Wii fail

The question is: why was he filming it? Was he planning on doing something special in that gaming session?

The Jedi Gym: insanely funny

Wait until the end... it's worth it:

Samsung Omnia i900: Now this is some cool unboxing

Wow, the guys at Samsung really took their time on this one! I imagine the kind of work that it takes to shrink people to that size and then stuff them into a small box like that :-)

YouTube just got more interesting

Here's an excelent example of how the new Youtube's annotations feature will revolutionise the way we deliver video content:

How to see YouTube videos that are blocked

You've probably came across this message on YouTube, right?

Or maybe that other message saying that the current video has restricted content and you have to login and verify your age to see the movie, right?

Well, there's a way to bypass that restriction. YouTube video links have the following format:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEOID

where VIDEOID is that sequence of letters and numbers that univocally identifies a youtube video in their huge database. The access to the video through this link format will feature any restrictions that the uploader may have set.

However, a simple hack lets you see the movie (but only that, since this link will only give you access to the YouTube embedded player). Just change the link to the following format:

http://www.youtube.com/v/VIDEOID

And that's it! Now you should have access to the same video without any restrictions.

But I guess this won't work for long. As soon as YouTube figures out that this "back door is opened", they'll probably apply the same restrictions and "close" it for good.

Using QuickTime to create stop-motion movies

While exploring the "Open Image Sequence" feature on Quicktime to create a simple Slideshow of images, I noticed that the combo box presented some values that were odd for someone trying to create a slideshow of pictures:

Although values like "3 seconds per frame" may seem acceptable for showing a slideshow of photos (each photo would be displayed for 3 seconds), "15 frames per second" seems to be just a little bit too fast to see all your photos (it means that 15 photos would be displayed in a second, which basically means that you wouldn't be appreciating any of them).

This got me thinking: "Why would you need to go through a slideshow in such a rush?". And then the geeky part of the brain kicked in and I remembered that this is how stop-motion animation movies work.

The idea of stop-motion is as old as cinema since the whole concept of films/movies is based on a stop-motion technique. Basically a camera is a mechanism that captures photos at a very fast rate (usually 24 frames per second). When we reproduce the captured images at the same rate, our brain fills in the gaps between the images, producing the illusion of movement.

Stop-motion works in that exact way: we capture some still images and then while reproducing them at a very fast rate, the images will perceive as having movement between them. To get a clear idea of how this is made, check out the Wikipedia page on this subject.

Excited with the idea of creating a stop-motion animation movie (basically because the movie "Nightmare Before Christmas" is one of my favourite movies of all time - well, at least my favourite animated musical) after discovering how easy it would be to put it all together on Quicktime, I decided to give it a try.

So, I mounted my camera (Canon Digital IXUS 400) on a tripod and took some sequenced photos of my USB Pen being disconnected from the USB hub. After putting it together on Quicktime, this is the result (reproduced at different speeds):

• 6 frames per second:

• 10 frames per second:

• 15 frames per second:

Looks nice, eh? You can also apply this same concept to time lapse movies (that will be my next try).

Retro-blogging: best posts of January 2007

Previously, on the Tech in Me:

• Retro-tech: a digital polaroid
• Earn some money with your YouTube videos
• European PS3 in March
• It takes 21 sms to make a cellphone thief repent
• DRM for Blu-ray and HD-DVD already cracked
• Need free pictures for your blog?
• The Nintendo Wii's exercise plan
• Fight crime with your cellphone
• Wireless Energy
• Free online TV
• Better searching on the wikipedia
• Google Earth: a terrorist's attack planner
• Joost: HDTV over IP
• The iPhone is here

Geek stuff

There are geeks all over the world and they all have weird ideas. But sometimes, some of those ideas can actually be very funny or useful.

Check out this experience which uses the sound of sparks coming from tesla coils to play the Super Mario Bros. theme song:



And what about this guy, which decided to create a "Minority Report"-like interface by using the infrared capabilities of the Nintendo Wii controller?



