beauty
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L’Oréal's Skinceuticals system makes lab-grade serums just for your skin
The rise of beauty tech has brought about hyper-personalized care. From smart salons that cater to your hair type and color to makeup you can apply virtually before buying, the use of tech in the cosmetics industry is designed to better address individual needs. In theory, anyway. At SXSW 2018, L'Oréal launched a new system under its Skinceuticals dermatological brand that can create skin serums tailored to your exact preferences.
Schwarzkopf’s smart salon personalizes your hair care regimen
As a woman whose long, thick hair has undergone several chemical treatments, I've always been concerned about the health and quality of my tresses. When I heard about Schwarzkopf Professional's new hair analyzer, I was naturally intrigued by its potential uses. The company is bringing its SalonLab Analyzer system to Schwarzkopf salons across the US and Europe in 2018 so you can get a better understanding of how damaged your hair is. Not only that, but salons can also use the information gathered to better cater their treatments to your needs, as well as create personalized shampoos on the spot. I went for a quick consultation at CES 2018, and so far I'm impressed by what it offers.
Lululab’s skincare assistant peers deep into your pores
Getting clearer, healthier skin could soon be as easy as taking a selfie. At CES 2018 in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Lulu Lab — a member of the Samsung-C accelerator program — showed off its novel skincare camera designed to capture and analyze facial features with a single picture.
Foreo's UFO is a vibrating puck that makes facial sheet masks better
Skincare company Foreo is adding a bit of tech into a beloved pampering ritual with its new UFO and UFO Mini devices. The company is calling these smart masks, and UFO stands for Ur Future Obsession -- both of which are sort of misnomers. The UFOs are more like palm-sized pucks that vibrate, similar to the Neutrogena Wave cleansers. You attach a mini sheet mask, which Foreo is selling at $9.99 for seven, and rub the device all over your face. During this, the UFO is going through a preset cycle -- heating up for 30 seconds, followed by a period of vibrating, and finishing with 30 seconds of cooling down.
The first available smart mirror has a narcissistic sequel
Just a few months after hitting the market, there's already a new model of the first smart mirror you can actually buy. The HiMirror Plus boasts incremental upgrades that make it a better companion for selfie and beauty lovers. It costs $259 -- that's $70 more than the original -- and has a new ambient light to simulate different lighting conditions so you can better apply your makeup (and, let's be real, take fantastic selfies). The company also unveiled an accessory called the HiSkin -- a handheld scanner with optical sensors that you can place on your face (or any part of your body, really) to get a better read on your complexion. I used a HiMirror Plus for a few days ahead of CES and then checked out the HiSkin here at the show, and I'm skeptical that they could help improve my skin.
The first smart mirror you can actually buy focuses on your flaws
Staring lovingly at your reflection in the mirror gets old, especially if it's not a magical one that tells you you're the fairest of them all. But what if all that time you already spend in front of a mirror could actually make you the most beautiful person in the land? Many smart mirrors already make this promise, but HiMirror is the first one you can actually buy, and it costs $189. The secret sauce comes in the form of a camera that captures your au naturel visage to analyze your complexion, before offering you tips on how to get better skin. I tried it out recently and was impressed by how many things it could do.
Panasonic's smart mirror turned me into a 1970s space princess
It was going to be either me or my male colleague. That's a lie: It was absolutely going to be me. It was my last day at IFA, Europe's biggest technology show, and Brad Molen and I were sitting inside a sparsely decorated smart home that Panasonic had built in the middle of the demo area. Panasonic needed a volunteer to sit in front of its prototypical smart mirror, which applies digital "makeup" so you can sample new looks. I exchanged a look with Brad, imagining his bearded cheeks with blush on them. Then I sat down and agreed to let a machine tell me everything that was wrong with my face.
The future of beauty school is Google Glass
At least according to L'Oreal. The hair care giant (and purveyor of giant hair) just announced Matrix Class for Glass, which gives clients and beauty school students a stylists-eye view of your head. The three-part program includes a video series of in-depth beauty tutorials shot with Google's wearable; Matrix Eye for Style, an "exclusive" salon experience provided by George Papanikolas, who will record sessions with the headset; and a series of lessons for beauty professionals given by be-Glassed hair care superstars. This isn't the first or last time L'Oreal has taken advantage of the wearable; it used Glass to document Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in Madrid late last year and has plans to release a Glass app sometime in 2014. It might seem like an odd coupling considering most glass holes are more Super Cuts than Vidal Sassoon, but L'Oreal says there's an intersection between the early adopters of fashion and tech. According to a study done by its partner at Fashion Week, Nurun, "The futuristic nature of Google Glass appealed to the fashion-forward, tech-savvy audience..." When we start seeing years-old issues of Wired replacing copies of Southern Hair at Truvy's, we'll believe it.
