3d illusion arts: Walyou

Walyou

Seek Thermal Camera Gives You Night Vision on the Go
5 Creepiest Pages on Wikipedia
HuddleLamp Treats Multiple Tablets as a Single Display
Google launches Inbox: E-mail, evolved
MusicGlove Hand Device Accelerates Recovery of Stroke Patients

Seek Thermal Camera Gives You Night Vision on the Go

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 06:30 AM PDT

There are plenty of situations when you wish you could see in the dark, and the Seek Thermal Camera was built with those exact situations in mind.

Available as an accessory for iPhones and Android smartphones, Thermal is a camera that enables to feel at least 33% like the Predator. Let’s face it, thermal vision is not only useful when hearing noises while walking down an empty street, but also when confronted with household problems. In fact, Seek Thermal suggests that the camera they developed could have such applications as safety and security, home improvement, cooking and boating. Pet owners

Seek Thermal Camera is by no means the first, nor the only device of its kind, as the Flir One personal thermal imager provides the iPhone with similar features. There surely are other manufacturers of similar devices out there, but for the time being, only Seek and Flir are fighting for the top spot. Obviously, as the competition stiffens, customers feel more appreciated, since companies are striving to come up with innovations. On top of that, the price of the components used for building such devices drops in time as the demand increases.

“Seek’s breakthrough technology lets people see heat for the first time, something that only
government agencies and companies could afford in the past. The Seek camera not only gives average consumers the capabilities in home improvement and safety and security that only professionals used to have, but we are also especially excited about the hundreds
of new use cases for thermal that our camera will enable,” pointed out Seek Thermal CEO, Robert Acker.

Since it is available in a portable format, Seek Thermal Camera is compact enough to carry in your pocket, when you don’t use it. The manufacturer makes no difference between iPhone and Android users, and offers the camera at the same price – $199. The difference is made by the connectors, as the iPhone one comes with a Lightning plug, while the Android one sports microUSB, and the companion apps. Both can be purchased on the Seek Thermal website. It should be noted that the camera is not compatible with some cases. If that happens, you need to either remove the smartphone’s case or use an extender.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the EyeClops night vision goggles that enable you to see in the dark, and this night vision camcorder for children.

5 Creepiest Pages on Wikipedia

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Wikipedia is a great site to learn stuff from and get lost for hours through the endless amount of information. It’s also a place with some very dark corners and stories, and you can find yourself reading some very creepy stuff in there.

Tarrare

A French showman and solider known for his unusual (to be gentle) eating habits. Able to eat vast amounts of meat, he was constantly hungry; his parents could not provide for him, and he was turned out of the family home as a teenager. He travelled France in the company of a band of thieves and prostitutes, before becoming the warm-up act to a travelling charlatan; he would swallow corks, stones, live animals and a whole basket full of apples. He then took this act to Paris where he worked as a street performer.

After a rough experience with the military, he agreed to submit to any procedure that would cure his appetite, and was treated with laudanum, tobacco pills, wine vinegar and soft-boiled eggs. The procedures failed, and doctors could not keep him on a controlled diet; he would sneak out of the hospital to scavenge for offal in gutters, rubbish heaps and outside butchers’ shops, and attempted to drink the blood of other patients in the hospital and to eat the corpses in the hospital morgue. After falling under suspicion of eating a toddler he was ejected from the hospital. He died at the age of 26.

Scaphism

Also known as the boats, it is an ancient Persian method of execution. The method? The intended victim was stripped naked and then firmly fastened within the interior space of two narrow rowing boats (or hollowed-out tree trunks) joined together one on top of the other with the head, hands and feet protruding. The condemned was forced to ingest milk and honey to the point of developing a severe bowel movement and diarrhea, and more honey would be poured on him to attract insects, with special attention devoted to the eyes, ears, mouth, genitals, and anus. In some cases, the executioner would mix milk and honey and pour that mixture all over the victim. He would then be left to float on a stagnant pond or be exposed to the sun. The defenseless individual’s feces accumulated within the container, attracting more insects which would eat and breed within his exposed flesh, which—pursuant to interruption of the blood supply by burrowing insects—became increasingly gangrenous. The individual would lie naked, covered from head to toe in milk, honey, and his or her own feces. The feeding would be repeated each day in some cases to prolong the torture, so that fatal dehydration or starvation did not occur. Death, when it eventually occurred, was probably due to a combination of dehydration, starvation and septic shock. Delirium would typically set in after a few days. (Image via gadgetpics)

The Flatwoods Monster

Also known as the Braxton County Monster or the Phantom of Flatwoods, is an alleged unidentified extraterrestrial or cryptid reported to have been sighted in the town of Flatwoods in Braxton County, West Virginia, United States on September 12, 1952. According to the story, the boys who met this alleged extra terrestial creature suffered from vomiting and convulsions due to the mist surrounding it. (Image via beyondthecircle.net)

Rat King

Known as Rattenkönig in German and roi de rats in French, Rat Kings nvolve a number of rats intertwined at their tails, which become stuck together with blood, dirt, ice, or feces – or simply knotted. The animals reputedly grow together while joined at the tails.

June and Jennifer Gibbons

A unique story about a pair of twins from Wales known as the silent twins who only talked to each other, shutting themselves away from the outside world and refusing to be torn apart from each other. They agreed that if ever one of them died, the other one will begin to speak and live a normal life. During their stay in the hospital, they began to believe that it was necessary for one twin to die, and after much discussion, Jennifer agreed to be the sacrifice. In March 1993, the twins were transferred from Broadmoor to the more open Caswell Clinic in Bridgend, Wales; on arrival Jennifer could not be roused. She was taken to the hospital where she died soon after of acute myocarditis, a sudden inflammation of the heart. There was no evidence of drugs or poison in her system, and her death remains a mystery. (Image via Buzzfeed)

Not everything is creepy on Wikipedia. Sometimes it’s only bizarre, such as these 10 articles you’ll find hard to believe that are real.

