Future of Engineering

What's the common factor amongst these films - Spiderman, Hulk & Superman? You'd immediately say 'Super hero'. But what makes them super on screen? No, it's not their flying, diving and crashing skills that create a big impression. It's their special effects.

Production houses can afford to spend millions on special effects. But it is not possible for an amateur trying his/her first stint at photography and editing.

Unwrap Mosaics a prototype software from Microsoft offers a simple and easy solution. A video is simply a sequential collection of frames or still images. If special effects have to be applied to an object, each and every frame where the object appears has to be edited separately. This is a laborious and time consuming task.


Unwrap Mosaics was developed by Rav-Acha, Andrew Fitzgibbon, Pushmeet Kohli and Carsten Rother. It virtually strips the skin from a selected object in a video, producing a 2D surface that can be easily edited using photo-editing software.

Rav-Acha and his co-workers have successfully tested their software on a range of videos. "There are professional tools that can do these kind of edits but it's an incredibly skilled procedure," says Fitzgibbon. "We believe that with this procedure anyone should be able to edit video."

Using this software, the editor can sit back and relax after making changes to a single frame. The software takes care of applying the changes to all the frames. For instance, if you add a hat and boots to your cat video in frame one, the changes appear till the end of the video.

Now everybody has the chance to create a home edition of Hancock, the super guy of the 21st century.

Source - Unwrap Mosaics

Labels: Computer-Science

The Terminator: Why do you cry?
John Connor: You mean people?
The Terminator: Yes.
John Connor: I dont' know. We just cry. You know, when it hurts.
The Terminator: Pain causes it?
John Connor: No, it's when there's nothing wrong with you, but you cry anyway. You get it?
The Terminator: No.

A robot can think, analyse, calculate, perform actions, crawl, walk, dance and even play football. So what differentiates a robot from a human being?

Well it isn't programmed to have a cute little red heart, the symbol of love that's supposed to be the epicenter of feelings & emotions. That's why the Terminator couldn't understand the depth of a tear-drop.

Feelix Growing tries to bridge the gap between robot and humankind. It is developing software empowering robots that can learn when a person is sad, happy or angry.

Using cameras and sensors, the very simple robots being built by the researchers – using mostly off-the-shelf parts – can detect different parameters, such as a person's facial expressions, voice, and proximity to determine emotional state.

The main idea is, by being more in tune with human emotions, giving the impression of empathy, the robots should be more readily accepted by the people they may one day serve.

The Terminator: I know now why you cry,
[terminator wipes johns tear]
Guess what? It is something I can do too!

Source - ICT Results

Labels: Robotics

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University have developed an electronic-eye camera.

There are lot of developments happening in the world of digital camera. So, what's so unique about this electric-eye camera?

The answer lies in its curved nature. Currently when photos are taken, the picture is clear in the middle but at the edges it is blurred. The curved technology ensures that the entire picture is clean and clear.

"This is the first time we've demonstrated a camera on a curved surface to really make it look like a human eye," said Yonggang Huang of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Wow! So why didn't they think about this earlier?

They did. And also tried to implement it. But to their dismay when microelectronic components were transferred onto a curved surface it broke under pressure.

Transferring microelectronic components onto a curved surface without breaking them was the task before Huang and Rogers. Guess what? They've found a simple solution to prevent breakage.

"Huang and Rogers developed a mesh-like material made up of tiny squares that hold the photodetectors and electronic components. The squares are connected by tiny wires that give each component the ability to mold to a curved surface."

This fantastic development goes beyond vacation photos.The device could be used to make better imaging equipment, such as curved sensors to monitor brain activity that follow the contours of the brain. It could even be used in the development of an artificial retina or a bionic eye.

Source - PC Pro
Image source - Newscom.com

Labels: Design-Engineering, Robotics

Researchers in Portugal have created a "microcapsule" filled with perfume and embedded in fabric maskS unpleasant body odors when using textile products.

Actors have sported double-roles on screen to show off their skills. (Sometimes they do it to test our patience.) Now our clothes have decided to do the same. They've made a fashion statement. Now they want to make a scented statement. And they surely have caught our attention.

These microcapsules need no introduction. They have been used already in scratch-and-sniff stickers and peel-apart fragrance samples. But the textile industry has kept off from this scented technology for a good reason. They knew that current versions make use of formaldehyde, a known cancer-causing agent. Surely there would be no takers for such clothing.

The textile industry didn't use it. But the lingering fragrance refused to leave. And they couldn't stop thinking about it. So they turned to science to freshen up their attire.

"The researchers identified polyurethane-urea, a type of environmentally-friendly plastic that is compatible with fabrics, as a solution. They used the material to prepare microcapsules containing limonene, the familiar scent abundant in lemons and widely-used in perfumes, and applied the capsules onto wool and polyester samples."

In laboratory tests, the microcapsules showed good performance in terms of prolonged fragrance production and durability. There's a time for everything. Now, it's time to say goodbye to perfumes and deodarants. For your clothes, tailored to perfection would be performing a great double-role.

Source - American Chemical Society

Military Developing Brainwave Binoculars

Military binoculars may soon get information directly from the brains of the soldiers using them.

The brain is constantly processing images but most get filtered out. All the things identified by the brain doesn't make it to the conscious level.

The Pentagon wants to use the full potential of the brain, so it has awarded contracts to two defense firms to develop brainwave-aided binoculars. It hopes that soldiers can detect threats from miles farther away with the intelligent binoculors.

"Electrodes on the scalp inside a helmet will record the user's brain activity as it processes information about high-resolution images produced by wide-angle military binoculars. Those responses will train the binoculars over time to recognize threats."

Sensics, Inc., a Baltimore-based maker of panoramic head-mounted displays won $6.7 million and HRL Laboratories received $4.3 million for their research.

Source - Lasvegassun

Labels: Instrumentation-Engineering, Robotics