Showing posts with label Oddball. Show all posts
Manga Keyboard Art
Posted by sci-blogger in Oddball on Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Manga painted keyboard..anyone?
They´re by Tony sensei and Carnelia sensei manga artists. More info here
I can´t pretend I can elaborate on this.
Whitts
creepy avatars
Posted by sci-blogger in Oddball on Thursday, July 2, 2009
Fancy road testing a new moustache style virtually before you start to grow it in the real world?
Me neither, but a company called Motion Portrait who took a spin at the International Optics Fair this year has developed software that allows you to upload your photo and try various moustache styles floating by on balloons.
Not that new, I admit, but the technology behind it is, since the picture turns into a moving image that smiles, blinks and generally creeps you out while it patiently waits for you to make a move.
Motion Portrait has already been picked up for use in various companies including Unilever, Sony (Walkman), a PSP game for Namco Bandai Games and can be used as slightly creepy avatars in social networks, game avatars, on mobile phones. You can even superimpose your face on another picture or movie.
They even offer a middleware if you´re a gaming company and fancy using it, here.
The site is in Japanese but it´s monkey easy to figure out what´s going on.
Click on a moustachoed balloon, then just drag the sliders for a better fit.
Give it a try here
Also one for the ladies for hair do´s here called Virtual Preview (Japanese)
Instructions:
Press the large red button on the right hand side.
On the next screen, choose a female, male or upload your own picture.
On the following screen, click a hairdo you like on the top left.
Bingo, a new Virtual Preview of your next hairdo.
Whitts
new sharper Japanese swords
Posted by sci-blogger in Oddball on Monday, June 29, 2009
As if Japanese swords weren´t sharp enough, new research in shows that scientists have developed new improved swords that are 6 times,...yep...6 times more resistant than ordinary steel swords. And also withstand subzero temps with ease.
The labrats at The National Institute for Materials Science have found a way to develop crystal structures within the swords in a process that one researcher likened to making a pie.
¨The iron material is turned back on itself in layers and hammered; the process is then repeated more than a dozen times. This appears simple, but through repetition, strong and tenacious steel with fine needle crystals is formed.¨
Whatever you say, just don´t get angry man.
Whitts