Ostoure – Super Naked Bike

Via BuzzBeast

Need a new profile pic?

For those of you with five minutes of spare time looking to do a little something interesting for your next Facebook or MySpace profile pic, then this might be just the ticket. This tool called the ASCII-O-Matic transforms your little picture into a series of type characters. There are even a couple minor adjustments you can make to customize your output file.

The weirdest part is resizing your photo. You need to be at 60 by 50 pixels. This will make pretty much any pic you use look blurry, but don’t worry, this is normal. Just upload the pic and presto, you have a matrix looking version ready to go.

The site also offers the ability to take the html code off your end result, but to be honest, I took the easy route and just captured a screenshot.

Try it for yourself.

SONY 3D DISPLAY

This is Sony's new 360-degree 3D display prototype, one that shows a stereoscopic, 24-bit color image that measures 96x128 pixels. What makes it interesting is the fact that you can view it from 360 degrees without using any glasses.

Via: dvice

TABLETOP ROBOT GIRL MAKES COFFEE

iRIVER P7

The latest rectangle-that-goes-in-a-dock-and-improves-your-life is iriver's P7, a portable media viewer that lets you view photos, watch movies/TV shows and listen to music. Apple kind of already makes one of these things--with a special added feature that lets you, like, talk to other people--but P7 proponents will point out that its larger 4.3" screen should provide a better viewing experience.

Via: core77

Telegramstop

As older methods of correspondence become more obsolete in today's digital age, TelegramStop brings the best of the old and the new world. Through the company's website, anyone can send vintage-era telegram to any country in the world for a flat fee of $4.70.

After typing in a message on TelegramStop's homepage and previewing how the telegram will look, it's dispatched via post to its recipient. Harkening back to the authentic telegrams of Western Union's heyday, words appear in a classic typewriter font on vanilla-colored paper stock with the text "[STOP]" inserted wherever you punctuate with a period. Delivery usually takes 4-6 business days.

Founded by Mark Sehler and Ranjan Tharmakalusingham only a month ago, the Melbourne, Australia-based enterprise has already become a popular alternative to e-mails and traditional greeting cards. "It pretty much confirmed our thinking that the romance of the humble telegram as a form of communication has been lost in the modern world," notes Sehler.

The duo are currently working on new features, including an option to write your telegram in advance and specify for a later dispatch date, as well as special template designs for different occasions.

via: coolhunting.

CB2 BABY ROBOT DEVELOPING SOCIAL SKILLS

In the nearly two years since it was first unveiled to the world, the Child-robot with Biomimetic Body, or CB2, has been developing social skills by interacting with humans and watching their facial expressions, according to its creators at Osaka University.

Comprised of robotics engineers, brain specialists, psychologists and other experts, the research team has been teaching the android to think like a baby by having it evaluate facial expressions and classify them into basic categories, such as happiness and sadness.

The 130-centimter (4 ft 4 in) tall, 33-kilogram (73 lb) robot is equipped with eye cameras that record emotional expressions. Designed to learn like an infant, the robot can memorize facial expressions and match them with physical sensations, which it detects via 197 pressure sensors under a suit of soft, silicone skin.

In addition to watching faces, CB2 has been learning to walk. With 51 pneumatic “muscles,” the little android can now amble through a room more smoothly than it could nearly two years ago, though it still requires the aid of a human.

Within two years, the researchers hope the robot will gain the intelligence of a two-year-old child and the ability to speak in basic sentences. In the coming decades, the researchers expect to develop a “robo species” that has learning abilities somewhere between those of humans and chimps.

Via: pinktentacle

Web Trend Map

“The Web Trend Map is a yearly publication by iA Inc. It maps the 333 most influential Web domains and the 111 most influential Internet people onto the Tokyo Metro map.”

Click here for a large version.

INTELLIGENT SIFTABLE BLOCKS!

Siftables Music Sequencer from Jeevan Kalanithi on Vimeo.

This intuitive concept could very well usher in the future of music production as we know it. Created by David Merrill (an MIT graduate student), his intentions are to utilize computerized tiles to initiate learning and allow us to “Interact with information and media in physical, natural ways that approach interactions with physical objects in our everyday lives.”

Via: nerdwithswag.

