[xkcd]

This isn't a poll about which CGI creature looks the coolest - instead, we're aiming at which one felt the most like an actual character in the movie. In other words, which one made you forget you were watching CGI? Which stirred up your sympathy?

Since the earliest days of cinema, special effects have been crucial to movie storytelling. One of the earliest popular short movies, Jacques Méliès' 1902 La Voyage Dans La Lune, was a science fiction story with special effects.

All these effects were created by human hands. In the mid-twentieth century filmmakers like Jean Cocteau started to perfect the art of using film technology to create special effects. In Orphée, for example, he used double exposures and ran the film backwards to do his special effects. Here is a great moment where Orpheus goes through the looking glass into another world.

Meanwhile, back in the states, special effects masters like Ray Harryhausen were using good, old-fashioned elbow grease and stop-motion techniques to build amazing monsters whose movements had a lifelike feel even though they were fantastical. Here's a great compilation of claymation monsters from Harryhausen, from the 1930s through the 80s.

But these days, computers are making special effects for the humblest of straight-to-DVD movies and television series, to Hollywood blockbusters. We have films like District 9 and Lord of the Rings where major characters are a combination of human and computer-generated. And of course battle sequences in movies like 300 are fought almost entirely by CGI people, not actors. Has this changed the way we tell stories? Absolutely.

Computer-assisted filmmaking has allowed amateur filmmakers, or people with small budgets, to produce movies that have the kind of outer-space effects that once required a team of prop designers. Of course some of this CGI looks terrible, but a lot of it is terrific and funny. Exhibit A is this CGI test from the Z-grade flick Chihuanhas.

And of course, people who make fan videos have many more resources at their fingertips, thanks to CGI. Check out this great fan-made snippet of an idea for revamping a familiar Doctor Who story.

For filmmakers with a lot of money to burn, working with computers has meant that audiences could see imagery that's simply impossible to create in real life, using the kinds of camera effects that Jean Cocteau relied on. James Cameron has talked about how his CGI-enabled camera in Avatar allowed him to literally fly alongside his characters as they zoom around on the backs of birds. And "bullet time," a technique popularized in Blade and the Matrix films is another great example of how computers allow us to see images completely impossible to film using conventional cameras.

Here's how that scene was mocked up by computers that knit together the views provided by cameras mounted 360 degrees around the action.

Like electronic music that provides us with delicious beats that no human-controlled instrument could create, CGI gives us what is essentially a non-human view of the world. We can see angles, images, and colors that our eyes and bodies could never capture - even with the aid of a conventional camera.

With the help of our computers, we see the world the way machines do. And we love it.

This week on io9, we celebrate the ways our computers are helping us reimagine the very act of seeing. They're changing the way tell stories, and transforming entertainment into something that cannot be created by humans alone. We'll bring you the very best CGI art, talk to concept designers who help build your favorite CGI creatures, explore the history of CGI and bring you deep inside the technology that enables it.

Top and bottom images via Rene Garcia.

According to Computerworld:

Scientists at Intel's research lab in Pittsburgh are working to find ways to read and harness human brain waves so they can be used to operate computers, television sets and cell phones. The brain waves would be harnessed with Intel-developed sensors implanted in people's brains . . . "We're trying to prove you can do interesting things with brain waves," said [Intel research scientist Dean] Pomerleau. "Eventually people may be willing to be more committed ... to brain implants. Imagine being able to surf the Web with the power of your thoughts."

Pomerleau is working with university researchers to "decode" human thoughts, which so far has consisted mostly of doing fMRI studies to see which parts of the brain become active when people think of certain words. Their goal is to figure out how to "read" cognitive activity so people can type with their brains instead of their fingers. I can't wait to have Intel inside my cerebral cortex, especially when I have to upgrade every 6 months. Of course eventually I'll just stop upgrading, thus consigning myself to an old age of trying to get Ubuntu running on the ancient chipset in my brain.

via Computerworld

The Power Beaming Challenge was founded in 2005 (and seeded with $2 million in prize money by NASA) to discover the remotely-powered robot that could best ascend a cable as quickly and safely as possible; this year's winner, built by a team from Seattle's LaserMotive, was the first ever to complete the climb at a speed greater than 2 meters per second, and therefore the first to win one of the Challenge's two prizes (The remaining $1.1 million is for any robot that can climb faster than 5 meters per second; the top speed of LaserMotive's robot was 3.9 meters a second).