HuddleLamp Treats Multiple Tablets as a Single Display

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 05:30 AM PDT

When there’s no big display at hand, the HuddleLamp enables you to emulate the experience with the help of multiple tablets that are treated as a single, large one.

HuddleLamp is meant to change both the way human interact with computers, as well as the way they collaborate with one another when sitting around a table. Remember Microsoft’s Surface table, that later became known as PixelSense? The HuddleLamp was built around a similar concept of enabling the displayed things to interact, but in this case, there’s no large display, just a multitude of smaller ones.

Roman Rädle, Hans-Christian Jetter, Nicolai Marquardt, Harald Reiterer, and Yvonne Rogers, the creators of the HuddleLamp, started from the idea that people nowadays have more than just one mobile device, and in some situations, getting them to work together could have a major impact on productivity.

The device itself is a desk lamp with an RGB-D camera built into it that tracks the movement and position of the displays on the table, as well as the location of the user’s hands. The tracked data is collected and sent to a server that in return sends the right images to each screen.

As mentioned before, this could be something great for people who collaborate a lot while working in the same room. With a bit of work, maybe the HuddleLamp could proof useful for gaming, as well, and it would be really interesting to see how things move seamlessly from one screen to another. The developers of the HuddleLamp even provide access to their JavaScript APIs Huddle, HuddleCanvas, and HuddleObjects on their website, so make sure you’re checking that out, if you’re interested in writing your own apps.

Additional details are available in the HuddleLamp: Spatially-Aware Mobile Displays for Ad-hoc Around-the-Table Collaboration paper, which will be presented by its authors at the 2014 ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces.

The truth is, most recently-launched smartphones and tablets are very capable, in terms of processing power, and it would really be a shame not be able to use them in tandem. Without devices such as the HuddleLamp, there’s little to no interaction between them, and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that a lot of time and productivity is lost this way.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Google Project Tango, a smartphone that’s aware of space and motion, and Intel’s 3D scanners that will come to smartphones and tablets.

Google launches Inbox: E-mail, evolved

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 05:00 AM PDT

As Google revolutionized the world with Gmail, they claim to be ready to do it once again with Inbox, a new service launching now.

E-mails have long ago stopped being exciting to become more of a chore, especially if you use them for both work & personal stuff. That is why Google, well aware of what a mess most of our inboxes are (and they should be, they host most of them!), are introducing a new service called simply Inbox.

Inbox is, according to the Google team, a different type of inbox with a “focus on what really matters”. The idea is that we get so many e-mails a day that inbox will cleverly sort them out so we don’t have to. Inbox works expanding on the Gmail categories introduced last year and bundling e-mails in groups, while providing highlights from important e-mails at a glance. Say, if you have a travel itinerary e-mailed to you, only the relevant information will be displayed with none of the fluff.

Inbox will, as well, become a personal organizer of sorts with configurable reminders for everyday tasks: from working out to picking your laundry or calling your parents. All these things you can sort of already do with different apps, but Inbox aims to be a centralized resource for things and save you valuable time you can spend doing whatever else. Will it work? Well, how about you tell us? Sign up for the beta by asking for an invitation at inbox@google.com.

Via Google

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories at Google Adds an Extra Layer of Protection with USB Security Key and ASUS-Built Google Nexus Player: What Is It and Who Is It For?.

MusicGlove Hand Device Accelerates Recovery of Stroke Patients

Posted: 23 Oct 2014 01:30 PM PDT

People who are recovering from a stroke or from other health conditions that have an impact on hand movement can now go through a new type of rehabilitation that’s based on a system called MusicGlove.

Developed by Irvine, CA-based Flint Rehabilitation Devices, the MusicGlove couldn’t have had a more self-descriptive name. It is worn as a glove on the hand that was affected by the stroke, and it gathers data regarding the fingers that are moving. Upon doing so, the wearer receives some visual feedback that motivates him or her to focus on the fingers that require more exercise. Now this is where it gets interesting: the visual feedback is provided in a manner that resembles the GuitarHero video game quite a lot. Come to think of it, this pretty much explains the first part of the device’s name.

Here is a fragment of the announcement:

“In addition to being fun and effective, MusicGlove changes the way clinics provide hand therapy. The device requires minimum intervention from a therapist while users play the game, so clinics can provide more intensive group therapy without increasing staff. MusicGlove also records accurate quantitative data that allows therapists to set goals for their patients and track functional improvements over time. The low price and ease of use of MusicGlove is a breath of fresh air for clinics that typically do not have access to other smart rehabilitation technology and equipment that can cost over $50,000USD and require advanced training to use.

Results of a randomized controlled trial of MusicGlove with individuals with stroke published in the Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation showed that people using MusicGlove had significantly greater improvements in hand function than people doing conventional hand exercises after only two weeks. Users reported regaining the ability to open doorknobs, type on a keyboard, wash dishes, use silverware, bathe and wash themselves, and use the restroom independently after exercising with the device.”

The gamification of various activities seems to be fruitful not only when it comes to apps such as the old Foursquare, but also in medical recovery.

MusicGlove is available for sale on the manufacturer’s website, in two different versions. The home version costs $1,149, while the clinic version will set customers back a whooping $4,199.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Toyota rehabilitation robots that train balance and leg swing, and the Mobile Music Touch that reestablishes sensory perception.