iHologram - iPhone application from David OReilly on Vimeo.
I’ve showed this video to a couple of friends in Berlin (where I’m staying for a few days), and they all freaked out. Maybe because I left the “illusion” part out of it, I don’t know. But one thing is for sure, it’s a really cool effect. David OReilly is responsible for this hologram. He used “the Cat” from his award-winning but unfinished cartoon PSS and gave it a 3D effect with Anamorphosis, the same technique used in Hans Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors (the one with the skull).
I wonder when the holograms become reality, Starwars style. On the iPhone it would probably look a bit like this:
[Via iSmashPhone]
Tonight, Microsoft has publicly launched Photosynth, its long awaited Live Labs product that allows you to stitch your photos together to create a detailed 3D environment. While most of the computation is done on your desktop, the images are uploaded to Microsoft's servers and Microsoft is giving all Photosynth users a total of 20GB of storage for their collections. The rendering and browsing is done with the help of Seadragon, another Live Labs product.
Windows Only
When Microsoft first publicly showed a demo of Photosynth in 2006, it almost looked too good to be true. Now, getting started with it couldn’t be easier - as long as you have a Windows machine - there is no Mac version available yet. You first have to install both a browser plug-in and a desktop application (all done through just one installer). The installation was as standard as Windows installations get and finished in less than a minute. We tested the plugin in both Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 without any problems.
One interesting aspect of the uploader is that you can choose a license for your creation. You can either choose a Creative Commons license, put the pictures in public domain, or mark it as ‘All Rights Reserved.’
Desktop App
The desktop application does most of the heavy lifting for creating the ’synths’ and seemed to make good use of all available cores. You only have to pick your photos, give your collection and name and click ‘Synth.’ After it has finished, it will create a score telling you how ’synthy’ your photo collection was. Obviously, your photos need to have common areas for Photosynth to be able to stitch them together. While Photosynth does a great job making these connections, it can’t work magic and our first attempts with relatively unconnected images were futile.
The more pictures you have, the longer the process of creating your synths takes, of course, and depending on your connection, the upload to Microsoft’s servers can also take quite a while. In the end, though, your patience will be greatly rewarded.
Online Viewer
The online viewer is quite intuitive and allows you to zoom in and out, move around the picture and also go through the pictures in a 3D slide show mode. One nice feature is that you can also go full screen, which is really the best way to showcase your photos.
You can also embed a copy of your synth on any website and email a link to your friends.
The animation in Photosynth is astonishingly smooth and our screenshots really can’t do it justice. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should watch Microsoft’s demo of Photosynth at TED2007, which will give you a good impression of what the final product looks like.
Different Way of Shooting
It really takes a different approach to shooting pictures to make the most out of Photosynth. If you often stitch together photos, you are probably already used to this, but Photosynth also gives you more freedom, as you can zoom in and out, or walk around an object and still have Photosynth recognize the common areas.
In our tests, Photosynth performed flawlessly, but we would recommend that you have a set of at least 10 to 20 photos to create an interesting ’synth’ and the more photos you have, the more interesting it will be.
Caveats
A couple of caveats:
- All synths are public - there are no privacy controls!
- Photosynth only runs on Vista and XP so far.
Verdict
Even though we only had a short time to test Photosynth, it has already changed the way we think about taking pictures. Suddenly, you can do so much more with your photos. But besides the cool factor, we can also see a lot of other interesting applications for Photosynth. A realtor, for example, could use it to create a more immersive virtual tour of a house.
If you already have Photosynth installed already, you can see a 3D view of Venice below - otherwise, clicking on the image will take you directly to the installer.
reachums submits this glance at "the newest level of computer animation," intended to get past the paradoxical "uncanny valley" — that is, the way animated humans actually can appear jarring as the animation gets hyper-realistic. "This short video gives us a glimpse of what we can hope to see in the future of computer games and movies. Emily is not a real actress, but she looks like a real person, something we haven't truly seen before in computer animation."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
One particularly stunning highlight from the 125 exhibits packed into the newly-renovated BMW Welt in Munich is a mechatronic installation by ART+COM, the Berlin-based interactive media company. The project uses 714 metal balls that are individually suspended one barely visible strings, creating an seemingly weightless, amorphous mass. Each ball lowers and retracts independently, which allows them to approximate almost any form.
The installation moves through a cycle of classic and contemporary BMW car shapes from throughout the company’s 90-year history. In between cars, it goes through some impressive routines, showing the creation’s versatility. Take a look at one visitor’s video below.
via Core77
It doesn’t take long for kids to learn that when it comes to Tic Tac Toe “the only winning move is not to play.” But there’s something iconic about the game that means it keeps coming back. And designer Shahar Peleg has crafted such an unusual version I’d be tempted to pop it on my desk: it’s mirrored, so the pieces are halved until you place them on the grid. Not as high-tech as cloaked chess, but simple, and surprisingly eye-catching. [Peleg Design via Yanko design, DVICE]
There are moments in which, for whatever reason, being it a scientific discovery, a voyage into the unknown, or somebody’s excessive alcohol intake, humanity advances one step forward into its destiny, a final state of clarity and peace that will take us all to the stars. This moment complies with the three reasons. Ah, you Ms. Spinning Blonde in Jeans you. We love you.
Alexey Titarenko’s “City of Shadows” is a series of haunting, gorgeous long-exposure shots of street-scenes in St Petersburg, Russia. The long exposure-times turn the people in the shots into ghosts and suggestions of motion.
Link
(Thanks, Marilyn!)
This has to be the coolest implementation of Pong ever: load the iPong application in two or three iPods touch units or iPhones, and start playing between them using your finger, with the ball actually passing from one screen to the other depending on the ball angle.
The software was made by Mr. Kondo—a colleague of Ryo Shimizu, CEO of Ubiquitous Entertainment—in an hour. We don't know if it will make its way to the iTunes store as a commercial product, but I hope it inspires other developers to use this kind of competitive—or collaborative—gameplay. [Asiajin via [Technabob]
I have to hand it to Erik Nordenankar and DHL for devising what has to be the most creative fusion of art and technology to date. The concept was simple but brilliant: place a GPS device in a briefcase and mail it via DHL with precise travel instructions over the course of a 55 day period. When all was said and done, the GPS data formed a virtual self-portrait of the artist that spread over 6 continents and 62 countries covering nearly 70,000 miles.