While the space elevator dream remains a long-term dream, NASA say that there are much closer goals for wireless power beaming, including powering solar powered lunar vehicles when they're in areas where solar energy is unavailable.

'Space elevator' wins $900,000 NASA prize [New Scientist]

Ohio State professor Kimberly Rios Morrison polled Stanford University students about what they thought about students drinking alcohol. What she discovered was that the students with the most extreme pro-alcohol stance expressed their opinions most readily, in general because they believed that they were voicing the majority opinion. But polls showed that the majority of students had a moderate to anti-alcohol stance. When pro-alcohol students were shown evidence that most people didn't support their views, they were far more reluctant to express their extreme opinions.

Said Morrison:

It is only when they have this sense that they are in the majority that extremely pro-alcohol students are more willing to express their views on the issue.

Sounds like this study explains internet trolling and flame wars too. People with extreme views who are extremely loud about them manage to delude themselves into thinking everybody agrees. Morrison added:

You have a cycle that feeds on itself: the more you hear these extremists expressing their opinions, the more you are going to believe that those extreme beliefs are normal for your community.

No word yet on how to break the cycle, especially with trolls, who may not care whether the majority agree with them or not. But we can only hope further research will lead to a simple way to cure extremists of their belief that everybody shares their opinions and wants them to keep talking.

via Ohio State

IEEE has posted this cool video explaining the bot, and showing how it moved about a year ago. Newer prototypes include sensors and better range of motion.

IEEE writes:

Researchers from iRobot and the University of Chicago discussed their palm-sized soft robot, known as a chemical robot, or chembot, at IROS yesterday. It's "the first demonstration of a completely soft, mobile robot using jamming as an enabling technology," they write in a paper.

The concept of "jamming skin enabled locomotion" is explained quite nicely in the video. The polymer used for the bot's stretchy skin is off-the-shelf silicon two-part rubber.

By controlling the parts of the blob that "inflate," the researchers can make it roll.

When I see this, all I think is that it's the prototype of a robotic tentacle arm.

via IEEE

Gizmodo pointed out another robot that sings a little better, but no less creepily....

[via Dvice]

RFID tags, sometimes called "smart tags," hold a small amount of data and contain an antenna (that's the curly shape you see) that allows RFID reading devices to read at that data remotely. A reader can be a handheld device that people wave over the tag at the checkout counter, or a device hidden in a doorway that checks the tags on your clothing as you walk down the street.

According to a release about the ABI Research brief:

Previously limited to a small number of large-volume pilot tests, adoption of item-level RFID is beginning to permeate throughout the apparel sector and is increasingly evolving into full-scale implementations. According to Liard, "While installations at Marks and Spencer in the UK, American Apparel in the US, and Charles Vögele in Switzerland remain the largest contributors to market growth, scores of companies are now in various stages of implementation. RFID in fashion apparel is undoubtedly here and now."

Just remember, kids, all your American Apparel clothes contain antennae that broadcast information about you. And in 5 years, three times more "apparel items" will be likewise tagged. Neat, right? Let the zombie infestation begin!

via ABI Research

Activelink, a subsidiary of Panasonic, working on a wearable robotic device — aptly termed the Power Loader — to aid in the heavy lifting associated with tasks like construction and rescue relief. Though considerably bulkier than Cyberdyne's HAL-5 suits, the Power Loader helps the wearer lift heavy objects (currently about 220 pounds) with ease. By placing their arms inside the robotic arms, the wearer will receive force feedback from the Power Loader, allowing them to more successfully manipulate objects in the Loader's grasp. Activelink plans to make the Power Loader commercially available by 2015.

You can see the Power Loader in action below, although Activelink fails to show off its Alien-fighting prowess:

[Activelink via Pink Tentacle]

If you aren't a fan already of the hardware hackers at Adafruit, this educational video will win you over. They've done a little research, and turned the DHS's million-dollar weapon into a $250 home electronics project called the Bedazzler.

This has got to be the greatest mad science project ever. If you build one of these, I fully expect you to shine it on your frenemies, take video, and post it here.

via Adafruit Industries (Thanks, Phil Torrone!)

