Dog POV
Dog slo-mo is always fun, especially from the pooch’s point of view.
For those that say NASA doesn’t serve a community purpose, just glance at this stunning new photo composite of our earth. Amazing.
NASA has just published what it calls the “most amazing highest resolution image of Earth ever”, dubbed Blue Marble. The 64-megapixel image weighing in at 8000×8000 pixels is actually a composite photograph taken on January 4th of this year using a number of captures stitched together from NASA’s Earth-observing satellite Suomi NPP. Make sure to see this sucker full size to really appreciate the details. (via gizmodo via nick ulivieri)
For those of us in the design field, especially us freelancers, this hits home.
These endangered creatures in Florida are quite graceful in the water.
I’m a fan of logo designs and redesigns, and found this interesting.
Thursday, DC Comics officially unveiled its new identity, after the whole internet (including us) stole its thunder at the start of the week when we all judged its new branding effort based on a single, black-and-white rendition of their new logo. Now it’s an uphill battle to get people on board with what is actually a fairly good looking and flexible identity designed by Landor.
The design of the new DC Entertainment identity uses a “peel” effect — the D is strategically placed over the C with the upper right-hand portion of the D peeling back to unveil the hidden C — symbolizing the duality of the iconic characters that are present within DC Entertainment’s portfolio.
— Press Release
Via my dear friend, Rambling Moonbat:
YEARS from Bartholomäus Traubeck on Vimeo.
Custom record player that plays slices of a tree. I love the sound.
From the artist: “A tree’s year rings are analysed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music based on the year ring data. Those are analyzed for their thickness and growth rate and are then mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appeareance of the wood (ranging from dark to light and from strong texture to light texture). The foundation for the music is certainly found in the defined ruleset of programming and hardware setup, but the data acquired from every tree interprets this ruleset very differently.”
Russian photographer Alexander Semenov creates photographs of marine life that just burst with color and energy. You may have understood, on some intellectual level, that the ocean depths are an ecosystem, teeming with life and all connected. But looking at these stunning photos will make you seeit in a new way.
Semenov is a diver and project manager at the White Sea Biological Station in Russia, and he studied zoology (particularly squid brains) as a college student. Semenov writes:
When I first began to experiment with sea life photography I tried shooting small invertebrates for fun with my own old camera and without any professional lights or lenses. I collected the invertebrates under water and then I’ve shot them in the lab. After two or three months of failure after failure I ended up with a few good pictures, which I’ve showed to the crew. It has inspired us to buy a semi-professional camera complete with underwater housing and strobes. Thus I’ve spent the following field season trying to shoot the same creatures, but this time in their environment. It was much more difficult, and I spent another two months without any significant results. But when you’re working at something every day, you inevitably get a lot of experience. Eventually I began to get interesting photos – one or two from each dive. Now after four years of practice I get a few good shots almost every time I dive but I still have a lot of things that need to be mastered in underwater photography.

The iPad is surely one of the biggest technology revolutions in the last few years. Today, Apple had an announcement related to the iPad in classrooms, and the way digital textbooks are going to change the way we learn, and teach.
Via MacRumors:
At its education-focused media event today, Apple introduced iBooks 2, an updated version of the company’s e-book software for iOS devices. The update comes as part of a push into interactive digital textbooks in partnership with a number of major publishers.
Apple’s initial focus for its textbook effort is on high school textbooks, with books priced at $14.99 or less. Authors can continually update their content, and the students get to keep their copies indefinitely.
iBooks 2 is a free download from the App Store, available as an update to the existing iBooks app.
Here is a nice video showcasing the way iPads are being used in schools.

A pretty neat concept for people in a car’s backseat.
Rear-seat entertainment systems have steadily improved over the last few years, but General Motors has developed a new technology that could revolutionize the entire industry.
Most rear-seat entertainment systems include a couple of screens and a DVD player, but General Motors has developed a new system that transforms a vehicle’s rear-windows into a virtual playground.
Developed through a partnership between General Motors Research and Development and the FUTURE LAB at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel, the new system – dubbed the Windows of Opportunity Project, or WOO for short – uses a vehicle’s rear windows as interactive displays. Students at Bezalel developed four different apps for the system, including Otto – an animated character that goes along for the ride – and Spindow, which lets the user see out of another user’s window anywhere in the world in real-time.
“Traditionally, the use of interactive displays in cars has been limited to the driver and front passenger, but we see an opportunity to provide a technology interface designed specifically for rear seat passengers,” said Tom Seder, GM R&D lab group manager for human-machine interface. “Advanced windows that are capable of responding to vehicle speed and location could augment real world views with interactive enhancements to provide entertainment and educational value.”
GM says WOO wasn’t developed with mass production in mind, but notes it could be made into a reality through the use of “ smart glass” technology. Smart glass is becoming common place in other industries, but has yet to make its debut in cars – outside of movies like Mission Impossible.
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