visualizations

How robots see the world (video)

As computers and robots advance, more of the physical world will become "machine readable," whether by a security camera or a robotic car able to process information on the road.

Designer and filmmaker Timo Arnall last week created a video of machine vision footage that helps illustrate the point of view of these machines. The video is a montage of experiments to make machines "see" the human world and create some order around it.

In some scenes, the computer places a colored rectangle around cars and pedestrians to analyze parking-lot traffic or highway congestion. In others, they graphically track the movement of people in city streets, walking through buildings, or waiting in lines.

In a blog post, Arnall said he's captivated simply by the look of the videos, with their colored arrows and boxes superimposed on street corners and roadways. But it's also part of getting familiar with the perspective of robots. "It's something we need to develop understandings and approaches to," he wrote, "as we begin to design, build, and shape the senses of our new artificial companions." … Read more

Visualizations take you inside science

One of the challenges facing many scientists in lesser-known fields is communicating what it is they work on. A contest aims to advance scientific research--while demystifying it for the general public--through visualizations.

The National Science Foundation and the journal Science announced the winners of the 2011 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge on Friday. "These winners communicate science in a manner that not only captures your attention but in many instances also strives to look at different ways to solve scientific problems through their varied art forms," said Monica Bradford, executive editor of Science, which is published by … Read more

Mapping New York City's energy hogs

Ever suspect your apartment building's heating was poorly managed because you needed to open the windows in winter? Now New York City residents can prove it with data.

Columbia University yesterday released results from a mapping project that shows, block by block, how much energy buildings consume. Providing the data in a visual format makes it easier to locate buildings that are good candidates for efficiency improvements or potentially on-site energy production.

Buildings represent about two thirds of the energy used in New York City, which is a much higher percentage than other parts of the country where transportation … Read more

Ugene brings powerful genetic modeling capabilities to your PC

Unipro's Ugene is a free bioinformatics modeling and visualization tool. You can use it to visualize, analyze, and annotate DNA and protein sequences. It's widely compatible with a variety of platforms, tools, and methods and includes an integrated Muscle alignment tool, integrated Hmmer2 package, an OpenGL viewer for PDB macromolecular structures, and a custom workflow designer.

Ugene isn't difficult to set up, though much of what it does depends on access to other files and tools. Ugene's functions are based around Projects, Tasks, and Logs. Under Application Settings, we could configure everything from system resource allocation … Read more

Porn stars are at CES, after all

You will be interested in the fact that, last night, Lexi Belle was walking around with an iPad on her chest encouraging people to press it and guess which was her real chest on the screen.

I was interested in the fact that Allison Vivas, CEO of Pink Visual, told me this: "This generation of girls aged 18 to 22 is the first that doesn't think porn is something dirty that their boyfriends do behind their backs."

You will be interested to learn that Alexis Texas and Kirsten Price were there. (The "you" I am … Read more

Twitterize Yourself makes visual sense of big data

A tool from Visual.ly that analyzes and visualizes users through Twitter posts demonstrates one way make easy-to-understand visualizations of big data.

One example of the increasingly important trend of combined analysis and visualization is evident in Visual.ly Labs' Twitterize yourself application, which provides a good representation of how companies can use large data sets to quickly identify user characteristics to increase engagement or upsell goods and services.

I spend most of my time in my day job looking at data across the extended software development life cycle (design, develop, deploy, maintain, etc.), looking for the patterns that show … Read more

Tablet app brings new touch to Braille

Software developed during a summer course at Stanford University could one day radically shift the way the visually impaired use modern tablets, potentially removing the need for a wireless Braille display.

Adam Duran, a senior at New Mexico State University, has developed a stunning way for blind people to type on tablets. Duran created the touch-screen Braille writer software with Adrian Lew, a Stanford assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Sohan Dharmaraja, a doctoral candidate.

It's all in the fingertips. The eight keys (similar to a standard Braille keyboard) in the software do not have a predefined position, but rather work with the location of the fingers. A user simply presses eight fingers anywhere on the screen, and voila, the keys are automatically oriented to that location.

If there's a problem, users simply lift their fingers and put them down again. As shown in the video below, typing is a breeze. Curiously missing is the mention of haptic feedback (vibration), or voice support, but for a first version this software is very encouraging. … Read more

Puppeteers, CG meet to create 'Real Steel' robots

LOS ANGELES--Big-budget sci-fi movies and computer-generated visual-effects are inseparable and probably will be for years to come. That doesn't mean there isn't still something magical about using engineering and craftsmanship to make lifelike, "in the flesh" versions of the other-worldly or futuristic characters these movies bring us onscreen.

That's part of the reason director Shawn Levy decided to build huge, gadget-rich "puppet" versions of the boxing robots from the new Hugh Jackman action movie "Real Steel," which opened in theaters yesterday. The Dreamworks film takes place in the near future when human fighters have been replaced by mechanized pugilists.

There are plenty of CG shots of the automaton ring warriors training and going at it round by round. But Levy had Legacy Effects construct working "real life" versions of the creatures via animatronics to interact with Jackson and the other actors on-set.

During a recent press event for the flick, Levy said he was amazed at how well the robots worked and how easily his cast rubbed elbows with them. … Read more

Platlas: The world's first social-platform atlas

Facebook is in flux, or let's say, full epic swing.

On the eve of F8, Facebook's annual developer conference, the world's busiest social network is expected to undergo its most radical change yet.

Facebook, now 7 years old, appears on the verge of becoming a full-on consumer brand powerhouse--where entire industries like publishing, film, and television will live and conduct commerce at an unprecedented rate and scale, industry watchers say. As Facebook grows and evolves, it's also becoming a more complex platform to understand and navigate. That's why Platlas, the world's first social-networking "… Read more

The 404 905: Where we go twice as high with Bridget Carey (podcast)

Bridget Carey makes her first appearance on CNET TV today. She's the host of an upcoming daily tech news show on CNET called Checked In, so be sure to follow her on Twitter so you don't miss the first episode.

She'll help us out with our story rundown today and gives her take on LeVar Burton bringing back "Reading Rainbow" as an iPad app, an LA film studio constructing an underground "post-apocalyptic" fortress, and the resurgence of AOL e-mail addresses as a pre-Internet status symbol.

The 404 Digest for Episode 905

"Reading Rainbow" to be rebooted for iPad. LA porn studio begins construction on "post-apocalyptic" underground bunker. AOL e-mail as status symbol? Follow Bridget Carey on Twitter. The 404's daily bathroom break: Justin and Jeff's "Reading Rainbow"/Husky Dance Mash-up.

Episode 905 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more