A group of researchers with University of Washington's graphics and imaging laboratory (GRAIL) wanted to see if they could build a piece of software that would search the web for images of a particular place and recreate that place in 3D in under a day. They succeeded. Rome was their first target, since it is such a well-photographed city. Their software harvested images from photo-sharing site Flickr, and recreated landmarks from around the city by determining the angles at which each photograph had been shot and arranging the images accordingly.

But my favorite subject was the city of Dubrovnik, because they managed to get the entire old city - apparently, it's such a well-photographed region that they were able to get all the buildings and streets, instead of just prominent landmarks.

The researchers write:

At the time of our experiments, there were only 58,000 images of Dubrovnik on Flickr. For this city we were able to experiment with the entire collection. Matching took only 5 hours on 352 compute cores. The largest and most interesting component corresonds to the old city. It is interesting that the reconstruction time for Dubrovnik is so much more than that for Rome. The reason lies in how the data sets are structured. The Rome data set is essentially a collection of landmarks which at large scale have a simple geometry and visibility structure. The largest connected component in Dubrovnik on the other hand captures the entire old city. With its narrow alley ways, complex visibility and widely varying view points, it is a much more complicated reconstruction problem, and this is reflected in the time it took to solve it.

Also worth noting is the fact that the reconstruction is not restricted to the city itself, as can be seen in the video below, it also contains the hills surrounding the city and part of Lokrum island which is south east of the city.

There is something poetic about the results of this research. What we are seeing here, in blurred and softened detail, is a concatenation of what thousands of people saw through their camera lenses in Dubrovnik. It's like the GRAIL researchers have given us a way to rebuild cities out of our own memories - at least, if you consider that tourist photographs are one way we remember where we've been.

See a lot more atUniversity of Washington's GRAIL Lab (via New Scientist)

This year's Arse features performances and presentations from a ton of amazing folks, including R.U. Sirius, Jonathon Keats, Ani Niow, Jason Scott, Rose White, Violet Blue, and even yours truly (I'm going to be part of the opening ceremonies on Thursday, showing some gay porn mashups from Japan; and then I'm speaking on Saturday about the future of love). There will be a party at the Center for Sex and Culture, as well as a hands-on technical workshop on Sunday at San Francisco's kickass hacker space Noisebridge.

You can peruse the whole schedule on the Arse Elektronika site, but here's a quick overview:

October 1 (6 PM-midnight): Film festival, opening ceremony and Prixxx Arse Elektronika Gala @ Roxie Theater
October 2 (8 PM-midnight): Art, pixels, interactive performance @ Center for Sex and Culture
October 3 (11:30 AM-9 PM): Talks and discourse @ PariSoMa
October 3 (after 10 PM): Party and performance night @ Femina Potens Gallery
October 4 (12 noon-10 PM): DIY workshops @ Noisebridge

Here's how the organizers introduce this year's theme:

Scottish SF author Iain Banks created a fictitious group-civilisation called "Culture" in his eponymous narrative. The vast majority of humanoid people in the "Culture" are born with greatly altered glands housed within their central nervous systems, who secrete - on command - mood- and sensory-appreciation-altering compounds into the person's bloodstream. Additionally many inhabitants have subtly altered reproductive organs - and control over the associated nerves - to enhance sexual pleasure. Ovulation is at will in the female, and a fetus up to a certain stage may be re-absorbed, aborted, or held at a static point in its development; again, as willed. Also, a viral change from one sex into the other, is possible. And there is a convention that each person should give birth to one child in their lives. It may sound strange, but Banks states that a society in which it is so easy to change sex will rapidly find out if it is treating one gender better than the other. Pressure for change within society would presumably build up until some form of sexual equality and hence numerical parity will be established.
Does this set-up sound too futuristic? Too utopian? Too bizarre?

We may not forget that mankind is a sexual and tool-using species. And that's why our annual conference Arse Elektronika deals with sex, technology and the future. As bio-hacking, sexually enhanced bodies, genetic utopias and plethora of gender have long been the focus of literature, science fiction and, increasingly, pornography, this year will see us explore the possibilities that fictional and authentic bodies have to offer. Our world is already way more bizarre than our ancestors could have ever imagined. But it may not be bizarre enough. "Bizarre enough for what?" — you might ask. Bizarre enough to subvert the heterosexist matrix that is underlying our world and that we should hack and overcome for some quite pressing reasons within the next century. Don't you think, replicants?

