Interesting Article on New "Photo Tourism" Tool From Microsoft and the University of Washington

Actionscript 3.0 Webcam Motion Detection with Interaction Physics

Actionscript 3 application that performs motion tracking via webcam.

The application works by constantly monitoring a webcam, taking snapshots of each frame. Those frames are then constantly drawn to a bitmap data object. The difference in brightness within each segment (from one calculation to the next) determines whether or not motion had occurred in this area of the screen. If motion is detected the coordinates of a rectangular grid around said motion is recorded. To track whether or not the "ball" has been effected, the current x and y coordinates of the rectangle to the coordinates of the ball. The direction of the ball is determined by again comparing the points of the motion area to the "ball" point.


Try it for yourself here. (webcam obv required)

Natural Object Rotation Using Papervision 3D

I've been trying to start AS3 since last week but because of the tight work schedule, neither me or m3 haven't got a single opportunity to sit even for 5 minutes...

But I haven't stoped my eager for AS3 and Papervision and found the following link while searching for some tutorials.

Natural Object Rotation Using Papervision3D

Really usefull.

Colin Moock's Charges Against ActionScript 3.0

Colin Moock published an interesting article about nine problems he sees with ActionScript 3.0 and Flash Player 9. Most of the charges he makes are specific to the Flash CS3 authoring environment, and the general theme is that ActionScript 3.0 and its implementation in Flash CS3 makes the development process more difficult than it should be for users without significant programming backgrounds.

The Nine problems are:

1. The removal of on()/onClipEvent() from Flash CS3 makes creating simple interactivity hard.
2. Getting rid of loaded .swf files is hard.
3. Casting DisplayObject.parent makes controlling parent movie clips hard.
4. The removal of getURL() makes linking hard.
5. The removal of loadMovie() makes loading .swf files and images hard.
6. ActionScript 3.0's additional errors make coding cumbersome.
7. Referring to library symbols dynamically is unintuitive.
8. Adding custom functionality to manually created text fields, to all movie clips, or to all buttons is cumbersome.
9. The removal of duplicateMovieClip() makes cloning a MovieClip instance (really) hard.

Colin does an excellent job of describing each charge in detail, with code examples. He also spends a lot of time discussing not only what Adobe should do in each case, but also what the Flash developer community should do. If you regularly work in the Flash CS3 environment, I highly recommend this article. There's less relevant material for Flex and FlexBuilder users, but a couple of the topics may be of interest: "2. Getting rid of loaded .swf files is hard." and "6. ActionScript 3.0's additional errors make coding cumbersome."

I'd like to encourage you to read his article and send a feedback on what you think are the most important issues he brings up in his article. Colin even links to some of Adobe's feedback mechanisms.

I didn't see in his article the relative weights he attaches to the nine charges, but it would be interesting to see which charges the community would consider the highest priority.

Here's the link again in case you missed it at the top of the post:

The Charges Against ActionScript 3.0

a follow-up

Data Visualization in Entertainment

I was checking out the PaperVision3D blog today, and stumbled across a really impressive data visualization technique used by the band Radiohead with the release of their new video for "House of Cards". You can check out the video here.

Here is a completely interactive version of the data visualization, complete with audio synchronization: http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/viewer.html

It was created using a modified version of PaperVision3D... Even more impressive, there were no cameras used to create this. Check out this quote from the google code site hosting the visualization:

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D
images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

You can read more about this technique and data visualization at: http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/

You can even download the data, and create your own visualizations from: http://code.google.com/p/radiohead/downloads/list

Related links:
Papervision3D blog post
Interactive Data Visualization
Google Radiohead page
Google Code Download

Top 10 Websites To Learn Flash/ActionScript

Adobe Flash is an excellent technology that allows developers to add interactivity and smooth animations to web pages. Its popularity is so immense that you’ll find many websites dedicated to helping developers interested in Flash.

In this article, you’ll find 10 wonderful websites that’s worth a bookmark if you’re looking into sharpening your Flash development skills. For each entry, you’ll find three tutorials from the website so that you can see what’s in store for you.

1. kirupa.com
   (kirupa.com is a site that features excellent Flash tutorials (as well as Silverlight, ASP.net, PHP, and Photoshop). There are plenty of well-written, detailed tutorials and articles pertaining to Flash sectioned into seven categories including Basic Drawing, Special Effects, Server-side Flash, and Game Development.)
   


