3-D Cameras. A Wave of the Future?

In the world of Harry Potter, photos of people in newspapers and posters seem to have a life of their own. For muggles like us, our technology has a long way to catch up to the wizards to have moving photographs. But with the new camera of Fuji, muggles may have taken a wee step closer in terms of photography.

As per NY Times:

Fujifilm just took the wraps off its long-awaited 3-D camera and photo frame, which can capture and display 3-D (and 2-D) photos and video. The technology is sometimes amazing, but it seems likely to appeal primarily to a small group of stereoscopic photo enthusiasts.

Since it is a new technology. it is obviously not perfect yet. It is observed that the people will be fascinated because of its novelty, not because of the quality or the "realness" of the photos. But I think it has a lot of potential. Who knows, maybe 3=D pictures will be the norm in the future, just like 3=D films today! Er... or maybe not...

Yearning for a Standard eBook Format

I like reading books, whether it is in printed or digital form. Sometimes, it is better to read a book on paper. The look, feel and smell of the paper just adds to the reading experience. But reading digital books has its advantages too. I read books through my Palm Treo phone, and the fact that the books are in my phone is a very convenient thing. Whenever I commute, or I am about to sleep, I just whip out my phone and read. Also, since I have everything on my phone, I can store my favorite books, minus the weight and bulkiness of an actual book.

But one gripe that I have with digital books is that there is no universal format as of yet. For my phone, I have three different readers in order to read my books, because of incompatibility of format. For those who want to try digital books, deciding which ereader (like Kindle) to purchase may turn them off. Since there is no dominant format yet, will not be resolved for a long time, until one ereader stands out from the rest.

Photo: oskay, Flickr, Creative Commons

Protecting Your Virtual Brand

Do you have a website and you want to protect your "brand"? Protecting your brand is obviously important, especially when you are about to make it big. You don't want to be in a situation where you are in the throes of (relative) internet success, only to find out that others have already taken advantage of what you have sowed.

 

Here are some tips, taken from Dan Schwabel's article entitled "5 Ways to Control Your Brand":

 

1. Claim Your Google profile - Google has quietly released a feature allowing you to claim your profile when your name/brand is googled.

 

2. Reserve your name on social networks - You don't have to go to each networking site one by one, you just have to using Namechk.com or Knowem.com to see where you can claim your brand name on the more recognized social networks.

 

3. Establish your personal hub - For instance, Nombray.com allows you to display all of your social networking profiles, blogs and websites under a single domain name (yourname.com)

 

4. Have a reputation management strategy

 

5. Promote you expertise.

 

Click here for the full article.

Shooting Frenzy

I've always wanted to have an SLR camera - you know, those bulky, professional looking camera with lenses obscenely protruding. i have a friend who sa one, and I always borrow it whenever I get to have a chance. In those rare times that I handle his camera, I always try to practice the intricacies of focusing, zooming and shot composition.I haven't mastered them. I think it will take years for anyone to really master photography. Just like poker, photography takes minutes to learn and years to master.

 

A New York Times article has reported that Panasonic is releasing a camera ahead of its time: it can capture SLR-quality pictures with the ease of a point-and-click camera, and more.

 

But considering that this is a relatively new technology, it necessarily comes at a steep price of $1,500. What's more, the size of these first generation cameras are just slightly smaller than SLR cameras. But no matter, the potential of the technology alone will make any camera enthusiasts and wannabe-photographers will make them salivate.

A Valentine Card

 

 Photo: thegreatgeekmanual, Flickr, Creative Commons

Gorey and The Recently Deflowered Girl

I chanced upon this book scan of The Recently Deflowered Girl. At first glance, it looks like your ordinary etiquette book, albeit of a weird topic. But it isn't so. Consider this, for example:

You meet an old bachelor friend of your family who has known you since birth. He takes you to his apartment promising to show you old tintypes of your parents. After deflowerment, you ask to see the pictures. He says, "There are no pictures, but your parents are in the next room."

You say: "Golly, I love surprises."

Obviously, this should not be taken seriously; the pieces of advice tongue-in-cheek, all. This shouldn't come as a surprise if you had known beforehand that it was authored by Edward Gorey, an author known for macabre literature/illustrations. Check out the book, worth a look.

If you want to see more of Gorey's works, check this out.

Photo: aussiegall, Flickr, Creative Commons

Crowdsourcing 101

Suppose Jimmy Wales decides to create an encyclopedia all by his lonesome self. Sounds hard, if not impossible, right?

Well, this Jimmy Wales is the creator of Wikipedia. He did not do an online encyclopedia on his own. In fact, he asked everyone who can access the Wikipedia website to contribute and collaborate on the content of the site. The result: over 10 million articles written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. I have edited some Wikipedia articles in the past myself - although my contribution is limited to correcting typographical errors - just so I can say that I have made some contribution to Wikipedia.

 

Wikipedia typifies crowdsourcing. Coined in 2006, the term crowdsourcing is defined in Wikipedia as:

[T]he act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call. For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task, refine an algorithm or help capture, systematize or analyze large amounts of data.

The term has become popular with business authors and journalists as shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals. However, both the term and its underlying business models have attracted controversy and criticism.

Other well-known crowdsourcing sites are Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and Flickr. But the concept of crowdsourcing is not new. According to Wikipedia (where else?), in the 19th century, the Oxford English Dictionary was written from volunteer contributions of millions of slips of paper. In the early days of the internet, the concept was already being applied by computer programmers and scientists.

The Emperor's Virtual Clothes author Dinty Moore forayed into the (then) mysterious world of internet back in 1995. Thirteen years ago, you had to make do with Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) for social networking. Search was not made through Google. Netscape was still the number one browser. A picture file would take minutes to download.

But even during the "primitive" era of the internet, the idea of crowdsourcing was already alive. BITNET, CSNET and Usenet allowed for discussion of computers, computing issues, scientific disciplines and controversy. Usenet, in particular, was famous in universities, research labs or other academic institutions. Usenet originated with a link between two universities, and the exchange of ideas and information is what such institutions are all about. It created huge amounts of information that would have been hard to obtain had there been no Usenet. Collaboration  and exchange of information among early Usenet users made it possible.

According to wiseGEEK, it seems that the potential of crowdsourcing has yet to be tapped. "There is an enormous creative and technical population in the world, many of whom have interesting ideas or skills, and crowdsourcing allows companies to profit from their work — often giving them a healthy living in return — at a fraction of the cost of a more traditional business model."

For more information about crowdsourcing sites, you can visit crowdsourcinglinks.com.

Comic strip: xkcd