Michael Naimark

Hand-colored stereoscopic image of Sumo wrestlers c.1898

Lovely stereoscopic images by T. Enami are "animated" for viewing without glasses.
Cheap trick but effective.
See them here.

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Monkeys are freaked out by almost-but-not-quite-real depictions of themselves. That tendency is well documented in humans, but has never before been seen in another species.

To test their preference, researchers showed macaque monkeys real pictures, digital caricatures and realistic reconstructions of other monkey faces. To the latter, the macaques repeatedly averted their eyes.

“The visual behavior of the monkeys falls into the uncanny valley just the same as human visual behavior,” wrote Princeton University evolutionary biologists Shawn Steckinfinger and Asif Ghazanfar in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Complete story here, from Wired Science 10/13/09.

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Apple today received a patent on a head-mounted laser video display… Apple’s innovation over previous head mounted displays is, in part, to separate the laser engine from the headgear, stowing the engine in a separate unit connected to the frames via fiber optic cable. Such an “iGlasses” setup … would allow a more immersive television, gaming or conferencing experience when using, say, an iPhone.

Full story here

from gawker.com.

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Naimark here. Remember (oldsters) that I had been lobbying for a class project which enables online cinéastes to contribute to a group thing where cinematic continuity was the glue? My (purely academic) example was passing a "red ball" in and out of the frame, from different people in different locations.

That was then. Some unevenly cool examples have happened since, like the Google Gmail video released in August 2007, ostensibly made from 1,110 submissions, and most recently the Eternal Moonwalk tribute to Michael Jackson.

Here's the coolest, released this month:

and the story behind it, which came out yesterday. Kevin Kelly writes "More proof that the hive can make art, when directed."

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from the real NY Times:

In an elaborate hoax, pranksters distributed hundreds or possibly thousands of free copies of a spoof edition of The New York Times on Wednesday morning at busy subway stations around the city, including Grand Central Terminal, Washington and Union Squares, the 14th and 23rd Street stations along Eighth Avenue, and Pacific Street in Brooklyn, among others.

It's actually 1.2 million copies, this being yet another brilliant and elaborate hoax by the Yes Men.

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Ars Electronica invites artists and scientists to submit proposals for new and novel ways to connect, in real time, people to people and people to environments in different physical locations. The goal is to expand and explore meaningful exchanges between remote groups of people.
 
The one essential requirement for all proposals is “live bits:” real-time digital information via any network, of any viable quantity, and in any modality. In addition to symmetrical two-way communication, asymmetrical two-way communication and even one-way communication will be considered as long as a live component is present. “Fresh” and “canned” bits, as well as physically transported objects, may also be incorporated.
 
We will award up to 20 commissions of 10,000 EUR each. But you must act quickly and we will reciprocate.

Deadline for submission is 31 October 2008 and notification of recipients will be 30 November 2008.

The commissions must be completed by June 2009, for inclusion in “80+1: A Journey Around the World,” an 80(+1) day event in the Linz Main Square and the Ars Electronica Centre, 18 June - 6 September 2009, for Linz09, European Capital of Culture.

Full details can be found here.

Posted by at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Filmmaker Michael Horn: "I shot everything on my junkie DV camera, did motion-tracking and comping in After Effects, and basic sound design in Final Cut." More in an interview in StarWarsBlog.

Motion tracking, which uses computer vision techniques to track objects in the image, has virtually replaced motion control, which uses expensive mechanical and robotic cameras, for many kinds of composite shots in the past few years. The implications for independent production, new interactive techniques, and general hacking are huge.

By way of Kevin Kelly's blog, in a post called The End of Video as Evidence of Anything, a must read.

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This undated photo provided by Daniela Rus shows research technician Roy Libeau steadying a cow wearing an early prototype of the "Ear-A-Round" device at the USDA's Jornada Experimental Range in Las Cruces, N.M. The device, created by researchers at the experimental range and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, can funnel voice commands and sounds directly into a cow's ear to guide them while out on the range. The device is part of a project to remotely command cattle using satellite and computer science technology. (AP Photo/Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Iuliu Vasilescu)

"It has the potential to give farmers a much finer control of pastures, finer management of where animals are and a better use of the land," said Rus, a robotics expert. "With this technology we can also find out what the animals do all day."

Full story from today's Boston Globe, continued - - ->

Continue reading "MIT researchers to herd headset-wearing cows from afar" »

Posted by at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Leonardo DiCaprio to star in 'Atari'
Tale about the godfather of video game industry

By Borys Kit and Jay A. Fernandez
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i1751753614c1db77744a34deae6cb78b
June 6, 2008, 09:19 PM
Leonardo DiCaprio has more fake IDs than Fletch.

The ubiquitous actor-producer has just become attached to star in "Atari," a pitch that writers Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman sold to Paramount on Friday about the godfather of the video game industry, Nolan Bushnell. DiCaprio's Appian Way shingle is producing the biopic, which the filmmakers hope will play with elements from "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "Tucker."

Bushnell was an engineering student, puzzle-lover and game enthusiast (chess, Go, early computer games) who went from fixing broken pinball machines to launching Atari Corp., a video game manufacturer, in the early '70s. Its first product was a little game called Pong that transfixed kids in suburban rec rooms across the country and led to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of video game sales. Within a few years, he sold the company to Warner Communications for $28 million.

Continue reading "Art Imitates Life" »

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"Viewfinder: How to Seamlessly 'Flickrize' Google Earth"
progress report and video went online today.

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