2. gotoandlearn.com
   Some people learn best by visualization and following along with the instructor step-by-step in real-time. If you’re the type that prefers to learn by watching instructional videos, check out gotoandlearn.com – a website by Lee Brimelow that offers free Flash video tutorials.


3. gotoAndPlay()
   gotoAndPlay() is dedicated to providing resources for Flash game developers. It’s a community that has a forum, interviews from professional developers, and reviews of books and resources. It also has tutorials and articles about Flash game development that can be filtered by topic, expertise, and type.


4. Adobe - Flash Developer Center
   Adobe’s Flash Developer Center is a community for Flash developers. Here, you’ll find tutorials, articles, and related resources about Flash. You should also check out the ActionScript Technology Center for articles on specifically about ActionScript.


5. Flash Kit
   Flash Kit is one of the biggest and oldest community dedicated to Flash development. With over 600,000 members, you won’t have a hard time finding people with a similar interest in Flash. There’s a forums section, free resources that you can download and use in your Flash projects, and a large tutorials section that includes 18 categories.


6. ActionScript.org
   ActionScript.org is a site that provides resources and information pertaining to Flash, Flex, and ActionScript. They have a fairly active Forums section as well as an ActionScript Library that currently has over 700 objects you can download.


7. Flash and Math ActionScript 3 Tutorials
   Flash and Math has a great collection of tutorials on AS3. They cover basic to advanced topics so that Flash developers of any level can find something they can read and learn from. Many of the tutorials include the source files for download.


8. Flash Tutorials on Pixel2Life
   Pixel2Life, according to the site, is the "largest tutorial index catering to graphic designers, webmasters and programmers". With over 40,000 indexed tutorials, you’ll find many links to tutorials in their Flash Tutorials section.


9. Flash Perfection
   Flash Perfection is a website with a large collection of Flash tutorials, tips, and tricks from various websites. Flash Perfection has 23 categories to help you find information more quickly.


10. metah.ch
    metah.ch has some awesome video tutorials on Flash, ActionScript, Flex, and AIR. Files associated with the tutorials can be downloaded and used in your own projects.

Greenbox: Measuring home energy use

Greenbox, are taking energy efficiency online by bringing a Web 2.0 approach to home energy monitoring.

$150m in new clean technology grants

Flash brains to setup, Greenbox to Tackle Energy in the Home
- energy efficiency online by bringing a Web 2.0 approach to home energy monitoring.

Paper Critics in Wikimapia.org

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=25.1636245&lon=55.4137087&z=18&l=0&m=a&v=2

Googolplex

A googolplex is the number 10^googol, which means it's a 1 followed by a googol zeros (i.e. 10¹⁰⁰ zeros).

1 googolplex
= 10^googol
= 10^(10100)

Know more

Right from the father!

Read it!
WARNING: Programmer Friendly content

Live Responsibly

Apple announces cheaper 3G iPhone

Apple has unveiled a second generation of its iPhone, with support for faster 3G wireless networks. The company is hoping to boost its share of the smartphone market, which is dominated by Nokia and Blackberry.

The new devices were launched by Apple boss Steve Jobs who said the phone would be ""more affordable"" for consumers, starting at $199 (£100).

The new iPhone also comes with GPS satellite navigation built in for location-based services.

The iPhone was first launched last year and was criticized for its support for slower 2G networks only.

Mr. Jobs said the 3G iPhone was ""three times faster"" downloading content over a mobile network compared to the original device.

Analyst John Delaney, research director for consumer mobile at IDC, said the iPhone 3G was disappointing. ""To me it's more about what they didn't say, than what they did. Everyone knew it would be 3G and have GPS.""

Adobe Flash CS4 : Codename "Diesel"

The next version of the Flash IDE, Flash 10 “diesel”, brand-new a time beam co-ordination - model. What is the difference? There no longer a need for keyframes. Yes, it sounds dramatically, but based on the demo, these much _ will work more easily to with Flash and make much more easily for beginners for time beam cos-ordination.

