power processor elements job is kind of
Speaker 1: like a manager at uh in a in an office,
Speaker 1: all right. The manager's job is they take in an
Speaker 1: assignment and then they give that they delegate that assignment
Speaker 1: to an employee complete all right, and then uh that
Speaker 1: employee would be represented by a synergistic processor element or SPE.
Speaker 1: Now the PS three cell processors have a one PPE
Speaker 1: and seven SPEs. So the PPE takes the problem, divides
Speaker 1: it up into individual tasks, and gives each task to
Speaker 1: an SPE. Each SPE is able to work as its
Speaker 1: own processor, with all of them working together in concert.
Speaker 1: You have a very powerful chip because they are all.
Speaker 1: That means all seven of these can work towards solving
Speaker 1: each individual problem, which ultimately will solve a much larger problem.
Speaker 1: Uh in in a fraction of the time of what
Speaker 1: would take a similarly powerful single core processor. Okay, So
Speaker 1: the other way that the analogy I used I use
Speaker 1: this on an episode of Tech Stuff Live not too
Speaker 1: long ago. But imagine that you have two rooms. Inside
Speaker 1: one room, you've got a mathematician genius, someone who can
Speaker 1: take a math problem and solve it. Uh It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how complex you make it. Eventually, sooner or later,
Speaker 1: this genius will figure it out. In a second room,
Speaker 1: you have a room full of smart people who are
Speaker 1: good at math. But they are not mathematicians. They are
Speaker 1: not geniuses. They're just they're diligent and they work hard
Speaker 1: and they can get the right answer. It just usually
Speaker 1: takes them a little bit longer than it would the
Speaker 1: genius in the other room. Now, let's say you've got
Speaker 1: a math problem. The math problem is a really really
Speaker 1: long problem that can be broken down into several steps,
Speaker 1: And you give the math problem to the genius, and
Speaker 1: you give the math problem to the room full of
Speaker 1: smart people. The smart people can break that problem up
Speaker 1: into lots of smaller problems, and each person is working
Speaker 1: on a section of it, and then ultimately they can
Speaker 1: put all their answers together and solve it faster than
Speaker 1: the genius can. However, if you have a big problem
Speaker 1: that cannot be broken down, the genius is going to
Speaker 1: be able to work through that problem faster because no
Speaker 1: matter how you, how how much the smart people in
Speaker 1: the other room look at it, they can't break that
Speaker 1: problem into smaller pieces to solve each on their own.
Speaker 1: So they just have to work on it and get
Speaker 1: through the problem. That they're not gonna be any faster
Speaker 1: than the other guy in the other room. So that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of a comparison of a cell processor versus
Speaker 1: a very powerful, uh regular microprocessor. Uh. It all depends
Speaker 1: on the kind of information you feed into it. If
Speaker 1: it's the kind of information that can be broken down
Speaker 1: into smaller problems, you're set. You're going to be able
Speaker 1: to solve that in in no time flat, relatively speaking,
Speaker 1: because you can do something that's called parallel processing. All
Speaker 1: the processors are working in parallel. Awesome. Wow, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: already wiped out. We haven't even gotten to the part
Speaker 1: about the US Air Force. Now, the Air Force is
Speaker 1: not actually they're not. It's not the first organization to
Speaker 1: use PS three's as a supercomputer. Yeah. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, um Sony was trying to illustrate this as
Speaker 1: far back as two thousand six. Um they have been
Speaker 1: uh promoting the idea that the cell processor is capable
Speaker 1: of handling advanced computing UM basically as an if you will,
Speaker 1: as sort of a marketing effort, although sort of an
Speaker 1: unusual one by you know, I guess most aiming console standards,
Speaker 1: but it's it's basically a marketing effort to show, look,
Speaker 1: this is this processor is so advanced it can handle
Speaker 1: serious computing stuff, not just handle your games. It's not
Speaker 1: just a Blu ray player. It really is a super
Speaker 1: heavy duty monster of a chip. And um, they actually
Speaker 1: have been very uh cooperative with people who are are
Speaker 1: trying to build them into and network them together to
Speaker 1: make a super computer as um as certain uh researcher
Speaker 1: did up in the Northeastern United States. Are you familiar
Speaker 1: with this person? This is the astrophysicist Dr Garov Kana. Yes.
