A Collosus of Genius

Normally I avoid posting advertisements, but this time I believe I have to. A video ad for Honda Civic called “The Other Side”. At first I thought I am watching a normal clip for yet another car I won’t buy, but you can hold down the “R” key any time to switch to the other side… and suddenly you are being told a rather interesting story: this guy at night turns out to live a second life… very well done!

Click to play video

Just stunning: How far this animals came in just one second and how the head does not seem to move at all. This is an amazing piece of video. Brilliant on the depth of field too. And at the end is a glimpse on some making-of footage.

Suck at this, Kinect – I am off to the holodeck now… kthxbai!

This HD video of the view from the International Space Station down on earth gave me a very intense realization of how it must be like up there. Its like a long distance night flight on a plane – just bazillion times more awesome. I am curious to see more footage but preferable in real time. As impressive as this clip is, everything is just going by too fast for me to really enjoy it. So if you know a place where to get more video, let me know! Although i can imagine its quite complicated: the images seem to been taken with an extremely long exposure time (observe how intense the sunlight gets), otherwise the amazing glow in the atmosphere would not have been that visible. The surface (where there are no city lights) and clouds seem to be very well illuminated by the moon (plus the mentioned long exposure takes care of their visibility). I am wondering where on earth that is, what we are seeing here…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74mhQyuyELQ

They are everywhere! Even the new business cards of my company has a QR-Code on the back now. The most prominent application for them must be in advertisement, where the little block of visual bits forms the connection between print media and online content. The idea is simple: For example, on some poster that already got your attention they put this square of black and white spots. With a camera and an app on your mobile (for example Barcode Scanner on Android) you take a picture and *bam* your phone has just decrypted the URL within the code, which you can then visit without typing a single letter. Basically it works like a Barcode but with two dimensions. The one on my business card contains all my contact information, so you don’t have to scan it or even type it into your phone.

Now this dude, Brian Benchoff, found out that according to the specification, a lot of the code (up to 30%) can be “unreadable” by the phone and still be decoded. So he did the obvious, he put some stuff inside the code like so:

You should try it yourself, it actually still works and in this example gives you the URL of Mozilla Firefox if you scan it. This is actually a pretty sweet idea and if I would make my own business cards with a QR-Code on them, i would definitely integrate a logo like this as well.

Read the full Article with all the explanation why and how it works on Hackaday.com.

Check out The Top 10 QR-Code Generators in case you would like to try creating your own Codes. In addition, here is a small clip of another interesting application of QR-Codes in Korea where you can go shopping in a virtual store.

I know i do. Well, not just at home. I am also at work, but its basically the same thing: there is a desk, a computer and i am sitting in my chair in front of that. Sitting, sitting, sitting. What i am doing might change depending on where I am, but no matter what that might be, i am sitting. That is why once every couple of hours i need a little inspiration to imagine I am doing things outside of the digital world and on my feet. Inspiration that might make me think “Hey, that’s EXACTLY what I always wanted to do!!” – and hopefully I am going to do that too later that week.

So i did what everyone would do nowadays: I went online (while sitting) and I was looking for awesome inspirational videos. I ended up with a handful of adventurous outdoor activity clips… interestingly, every one of those is showcasing some people going downhill in one way or the other (what that means is to be interpreted by YOU). Continue reading

Do you also have those days sometimes where everything seems to go wrong? Well, how about a day where everything you try actually works?! Watch how that would be like:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ-Nw8RAn_U

I do not claim this is NOT an average day for them, but what if it wasn’t? What do you think how many hours of video those guys accumulated until they finally got the intended results? I admire their patience in that case, otherwise i admire their skills! Oh and the choice of music fits excellent too. Thumbs up!

This video (besides being an advertisement to protect cyclists on streets), is also an interesting showcase to make you aware of your un-awareness  – at least it was impressive for me how many things i missed while watching this short clip.

Test Your Awareness : Whodunnit?