Here’s a simple video with a neat little twist: Hulger makes Skype phones for the Mac and PC, so to show you what their phones actually look like, they have created a few 3D Vimeo videos for you to check out.
To get the full effect, you have to look at the screen with a piece of cardboard between your eyes (yes, this will make you look like a dumbass, but stick with me here) and just like a Magic Eye trick, the image will suddenly start to pop off the screen.
Give it a try:
To view the rest of their ‘catalog’, just visit the Hulger.tv site.
Considering last week’s Iranian missile story, I though that Henry Hadlow’s Tell A Lie project was rather fitting:
The most controversial lies told with photography today are those told by news photographers who manipulate their work photographs to tell a different story, for example, Liu Weiqiang’s faked photograph of antelope and the China-Tibet rail link.
He also ads that he wanted to “flip this lie on its head and use a camera to mimic common Photoshop effects”.
Along those same lines, I thought that Fubiz’s Google Images idea was another fantastic way to take a photo with a digital spin that gives it a simple yet fun effect:
Skywire 2 is an interesting pixel art style game that puts you in charge of a gondola/cable car full of people that you must assist through a world of enemies to deliver the passengers to the end goal without letting too many fall out.
It’s actually pretty difficult considering the face that you only need two buttons to control the cable car, and the graphics are fantastic in their simplicity, so give it a go and see what you think.
To help promote its new health-conscious menu items, McDonald’s created a billboard that lets the message grow to speak for itself.
The board, which featured 1 ½ inch sprouts from 16 kinds of lettuce that grew into lush leaves, spelled out the words “Fresh Salads” using only plants, and sent a simple yet unique message that gets its point across nicely:
Another similar yet unique McDonald’s billboard was the breakfast sundial that used the sun to place the McDonald’s M over different breakfast items through out the day:
If you’re looking to backup the most important files on your Mac in a safe, simple and secure way, then check out Mozy, a new automatic online backup system.
In addition to being safe, simple and secure, if you can keep your use to less than 2 GB of total space, then Mozy is free, with no setup fees, credit cards, monthly payments or expirations.
Features include:
Open/locked file support: Mozy will back up your documents whether they’re open or closed.
128-bit SSL encryption: The same technology used by banks secures your data during the backup process.
448-bit Blowfish encryption: Secures your files while in storage, providing peace of mind that your private data is safe from hackers.
Automatic: Schedule the times to back up and MozyHome does the rest.
New and changed file detection: MozyHome finds and saves the smallest changes.
Backs up Outlook files: Disaster-proof email protection.
Block-level incremental backup: After the initial backup, MozyHome only backs up files that have been added or changed, making subsequent backups lightning fast.
As someone who has lost important files before, I can’t help but sing the praises of a backup solution. Plus, with an online backup solution like Mozy, your files are stored in a safe, external location, keeping them safe even if your computer ever happens to be in a fire or other natural disaster.
The Uno is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
By using gyroscope technology similar to the Segway, it balances on two wheels that sit right next to each other. The Uno goes forward when you push your body weight forward, and backwards when you push your body weight backward. The further you lean, the more the Uno tilts, and the faster it accelerates.
Apparently it’s so simple to operate that there are no controls except for an on-off switch. The gyro tells the ECU how much to accelerate automatically, and the proper amount of power is delivered to the wheels through electric motors, one for each wheel.
The body and frame are both custom designed, with a Yamaha R1 serving as the starting point. After prepping the frame, the molding took just six weeks to complete.
And if that’s not enough for you, then keep in mind that the entire thing was designed by Ben J. Poss Gulak, an 18-year-old who taught himself CAD on a home computer using Google’s free SketchUp tool to create the initial idea.
Chicago’s Stern Pinball is the last manufacturer of pinball machines in the world.
Hard to believe, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, an ADD age and the move towards electronic entertainment now means that just 10,000 of the machines are produced annually, and most head towards the game rooms and basements of private homes, rather than the arcades and bowling alleys of yore.
Though pinball has roots in the 1800s game of bagatelle, these are by no means simple machines. Each one contains a half-mile of wire and 3,500 tiny components, and takes 32 hours to build — as the company’s president, Gary Stern, likes to say, longer than a Ford Taurus.
Can pinball survive much longer?
For the sake of children and childhoods everywhere, I can only hope that the answer is yes.
Blank is Like Blank is a simple site that provides the occasional analogy to live by.
With quips like:
“Facebook is like a gossipy friend with no interesting information”,
“Using Helvetica is like owning a Mac: It looks so cool that you never bother to stop and think if you really need to”, and
“Starbucks is like that crazy ex-girlfriend you still get together with: You hate yourself for going back, but the familiarity makes it convenient, and until you find something better, it’s all you’ve got”,
Justin Feinstein is firmly establishing himself as the king of the one liner.
Kipp Wettstein makes his own large format cameras as part of what he calls The Camera Project.
The cameras are designed to suit Kipp’s “operational tendencies for the singular application of mobility”, and make a “simple, elegant and accurate method to connect the lens and film planes”.
The beauty of the design is that it is built around the elegant form of the image cone produced by the lens. Not only does this design yield an attractive camera but it is extremely accurate. The lens and film planes have a parallel accuracy within the fractions of a millimeter. These designs have no perspective-controlling movements. They are small, lightweight and extremely precise.
His latest, called the 8×10 Carbon/Aluminum, is a beautiful “portable, wide-angle camera using a molded carbon fiber cone attached to a body plate machined from a solid block of 7075-T651 aircraft aluminum”. The lens is a Schneider 165mm Super Angulon, and “at four pounds, its weight nearly matches that of the camera body”.
Want one?
He’ll make one for you (or at least take your inquiry about one), but keep in mind that “ultimately, large-format photography is a costly process”.