Speaker 1: Dr Kanna, who who networked eight PlayStation three's together originally
Speaker 1: in order to solve problems relating to gravitational fields and
Speaker 1: things of that nature. Yeah, he called it his gravity
Speaker 1: grid according to the research that I used. UM. And basically,
Speaker 1: what he wanted to do was to find out, uh,
Speaker 1: what would happen if a supermassive black ol swallows a star,
Speaker 1: And so he wanted he really needed massive amounts of
Speaker 1: computing ability to do that, and he had been spending
Speaker 1: money that he he was receiving as grants from the
Speaker 1: National Science Foundation UM to distribute his project out to supercomputers,
Speaker 1: but that was costing about five thousand dollars a pop.
Speaker 1: And UM, he realized that he could do this more
Speaker 1: affordably with the processors inside a PlayStation three if he
Speaker 1: networked them together and also installed Lennox. That's an important
Speaker 1: element of this is that they Sony actually allows people
Speaker 1: to install and an open source operating system onto the
Speaker 1: p S three if they want to. It's it's actually allowed. Um,
Speaker 1: there's no barrier in place, which I gotta say is
Speaker 1: really weird for Sony. I mean, Sony is not known
Speaker 1: for being the most open platform kind of company, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: by installing lenox and creating a cluster of these PS three's.
Speaker 1: You have this very power full processing machine. What that
Speaker 1: that is? Uh, that's one illustration of how behind this
Speaker 1: project Sony is. But I haven't a more even uh
Speaker 1: vivid thing because see Dr Kano figured it would take
Speaker 1: about to buy the PlayStation three and this was you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. They were still more they
Speaker 1: were more expensive than since then. Um, but he was
Speaker 1: able to talk Sony. He explained to Sony what he
Speaker 1: wanted to do, and Sony Sony donated the eight machines
Speaker 1: that he needed to create his gravity grid. So they
Speaker 1: were absolutely saying yeah and are absolutely so, um, you
Speaker 1: know they were. They were totally behind it, and it
Speaker 1: made some noise at the time, which was good because
Speaker 1: at the time Sony was having some difficulties selling them
Speaker 1: because they were very expensive. And so when you know,
Speaker 1: I was talking earlier about the the one PPE handing
Speaker 1: out the the the individual jobs to the sp s.
Speaker 1: The same thing can be said. If you Clu suster
Speaker 1: these these devices together, you just you become you create
Speaker 1: an even larger group. So it's like a group of
Speaker 1: managers and a group of employees and so uh, you
Speaker 1: effectively increase the processing ability of this these machines, you know,
Speaker 1: by however many you managed to network together, and you
Speaker 1: can network lots of these together. You don't. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to just be eight. That was the size of
Speaker 1: the cluster that um Dr Khanna decided to to go with.
Speaker 1: But uh, and it admit the processing needs that you
Speaker 1: had at the time. The US Air Force is doing
Speaker 1: a similar project. You know, we were talking abouts threes.
Speaker 1: It's actually closer to undred. They already had over three
Speaker 1: hundred uh already set aside for supercomputing. But it's the
Speaker 1: same sort of concept is linking these together. You install
Speaker 1: Linux on them, you create clusters, and using these clusters
Speaker 1: you can solve really complex problems and and and parallel problems. Again,
Speaker 1: once again we have to differentiate. Um has to be
Speaker 1: a complex parallel problem for these clusters to actually be effective.
Speaker 1: This is very similar in a way to what quantum
Speaker 1: computing promises us. You may remember we talked about quantum
Speaker 1: computing in a previous podcast. Actually we may have talked
Speaker 1: about a couple of times. But quantum computers use cubits
Speaker 1: rather than just regular bits, and a cubit can be
Speaker 1: a zero or a one, or theoretically anything in between
Speaker 1: at the same time, so you are able to do
Speaker 1: multiple You're able to execute multiple processes all at once
Speaker 1: because these cubits are fulfilling all possibilities at the same time.
