XKCD's Randall Munroe brings the funny in an especially intense and eeeevil way with the latest strip: Anti-Glass. Read the rest
Computer-vision boob-tracker
"Boob Tracker" is a computer vision project that automatically detects boob-like objects and masks them with user-selectable bitmaps.
ExxonMobil, FAA, Arkansas cops establish flight restriction zone, threaten reporters who try to document Mayflower, AR spill
Expect to see a lot fewer images of toxic sludge creeping through small communities, thanks to the hard work of ExxonMobil. The company could have used its prodigious resources to make its oil pipelines more secure, preventing town-destroying leaks like the one that hit Mayflower, Arkansas. But they figured out that it would be cheaper to just corrupt the local law to chase reporters out and get the FAA to establish a Temporary Flight Restriction zone over the spill. Problem solved!
Read the restMichael Hibblen, who reports for the radio station KUAR, went to the spill site on Wednesday with state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel. McDaniel was in the area to inspect the site and hold a news conference, and Hibblen and a small group of reporters were following him to report on the visit. Upon arrival, representatives from the county sheriff's office, which is running security at the site, directed the reporters to a boundary point 10 feet away that they should not pass. The reporters agreed to comply. But the tone shifted abruptly, Hibblen told Mother Jones on Friday:
It was less than 90 seconds before suddenly the sheriff's deputies started yelling that all the media people had to leave, that ExxonMobil had decided they don't want you here, you have to leave. They even referred to it as "Exxon Media"…Some reporters were like, "Who made this decision? Who can we talk to?" The sheriff's deputies started saying, "You have to leave. You have 10 seconds to leave or you will be arrested."
Hibblen says he didn't really have time to deal with getting arrested, since he needed to file his report on the visit for both the local affiliate and national NPR.
Spacecraft 3D: Nifty robotic space travel augmented-reality app from NASA JPL
I recently had a chance to visit NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory with Miles O'Brien. At the NASA center in Pasadena, engineers are readying for the long-anticipated landing of the Mars Curiosity rover on Aug. 5. During our visit, we met with the team behind a cool new iOS app from JPL: NASA's Spacecraft 3D, an augmented reality application that allows users to "learn about and interact with a variety of spacecraft that are used to explore our solar system, study Earth, and observe the universe."
Using a printed AR Target and the camera on your mobile device, you can get up close with these robotic explorers, see how they move, and learn about the the engineering feats used to expand our knowledge and understanding of space. Spacecraft 3D will be updated over time to include more of the amazing spacecraft that act as our robotic eyes on the earth, the solar system and beyond!
The app is really a ton of fun. You can download it here for free, iPad and iPhone and iPod Touch. Here's the JPL press release announcing its release. Read the rest
Wil Wheaton Particle Emitter, an Augmented Reality
Michael Zoellner took the iconic Recursive Wil Wheaton t-shirt photo and turned it into an Augmented Reality Wil Wheaton Particle Emitter. When the photo is viewed through an AR app, it begins to fire an animated stream of correctly positioned recursive Wil Wheatons, each one more particulate than the last.
You probably have heard of the Recursive Wil Wheaton t-shirt. Paul (of Paul and Storm) sent it to Wil and this photo became quite popular. It was remixed by an unknown genius into an animated gif and “won at the internet”.
Over the weekend i experimented with the new PointCloud Augmented Reality SDK (which is by the way brilliant and simple: 3D tracking and HTML5). I took Recursive Wil and turned the concept around: A Wil Wheaton Particle Emitter.
Scott Meyer from basicinstructions.net sent me the original SVG file of the shirt’s image. My first try was using Processing.js for animation (Yes! Processing.js now works in AR). But SVG and CSS 3D were the better choice to get a perspective effect. And it’s hardware accelerated on iOS.
Michael is the same dude who encoded the opening of my novel Makers to be displayed as a persistence-of-vision lightshow which was mounted to the collar of a small, high-energy dog, who proceeded to tear-ass around a park one night, spelling out the book in glowing letters.
