I heard about BumpTop for the first time about 2 and a half years ago. I wrote a blog about it when I had watched the demo video. I was really amazed and anxious to try it one day. On the 12th of this month, I have received an invitation from BumpTop to download the beta version of the 3d desktop application!
Right away, I downloaded the software and installed it in my Windows Vista (it works only on Windows XP and Vista). It looked different than the demo I watched 30 months ago, but much better! BumpTop will make your virtual desktop look more like a real desktop with your files and folders scattered around and stacked the way it fits your need and taste.
You have the choice of downloading more BumpTop themes. See some snapshots I took for some of those themes. Sign up for a beta download invitation and you might experience BumpTop soon :)
CNN Hologram Interview: Big Setup To Produce "Star Wars" Like Technology
It was an election night like none other, in every sense of the phrase. In addition to the obvious -- the selection of the nation's first black president -- Tuesday night's coverage on CNN showcased groundbreaking technology.
"I want you to watch what we're about to do," CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer told viewers early in the evening's coverage, "because you've never seen anything like this on television." And he was right. Cue CNN political correspondent Jessica Yellin.
"Hi Wolf!" said Yellin, waving to Blitzer as she stood a few feet in front of him in the network's New York City studios. Or at least, that's the way it appeared at first glance.
In reality, Yellin -- a correspondent who had been covering Sen. Barack Obama's campaign -- was at the now president-elect's mega-rally along the lakefront in Chicago, Illinois, more than 700 miles away from CNN's Election Center in New York.
It looked like a scene straight out of "Star Wars." Here was Yellin, partially translucent with a glowing blue haze around her, appearing to materialize in thin air. She even referenced the classic movie on her own, saying, "It's like I follow in the tradition of Princess Leia. It's something else."
The technology involved placing a subject in the middle of a bright-green circular room inside a large tent at Obama's Grant Park victory celebration. The subject was then filmed with 35 high-definition video cameras, barely larger than average point-and-shoot cameras, which ringed the wall of the circular room. The video cameras were 6 inches apart and at eye level, 220 degrees around the subject.
According to Gizmodo, this is what CNN used to create this visual trick:
On the subject's side:
35 HD cameras pointed at the subject in a ring.
Different cameras shoot at different angles (like the matrix), to transmit the entire body image.
The cameras are hooked up to the cameras in home base in NY, synchronizing the angles so perspective is right.
The system is set up in trailers outside Obama and McCain HQ
Not only is it mechanical tracking via camera communication, there's infrared as well.
Correspondents see a 37-inch plasma where the return feed of the combined images are fed back to them.
Twenty "computers" are crunching this data in order to make it usable.
On the HQ side:
Only used on two out of 40-something total camera feeds that CNN has.
The delay is either minimal, or we've gotten used to satellite delay that we don't even notice now.
An array of computers takes the crunched info feed from the subject's side in order to mesh it with the video from Wolf's side.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the images are actually "projected" onto the floor of the CNN studio so that Wolf can actually talk to the person, you know, in a face to face. So it's not quite Star Wars just yet. Only after computers merge the video feeds together do you get a coherent hologram + person scenario.
Here is the video that talks about the secret of this magic ...
FoxTab provides a new fascinating and elegant method for finding and selecting a tab in the browser. FoxTab is designed to be suitable for many types of users, those with only few tabs opened and those out there who usually have tons of opened tabs to select from.
The idea behind FoxTab is to provide new visual methods for quick tab switching. It's a cross between Mac OS X's Expose, Windows Vista's Flip 3D, and the thumbnail view in Google Chrome. When you've got a lot of tabs open in Firefox, this offers a quick way to jump to the page you want without having to eyeball the name of each one.
There are 5 layouts which you can choose from: Stack - Tabs are 3D-stacked one behind the other. Wall - Tabs are displayed on a wall (similar to a TV store). Grid - Tabs are aligned on a grid. Row - Tabs are arranged horizontally. Circle - Tabs are placed around a 3D circle.
FoxTab is an "experimental" add-on in Mozilla's directory, so you must be registered there to download it.