Another cool feature is that when you move the object to the end state, a dotted line shows along the route between, indicating where you just going to go to the site. Want to change the way? Simply moving object and automatically updates the line. Not enough? Adjust the line just like any other line in a curved Flash / Illustrator make it a more rounded, or to increase the length by adjusting the end point to your liking. You can also choose the Transform tool and use it for marmalade / or expand its path between.

It is believed that Adobe will be performing a substantial overhaul of Flash for CS4. Possible changes include :

• Removal of keyframes
• IK (Inverse Kinematics)
• "Mobile Convergence", making it easier to make Flash content for mobile devices
• Object-based tween modelling
• 3D rotation
• Typed arrays (vectors)
• 64-bit support
• Hydra to use the GPU (if available)
• IK (Inverse Kinematics) Tweens
  

Adobe Flash Player 10 beta was released on 15th May 2008 and notably introduces support for hardware GPU accelerated features like 3D graphics and programmable pixel shaders.

Do you know Rajanikanth, the south Indian Actor ?

33 Facts about Rajanikanth

1. He makes onions cry
   
2. Rajanikanth can delete the Recycle Bin.
   
3. Ghosts are actually caused by Rajanikanth killing people faster than Death can process them.
   
4. Rajanikanth can build a snowman..... out of rain.
   
5. Rajanikanth can strangle you with a cordless phone.
   
6. Rajanikanth can drown a fish.
   
7. When Rajanikanth enters a room, he doesn't turn the lights on,......... .. he turns the dark off.
   
8. When Rajanikanth looks in a mirror the mirror shatters, because not even glass is stupid enough to get in between Rajanikanth and Rajanikanth.
   
9. Brett Favre can throw a football over 50 yards. Rajanikanth can throw Brett Favre even further.
   
10. The last digit of pi is Rajanikanth. He is the end of all things.
    
11. Rajanikanth does not know where you live, but he knows where you will die.
    
12. Bullets dodge Rajanikanth.
    
13. A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Rajanikanth and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
    
14. Rajanikanth' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd, no one fools Rajanikanth.
    
15. If you spell Rajanikanth wrong on Google it doesn't say, 'Did you mean Rajanikanth?' It simply replies, 'Run while you still have the chance.'
    
16. Rajanikanth can do a wheelie on a unicycle.
    
17. Once a cobra bit Rajanikanth' leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.
    
18. When Rajanikanth gives you the finger, he's telling you how many seconds you have left to live.
    
19. Rajanikanth can kill two stones with one bird.
    
20. Rajanikanth was once on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and was the first to spin. The next 29 minutes of the show consisted of everyone standing around awkwardly, waiting for the wheel to stop.
    
21. Leading hand sanitizers claim they can kill 99.9 percent of germs. Rajanikanth can kill 100 percent of whatever he wants.
    
22. There is no such thing as global warming. Rajanikanth was cold, so he turned the sun up.
    
23. Rajanikanth can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass. even at night.
    
24. Rajanikanth has a deep and abiding respect for human Life unless it gets in his way.
    
    
25. It takes Rajanikanth 20 minutes to watch 60 Minutes.
    
    
26. Rajanikanth once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, 'Bang!'
    
    
27. In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Rajanikanth could use to kill you, including the room itself.
    
    
28. Behind every successful man, there is a woman. Behind every dead man, there is Rajanikanth.
    
    
29. Rajanikanth destroyed the periodic table, because Rajanikanth only recognizes the element of surprise.
    
    
30. Rajanikanth got his drivers license at the age of 16 Seconds.
    
    
31. With the rising cost of gasoline, Rajanikanth is beginning to worry about his drinking habit.
    
32. The square root of Rajanikanth is pain. Do not try to square Rajanikanth, the result is death.
    
33. When you say 'no one's perfect', Rajanikanth takes this as a personal insult.
    

The paper ticket comes to the end of its life on Sunday

Paper airline tickets will be history, saving airlines billions of dollars in operating costs globally

http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/08/05/29/10217168.html

Anamorphosis

Anamorphosis is a distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to use special devices or occupy a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image.

Read more about a famous hungarian artist...

Inspiring Life Lessons

Inspiring Life Lessons - Randy Pausch reprising his Last Lecture:

Randy Pausch, a college professor, who has 3 children is compelled to share his life lessons with the world. He has pancreatic cancer and has been given a few months to live. His perspective on life is humbling, inspiring and truly a moment that will not be forgotten. I am honoured to share it with you. Please share it with those you love.