Speaker 1: The difference between quantum computers and networking a bunch of
Speaker 1: p S three's together is the results from a quantum
Speaker 1: computer are going to be generated in probabilities, so you
Speaker 1: get you'll get maybe a range of potential answers with
Speaker 1: a percentage of how likely each one is correct, so
Speaker 1: you'll never be certain that the answer that has the
Speaker 1: highest percentage, you know, the highest probability of being correct,
Speaker 1: is in fact the really correct one, which is kind
Speaker 1: of weird, but that's quantum for you. Yeah, probably, yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: You know it's funny too because, just as an aside,
Speaker 1: every time somebody says cubits, I think of the the
Speaker 1: length measurements, not which is cub i T you're thinking
Speaker 1: about building an arc, Well, yeah, everybody thinks of the arc,
Speaker 1: probably because of the Bill Cosby bit. What the hell
Speaker 1: is a cubit? Yeah, but now these are q bits, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is an entirely different. Animals say a distant cousin
Speaker 1: to q Bert. Right. UM. That amazes me. That's why
Speaker 1: I bring up Cubert as often as possible. The Air
Speaker 1: Force is actually going to be using this cluster to
Speaker 1: test a way of processing multiple radar images. Basically, they
Speaker 1: want to build them into fire resolution versions of those
Speaker 1: images UM, and other projects including high definition video processing. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, pretty heavy stuff. UM. But you know it
Speaker 1: requires that much processing power and it actually apparently is
Speaker 1: going to be handled at the Air Force Reach Research
Speaker 1: Laboratories Information Center in Rome, New York. So. UM, it's
Speaker 1: a very very specialized unit. It sounds like from the
Speaker 1: from the descriptions I've read, UM. But what's really interesting
Speaker 1: is you can do this yourself if you are. I
Speaker 1: was wondering if we were going to go into the
Speaker 1: how too, because this is this gets kind of complicated. No,
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to go in depth into the how to,
Speaker 1: but I was going to point out that uh Dr
Speaker 1: Khanna and another UM, the U Mass Dartmouth Principal investigator H.
Speaker 1: Chris Poulin, have a guide available to It's free, it's
Speaker 1: open source. All you need to do is go to
Speaker 1: PS three cluster dot org and you can find out
Speaker 1: how to build your on PlayStation three uh cluster computer,
Speaker 1: and they even tell you how you can still play
Speaker 1: games on it, although it does require a special boot
Speaker 1: system in order to boot back into the regular proprietary
Speaker 1: PS three operating system, which is very very cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so in general, I can run through like the high
Speaker 1: level steps because we can't really get into the details.
Speaker 1: It's really really complicated. Well, yeah, I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: anybody is going to take the podcast and yeah, but
Speaker 1: just just so you kind of get an idea of
Speaker 1: what goes into this is that you you have to
Speaker 1: be able to uh get a particular they they recommend
Speaker 1: a specific Linux distribution that you then uh you uh
Speaker 1: image onto a DVD and you use that as a
Speaker 1: part of what you're going to do for the the
Speaker 1: operating system for the Sony PS three. You also have
Speaker 1: to have a USB memory stick to get a special
Speaker 1: boot command on that um uh you put the image
Speaker 1: of that on there. They actually host that file on
Speaker 1: the site itself, and you using these together, you can
Speaker 1: go into a Sony PlayStation three menu and there's actually
Speaker 1: a choice to um switch the operating system to other
Speaker 1: So you I mean, it's built in you can change
Speaker 1: it that way. I mean that shows you that Sony
Speaker 1: was thinking ahead and was being very accommodating to this
Speaker 1: kind of hacking. Um, and we're using hacking in the uh,
Speaker 1: not not in the malicious sense, but in the hey,
Speaker 1: let's make this thing that does this particular task do
Speaker 1: something totally unrelated, which is really cool. Let's take it
Speaker 1: apart and see what else we can make it. So
Speaker 1: you has they have steps for installing Linux onto the machine,
Speaker 1: which is actually it's a multi step process, um and
Speaker 1: it it might be a little intimidating, but if you
Speaker 1: actually follow the instructions that are on the website, they're
Speaker 1: very comprehensive and they you know you don't. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things where it's better if you do know everything,
Speaker 1: like the reasons why you are are going through these steps,
Speaker 1: but it's not necessary because they tell you what to
Speaker 1: do anyway, so you could just blindly follow the steps
Speaker 1: and as long as you do that, you should be
Speaker 1: all right. And uh. After you've installed Lenox, it's time
Speaker 1: to create something called the message passing interface, which is
Speaker 1: that's the way that it it processes information and networks information.
Speaker 1: And you also have to get the uh software Developer Kit,
Speaker 1: so that you can actually make it do whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you plan on having it do, whether that's
Speaker 1: search for intelligent life or plot thermonuclear war. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really up to you basically at that point, it's
Speaker 1: just a tool. It's not that you know, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna run your games better, let me put it that way.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna suddenly see and improve performance from your
Speaker 1: p S three as far as gaming is concerned. But
Speaker 1: you can use it as a very powerful computer. And
Speaker 1: if you have a particular project that requires parallel processing
Speaker 1: and that's a lot of ps. Yeah, that thing we've
Speaker 1: got a pop filed are here. Um. But if you
Speaker 1: if you happen to have that that need, this could
Speaker 1: be a resource for you, especially now that the prices dropped. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's that's it's kind of interesting too that it's
Speaker 1: gained so much traction as an idea to use the
Speaker 1: PlayStation three as a model for the or and I
Speaker 1: guess a unit to be built into a cluster UM.