Sha3biyat Al Cartoon 3: UAE Animated Show Reflecting The Mixture of Culture
I admit that I'm a big fan of the Arabic animated series (Sha3biyat Al Cartoon), specially the 3rd season which currently being aired on Sama Dubai TV channel during the month of Ramadan. The idea and characters of the show are by (Haydar Mohamed), a young talent from the UAE. The show is directed by (Amer Kokh).
Sha'beyat Alcartoon is a place existed once upon a time in the old Dubai. It was a collection of cardboard and wood manufactured homes and inhabited by several nationalities and cultures. The characters represent the mixture of cultures living in the UAE Society. Look at the following image to see what I mean ...
The following is one of the funniest episodes this year. It's about obtaining driving license in the UAE ...
The picture below shows (Haydar Mohamed) giving instructions to the voice cast of the show. You can see in the picture the director (Amer Kokh) ...
Now see and hear the cast making the voices of the characters ...
Mohamed Haydar is currently working on another animated series. He is also preparing an animated movie to be released to UAE cinemas.
Microsoft Photosynth: Turn Your Digital Photos Into 3D Experience
About 16 months ago, I wrote about Microsoft's Photosynth and its demo of converting regular digital photos into a 3D experience. Just two weeks ago, Microsoft released Photosynth software that allows users to use their own digital photos to create a 3D space and a totally new method in sharing your experience of a place with others.
Photosynth analyzes a set of photos of a place or an object for similarities each other, and uses that data to estimate where a photo was taken and build a model of the subject. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos. Photosynth is available for free at photosynth.com, where you can explore creations from users around the world and build synths of your own.
A Photosynth experience begins with nothing more than a bunch of digital photos. They might all have been taken by one person, or they might be a mixture of images from many different cameras, shooting conditions, dates, times of day, resolutions, and so on.
Each photo is processed by computer vision algorithms to extract hundreds of distinctive features, like the corner of a window frame or a door handle. Photos that share features are then linked together in a web. When the same feature is found in multiple images, its 3D position can be calculated. It's similar to depth perception - what your brain does to perceive the 3D positions of things in your field of view based on their images in both of your eyes. Photosynth's 3D model is just the cloud of points showing where those features are in space.
Getting started with Photosynth is easy:
To begin, just take a few dozen digital photos — 20 to 300 photos are required, depending on the size of the place or object — with overlap between each shot, from a number of locations and angles.
Next, download a small, free software application to your computer from http://photosynth.com. This software works in concert with the Photosynth Web site, which is also a free service.
Build your synth in just two easy steps: First, from the Photosynth Web site, click on Create and select the pictures you want to use. Then, give your creation a name and click on Synth, and Photosynth automatically creates and uploads your synth. In about the same amount of time it would take to upload the pictures to a photo-sharing site, you can enjoy your pictures in dramatic and detailed 3-D.
The finished synth can be accessed from any Windows XP- or Windows Vista-powered computer with a broadband connection. If you want to comment on other people’s synths or create your own, you’ll also need a free Windows Live ID.
Once created, synths can also be embedded on Web sites, blogs and social networking sites or virtually anywhere HTML can be edited.
Following this release, the Photosynth team will join MSN — an important step in continuing to improve Photosynth and share the experience with an even wider audience. In addition to letting users create and share synths at photosynth.com, over the next year Photosynth will begin to become a key part of the experience for MSN’s 550 million monthly visitors worldwide. Synths will be prominently featured on MSN.com. To create a more absorbing experience for its visitors, MSN will use synths of popular destinations and notable events in many of the places where static images are used on the site today.
3-D Facial Animation So Real With Image Matrics & AlterEgo
This amazing combination of technology and graphical artistry makes for some of the most realistic and precise 3D animated facial expressions I’ve ever seen. 3-D computer animation has become so advanced that it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Just to show you what I mean, meet Emily & AlterEgo faces:
Emily From Image Matrics
Emily - the woman in the above animation - is an animation believe it or not! Emily was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated. She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.
Researchers at a Californian company which makes computer-generated imagery for Hollywood films started with a video of an employee talking. They then broke down down the facial movements down into dozens of smaller movements, each of which was given a 'control system'.
The team at Image Metrics - which produced the animation for the Grand Theft Auto computer game - then recreated the gestures, movement by movement, in a model. The aim was to overcome the traditional difficulties of animating a human face, for instance that the skin looks too shiny, or that the movements are too symmetrical.
