Facebook’s New Features Get Animated [VIDEO]

The Taiwanese are at it again! This time the humorists at Next Media Animation (NMA) have turned their computer-animation reenactment efforts to the latest Facebook changes.

NMA takes on the latest updates from the f8 conference including the new Timeline and music features.

As usual, NMA nails it.

Check out some images from the event below.

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Scientists Turn Brain’s Visual Memories into a Mind-Blowing Video

Ever dreamed of recording your dreams and turning them into a video clip? The technology that enables you to do that is near: UC Berkeley scientists figured out a way to turn the way our brains interpret visual stimuli into a video, and the result is amazing.

To be able to do this, the researches used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to measure the blood flow through brain’s visual cortex. Then, different parts of the brain were divided into volumetric pixels or voxels (the term might be familiar to those who remember early 3D games which were based on voxels instead of polygons which are more commonly used today). Finally, the scientists built a computational model which describes how visual information is mapped into brain activity.

In practice, test subjects viewed some video clips, and their brain activity was recorded by a computer program, which learned how to associate the visual patterns in the movie with the corresponding brain activity.

Then, test subjects viewed a second set of clips. The movie reconstruction algorithm was fed 18 million seconds of random YouTube videos, which were used to teach the program how to predict the brain activity evoked by film clips. Finally, the program chose 100 clips which were most similar to the movie the subject had seen, which were merged to create a reconstruction of the original movie.

The result is a video that shows how our brain sees things, and at moments it’s eerily similar to the original imagery.

“This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery. We are opening a window into the movies in our minds,” said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the study published in the journal Current Biology.

Recording our dreams and “reading” the minds of coma patients requires a lot of work still, as current technology only enables scientists to interpret brain activity while the test subject is watching a movie. Ultimately, it could be used to decode how our brain processes visual events in everyday life or, perhaps, our dreams.

Check out another video, which shows the movie reconstruction algorithm at work, below. More details about the study can be found here.

[UC Berkeley via Gizmodo]

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Man Turns Random Tech Into Musical Instruments [VIDEO]

Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.

The guys at StoryAmp pointed us to this video created by musician Mikael Mutti. Mutti likes to reverse engineer electronics and game controllers to create instruments and new sounds.

This video was made using the controllers featured in the video — including a Rockband Guitar/iPad hybrid, Japanese office telephone, a Wii remote and a Beamz laser motion sensor. Mutti even created an instrument out of a Dance Dance Revolution floor mat.

Using bluetooth and USB, Mutti feeds two controllers into his laptop and he creates the music using Reason and Pro Tools.

Frankly, we love seeing weird tech repurposed as musical instruments. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

And Don’t miss yesterday’s YouTube Video of the Day: Nissan iAd Creates 360-Degree Experience on Your iPhone [VIDEO].”

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Run a User-Submitted Photo or Video Contest On Your Site With Olapic

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Olapic

Quick Pitch: Olapic helps online publishers add galleries of user-contributed images.

Genius Idea: Pooling images in a database of social content.

83% of Americans own a smartphone, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet Project. Most of those phones, even the “dumb” ones, are equipped with some kind of camera. More cameras equal more photos, which can be a great opportunity for publishers — if they can find a way to leverage it.

Olapic’s product is one way to do this. The startup makes it easy for site publishers to collect and display user’s photos through widgets they can embed on their sites. Visitors to the publications can either drag and drop files into a box on the site, choose to upload photos from social networks like Facebook or Instagram, email their photos to a special address or tweet their photos with a specific hashtag. Publications get a centralized moderation dashboard. As soon as they approve photos, they appear in a Gallery on the site.

New York Daily News, The Chicago Tribune and Styleist have either used the widget on their site or purchased a white label version [Disclosure: Mashable is a customer of Olapic's]. Olapic charges a monthly fee based on each customer’s number of monthly unique visitors.

The majority of Olapic’s customers are news organizations, but co-founder Jose de Cabo said he also thinks the application has a future with sports teams and event organizations. One soccer team, the New England Revolution, already uses it to collect fan photos on its Facebook Page.

From a revenue standpoint, advertising seems to be an even more promising route than subscription fees. Olapic is, for instance, coordinating a branded Facebook version of its widget for Pepsi. It’s an instant campaign that engages consumers, and it can work well for hosting a branded contest. Eventually it may also share revenue with publications for ads the company can incorporate into the gallery widget.

But the startup’s grand vision extends far beyond interactive galleries.

“We’re building a very large network of sites that have video and photo-sharing,” De Cabo says. “What we want is to have this network where users can contribute with photos and videos, and get more exposure to their pictures.”