NC State nanoflowers can boost battery and solar cell capacity, make great prom accessories
We see a lot of sleek-looking technology pass through our doors, but it's rare that the inventions could be called beautiful by those who aren't immersed in the gadget world. We'd venture that North Carolina State University might have crossed the divide by creating an energy storage technology that's both practical and genuinely pretty. Its technology vaporizes germanium sulfide and cools it into 20-30 nanometer layers that, as they're combined, turn into nanoflowers: elegant structures that might look like the carnation on a prom dress or tuxedo, but are really energy storage cells with much more capacity than traditional cells occupying the same area. The floral patterns could lead to longer-lived supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries, and the germanium sulfide is both cheap and clean enough that it could lead to very efficient solar cells that are more environmentally responsible. As always, there's no definite timetable for when (and if) NC State's technology might be commercialized -- so call someone's bluff if they promise you a nanoflower bouquet.
Fujitsu app analyzes zits and skin tone, delivers professional advice to your phone
That's right, you can finally get rid of that Tamagotchi you've been using to pick those perfect skincare products. Fujitsu is teasing a new app that's capable of measuring specific characteristics of the skin, even with less-than-ideal lighting conditions. We normally have to put up with the hassle of having to visit our friendly neighborhood skincare professional every time we need accurate info about our zits, blemishes or what color makeup to wear to the Star Trek convention. Fujitsu wants to put that power in your pocket, identifying appropriate products before you get to the beauty bar. Maybe this one isn't destined for record downloads, but it could make life a little bit easier -- take a look at the descriptive graphic above if you don't believe us.
Two Bosses Enter: High Priestess Azil vs. Foe Reaper 5000
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. Last week's matchup between Zanzil and Beauty was, unfortunately, not as nail-bitingly close as the Jan'alai and Corborus matchup, but it still had some major turn-out for this mismatched pair. In the end, Zanzil took the win based on the voting, but Beauty and her litter of core hound pups were definitely the fan favorite. Votes, however, are the winner's currency. The first round of fighting is over and it's time for the next round of matches to begin. The first matchup after the initial bouts is a strange matchup indeed, even stranger than the original two that brought us these two winning contestants. This week, High Priestess Azil, Twilight Hammer priestess extraordinaire, faces off against the mechanical menace Foe Reaper 5000. %Poll-68828% Follow along for the details of this week's matchup, as well as discussion on last week's match.
Two Bosses Enter: Beauty vs. Zanzil
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. Wow. Wow. Last week's Two Bosses Enter matchup was incredibly close. At one point, both competitors were tied, with votes ticking up each side until the final day. When the poll finally closed, Jan'alai took the victory by only three apparently four votes. Four votes. Now, I don't know what this tells me. People must hate each of these bosses equally. Suffice it to say, this was an awesome matchup that went down to the wire. More excitement like that, please! This week's matchup features two bosses that hearken back to the days of vanilla World of Warcraft -- the great corehound Beauty and her adorable litter face off against cauldron master Zanzil's voodoo trickery. Whose cuisine will reign supreme? %Poll-68694% Follow along for the details of this week's matchup, as well as discussion on last week's match.
Two Bosses Enter: Announcing Season 2's boss lineup
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. Today we are ready to reveal our tournament bracks for Two Bosses Enter's second Cataclysm season! I've sifted through last week's reader requests and built this tournament brackets based on a few factors. Your feedback was absolutely taken into consideration, and most of this season's competitors were chosen by you. However, some competitors were picked by myself and other WoW Insider staffers. Highly elaborate encounters like Jin'do the Godbreaker or bosses with one-shot abilities such as Bloodlord Mandokir, while popular choices, were not included in this season because their mechanics would make the tournament extremely one-sided unless I added special circumstances and stipulations from week to week. In order to include them, Two Bosses Enter would be less let the fans figure out what would happen and more what arbitrary rules does Alex want us to play by this week? If that's something people want, I can make it happen next time around, but I'm fairly sure the majority of readers would like things to stay as they've been all along. There will be no voting this week, but I will be revealing this week's brackets and I will explain what we will be doing differently this season, along with some commentary of what did and did not work last season.