Faces From AlterEgo
Pendulum Studios’, AlterEgo division combines facial expression software, precision motion capture, and good old-fashioned artistry to reproduce the most minute facial movements you’ve ever seen on a digital actor. Every wrinkle, crinkle and twitch is reproduced with startling accuracy.
The guys over at AlterEgo have developed proprietary “facial performance software”, which combined with special mo-cap hardware, can produce unbelievably real digital faces in record time. Their work has been featured in motion pictures, commercials, animation and video games including Dark Sector and the forthcoming Silent Hill 5.
Maybe one day we will not need real actors and actresses to make movies. Exactly like the movie S1m0ne had predicted.
The above image I have just captured with Google Earth for Disney's Magical Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. This is a creative promotional campaign for Disney World with great help of Google Earth. Now you can explore Disney World Florida interactively in 3D using your Google Earth 4.3 . This is what Jay Rasulo, Chairman, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts said about this new creative technology for interactive tourism:
"Last May, Eric Schmidt and I met to talk about The Walt Disney Company’s focus on technology. We started to explore innovative ways we could work together to bring one of the world’s most magical destinations to Google Earth’s millions of users… and how our guests could be a mouse-click away from visiting the place where dreams come true. The result is Walt Disney World Resort in 3D, an interactive, virtual Walt Disney World completely recreated on Google Earth."
The following is the promotional video from Disney World:
If you have Google Earth installed in your PC, then go ahead and open the this KMZ file that will take you directly to Disney's Magical Kingdom in Orlando. Explore Disney in 3D yourself!
Photosynth is a new technology from Microsoft Live Labs that takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.
With Photosynth you can:
Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it's megapixels or gigapixels in size.
See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing.
Send a collection - or a particular view of one - to a friend.
"We've assembled a few collections for you to play with, and we're working on adding more. In the future you'll be able to "photosynthesize" your own photos, but we aren't there yet.", said Photosynth website.
A Photosynth experience begins with nothing more than a bunch of digital photos. They might all have been taken by one person, or they might be a mixture of images from many different cameras, shooting conditions, dates, times of day, resolutions, and so on.
Each photo is processed by computer vision algorithms to extract hundreds of distinctive features, like the corner of a window frame or a door handle. Photos that share features are then linked together in a web. When the same feature is found in multiple images, its 3D position can be calculated. It's similar to depth perception - what your brain does to perceive the 3D positions of things in your field of view based on their images in both of your eyes. Photosynth's 3D model is just the cloud of points showing where those features are in space.
I encourage you to try the preview page and experience this new digital photography tool.
Freej: First 3D Animated Series In The Middle East
(Link)
click above for larger image
Freej, the Middle East’s first 3D animated series is the brainchild of Mohammed Saeed Harib who also directs the fifteen standalone episodes of fifteen minutes each, launching this September on national television. Freej is the tale of four old national women living in a secluded neighborhood in modern day Dubai. The show’s main characters; Um Saeed, Um Saloom, Um Allawi and Um Khammas try to live a peaceful life in the midst of the ever-expanding city around them, but the city’s boom unveils new social issues every day that they would have to tackle solve in their own simple way. For those four old women, there is no issue too hard to crack with a good cup of coffee at Um Saeed’s house.
Freej started of as a six page study book in 1998 but it never materialised until 2003 when it was adopted by Dubai Media City. A small demo was created to test the concept and shortly after it was given the official go ahead by the Sheikh Mohammed Establishment for Young Business Leaders (SME) who took on the initial funding of the project. On September 2005, Lammtara Pictures was established to overlook the production and a team of almost 500 people were signed up to make this big dream a reality.
The show is now in official association with Dubai Media City, Awraq Publishing, Arab Radio Network, JBM and the Sheikh Mohammed Establishment for Young Business Leaders (SME). The show also benefited from a pool of 100 volunteers from across all national universities who worked hard on the research and development part of it.
Freej is a national dream that required a lot of effort and hard work from many directions to make it a reality and to give the people of this region and especially the UAE its first animated series.
The first episode of Freej was premiered on Dubai TV and Sama Dubai on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan. The first season of Freej will be rerun in the latter half of Ramadan.