In other words, any website could search the entire database for material to publish. It sounds like a convenient solution for publishers, but will site visitors be eager to share their photos with the world without compensation? De Cabo says their excited reactions to the widget so far suggest that they will. That, and what he calls “vanity coins.”

Would you be willing to share your photos this way? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Thomas Hawk

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

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Google+ Hangouts Are Now More Sign-Language Friendly [VIDEO]

Google+ Hangouts were already popular with users who communicate with sign language, but thanks to improvements in video stability and a new “Take the Floor” feature, Google’s group video chat capability just got a lot more accessible for everyone.

Switching between speakers in Hangouts is automatic using voice activation, where whomever is talking the most (or the loudest) is shown in the main video area, and all others are seen in smaller video thumbnails. Sounds great, and that automatic switching is one of the coolest features of Google+ Hangouts.

But that wasn’t working as well for hearing-impaired users in chat areas where all users were signing — the main screen was usually occupied by whichever user’s microphone was picking up the most background noise. As a result, most users were often trying to read the sign language of people who were shown on tiny thumbnail screens.

Google’s fixed that with its new “Take the Floor” feature. In a Google+ post, Google engineering director Chee Chew explained how it works:

1) Have everyone mute their audio.
2) When you want to sign something, hit Shift+s.
3) When you see yourself as the main video, that’s your cue. You’ve got the floor… everyone’s main video has switched to you. Sign away.

Chew added, “We’ve noticed over the past few weeks that the stability and quality of the video in Hangouts has improved as well, which also makes it easier for the hearing impaired to see and understand sign language.”

Great idea, Google.

[via WebProNews]

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Hacker Build Hand-Mounted Tacit Sonar Device (Video)

So this real clever guy named Steve is being credited for making the Haptic. It’s quite an impressive gadget that’s actually a portable sonar device for the blind. The technology, however, isn’t new. What Steve really accomplished was make it more compact for wearing on the wrist. As the accompanying blog post put it, “It’s like strapping a bat on your wrist.” Couldn’t have been any blunter.

For your perusal, a video:

The Haptic’s ultimate purpose is to allow the blind to ‘feel’ the terrain they are walking on. The fact that it uses a cloth cover/case indicates its inventor has a flare for sensible design. We have no idea how rugged this is, however. Apparently, the Haptic isn’t the first of its kind as similar sensors have been commercially available for a while.

What makes it different is the gadget is custom-built for a different part of the body–the wrist. Thus when worn, the Haptic intends to replace the blind person’s cane or at least broaden their aural perception.

Sonar really is impressive and to get it to the size of a hand-mounted device is something to be proud of. Hope Steve never stops building things. Who knows what he might come up with next?

Source Hackaday

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Lego Comes To Life Through This 3D Milling Machine (Video)

Ah, Lego. A cultural icon, the building blocks of dreams, scattered inspiration awaiting the creative process. Lest we get too poetic, below is a mere glimpse of rare and excellent footage we unearthed from somewhere showing a 3D milling machine in action. The really impressive part, of course, is it’s made of Lego. The part that would make you slap your forehead is when the machine sculpts a face from a block of floral foam. Impressive!

Here’s the precious video:

A certain Arthur Sacek is the genius responsible for this incredible build. Without using much else aside from Lego parts and a drill, he successfully assembled a worthy 3D milling machine. The next challenge, of course, is building a bigger more complex beast to create even more awesome stuff.

The pinnacle of Lego, of course, if large industrial machines creating real products are ever built to service small-time manufacturers. That would just rule the world and bring technology to a new level. The beauty of Lego is it’s no longer confined to age groups and a growing percentage of Lego users who simply ‘played’ with it as children find more uses for it during their adulthood. We hope Lego never goes away.

Source Brothers Brick

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StumbleUpon Introduces New Explore Box Feature (video)

StumbleUpon has today introduced a new feature called the “Explore box” which allows users to search recommendations on more specific level. The new beta “Explore box” feature enables you to stumble hundreds of thousands on specific topics rather than just being restricted to set up specifically defined categories.

Check out the video after the jump to see the new StumbleUpon “Explore box” feature in action.

StumbleUpon explains:

“We’ve had a prototype of this for a while, but earlier on we felt like we weren’t getting enough results. We couldn’t really do it at the beginning because we needed a bigger index. In the earlier days, if you had typed in a specific term, you may have gotten just five results. Now, we have millions of pages of content, and it will just get better over time.”

You can check out the new StumbleUpon ”Explore box” over on the  StumbleUpon website,  but don’t forget it is still under the beta development label at the moment. StumbleUpon is hoping to roll out their new ”Explore box” feature to mobile device application in the near future.

