Just discovered you can take '3D' pictures with Google Camera

Depthy extracts the depth map made by Google Camera Lens Blur photos allowing you to view them with a 3D parallax effect and changing of focus.

The picture in the post is just a shitty GIF export, it's way more awesome to play around with it yourself. Here is an example I made. Be sure to check out all the options in the settings.

Here is the Depthmap generated by the software, pretty impressive.

Google is now applying this tech to allow you to make 3D panoramas to view in Cardboard/VR: https://googleblog.blogspot.nl/2015/12/step-inside-your-photos-with-cardboard.html

I guess it's just a matter of time before we can get miniature drones that use this to automatically capture whole scenes in full 3D for you.

Some CSI-level photo manipulation

A Computational Approach for Obstruction-Free Photography

Blender to WebGL

I just found out about Blend4Web, a great addon for Blender that lets you convert Blender scenes to embeddable WebGL relatively easy. Here is demo of a simple model I made for a previous project. You can rotate, pan, and zoom with mouse controls around the interactive model below:

Here is a more impressive example from a somewhat more complex project I did, big file (24MB)

As you can see from the online demos it's capable of much more impressive scenes and even interactive apps.

Holy fuck, this is terrifying

Complete car hacking and takeover is entirely possible now, even without ever having physical access to the car. You would think the manufacturers could have seen this coming and done something about security before it got to this point.

Full article here.

Makes the conspiracy theory about the journalist Michael Hastings being killed by remote car hack more plausible.

Revision control for non-programmers

"Revision control, also known as version control and source control, is the management of changes to documents, programs, web sites and other information stored as computer files."

Revision control software is mostly used and created for software development, but I think almost everyone working with digital projects (from thesis/research to website or graphical design) can benefit from learning a revision control system. Problem is that all tutorials and examples focus on more advanced functions used in software development, which makes it harder for non-programmers folks to learn.

Revision control creates a snapshot (revision) of all your selected project files when you decide to "commit" (update) changes made since the last snapshot. You also provide a short log message about what has changed and why, for later reference.
This creates a history with comments of all major changes. You can easily switch between different snapshots, for example, when you fucked up.
It's like wikipedia page history, but for you project files. 

Revision control software has reached a mature third generation. Most are free, cross-platform, open source and with a nice graphical user interface.

TortoiseHG, interface for Mercurial.

It is easy and useful to use for your local projects. The full power kicks in when you work in a team, then you can all work on the same files, at the same time, and have a complete history of who changed what and when. With a few clicks you can host a server such that others can get your project, make changes and commit these back to the server.

It is a bit difficult to get the terminology and full concept when you are new to it, but should not take long and it is simple in the end, like riding a bike. It's a must use for programmers, but it may be very useful too in other fields (science/research, engineering, graphical design) , while used very little.

You may not want or need it right now, but I think it's good for many of you to know there are excellent revision control solutions available that I enjoy using. It's pretty cool to see a full timeline of your thesis project, when you were most active, or were stuck in problems. And it can save lots of time when you can switch to a previous working version. In teams it creates a central point, communication and traceability.

Do any of you already use some sort of revision control? See any need for it? I like Mercurial with TortoiseHG best at the moment. These applications will improve and last for a long time.

OSX vs Ubuntu

The best reason to use Ubuntu instead of OS X is found in the OS version names!

Mac OS X:
Kodiak, Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion.

Ubuntu:
Warty Warthog, Hoary Hedgehog, Breezy Badger, Dapper Drake, Edgy Eft, Feisty Fawn, Gutsy Gibbon, Hardy Heron, Intrepid Ibex, Jaunty Jackalope, Karmic Koala, Lucid Lynx, Maverick Meerkat, Natty Narwhal, Oneiric Ocelot.

Amazing image manipulation, but still no enhance

This could be really useful for experimenting with the decoration of a room. I can already imagine IKEA allowing you to experiment with their furniture.

But still no ENHANCE!

Edit: Repost, derp is on me!

