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Adobe previews expanded controls for Photoshop's Content-Aware Fill
Adobe's next Photoshop release will give users more control over the Content-Aware Fill feature. If you've used the tool, you know that it lets you remove objects from a photo -- like people, signs or equipment. Photoshop then generates pixels to fill in the blanks. Now, Photoshop will let you determine which pixels it uses to fill the voids. Adobe released a sneak preview today.
LG's 8K OLED TV is as big as it is expensive
Sorry, 4K TV owners, your days of bigging up your entertainment setup to pals is nearing an end -- 8K has officially arrived, and as LG's newest offering proves, it's almost sarcastic in its lavishness. LG is now accepting pre-orders for its 8K OLED -- the world's first -- which boasts eye-watering resolution and a price tag to match.
A real-life 8-bit installation pixelates a Greek ruin
Ideally, an artwork makes you question the world and looks beautiful doing it. A new installation from German artists Thomas Granseuer and Tomislav Topic, aka Quintessenz, does all that. Located on the Greek island of Paxos as part of the Paxos Contemporary Art Project, Kagkatikas Secret is made of spray-painted textiles hung in a 400 year-old Greek ruin. The trippy, pixelated effect will make you wonder if the matrix is glitching, while the beautiful design and gradient colors helped it go viral instantly.
You'll soon be able to get a 3D printed model of your brain
There are almost limitless possibilities when it comes to 3D printing. Design your own color-changing jewelry? Fine. Fabricate your own drugs? No problem. Print an entire house in under 24 hours? Sure! Now, researchers have come up with a fast and easy way to print palm-sized models of individual human brains, presumably in a bid to advance scientific endeavours, but also because, well, that's pretty neat.
ICYMI: Self-building bot, fresh tortillas from pods and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-484230{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-484230, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-484230{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-484230").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: MIT's Tangible Media Lab built a shifting interface that can be used to test basic physics and even help seismologists understand the ripple fallout from an earthquake. A Kickstarter device for a tortilla-maker costing $240 irritated us enough to call on the latest environment chart made by a climate scientist. And German researchers built a robot that can build itself and our robot eek factor continues to grow. A drone performed a neat liquid trick over on YouTube and has us excited for the delivery UAVs to come! As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Dear Veronica: How many pixels are too many?
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-188597{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-188597, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-188597{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-188597").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Welcome back to another episode of Dear Veronica! Very excited to welcome my friend Robert Heron onto the show this week, to answer a question about pixels. No, not Pixels (thankfully), but the kind you stare at every day. I also discuss the appropriate use of inter-office emoji, and take some viewer feedback! Remember to keep sending in those question to me via email or using #DearVeronica on social media. Subscribe in iTunes, RSS or YouTube!
Welcome (back) to the After Math
Our graphical calculators are back from repair, so it's time to crunch the numbers once again. It's a good week for it too: Apple Watch predictions, uneasily fast explanations of the entire universe and cable company that's doing better in internet than, well, cable.
'Pixels' is somehow even worse than I thought it could be
When the first trailer for Pixels hit I was worried that the movie was going to be a "steaming pile of cinematic garbage." Now that I've actually seen the Adam Sandler and Kevin James vehicle, I can say that was still far too generous a prediction; it's actually much, much worse. Pixels' real villains aren't the admittedly gorgeous renderings of giant-sized Pac-Man and Donkey Kong hell-bent on destroying Earth -- they're the toxic tropes that Hollywood keeps perpetuating.
'Pixels' looks like another horrible video game movie
Pixels is a live-action movie about an alien-controlled cadre of classic video game characters wreaking havoc upon humanity by turning everything they touch into, well, pixels. It's based on the charming 2010 short by the same name that Sony thought would make a great feature-length movie starring Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) and Paul Blart (Kevin James). A mulleted Peter Dinklage is along for the ride too, in what looks like a less challenging role than his voice work in Destiny was. His character bears more than a passing resemblance to Dog the Bounty Hunter, because sure why not? At one point, Pac-Man's creator Toru Iwatani (played by Denis Akiyama) gets his hand chomped off by the big yellow guy himself. And just when I thought it couldn't get any more stupid, out came trite "homages" to iconic scenes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Independence Day. All this to say: The movie looks absolutely abhorrent.
