unfortunately there were not many changes in cheese in the last time, but some weeks ago, i was fortunate and got a small parcel with some usb devices in it. with it a small note from a cheese user, which said, that he would like to thank the cheese team for its work.

as i had some free time, i began have a look at those usb devices and created some plugins for those. to use those plugins, just download the plugins package here: cheese-plugins-0.1.tar.bz2 (md5sum: 1d874bfb305227b830dd017598ea0a9f)

i included a README file, which quickly explains how to install the plugins. but basically you just need at least cheese 2.24.2 installed. you then can install the plugins locally without messing up your system or you can install them into the system, like cheese. however, please read the README file before you do anything else.

the package features those things:

the usb rocket system: some of you may already know that fun gadget. the purpose is simply to aim and shoot one of the rockets over the usb connection. funnily, this did not require any kernel module or something, but just some coordinates and data which you need to send over usb. with this plugin enabled, you just can take a photo of a person or anything else and if cheese does recognize the person or whatever afterwards, it will shoot a rocket into that direction (persuming, that the rocket launcher is set up correctly). i also added the possbility to use a photo as a target, which you already have taken earlier. i had quite a fun with it already ;)

something for the cats and dogs: there was also another strange device in the box, which featured a small tank, which you can fill with something, presumably dog food or water. if you then send the proper signal over usb to it, it opens the tank for a few seconds, enough to let some of the dog food or water fall out of the tank. i placed a nap under it, and added the same target algorithm i used in the previous mentioned plugin, and now if my dog enters the room, he gets some food.

the police siren: same thing as above, if a target enters, the siren goes off.

other: i also added some other things, which people can use, if they do not have any of the above devices:

• the movie filter: finally you can be right inside a movie. this new filter allows you to choose some settings from cinema movies, but also to create some by yourself: by now we included the sin city effect, the black-and-white-very-old-film effect, the 300 (sparta) effect and some western like effects.
• the hotornot plugin: based on the website hotornot, cheese rates your look by the already known faces on hotornot. it then gives you a rating from 1 to 10.
• the i am famous plugin add a picture of a famous person to cheese and take a photo with that plugin enabled. cheese then will tell you how similar you look to that person. for example, i have a 3% similarity to vuntz ;)
• the i am famous filter: as above, just add a picture of a famous person to cheese and then take a photo with the filter enabled. the filter will modify your face to look like the famous person.

thats all for now. please test those plugins and filters and tell us how you like them!