Ninite

Really useful site I always use when I install Windows (not often ;) ). It bundles common applications you select in one installer pack.
It's not new, but some of you may not yet be aware of its existence... Makes life easier.

LifeXP v0.1

I managed to create an alpha version of our life experience app (name still open). After a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Mainly tears.

Android app: download LifeXP.apk

Experiences are stored on our server, in this text file, and can be donwloaded by the press of a button in the app. You can add new experiences to this file and upload it to www.rainbowboys.org/annom/lifexp/. Click "Download Experiences" in the app and it will fetch the new database. That's how it works for now.

All the content is just placeholder info (and still civilized :) ). I make the app, not the content. It's a prototype kind of things so keep that in mind if you want to give some constructive criticism.

Some screenshots for those without Android phone.

Pathfinder Example

Ever wondered how your troops, tanks or heroes find their way on the map of a RTS game? Or why they get stuck or change their direction every move? I did and decided to find out and program a pathfinder myself. I implemented the A* pathfinding algorithm. My implementation is not very efficient (I know how to make it more efficient), but does work. It's not very special and something most n00b programmers have probably done, but I want to share it anyway as it gives a more satisfactory ending to my little Sunday afternoon project. I also want to know if it runs on other computers, so it would be cool if some of you could try it. No need to install anything (at least, that's what I hope), just unzip and run the exe. I can't compile it for OSX, because I need a Mac for that.
Controls: 
q = quit
r = reset/restart
space = start/pause path finding
left mouse = add water/wall
right mouse = remove water/wall
Settings: Edit settings.txt

Download: 
PathFinder for Windows XP/Vista/7
PathFinder for Ubuntu x86 (Linux binary)

Resynthesize Example

Here is a resynthesize example I just created, pretty fun to play with :)

More examples of Adobe's content aware fill

GIMP OMGWTF!?!

The free GIMP's free resynthesizer plugin can do the content aware fill thing right now, as it can since 2005. On Linux and Windows. Debian/Ubuntu users simply do "apt-get install gimp-resynthesizer".

And video one and two showing the content removal function.
Free software needs better marketing. I only found out about this after the Adobe video.

Photoshop OMGWTF!?!

Keep watching, it gets crazy towards the end. Did I just see uncropping? :)

Panorama Software

Just an update on Panorama Stitching software.
For windows:
Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor (Free, beer-wise)

For GNU/Linux/Mac/BSD:
Hugin (Free, software-wise)

Amazon buys Linux license from Microsoft

"As part of the pact, Amazon will pay Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money.

The deal covers both Amazon's Kindle product as well as the company's use of Linux-based servers. Microsoft has maintained that many implementations of Linux infringe on its patents and has signed numerous licensing deals that cover Linux with both companies that sell Linux-based software and those that use the operating system in their hardware."

WTF?!

Remaking Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up"

A Ukrainian Dj has made cover of Smack My Bitch Up without any sample of original track. It gives an interesting look into how electronic music can be made nowadays. This kind of software wasn't yet available when Prodigy made it though.

Cool interactive projection technology

whiteboardblog
Consisting of the LiteBoard projector and special pen/wand, the system will work on any surface—wall, screen, whiteboard, etc.—so there’s no need to mount an interactive whiteboard hardware.

The wand works by detecting patterns in the projected image that the human eye cannot see, communicating with the projector over a radio frequency to triangulate exactly where the user is pointing.

All information is passed to the computer in the same way as any other mouse/pointer device – so you could use this on any software.

Playing GTA 4 in your browser

TechCrunch article to accompany the video.

GTA 4 is rendered externally by OTOY, and being played in a browser. This means that you could play this or Crysis on your iPhone, or anything, as long as it supports html. If this works and is affordable it means no need for a powerful pc anymore.
However it might also mean that game piracy becomes impossible. If developers only release games via these streaming services, you won't be able to play them without paying. Besides the graphics might be so good that even if you could download it, you couldn't play it.

OnLive is another service that is attempting to deliver something similar.