I love a conference about sexual futurism that begins with a long discussion of Iain M. Banks. And so will you!

Find out more at the Arse Elektronika site, and buy tickets here. (Tickets are for the events Thursday and Friday night, as well as Saturday lectures. Saturday night performances and Sunday workshops are free and open to the public.)

Replicators (Star Trek): Despite their ability to replicate everything from heavy machinery to caviar, the replicators actually malfunction far less often than their holodeck cousins. But leave it to the Cardassians to recognize replicators can be programmed for evil, whether by transmitting an aphasia virus or delivering a bomb in lieu of Captain Sisko's morning Raktajino.

Wonka's Inventions (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl): As much as Wonka claims that everything in his factory is edible, it's best to keep your mitts (and teeth) off his more experimental works, such as Three-Course Bubblegum or Television Chocolate.

Nuka-Cola (Fallout): Unlike Slurm, which is less an invention than the product of a Slurm Queen's behind, Nuka-Cola has multiple ingredients — some of them radioactive. While marketing claims the radiation in Nuka-Cola Quantum is harmless, no drink that makes your pee glow can be healthy, and even consuming Nuka-Cola Classic comes with a 10% chance of addiction.

Allied Mastercomputer ("I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison): When the godlike computer AM destroys nearly all of humanity, it decides to keep a few around for its own amusement. To keep the survivors from dying, it manufactures manna from heaven. To keep them from enjoying it, the computer makes it all taste terrible.

Coffee Engine (Girl Genius): The Coffee Engine could give your favorite barista a run for their money. It's capable of creating the perfect cup of coffee, which would be great if any person who drank said cup didn't become instantly obsessed with its perfection. To keep all of humanity from degrading into coffee-addled zombies (as if it weren't already too late), the machine had to be tweaked to produce only an excellent cup of coffee.

Matrix Food (The Matrix): Virtual food in the Matrix isn't inherently evil, aside from it being another way the machines trick your brain into believing you're in the physical world. But when compared with the uniform slop served outside the Matrix, the promise of nightly steak dinners is enough to convince Cypher to betray Neo.

Soylent Processing (Soylent Green): The problem with over-processed foodstuffs is that no one recognizes what they're eating any more. That isn't such a huge problem when it's just (tasteless) soy and lentil wafers, but far more sinister when your latest ingredient is tasty, human meat.

Dehydrated Pizza (Back to the Future, Part II): The height of 21st Century convenience, the dehydrated pizza stores easily and cooks in a few seconds. But even though it's the shape of a cookie when dehydrated, don't devour the thing whole. Reexpansion in the stomach can be hazardous to your health, not to mention painful.

Bologna Virus (Invader Zim): When Dib hits Zim with a slice of bologna, Zim has a lunchmeat-inspired idea for taking out his nemesis once and for all. He overwrites Dib's DNA with bologna DNA, gradually turning him in to a delicious tube of pressed meat. Naturally, of course, the plan backfires and he's got to find...a cure.

Killer Tomatoes (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes): Professor Gangreen finds a way to turn Earth's most devious fruit into a weapon of mass destruction. In the second film, he transforms tomatoes into humanoid spies, even as giant man-eating tomatoes splat through the streets.

The Chocolate Dispenser (Red Dwarf): Unlike the Talkie Toaster, which is mostly annoying with its obsession with toast, the Chocolate Dispenser has declared itself Rimmer's actual nemesis, once going so far as to attack Rimmer by firing soda cans at his head.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Gun (Meet the Robinsons): Aspiring young inventor Lewis is always inventing things, and often showing his gadgets off to less that appreciative prospective parents. The PB&J gun would have been less of a disaster if that one potential father hadn't had a deathly peanut allergy.

Kandyman (Doctor Who "The Happiness Patrol"): Don't let his bridge mix exterior fool you; the Kandyman is not an automaton to be trifled with. People who fail to smile and aren't happy all the time must deal with the Kandyman's sweet brand of law enforcement — drowning in sugary goop, otherwise known as the "fondant surprise."

