James Cameron Talks About His 3D Camera and Re-Release of Avatar (Video)

Director James Cameron had a guest appearance on G4TV's internet series, Attack of the Show, on which he talked about his 3D camera rig and the re-release of Avatar Special Edition.



I like watching G4TV's Attack of the Show as they usually review gadgets and talk about tech stuff, all put together in a very interesting and humourous presentation. I especially like Kevin, the main host, for his very witty and funny remarks.

This time, AOTS invited director James Cameron to talk about his 3D camera rig, which he developed himself over the last 7 years and the re-release of Avatar Special Edition. As such, he admitted that he personally filmed most of the hand held shots. While this camera is certainly not light, needing 2 men to lift it up, James has had no problems operating it and even shows how comfortable he is with the camera in different positions. All in all, it's a wonderful piece of technology. I find James Cameron to have good humour too, thereby making this episode really funny and one of the best I've seen so far.

Portal 2 Intro Gameplay Video Surfaced; Darker, Creepier Than The First Game [Video]

Portal 2, the sequel to the wildly popular Portal, has been announced back in June and will be released in 2011. I can't wait for this game, absolutely enjoyed the puzzle solving in the first game. Few videos on the game have surfaced since June, but most of them were demos on the new features in the game.

Today, Valve has released an actual gameplay video to showcase the quality of the game. And also to tease eager gamers, like me. The video features the introduction scene of the game, a full 3 mins of gameplay. It seems like this time, the game is set in a darker tone with a more intense atmosphere, much creepier than the original. Watch the video in HD to get the best effect. ^.^

Photoshop Can Do Wonders, Even Cook Food For You [Video]

In the world of design and multimedia, learning how to harness the power of an image editing software like Photoshop is a must. Photoshop can do just about anything, from drawing to painting and visual effects.

But that didn't stop Stephania Rota from using it to cook food, with a bit of creativity of course..
And a camera. She created this superb video for a competition organised by Adobe. Naturally she got lots of positive feedbacks (otherwise I wouldn't be featuring on my blog!), though I'm not too sure if she won or not.

For those who have experienced the UI of Photoshop before, you'd definitely appreciate the efforts she put in to make the video as accurate as possible to the real thing. Although the work draws inspiration from Photoshop, it seems ironic that Photoshop was not used at all in editing this video.

Manfred 2.0 Will Be Right Back (In A Few Days)

Hi all. I'm busy with my work these few days, so I'll not be posting as frequently as the past few weeks. Anyway, thanks for viewing my blog. As of this writing, I've have had past 200 views in nearly a month. It's the most I've had so far since I started my blog 2 years ago, or rather, since I started updating my blog regularly since June. Haha. I'd never imagine that my blog would even have so many views.

Since most people are logged in to Facebook while surfing the net, my blog included, I've added Facebook "Like" and "Share" buttons and Facebook commenting system within each post page. I hope you click the the "Like" button if you enjoyed reading the post. Don't worry, the "who and who liked this post" part is PRIVATE, so only the names of people who are friends on your Facebook will appear and vice versa. Otherwise, it would appear as "Manfred and 3 other people liked this".

Also, for the Facebook comment form after each post, you can choose to log in with your Facebook account to post a comment or comment anonymously, by not logging in. You can also check the option to have your wall reflect your comment post. ie "Manfred has commented on so-and-so post." You can discuss about the post or write random stuff or ask me questions there, I'll reply duly. If you don't see the commenting form below the grey Comments sub-header, simply refresh the page until it appears. =)

So check back on my blog once in a while to look out for updates! Please interact with my blog, it would be nice to see who are reading my blog. You can give me any feedback on my tagboard too! ^.^

This Razor Blade Can Cut Hair, Straight Down The Middle! (Video)

You've always seen cartoons showing that a blade, be it axe, sword or knife, is so sharp that it can split a strand of hair in half. However, in reality, such a sharp blade doesn't exist... Until now.

GFD, Germany, a leading company in the field of micre-structure diamonds has developed the Diamaze PSD (Plasma Sharpened Diamond). The blade takes advantage of the extreme hardness of diamond to create an outrageously sharp cutting edge. It is so sharp that it is now possible to actually slice hair down the middle.

Watch the video below for proof. The blade actually slices the hair more than 5 times! Just as you thought human hair is already so thin, watch it being sliced multiple times.