Everything goes OpenSource!

After seeing many and many softwares going in Open Source. Now an Graphic Card is released as Open Source. Kinda confused, read more...

Read it!

A must read article for any one using Adobe technologies for RIA. Click here to read more...

Adobe unveils 'Astro'

Just when Actionscript 3 / Flex 3 has begun to get into the mainstream production, Adobe has now released the Adobe Flash 10 - public prerelease. A huge list of exciting and most awaited features could be seen in this release.

Creative Expression
Custom Filters and Effects
3D Effects
New Text Engine
Text Layout Components
Drawing API Enhancements
Color Management

Visual Performance Improvements
GPU Compositing
GPU Blitting
Anti-Aliasing Engine (Saffron 3.1)
Vector Data Type

Rich Media
Dynamic Streaming
RTMFP (Real Time Media Flow Protocol)
Speex Audio Codec

Other Community Requested Enhancements
File Reference
Dynamic Sound Generation
Large Bitmap Support
Context Menu
GB18030 Compliance
Ubuntu OS Support

A noble site that shows only high-quality news stories.

Arts & Letters Daily (www.aldaily.com) is a web portal owned by The Chronicle of Higher Education. It features links to a diverse array of high-quality news stories, features and reviews from throughout the online Anglosphere. In this, it has some of the characteristics of a weblog. Access is free, and it receives around 3.7 million page views per month. A&L Daily's motto is “Veritas odit moras,” Latin for "Truth hates delay." This phrase is from line 850 of Seneca the Younger’s version of Oedipus.

Arts & Letters Daily is a clearinghouse of news, reviews and features on arts and culture.

You won't find any news about Lindsay's or Britney's latest escapades on this site, which bills itself as "a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education."

All the best writing on the web about all the most noble topics is gathered here.

Game Time

http://www.neave.com/games/hexxagon/
Somthing mindtwisting! A neat and simple stress buster! :)

Team

In order to have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity;

Every player must put the team first-ahead of personal glory.

You put together the best team that you can with the players you've got.

With a little courage, teamwork and determination we can overcome anything.






TEAM PAPERCRITICS

How to Get up Early in the Morning !

Trying to cope up with new office timings ?

Do you feel like the days are more and night is less ?

We cannot avoid sleeping as it is the state of natural rest observed in most mammals, birds, fish, as well as invertebrates.

For me, I want to wake up early, but that bed is too hard to get out of, and that alarm clock keeps going off every 10 minutes. Unfortunately, we are snoozing away what could be one of the most productive moments of our day. So, instead of snoozing, let’s wake up in a more effective way, and get the feeling of accomplishment first thing in the morning!

To get up early in the morning is a real boon. Nearly everybody would appreciate more time; after all, most things are more useful than sleeping. However, to get up early in the morning is not always easy, especially if we are used to lying in.

Here I found some tips to get up early in the morning. Try it instead of cursing yourself for getting up late. (Applicable only for people who sleeps at home)

1. Set the alarm at a regular time each day.

If we develop the routine of getting up at a certain time, then it becomes easier and more natural to wake up at our target time. If we are not used to waking up early it may be a shock to the system; however, it is important to persevere and continue getting up at this time - even at the Weekends. By getting up at the same time each day it helps to set the body clock. If we are lucky there may come a time when we spontaneously wake up early.

2. Be Careful with the Snooze button.

It is better to set the alarm and get up at that time. If we keep pressing the snooze button it becomes difficult to get up. When we lie in bed, hoping to get an extra 10 minutes rest, we are not actually sleeping. The longer we doze, the more difficult it becomes to get up. One trick is to put the alarm clock at the far end of the room. This means to turn it off you actually have to get out of bed - don't make it easy to go back to sleep.

3. Be Motivated to get up.

The key to getting up early in the morning is our desire to get up early. If we are really motivated to wake up at a certain time, we will not let the mind create excuses for going back to sleep. It is worth making a list of things we can do early in the morning. Early morning can be productive because the environment of the house is usually a bit quieter. Whatever your personal list maybe, it's probably better than sleeping in. If we really value the benefits of getting up early we will make it happen.