Speaker 1: The Cluster Workshop project, the one that we're just talking about,
Speaker 1: is as now partially funded by the National Science Foundation. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's you know, it's received that level of support
Speaker 1: in the scientific community. So um, and from what I
Speaker 1: could tell, it looks like a lot of people have
Speaker 1: adopted the idea. Um, it's just one of those things
Speaker 1: where when the military goes out and buys a whole
Speaker 1: lot of game consoles and networked into a cluster computer.
Speaker 1: It's it's it makes headlines because it's an interesting story.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and when you think about it, having to
Speaker 1: submit that budget request up the chain of command to
Speaker 1: the point where you know ultimately it's going to go
Speaker 1: to some sort of politicians, it can be a challenge
Speaker 1: to explain to someone not it's not not I don't
Speaker 1: want to use the word savvy, but not particularly informed
Speaker 1: about the possibility of of networking these devices together in
Speaker 1: order to make an actual computer. Uh. You know, on
Speaker 1: the surface, you just say, why the heck do you
Speaker 1: want video game consoles? Uh? So, I mean that would
Speaker 1: definitely be a challenge. I would not want to be
Speaker 1: the guy who has to explain, especially if if I
Speaker 1: were in a chain of command situation, I might not
Speaker 1: even understand it. You know, it might be like three
Speaker 1: people below me have have that information and then I'm
Speaker 1: kind of stuck. But that is It is a nice
Speaker 1: interesting way to solve the problem because supercomputers are not
Speaker 1: just expensive. I mean, not all research facilities purchase supercomputers.
Speaker 1: In fact, most don't. Most end up essentially, um not
Speaker 1: not renting time, but getting having to I'm granted to
Speaker 1: them to use a supercomputer, either through grant money or
Speaker 1: sometimes the supercomputer, uh resource has a quota to meet
Speaker 1: of a certain number of hours of processing time they
Speaker 1: have to dedicate to research projects. But you've got you've
Speaker 1: got more projects, and you have supercomputers, so you know
Speaker 1: that time becomes a precious commodity. And if you if
Speaker 1: you aren't able to book that time when your research
Speaker 1: project is active, then it could be really hard to
Speaker 1: keep that project going long enough for you to be
Speaker 1: able to get the access. So this is a really
Speaker 1: it's a viable alternative. Yeah. Yeah, And another nice thing
Speaker 1: too is that, you know, it's one of the things
Speaker 1: that keeps Google's data centers running. Mean, they use thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of computers as servers. You know, if one
Speaker 1: of them goes down, there's some redundancy. So I would
Speaker 1: assume although I you know, it's just one of those
Speaker 1: things that just came to me I haven't researched it,
Speaker 1: but I would assume if one of the PlayStations, um,
Speaker 1: you know, gives up the ghost, then you could pull
Speaker 1: it out and you know, put another machine in there
Speaker 1: far more affordably than you could if you're a supercomputer,
Speaker 1: you know, your crazy definitely, definitely, because you're talking about
Speaker 1: you know, off the shelf components versus sometimes uh very
Speaker 1: specific um unique parts. I mean, some of these supercomputers
Speaker 1: are running on chips that you know, they essentially come
Speaker 1: out of the lab and go into a supercomputer, so
Speaker 1: they're not even at the mass production phase necessarily for
Speaker 1: some of these chips, whereas with the p S three
Speaker 1: you just go to best Buy or you know something
Speaker 1: and just pick one off the shelf and go and
Speaker 1: you buy it and you're done. You have to go
Speaker 1: back and you you know, you have to of course
Speaker 1: install the operating system and and and attach it to
Speaker 1: your cluster part of the cluster. It's not like it's
Speaker 1: just plug in play. But it's a lot easier than
Speaker 1: if you suddenly had your supercomputer go oopsie on you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not that I've ever heard of a PlayStation three having
Speaker 1: that kind of a problem. Now that's more of an
Speaker 1: Xbox three sixty kind of thing. See, now people are
Speaker 1: gonna write to me and say that I hate the
Speaker 1: Xbox three six, despite the fact that I am an
Speaker 1: avid Xbox fan. But come on, guys, that red ring
Speaker 1: of death. Seriously. Oh you know, I I wouldn't mind having.
Speaker 1: I don't own either one, and I would like at
Speaker 1: PlayStation three and an Xbox reason so would I put
Speaker 1: it on my Amazon wish list, And no one has
Speaker 1: picked it up yet. I keep checking. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: look in your stocking. We'll see what we can do.