Images created with nano-pixels are smaller than the width of a human hair
A group of Oxford University scientists have accidentally created a new display technology -- one that could enable a new era of smart glasses, bendable displays and even artificial retinas. The team refers to its discovery as 'nano-pixels;' it's a tiny sandwich of phase change material and transparent electrodes that change color when given a tiny jolt of current. These stacks can be used to draw tiny images, like the examples above, each one smaller than the width of a human hair. "We didn't set out to invent a new kind of display," explained research lead Harish Bhaskaran, his team was just exploring the relationship between the electrical and optical properties of phase change materials. Creating nano-pixels just sort of happened along the way.
Retro game-inspired short film 'Pixels' to become Adam Sandler feature
The brilliant short film Pixels kinda blew up on the web when it was released in 2010. Four years later, Sony is planning to breathe new life into the homage to old-school gaming by turning it into a feature-length Adam Sandler vehicle. The short featured classic game villains like Donkey Kong and Space Invaders wreaking havoc in New York City, eventually turning it and the entire globe into the titular elements of computerized graphics. The feature film will take the basic premise and add what passes for a plot -- aliens that resemble said video game characters see the virtual violence committed against them as an act of war. From there it falls to the stars of I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry to defeat the invading hordes. There's still plenty of time for this potential abomination to get shelved since filming doesn't even start 'til next month. There is one mystery left to solve, however -- with Chris Columbus at the helm, how exactly will Christmas figure into the plot?
Sandler movie Pixels pits aliens against arcade champions next summer
Pixels, the Adam Sandler action comedy that's taking 1980s gaming classics and giving them the big screen treatment, is coming to cinemas on May 15, 2015, Variety reports. Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage also features, while veteran director Chris Columbus will oversee filming, which is due to begin in June. To recap, the Pixels plot centers around aliens who discover video footage of classic arcade games. After seeing them, the aliens believe Earth is preparing to wage war - you might too if you were an extraterrestrial who stumbled upon Space Invaders. The aliens invade Earth, using the games they've seen as templates for their attack. Of course, it's up to some "old-school arcaders" to defeat the aliens, save the day, and try not to be portrayed too nerdily. If the plot and name sounds familiar, it's because you've probably seen it as Patrick Jean's excellent short film from a few years back; and the movie is based on Jean's video. It seems following the success of Wreck-It Ralph, 1980s gaming is in when it comes to films; Sony Pictures said Columbus and the studio are working with "many of the 1980s' most iconic video game brands" to bring together characters from arcade classics on the silver screen. [Image: Adam Sandler]
R2Games goes retro with Magic Barrage
If smooth graphics have lost their luster and you yearn for the days of yore with pronounced pixels, you should take a look at Magic Barrage, developed by Gameguyz. The new free-to-play browser game will open its beta doors tomorrow, December 17th at 10:00 a.m EST, and invites all those who want to re-experience the 8-bit, early 90s console game feel of classic dungeon crawlers merged with bullet hell games to jump in. Though retro, Magic Barrage still offers plenty of standard MMO features like guilds, crafting, PvP, and pets. To play, simply sign up on the official site. [Source: R2Games press release]
ASUS Zenbooks to get Ivy Bridge refresh, optional 1080p and backlit keyboards in tow?
Bad news if you've recently acquired either of ASUS' gorgeous Zenbooks, as alleged spec sheets for their successors have just surfaced. According to documents obtained by The Verge, the upcoming refresh will be significant for both the 11.6-inch UX21 and 13.3-inch UX31. Dubbed the UX21A and UX31A, respectively, both supposedly make do with Ivy Bridge silicon (spanning from Core i3s all the way to i7s) which also means a free update to Intel's HD Graphics 4000. Brawny internals aside, most interesting are the optional 1080p IPS panels on both, which should be particularly gorgeous and pixel-dense in the smaller 11.6-inch beaut. Also rumored is the inclusion of WiDi, alongside backlit keyboard decks -- all stuffed into the same svelte footprints as their predecessors. Naturally, there's no word on when they'll land, but you'll know more when we do. Catch the full spill at the source link below.