Dish of the Day (The Restaurant at the End of the World by Douglas Adams): At Milliways, you get to meet your meat before you eat, thanks to a brand of sentient animal specially bred to want to be eaten. Granted, it's probably not going to hurt you, but you'll probably lose your appetite.

The pods hang from a magnetic line, and they use maglev technology to zip around the city. The pods all ride on the same lines, but they aren't linked together. Their individual routes are calculated using the complex software. When they reach their individual stops, they leave the line, and traffic in all of the other pods continues unhampered.

The company is optimistic about the technology. These pods can be individually mass manufactured in factories, making the whole operation pretty easy to set up in many locations. The current proposal has the system being built and tested at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, but the company is fine-tuning their business model to make the system feasible for more cities. Soon, your commute might transform from an awkward, cramped box filled with strangers into a personalized direct route.

'Sky Pod' to Offer Personalized Ride [Discovery News]

(Image: a mock-up of what the system would look like in Washington, from Unimodal Systems)

According to USAFCENT Public Affairs:

The aircraft was flying a combat mission when positive control of the MQ-9 was lost. When the aircraft remained on a course that would depart Afghanistan's airspace, a US Air Force manned aircraft took proactive measures to down the Reaper in a remote area of northern Afghanistan.

So basically a jet with a human driver hunted down the robot-driven jet and killed it.

The Register's Lewis Page comments:

It wasn't clear from the US military announcement whether the erratic death-bot had turned on its masters and was planning an attack on critical US logistics bases located north of the Afghan border, or whether it had sickened of reaping hapless fleshies like corn and was hoping merely to escape. Alternatively the machine assassin may merely have succumbed to boredom or - just possibly - a mundane, non-anthropomorphic technical fault of some kind.

I'm voting for "sickened of reaping hapless fleshies."

via The Register

The farm is called Horns Rev 2, and was commissioned by the Danish utility Dong Energy.

The farm is spread over 35 kilometers, and generates 209 megawatts - enough to power 200,000 homes, Dong Energy estimates.

Made by German company Siemans, the 91 turbines, combined with labor and setup, cost $1 billion.

Here is the platform where tourists can stay - the hotel is the boxy container on the right. It will also house 24 on-site workers for maintenance. According to the New York Times:

Andris Piebalgs, the European Union energy commissioner, said on Monday that a study by the European Wind Energy Association showed offshore wind could be the dominant source of employment in the sector in Europe by 2025, providing 200,000 jobs.

And here is what the farm looked like during construction.

Turing is one of the most intriguing and important figures in British intelligence history. His work on an early codebreaking computer called the "Bombe" helped break the German Enigma code during World War II, giving British intelligence a way to eavesdrop on secret German military communications. After the war, Turing continued his work on computers and later devised an intelligence test for machines called the Turing Test.

Throughout his tenure with British intelligence, Turing was openly gay. He never tried to hide his sexuality, and the government chose to tolerate him while he remained an asset to the war effort. When he continued to conduct open affairs with men during peacetime, however, the problems began. He was convicted of "gross indecency" and forced to undergo chemical castration. His security clearance was revoked, and he had to quit working at the UK Government Communications Headquarters.

Two years later, he was found dead in his home, apparently after eating a cyanide-laced apple. The death was ruled a suicide, though some have questioned whether he might have been assassinated.

The campaign to get a public apology issued for Turing was started by computer scientist John Graham-Cumming, who got thousands of people to sign a petition, including celeb Ian McEwan and science celeb Richard Dawkins. On Wednesday night, Gordon Brown issued an apology for Turing's "horrific" treatment that read, in part:

Without [Alan's] outstanding contribution, the history of world war two could well have been very different.

The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

This recognition of Alan's status as one of Britain's most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind … It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe's history and not Europe's present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better.

Though the apology is symbolic, since Turing is dead, it is nevertheless a very powerful symbol. One of the greatest twentieth century heroes of geeks and queers alike is finally vindicated.

Neal Stephenson features Turing in his novel Cryptonomicon, which deals in part with Turing's role in creating the Bombes at Bletchley Park - and in part with the cute graduate student Turing dated. I am ready for Russell T. Davies, former showrunner for both Doctor Who and Queer as Folk, to write and direct the ultimate science fiction miniseries about Turing now.

via UK Guardian, BBC News