Speaker 1: And I have been gaining a lot of weight. My
Speaker 1: stocking has been getting larger, Leon is getting larger. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess, uh, that's a good discussion about the p
Speaker 1: S three supercomputer connection. Um, that was a great question, Tim.
Speaker 1: He actually he actually, Although I said it was a
Speaker 1: listener text message, he sent his request via phone, which
Speaker 1: a lot of you have been doing. And it just
Speaker 1: shows that our listeners are super cool smartphone users, which
Speaker 1: is awesome. Um. Well, I guess that wraps up that discussion,
Speaker 1: but it does lead us to a little listener mail.
Speaker 1: This listener mail comes from Immanual Emmanuel says, Hey, they're
Speaker 1: imitating Jonathan because you guys are awesome. Thank you. You
Speaker 1: guys mentioned that NATAL uses only gestures and it is
Speaker 1: unsure of whether it will be too much of a
Speaker 1: leap in technology. However, one thing you forgot to mention
Speaker 1: is that NATAL can actually scan physical objects, which then
Speaker 1: allows you to use real world objects in your games.
Speaker 1: This can range from skateboards, tennis rackets, to an air
Speaker 1: soft gun for first person shoots, etcetera. In my humble opinion,
Speaker 1: the developers are really in control of whether or not
Speaker 1: their game will implement some sort of physical object. The
Speaker 1: only way to find out is to wait until the
Speaker 1: release date. We shall see. I'm Emmanuel from Bermuda and
Speaker 1: this is my okay. Now, this was a request from Immanual.
Speaker 1: So anyone who gets annoyed by me yelling into the microphone,
Speaker 1: this is your opportunity. Turned down the volume now, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to count to three, and after that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna fulfill Emmanual's requests. Remember this is a manual asking
Speaker 1: for this, so please turn down your volume one, two, three.
Speaker 1: Listener Maid in the tone that you used to use
Speaker 1: because it always managed to make me laugh. Thanks Emmanuel,
Speaker 1: I hope you guys were able to turn your volume
Speaker 1: down in time. Don't send me iTunes reviews and say
Speaker 1: that you hated it. I gave you plenty of opportunity
Speaker 1: that time, guys. You know, I have to say it's
Speaker 1: it's funny because, um, both sides are pretty vocal about
Speaker 1: whether they liked or hated that. Yeah, we get email
Speaker 1: all the time about people who say, thank you for
Speaker 1: changing that, that was irritating, or I really miss the
Speaker 1: way you used to say listener mail. And then we
Speaker 1: still get reviews on iTunes that say I hate how
Speaker 1: he yells into the microphone, Like I haven't done that
Speaker 1: for like three months anyway, So I guess they're just
Speaker 1: listening to all the old episodes. Thanks a lot, Emanuel.
Speaker 1: That is a good point. Yes, Natal can scan objects
Speaker 1: like like a skateboard. So it's kind of similar to
Speaker 1: the Tony Hawk Ride game that came mount where you
Speaker 1: have a very special controller that's in the shape of
Speaker 1: a skateboard. Use that as a controller. Why are you
Speaker 1: looking at me like that? Nothing? So anyway, you can
Speaker 1: scan like a board and use it as if it
Speaker 1: were one of those controllers. Now, granted the board you
Speaker 1: scan would just be a normal board. It wouldn't even
Speaker 1: have any controls in it or anything. It's an't all
Speaker 1: scanning it and then interpreting that. So when I said
Speaker 1: that you would have to use like just your empty
Speaker 1: hand for like a lightsaber game, I totally forgot. No,
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily have to do that. It may allow
Speaker 1: you to scan an object and use that as the
Speaker 1: hilt of a lightsaber, which could then help you defeat
Speaker 1: the forces of evil, or if you are like me,
Speaker 1: make everyone join the empire. I have a plus three
Speaker 1: slice of pizza. Fear me. Okay, now you're mixing genres
Speaker 1: and and different kinds of games. I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: close this out. If any of you would like to
Speaker 1: send us mail, our address is tex Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Remember we got a live show,
Speaker 1: tech Stuff Live every Tuesday one pm Eastern. You can
Speaker 1: find a link to that through the blogs and the
Speaker 1: blog links are on how stuff works dot com on
Speaker 1: the right hand side and Crispy and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: and be sure to check out the new tech stuff
Speaker 1: blog now on the house, Stuff Works homepage, brought to
Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
Speaker 1: are you