European Space Agency creates one billion pixel camera, calls her GAIA
When we hear the name GAIA, our memory automatically zooms back to the Whoopi Goldberg-voiced Mother Earth from Captain Planet. This isn't that GAIA, but it does have to do with planets. Back at the turn of the millennium, the European Space Agency devised an ambitious mission to map one billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy -- in 3D (insert Joey Lawrence 'whoa!'). To do this, it enlisted UK-based e2v Technologies and built an immense digital camera comprised of 106 snugly-fit charge coupled devices -- the largest ever for a space program. These credit card-shaped, human hair-thick slabs of silicon carbide act like tiny galactic eyes, each storing incoming light as a single pixel. Not sufficiently impressed? Then consider this: the stellar cam is so all-seeing, "it could measure the thumbnails of a person on the Moon" -- from Earth. Yeah. Set to launch on the Soyuz-Fregat sometime this year, the celestial surveyor will make its five-year home in the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point, beaming its outerspace discoveries to radio dishes in Spain and Australia -- and occasionally peeping in your neighbor's window.
Cornell University's microscopic camera makes photos with mathematics
Megapixel, megaschmixel -- we're more impressed when camera tech goes the opposite way and shrinks down. A happy byproduct of his neural mapping research, Patrick Gill and his Cornell University team have engineered a cam so microscopic it could fit on the head of a pin. The lensless creation is only one 100th of a millimeter thick, looks more like a miniature CD and doesn't require any budget-breaking parts. Named after the Fourier transform that inspired it -- a mathematical operation that breaks a signal down into various frequencies -- the Planar Fourier Capture Array translates pixel components into a fleshed-out image. Creators of the tiny camera tech stress that it won't be "[taking] family portraits," but you could probably count on having this nigh-invisible sucker implanted into your brain. It's definitely one small step for man, one nano-leap of the photographing kind.
Galaxy S II and Galaxy S screens compared at the subpixel level (video)
One Galaxy S II review not enough for you? Hey, we understand, a dual-core phone deserves at least two goes through the Engadget test chambers. Today marks the publication of our Engadget Spanish analysis, which, among other things, compares the GSII against its forebear, the Galaxy S, at the subpixel level. Yes, we've got video capturing the improvement Samsung has made in its new Real-Stripe (RGB) pixel arrangement on the Galaxy S II's Super AMOLED Plus display over the older, less awesome PenTile RGBG layout of the Plus-deprived Super AMOLED panel. You can see it after the break or dive into the source link for a more comprehensive comparison. Non-Spanish speakers will want to jump to the 1:40 mark in the vid for all the microscopic action. %Gallery-124010%
Fifth Ave. Apple Store recreated in Minecraft
The Minecraft Mac was cute and all, but if you think that was the pinnacle of Mac-related creations in Minecraft, you're underestimating our readership. Reader Simon sent along this set of Flickr pictures, which shows off an entire recreation of the Fifth Avenue Apple Store, complete with glass cube on top and a store full of products down below. Unfortunately, there's no way to model out iPads or iPhones in Minecraft, so there's just a whole bunch of what looks like Mac minis on sale. But then again, that sounds like a great store, too. Very nicely done, Simon. I'd like to know how long something like this takes -- I've built a few things in Minecraft myself, but nothing this, err, realistic, and definitely nothing of this magnitude. Awesome stuff, though -- what's next?
Flickr Find: Say hello to the Mac-in-craft
You can make a lot of things in the gigantic sandbox game Minecraft, including a gigantic floating Macintosh computer. Flickr user Caius Durling put together this floating replica on his own Minecraft world, assembled pixelbrick by pixelbrick, along with a floating "Hi" to match. It's pretty impressive. The "resolution" on the Minecraft materials isn't quite good enough to show the Mac OS running on the machine, but he got the dimensions right, and he even got the handle built into the back. All it needs now is a one-button mouse, right?
Kindle, iPad, and paper examined microscopically
The above image is a picture of the iPad's screen, multiplied by 24 times over. Keith Peters at Bit-101 used his new USB microscope to examine a few different e-reader displays up really close, and the results are definitely a fun read. The iPad doesn't do too well, actually -- I think the Kindle looks much cleaner, although there's some debate about that in the comments, so each to his own. At any rate, it's cool to see how these displays "work" -- the actual pixels going into the picture that our eyes just collate into full text. The 400x newspaper, book, and magazine closeups are very interesting as well. With all of the digital display talk going around, you tend to forget what those displays are actually trying to recreate, which is really very organic smears on a thin fabric. Unfortunately, Keith didn't get his hands on the Retina Display, and you'd assume that's a game changer. With four times the pixels seen in the image above, the iPhone 4's display probably gives the Kindle a nice challenge, and might even start competing with the actual paper printing. Still, until that display makes its way to the tablet, this is the best we've got for now.