Not to brag myself, but I still think that my GELToC solution is far more simple and elegant :-)

By using two led torches and a webcam, I was able to create an application that processes the light sources (from a dark background) and maps them into mouse control movements, which in turn are converted into Google Earth control movements, giving the illusion that you are controlling the World map with just a pair of tiny lights.

Check out a demo video:



GELToC is an open source application and you can obtain more information on it here.

Interesting concept for cars' doors

Here's a concept of disappearing doors for cars. It's really interesting and definitely suitable for tight parking spaces :-)

Enjoy the video:

Now this is a volume display for your living room Hi-Fi equipment

Check out what this guy created to emulate a volume display using fire.

"GooTube" is testing anti-piracy tools

Google has announced that it will test a new anti-piracy tool on YouTube to help detect video uploads of copyrighted material. The newly developed software identifies pirated video on YouTube as it gets uploaded, but the system puts the burden on movie studios and other content owners to provide YouTube copies of the content first.

The reason for this is that the anti-piracy tool uses a comparison method between the uploaded video and the previously provided copyrighted material, so as to find similarities that would prevent the video from being publicly available.

However, content providers can actually decide whether or not content can be duplicated and in what terms. For example, a content owner while providing the video to YouTube can specify whether he wants to block anyone else from uploading copies of it, or can also ask YouTube to allow others to post it and put ads next to it.

Source: CNET News.com

Retro-Blogging: Best posts of October 2006

Previously on "The Tech In Me":

• Google Maps on your phone - How to view Google Maps on your cellphone
  
• New short-range wireless standard - Wibree was starting to get discussed
  
• Fading Windows with Jedi Concentrate - A nice application to help you concentrate on specific windows
  
• Multi-touch Interface Screens - The beginning of Perceptive Pixel
  
• Invisible Clothing - Futuristic clothing that allows you to stay invisible-ish
• Google Code Search - Search for millions of lines of code in C++, Java, PHP and other languages
• Google will buy YouTube? - when the rumours started
• Online Media Converter - Convert multimedia files between formats
• J2ME Polish - Java Mobile Programming made easy
• McDonald's and Coca-Cola's MP3 Players "play" malware - When two of the world's largest companies join together to bring malware to the world
• "GooTube" won't be the next Napster - Google's naive view of YouTube copyright problems
• A Trojan that keeps you safe from virus? - The world was shocked at this "benevolent virus"
• Wireless Internet for free on Lisbon's parks - Lisbon just got greener for the Internet Geeks
  

"Locate" your YouTube videos

Google allows you to watch YouTube videos directly through the well-known sattelite mapping software, Google Earth, as long as videos are geo-tagged.

To access this new layer, just click on the "YouTube" button on the "Featured Content" folder on the left side of Google Earth.

Soon enough, YouTube icons will start appearing all over the "planet". If not enough videos are available, try zooming in and more videos should appear.

Source: Google LatLong

The universe was about to collapse...

Yesterday, for brief minutes I thought the universe was about to collapse. Let me explain...

I arrived home at around 19:30 (GMT) and needed to check something on GMail. To my surprise, I got a "connection taking too long" kind of error, which is not normal. At first I just thought it was an Internet glitch in my router or ISP since neither Google.com or reader.google.com or www.youtube.com would work but quickly discovered that I could access every other resource on the Internet other than these 3 that I point out.

OMG, Google's down? Youtube's DOWN?? "Al Qaeda went too far this time", so I thought!

Soon enough, Google and YouTube were back up and everything was back to normal. But for those brief minutes I felt something really strange... Have I reached the bottom as an Internet Junkie?

I think I'm checking in on rehab...

Earn some money with your YouTube videos

YouTube has confirmed to the BBC that it will share the revenue it makes for videos in an attempt to reward creativity. However this revenue will only be "shared" only with those users that are the videos' true copyright owners.

But how will YouTube distinguish between the real copyright owners and those who are just using the content without any permission from among its 70 million users? Perhaps by putting new daddy Google's image-recognition technology to work.

It hardly seems feasible. But let's wait and see...

Source: CNET's Media Blog