Microsoft Adaptive Display Keyboard - Now You Can Look At Photos While You Type In True Multitasking Style (Video)

This Adaptive Display Keyboard is only a prototype and won the Unified Structured Inventive Thinking (USIT) Student Innovation Contest. It is said to be an extension to the monitor, with a strip of touchscreen above the keys. The thing is that each individual keys are also displays and can be changed.

Why should you care? Because it is just too cool. Check out the videos after the break to see why you would want one connected to your desktop computer.
The touchscreen above the keys basically act as a platform to launch applications. If I'm not wrong, it can also be used to control opened tabs, acting like a taskbar or something. I'm not too sure about that.

What's cool is really the keys, each keys have displays and are adaptive. For example, if you change the language of the keyboard, the keys will update to show the characters of that language. Also it shows you hot keys, like if you were to hold the Windows key, the pre-defined keys will reflect the actions it will do. For example, the M key will show "minimize all", the "P" key will show "projector", etc.

The keyboard is really just a large screen with buttons. Thus, for customising fanatics like me, images can even be added to the keyboard, functioning somewhat like a "keyboard wallpaper". Now that's interesting!

Of course, like every piece of tech, a video demo is always much more entertaining and informative than a paragraph of technical terms. The first video is a general introduction to what the keyboard can do and the second is a more detailed demo, if you're still interested.



Jump to 1:15 if you feel like skipping what the guy has to say. =P


Source: Engadget, YouTube

Dyson Air Multiplier, A Cool Bladeless Fan (Video)

Every now and then, there'll always be a new take on an existing product. Usually it'll be better and more efficient than the original. But the Dyson Air Multiplier takes the good old electric fan to a stunningly high level.



James Dyson wanted to make a new kind of fan that takes up less energy, more cooling, cleaner and quieter. He did not like the fan blades that "chops" up the air that buffets your face. Thus he came up with this Air Multiplier. It performs the same function as a fan, without the blades. It is called an air multiplier simply because whatever air the fan outputs, the resultant breeze will contain up to 15 times the amount of air in a steady stream. It is easier explained by watching the video below.



Because the fan blows air in a steady stream, the breeze is described as similar to an air-conditioner blowing at you. I'd pretty much like to try it but will have to wait till it's released next year. It however comes at a rather expensive price of a few hundred dollars, though that's the price to pay for a very innovative piece of tech.

Bonus: The following video shows Dyson engineers having fun with the new air multiplier. It also demonstrates how the the air flows when using it. Enjoy.

We Have 5 Senses, Right? Yes... But...

It's been commonly understood that we all have the 5 senses: Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch and Smell. This has been brought forth by Aristotle back in the BC years. However, scientists have said that the human body is so complex that these 5 senses aren't enough to describe what it can do...

Nowadays, it is accepted that the human body has between 9 - 20 senses, depending on how you want to define what a "sense" is. For the body to have a "sense", it has to have a sensor that is specifically made for that function. For example, there are sensors (rods) in the eyes that can detect light and give us the sense of sight. And these sensors can only detect light and nothing else. However, in the eyes, there are other sensors, like cones, that detect colours and only colours. Therefore, you can see that the Aristotle's five senses are very general.

It has been agreed that the minimum number of senses that the human body has is 9. These are Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell, Thermoception, Nocieption, Equilibrioception and Proprioception. Thermoception is the sense of heat, nocieption is the sense of pain, equilibrioception is the sense of balance and proprioception is the sense of where your limbs are spatially.

The following are some of the other "senses":

• Hunger
• Thirst
• Pressure
• Itch
• Tension
• Stretch
• Magentoception (magnetic fields)
• Time (debatable)

Further reading:

WiseGeek - How Many Human Senses Are There?

Discovery Health - How Many Senses Does A Human Being Have?

A Fireworks Machine Gun? Ultimate Coolness! (Video)

What do you get when you mix fireworks and a machine gun together? This group of guys decided to do just that. You'll find the answer out in the video below.
They bought 500 roman candles fireworks, each containing 30 fireworks shots, tied them all together and lit them up at the same time. What resulted is a huge barrage of 15 000 multi-colour fireworks. Although the fireworks volley was over in only a couple minutes, I must say that it does make an interesting video. Pretty much sure that it'll be so much more exciting to see it in person. If only Singapore allows fireworks.