I have started practicing these new techniques to get up on time. Your suggestions invited.

Our Photo Session

It’s us The TEAM….
Manu, Hermis, Nisha, Moorthy and Remesh.
In a 4 O clock Photo shoot….
Photographer – Manu

Our First Team Meeting in Our OWN New Office :)

We had our FIRST official TEAM MEETING in OUR OWN new office :)
Time for lot of Planning as well as Implementation….(Moorthy and Manu The Architects) Making things organized.
Good NEWS
New Office (Thanks to Manu)
High-speed Internet (Thanks to Manu)
Good Music (thanks to Remesh’s collection)
And my BUDDY KUTTY HERMIS The Great getting into a line of new Presentations, exploring the world of DESIGN….
More than anything to have fun a hand full of GOOD PROJECTS
and Good Food ;)Few south & north Indian Restaurants around (Rasa, Royal Kebab & Madurai Mahal)
End of The Day
We are Happy :)

Microwave to break rocks???

After experiencing the maximum benefit of Microwave in cooking, a mining engineer found it will help to break/drill rocks in a faster way than the conventional mechanism!

Read more...

Microsoft Prefers Flash to Silverlight

Despite all the controversy over Microsoft using Silverlight to take over the rich internet market from Adobe Flash, the software giant seems to be not even trying. In fact, even most Microsoft web sites are using Flash instead of Silverlight.

A quick check through Microsoft properties reveals that only the Microsoft Home Page and the Microsoft Developer Network use Silverlight; MSN Video, Zune.net and the new WWTelescope all use Flash.

Considering the fact that Silverlight is still under development undergoing thousands and thousands of build cycles, perhaps it should take for Silverlight a little more than the expected time to reach large scale audience.

And, we are in.

Finally, after all the temporary arrangements utilized to the core, we are in our own place. Very proud and happy to have a completely indepenedent workplace of ours. Still we have given a huge wishlist for the new office. Hope most of them will met sooooon! :)

Good Luck!

Happy May Day!!

And, this is to wish you a Happy May Day! :)

The Design Thirst

Jus when browsing through some design and visualization theories, happened to get to SAP design guild site. A massive collection of design topics where discussed with exhaustive collection of links and goodies. A must see place for any designer! Naturally, this activity triggered further to find websites of similar interest.

http://www.sapdesignguild.org/
http://www.tlc-systems.com/webtips.shtml
http://www.webreference.com/dlab/
http://max.designwalker.com/graphicdesign/

Papercritics, IAL & Birdie

Just a few more days... come back to know what!

Serious Work

Some serious works piled up this week. We are in the most busiest times, I believe, and its good! Even though you lost a lots of sleep, its infact helpin creating a more meaningful bond.

Earth Day

Its our Earth Day today and we feel apt to write something today. Fortunately, we dont have any huge lecture on greenhouse or greenpeace and stuff like that. We are planning and doing our level best to keep our mother nature in its best form. We wish every single human come forward with his / her own conscience and realize what has to be done to save our Earth from artificial desctruction of our environment!

As we stand with the word Paper in us!! This is we! By saying "Paper Critics" it simply communicates reduce the wastage of paper and natural resources by all means. But it doesn't stop there, we are "carbon critics, pollution critics, pro green, pro energy saving and so on... but as a name we can use only one, so we are "Paper Critics".

The We!

Adobe D'day 2008

A rocking day of mind blowing design conference held in Dubai last week. Luckily, Manu got us the chance to enjoy the entire event with tonnes of fun, real fun!! :) A jam packed day with all verticals of design topics were discussed, along with an unexpectedly huge number of audience! This link would give all the interesting things that happened, along with us!

http://ddayme.com/eventdetails.html

We enjoyed the while with all those speakers from various parts across the globe, especially those of Scott and Jane! Just before lunch Scott gave the best time of the day with his exciting presentation and simply made us forget the hunger!

There are a couple of things that are available from the days presentation that could be downloaded from http://ddayme.com/dayafter.html.

c ya soon!

Welcome to We!

The first warm welcome to our zone. A place for us to share anything and everything for us, only! :) We need this privacy, fortunately! Time to get back to work now. See you soon!