Source: GigaOm

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Borderlands 2 Teaser Trailer (video)

Earlier this month game developers 2K Games and Gearbox announced that a sequel to the popular game Borderlands was currently being developed with an expected launch date somewhere between April 2012 and spring 2013. Following up on that announcement the team has now released a quick teaser video confirming their intentions. Watch the Borderlands 2 teaser video after jump.

2K Games divulge a little of what we can expect from the Borderlands 2 game:

“Combining invention and evolution, Borderlands 2 features all-new characters, skills, environments, enemies, weapons and equipment, which come together in an ambitiously crafted story. Players will reveal secrets, and escalate mysteries of the Borderlands universe as they adventure across the unexplored new areas of Pandora,”

Even though 2K Games and Gearbox had hinted at Spring 2013 launch date the trailer finishes showing 2012, fingers crossed. When Borderlands 2 does eventually arrive it will be available on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC platforms

Source: Lazygamer

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Stunning Guild Wars 2 Gamescom 2011 Trailer (video)

Gamescom 2011 has already provided some great game trailers this week in Germany, and the latest to be released is a stunning 5 minute Guild Wars 2 trailer, that won’t disappoint.

Last year at Gamescom AreanaNet won the Online Game of the Year award and has come back this year looking to defend its title with the launch of a new playable build of the anticipated MMO. Watch the trailer build into a crescendo of battles after the jump, showing how the five great races competed and warred against each other, struggling to tip the balance of power in their favour.

Unfortunately no launch date has been released as yet by AreanaNet, but when the new game does launch it will be an exclusive to PC game.

Source: Game Spy

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Mute Unwanted Phrases On TV With The Arduino Enough Already Box (video)

If you enjoy watching TV but are fed up listening to certain celebrity names or phrases being over used. A new Arduino device called the Enough Already, developed by Matt Richardson might be able to help you recover control of your TVs audio.

His new creation is Arduino based and allows you to mute a TVs audio based on certain keywords or phrases. The little device uses a Video Experimenter Shield which is placed on top of the Arduino board enabling it to then decode the closed-captioning text of the programme currently showing on your TV. Watch the video after the jump to see the Enough Already, Arduino device in action.

Richardson explains how his innovative device works:

“Closed captioning transcription is transmitted with the NTSC picture signal. The incoming text is processed for a set of keywords such as “KARDASHIAN” or “SNOOKI” and sends my television’s IR remote control mute command, muting the TV for 30 seconds and then unmuting it (as long as a keyword isn’t mentioned again).”

For more information on the device and how to build one jump over to the MAKE website.

Source: MAKE

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Dell Unveils Its Thinnest Monitor Ever S2330MX (video)

Dell have today introduced their thinnest monitor ever the Dell S2330MX. A 23? ultra slim monitor that has been designed for home or business use. The new Dell S2330MX uses LED backlighting technology and has a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution with a 2ms response time. Watch the video after the jump to learn more about this Ultra thin monitors specifications and see it in action.

The Dell S2330MX is scheduled to go on sale tomorrow August 18th 2011 but no information has been released by Dell on pricing or worldwide availability as yet.. But as soon as any specifications or prices are released we will keep you posted.

Source: Tech Connect

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Samsung 700G7A Gaming Laptop Unveiled (video)

In the past Samsung’s laptops have never really featured as an option for gamers, but with the unveiling of Samsung’s new Series 7 700G7A high specified monster, Samsung might be rethinking and changing its direction more towards gamers.

The Samsung 700G7A is equipped with a 17.3-inch screen sporting a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. Its powered by a Quad-Core Core i7 2Ghz processor which can be supported by up to 16 GB of RAM, while graphics are handled by a 2GB Radeon HD 6970m card. Watch a video after the break to see the rig in action.

Other features on this well equipped gaming system, include both USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, HDMI, Bluetooth, together with a backlit keyboard, making it a great choice for gamers and well worth a look.

The  Samsung 700G7A will be arriving in Europe next month and its price will start at €1,800 around $2,600, but no information has been released as yet announcing a US appearance.

Source: Engadget

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Assassins Creed Revelations, Agility & Hand-to-Hand Combat, Gamecom 2011 Trailer (video)

Another new trailer has made an appearance at this years Gamescom 2011 in Germany for the Assassins Creed Revelations game, that will be launching later this year, in November.

The new trailer released by Ubisoft focuses on the agility and hand to hand combat players of the games have become to relish, which have been developed even further in the new release. Together with some fantastic panoramic shots of the locations you can expect to play in once the new game is released.

The  highly anticipated release of Assassins Creed Revelations will be released on November 15 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Source:  Just Push Start

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