A Turntable and A Camcorder = Lots of Interesting Hidden Animation! (Video)

If you like optical illusions, you've probably have heard of the zoetrope before. Zoetropes create the illusion of movement through rapid spinning of the images and viewing through slits, designed to give a strobe like effect and the perception of motion...
This guy decided to modernise the zoetrope, using UV lights and a camcorder, with a lower frame rate. The result is a whole lot of cool futuristic looking animations with a very simple set up.

Ultra Cool Light Projection DJ Mixing (Video)

When you see a DJ spinning, chances are there are 2 turntables, a mixer and a whole lot of wires. And maybe an Apple laptop. This DJ apparently has moved on with times, abandoning all that heavy set up for just a glass panel with a projected image of a virtual DJ mixing software. Needless to say, it is touch operated. Is this the future of DJ-ing? Watch the video and see for yourself.

Video after the break.

Brilliant "Light Warfare" Video, Takes Light Painting To A Higher Level (Video)

Light painting, or drawing with light while leaving the camera shutter open, is gaining popularity due to cheaper DSLR and compact cameras with manual shutter controls. There are many stunning light painting photos available on the net. There are, of course, some people who decided to take it another level and do light painting videos. However, since you can't get the light painting effect without leaving the camera shutter open for at least 1 second per frame so that you can draw an image (something impossible on a video cam), the only way to do a light painting video is painstakingly take many photos and combine them into one video. It's tedious, it's tiring and demands a lot of patience, not surprising then that there are only a handful of such videos..

I chanced upon this video, whose creators decided to illustrate a battle using light painting. I must say, it's really well done. In the behind the scenes, they did mention that they took about 480 photos. And I think they did it all in a night. Really impressive results, with matching sound effects. Take a look in the video below. You may want to check out more videos from this user, he has really good visual effects videos. ^.^

Michael Jackson's Anti-Gravity Lean (Video)

I grew up to Michael Jackson's music. And I like his music, but I especially loved his dances and performances. He's just so innovative in his dancing. He popularised group synchronised dancing, before that, there was very little group dance routines where everyone is dancing in sync. He has also pioneered many iconic dance moves in his performances, such as the moonwalk, robotic dance and the anti-gravity lean, which in my opinion, is the coolest....



It all started when he made the music video for Smooth Criminal, one of my favourite songs. There is a particular scene when a group of dancers, led my MJ, leaned, unassisted to the side up to an impossible 45 degrees. Back then, I was still young and was super amazed at it. But now, I read that it was done by hooking up wires during the shot, enabling them to lean outrageously. Thus was born the anti-gravity lean or more well known as the Smooth Criminal Lean.

However, as MJ did his live concerts, he wanted to perform the exact dance routines on stage as in his MVs and that included the Smooth Criminal Lean. He didn't want to use wires as that would interfere with the dancing and will take too much time to set up. After some brain racking, he decided to have some sort of pins on the stage and use modified shoes with a catch to hook on to the pins. All he needed to do is slide his shoe onto the hook, perform the lean and dismount. Seems simple enough but the effect is totally amazing, especially when seen live. Watch it in the video below, i think the lean in 1:35 is the best lean ever. Just so you know, the routine goes that MJ and co are dancing, when a guy comes out with a dynamite, dances around and "throws" the dynamite to cue them to do the lean.


A compilation of Michael Jackson's anti-gravity lean. Aka Smooth Criminal Lean.
Leans are at 0:25, 1:08, 1:38, 2:04.


I so miss MJ and his fantastic performances..

Use 3D Glasses To View in... 2D? (Video)

With all the rage about 3D displays and glasses these days, it took a while before someone realised that you can use the 3D glasses to share 2 different shows on a screen at the same time.

As 3D TVs are being rolled out to consumers, people with the technical know how can actually modify the accompanying Active Shutter glasses such that a pair of glasses can view only the left eye image and another pair to view only the right eye image. In other words, you can have Ben 10 cartoon and Death Race movie showing on the same screen together. With one pair of glasses, your cuddly 10 y.o. cousin can watch the harmless Ben 10 cartoon, while you have the other pair of glasses and be able to enjoy all the blood and guts and human slaughtering of Death Race at the same time, with only 1 TV. Of course, without glasses on, all you'll see on the screen is a huge mess of colours. There is also no 3D effect as you're only taking in a left/right view.

Video after the break...






But then again, it is one thing to be able to watch 2 shows on the same screen. However, there's still the issue of the audio. How will the audio from each show be transmitted to the correct viewers?