Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Cheoptics360 Holographic Display

Already generating industry buzz, the new Cheoptics360™ is set to revolutionize product displays. With revolving video images, that can be seen 360° in all ambient light conditions, Cheoptics360™ brings new life to product launches, demos, and branding in general. - Vizoo

Cheoptics360 is a four-sided pyramid manufactured of transparent material so the audience can see through it from every side. Inside the pyramid chamber the audience can see objects that seem to be freely floating video images and computer graphics.
This is done through surface mirroring and reflections. The pyramid itself is used as a kind of prism that assembles light from four video projections into a solid image.
- I4U News



Sunday, November 25, 2007

Slowing light down to the speed of a bicycle and turning it into matter

Ultraslow light propagation in Bose–Einstein condensates represents an extreme example of resonant light manipulation using cold atoms. Here we demonstrate that a slow light pulse can be stopped and stored in one Bose–Einstein condensate and subsequently revived from a totally different condensate, 160 mum away; information is transferred through conversion of the optical pulse into a travelling matter wave. - Nature

Video: nature.com/nature/videoarchive/trickofthelight

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Ferrofluid: Liquid Magnets

A ferrofluid (from the Latin ferrum, meaning iron) is a liquid which becomes strongly polarised in the presence of a magnetic field. It is a colloidal mixture comprising extremely small magnetic particles suspended in a synthetic oil. The particles are coated with a a soap or detergent to prevent them from clumping together. - WikiPedia



Monday, November 12, 2007

Google Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project

Sergey Brin and Steve Horowitz discuss the availability of the SDK, that it will be open source in the future, and demo applications on the Android platform.



code.google.com/android

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Human-machine interface

Jefferson Han of Perceptive Pixel presents his amazing new human-machine interface at TED 2007.



Perspective Pixel

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Saturday, October 13, 2007

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."

[..] The Many-Worlds theory also certainly contradicts the idea of Occam's razor, that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Even stranger is the implication by the Many-Worlds theory that time doesn't exist in a coherent, linear motion. Instead, it moves in jumps and starts, existing not as a line, but as branches. These branches are as numerous as the number of consequences to all of the actions that have ever been taken. [..] - How Stuff Works

Friday, October 12, 2007

Installation - Virtual Constructs, Real Space

Installation is a system created by Simon Greenwold at the Aestetics and Computation Group at the MIT Media Lab, consisting of a viewing window and a styles with which users can create virtual forms and install them permanently into a real space. - MIT Media Lab

Demo

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Google Lunar X PRIZE

The Google Lunar X PRIZE seeks to create a global private race to the Moon that excites and involves people around the world and, accelerates space exploration for the benefit of all humanity. The use of space has dramatically enhanced the quality of life and may ultimately lead to solutions to some of the most pressing environmental problems that we face on earth – energy independence and climate change. - Google Lunar X PRIZE


googlelunarxprize.org

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Seam Carving in FotoFlexer

Seam carving found it's way into online photo editing. FotoFlexer is a powerful editing tool that offers features previously available only to professionals using expensive software.


fotoflexer.com
FotoFlexer Morph Demo

Seam carving is already available as a plugin for Adobe PhotoShop.


blog.picutel.com

Monday, October 8, 2007

Erin McKean: Redefining the dictionary

Is the beloved paper dictionary doomed to extinction? When does a made-up word become real? And could you use "synecdochical" in a sentence, please? In this infectiously exuberant talk, leading lexicographer Erin McKean looks at the many ways in which today's print dictionary is poised for transformation in this internet era. - Ted

Theo Jansen: The art of creating creatures

Dutch artist Theo Jansen demonstrates his amazingly lifelike kinetic sculptures, built from plastic tubes and lemonade bottles. His "Strandbeests" (Beach Creatures) are built to move and even survive on their own. - Ted

Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Inside the Google machine

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin offer a peek inside the Google machine, sharing tidbits about international search patterns and the philanthropic Google Foundation project (which soon became Google.org). - Ted

Friday, October 5, 2007

One Laptop Per Child: Final Testing

The $100 (well, almost) laptop is here.
Despite multiple roadblocks, the team behind the One Laptop Per Child initiative is ready to deliver. Fortune's David Kirkpatrick profiles the innovative approach to both product and marketing.
- CNN



laptop.org

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Search, Google and Life

Google co-founder Sergey Brin at the University of California, Berkeley.

2D to 3D technology


Earthmine

Earthmine is indexing reality.
We're creating an entirely new datamine about our earth that is open, connected, flexible, immersive and scalable. A spatially accurate, truly 3D inventory of our world. It just may be the link that's been missing between information and places.
- Earthmine

More

Everyscape a 3D worldviewer made from 2D photos
Photosynth reconstructs photos into a three-dimensional space
Photowoosh create 2D images in animated 3D models
Visualsize 3D measurements from digital pictures

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Cymatics: Bringing matter to life with sound

Cymatics is the study of wave phenomena. It is typically associated with the physical patterns produced through the interaction of sound waves in a medium. - Wikipedia

Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=NxOZ--igANs
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=4gVKvDhT79o

Conspiracy of Science - Earth is in fact growing

An animation by Neal Adams about his theory that the earth is growing. I'm not sure what powers this expansion (heat, probably) and where all the water is coming from but it's looks convincing.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Is a 'naked singularity' lurking in our galaxy?

Could a naked singularity, the bare core of a black hole, be sitting at the centre of our galaxy? A new study shows how astronomers could detect such a brazen object – which is so dense it would shred the known laws of physics. - NewScientist

A morphable model for the synthesis of 3D faces



Seam carving for context-aware image resizing


Demo: swieskowski.net/carve