The World, Engineered

Really cool short film that “explores a fleeting moment between two strangers, revealing their brief connection in a hyper real fantasy. The filming was the easy part, taking place over four days. Putting in the visual effects took the director eight months of work after that. But it seems like his efforts have paid off. Within days of posting the short film online, director Arev Manoukian started getting calls from Hollywood agents.

Wired has a pretty cool post and video, linked below, giving a glimpse into how all the visual effects were done.

via Wired.

For the first time ever, Google has an ad during the Super Bowl. I found it to be quite a breath of fresh air amongst all the usual ads focused on cars, beer and women.

In an extremely simple yet effective manner, the ad showcases how Google’s technology touches our everyday lives. A series of search queries turn out to tell a story, with a slight surprise at the end.

I never fail to discover great new music on Grey’s Anatomy! This week, its “Poison & Wine” by The Civil Wars.

This is a short film (a fast paced preview of a larger effort) by MAYA Design created to put some perspective on the invisible but fast approaching challenges and opportunities in the pervasive computing age.

An interesting way of putting things into perspective, including looking back at early uses of computing. And very nice animations to boot!

It reminds me about a reading I did a few days back for my technological entrepreneurship class about legacy costs for a company and how it can come back to bite the company. I think if we’re building for trillions in the future, using legacy infrastructure carried over from the past (or even the present), the legacy stuff is going to come back and bite us hard. The film is basically saying that we have to build for the trillions from the ground up. That requires a complete rethink of the way we build our networks and devices now, which is very challenging to do as we’re so invested in the current way of doing things.

It’s also interesting how the film is also saying that everything that we need for building for trillions is already present in nature. The complexity of God’s creation is just so staggering that I wonder if we can ever come close to building something like that, and have it work as efficiently as nature does.

A Brazilian environmental group SOS Mata Atlantica has launched a campaign to encourage the country’s residents to pee in the shower to save water. They say that by peeing in the shower, each household will flush the toilet at least 1 less time each day, saving a whopping 1,157 gallons of water each year per household! Urine is sterile, so technically, peeing in the shower is harmless (unless someone has a disease that can be transmitted through their pee, such as hepatitis).

The group has even come up with a rather cute video to promote their campaign. The clip features cartoon drawings of people from all walks of life (even an alien!) peeing in the shower and is narrated by children’s voices. The ad ends with the campaign’s tagline: “Pee in the shower! Save the Atlantic rainforest!”

Alongside the video, they also have a fun-looking website for the campaign. Although I can’t understand a word of Portuguese, the website does seem very well-designed.

So remember, the next time you want to save the rainforest, start by peeing in the shower.

Another amazing space shuttle launch yesterday. This time of Space Shuttle Endeavor on mission STS-127 “completing Kibo and fulfilling Japan’s hope for an out of this world space laboratory. This came after 5 previous launch attempts were scrubbed due to either technical difficulties or weather.

When Endeavour docks with the International Space Station (ISS), it will set a record for the most humans in space at the same time in the same vehicle, the first time thirteen people will have been at the station at the same time.

This mission also carries Canadian astronaut Julie Payette, a graduate of McGill University. Her launch into space also marks the first time two Canadian astronauts are in space at the same time, the other being Robert Thirsk, who is in the middle of a 6 month stay on the ISS.

So Microsoft previewed their upcoming motion sensing system codenamed Project Natal at the E3 expo yesterday. Its supposed to work with the Xbox 360 and it allows for full body motion control by tracking 3D movement. It also recognizes voices, and is meant to fully immerses the players into the game. The promotional video by Microsoft makes the whole system look pretty awesome.

I think its an interesting concept and its sort of an extension from the Wii, minus the controller. However, I have my doubts about how well this thing is going to work in the real world. The technology being used (motion tracking, voice recognition) have all proven to be pretty iffy in real world use. The last thing you want is the system not detecting your move on a crucial point in the game. Also, the racing game in the video looks a bit awkward to play as you’re just holding your hands up in the air like you’re gripping a steering wheel. I would imagine that people’s hands would get tired pretty quickly.

Its good to see Microsoft innovating though, with the announcement of “Project Natal” hot on the heels of the launch of their new search engine “Bing“, which has some pretty positive reviews so far. I think they have been resting on their laurels for way too long, always having to play catch up to others like Google and Apple. Its a good thing if Microsoft can provide some form of competition against Google and Apple as this will force all the companies to keep innovating and pushing the boundaries of technology.

Speaking of Microsoft, I remember coming across, a while ago, another two very cool and potentially ground-breaking pieces of technology that they have been working on, called Seadragon and Photosynth. My jaw literally dropped as I watched the demo. Very cool stuff.

This is such a typically Singaporean thing. Cringe-worthy rap videos commissioned by the government for certain campaigns, in this case the courtesy campaign.

I remember during the SARS period, they were playing the SAR-vivor (a bad pun on the word survivor) rap video on TV non-stop. It was actually quite catchy! Haha! Now when I watch the video on YouTube, it actually brings a smile to my face. Maybe I’ve been away from Singapore too long already.

(For my non-Singaporean friends, the guy rapping in the videos is Phua Chu Kang, a popular character from a Singapore sitcom.)

Eric Schmidt’s keynote speech at Carnegie Mellon’s 112th commencement ceremony. I find that there are some very good points in his speech and also some funny observations.

“We got our news from newspapers, your generation gets it from blogs and tweets, and for those of you who don’t know, that’s not what you hear in zoos.”

“We thought ‘friend’ is a noun, you think it’s a verb.”

Today, I watched the Atlantis space shuttle liftoff for mission STS-125 live online. Space shuttle launches never fail to give me goosebumps. It’s always such a grand sight. Engineering at its very best.

Be sure to watch the video at full screen to enjoy the launch at its best.

I like what the NASA commentator said upon liftoff of the space shuttle:

Liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis. Final visit to enhance the vision of Hubble into the deepest grandeur of our universe.

Sadly though, this also marks the last repairs mission that will be conducted on the Hubble Space Telescope. After that, astronomers will just use the Hubble for as long as possible before vital components start breaking down again. Once it can no longer serve its purpose, it’ll be left to slowly orbit the Earth until drag causes its orbit to decay to a point that it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere and burns up.