16943

Studio FRST's new TV concept, 16943, is presented as a technological sculpture, a black picture on a glass base. The screen is designed to work as a 2-in-1, offering two formats for viewing: a 16/9 format for films and 4/3 for television. This concept is based on the needs filled by contemporary screens.

Via: mocoloco

Redefining "Bullet Time"

Timesculpture commercial by Toshiba was shot using 200 Toshiba Gigashot camcorders and is presented as an evolution to the famous "Bullet Time" introduced by the Matrix.

"Rather than showing a 3-D rotation of a still moment, this groundbreaking new filming process manipulates moving snapshots of time using Toshiba technology, redefining cinematic human movement". No CGI imagery was used on the commercial.

Make sure to watch The Making of Video!

Jose Caballer on the Future of Web design

"Jose Caballer from THE_GROOP, gives a lunch-time lesson on the the future of webdesign and moving beyond the screen. There are some great little tidbits of simple considerations to make when designing for the future (16:9 aspect ratio, use of minimal separation using dotted lines, and his intro into the video of utilizing "big buttons")."

Hmmm...sounds like Aarting.com is right in the mix! :)

via surfstation.

Stimulant » From the Labs: Microsoft Surface + Nintendo Wii Mashup

Stimulant: Microsoft Surface + Nintendo Wii Mashup from Stimulant on Vimeo.

What do you get when you mash-up Microsoft Surface with a Nintendo Wii Balance Board? Pressure-sensitive surface computing!

3-D Force Field: next level for porn

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed the Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display, a 3-D interactive force field that may make touching VR objects a reality.

"This tactile display enables tactile feedback superimposed over 3D graphics projected in free space, which provides more intuitive handling of 3D "touchable" graphics. For example, users could touch objects projected in the air."

"The Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display uses multiple ultrasound transducers to project waves into the air. Without gloves or attachments, and without risk of penetration in the body, the device takes advantage of a nonlinear ultrasound phenomena called acoustic radiation pressure. This allows for the creation of spatial shapes of acoustic ultrasound radiation pressure, which is what gives you the sensation of touching objects for real, even feeling the nature of the material."

via gizmodo.

starburst headphones from WESC

WESC (We Are the Superlative Conspiracy) created Sitar, a set of super-design-color headphones available through Conranusa.com

via TWBE.

YouTube HD

Slowly but surely, it's coming.

YouTube in Super HD

via today and tomorrow

A Font For Android

"The custom-made font took almost as long to create as Google's mobile platform, Android.

The font, dubbed Droid, is the product of a two-year collaboration between the Mountain View, California based Internet giant and Ascender, a digital typeface company based in Elk Grove Village, Ill."

Full article on Forbes

Download Droid

via cpluv.

BLACKBOOK M

By designer Emre Durmus.

The Blackbook M.is a mobile phone with slide out keyboard and Android OS.

Ferrari Motorcycle

Amir Glinik began researching his Ferrari motorcycle project back in 2005, worked on some of the sketches in 2006 and has been updating and evolving the project ever since. ‘Vintage and modern Ferrari projects influence my design. It’s a mix of what I find to be the best Ferrari lines, with the latest technology I could think of in terms of the engine and driveline,’ says Glinik. 'When you think of a Ferrari motorcycle, you probably imagine a V12 hanging between two wheels, but that was not my idea. For me, it was slicing a V4 out of one of the bigger Ferrari engines,’ says Glinik, who’s used an imaginary V4 based on the Ferrari Enzo’s mighty V12.

Looks amazing! Like an updated revision of Kaneda's bike from Akira!

The Casio Exilim EX-FH20: 40fps burst rate, 1000fps movies

by Darren Murph

"The Exilim EX-FH20. Boasting a 9.1-megapixel CMOS sensor, a 20x optical zoom lens and a remarkable burst mode that enables up to 40 7.1-megapixel images to be recorded in burst of anywhere between 1 and 40fps. Better still, it can capture high-speed movies at up 1,000fps, and there's also an anti-shake feature, high-speed night scene setting for those "after dark" moments and a standard movie mode that records at 720p (30fps). Those anxious to get their hands on such awesomeness will be politely asked to wait until next month when it goes on sale for £399 ($713)."

via engadget.