Kinect hack enables psychedelic acupressure, far-out graphics (video)
We've seen the Kinect do some pretty wild stuff, but this "Kinected Massage" thing might just take the cake. Jason Stephens, massage therapist and grad student, has employed the ever-expanding power of Microsoft's Kinect in combination with a video projector to create "flow fields" that follow his hands on a client's body while he performs a massage. Stephens describes the process as a "technologically mediated healing modality," and while we're not sure that the Kinect actually contributes much to the relaxation process, it does make for some pretty trippy graphics. Hop on past the break and expand your mind, man.
Admiring the beauty of an iPhone 'Aged to Perfection'
I like this a lot -- a blogger over at the design mind blog is admiring the look of gadgets, like the iPhone, that have been "Aged to Perfection." In other words, gadgets that are well-used and that carry the mark of being carried around. Maybe it's just because I'm an iPhone user that frets over every little mark and scratch my iPhone gets, but I'm surprised by just how good the beaten-up iPhone in the picture above looks. No, it's not as sleek or fresh as the beautiful pictures of new products Apple posts on its website, but it's beautiful in another way. As blogger Remy Labesque says about these gadgets, "their battle scars reveal the stuff they're actually made of." An iPhone isn't exactly designed to age well -- it's not cheap or flimsy by any means, of course, but Apple's steady release and technology improvement schedule means that most iPhones sold back on day one probably aren't still in use today. Apple doesn't have a lot of reasons to change that, either -- those record profits don't keep rolling unless people keep buying new iPhones. But I like Labesque's idea of a gadget designed not just to be new and shiny, but to be worn and well-used. Like a pair of old jeans or a solid leather wallet, there's value in having a powerful computer both when you wait in line on release day, and a few years later when it's been put through the paces.
Cataclysm Dungeon Guide: Blackrock Caverns
Blackrock Caverns (BRC) is likely to be your first Cataclysm dungeon; it's the equivalent of Hellfire Ramparts and Utgarde Keep. I can predict what'll happen to a good 90 percent of you zoning into the place, by the way: Everyone zones in and buffs up -- silently, need I add? The tank will pull the first mob pack without preamble, marking, or warning. The DPS will start AoEing or targeting different mobs. The healer will start a heal which will land fruitlessly on a tank who's died in less than 2 seconds. Everyone will scramble out of the dungeon. In a firestorm of threats and recrimination, someone will shoulder the blame for the near wipe and be kicked. Actually, that's not true. You can probably survive most of Blackrock Caverns with the usual Wrath "lawl AoE" approach to dungeoneering, mostly because lots of players will be arriving with ilevel 251+ gear before combat ratings take a digger at level 81. The process described above is a lot more reminiscent of what Throne of the Tides and subsequent dungeons were like in the beta. But ... well, just be aware that a certain amount of ugly death is in store for you with Cataclysm 5-mans and heroics if you play like a nitwit. Most of the bosses in BRC drop ilevel 279 loot, so even players in heroic ICC gear are likely to find upgrades here.
The Daily Grind: Do you make ugly characters?
With the Thanksgiving holiday safely behind us, it's now time to assess the damage to our waistlines. With all the leftovers likely making the rounds over this long weekend, it might even be Monday before some of us get back to our normal dietary routines. All the food talk got us to thinking about character customization in MMORPGs, specifically the fact that few games allow you to make unattractive avatars. Those that do tend to resemble a veritable theater of the absurd, as the silly folks among us delight in making grotesque caricatures and over-the-top uglies. One former Star Wars Galaxies player even made an in-game career out it. Starsider veterans in the audience may remember one Ichben Einberliner, a strange chap who loved to strip his Fat Bastard avatar down to a pair of speedos and do a seductive pole dance for the unfortunate patrons at the Coronet spaceport. Rumor has it that Berliner was even awarded a character badge by SOE GMs (ostensibly for his unique personality) after regaling space travelers with his diaper-clad cabaret act for months on end. Whether it's the Ichbens of the world or the folks who make bobblehead midgets in Aion, there are always a few on every server. Today's question is two-fold: Do you make unattractive avatars? Why? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Samsung Galaxy S Femme bundles sexism in with your smartphone purchase
You know what really bugs us about this Samsung Galaxy S Femme handset? No, it's not that it once again trudges out the tired cliché that women must love pink -- it's that it presumes gents can't appreciate the benefits of Aveda's Damage Remedy and Hand Relief creams. We totally can! And we'd love to spend some quality time with the Aveda advisor app, which comes bundled on a 4GB MicroSD card, letting it identify for us the particular products we need to buy to keep our skin and hair looking their best. But, according to the packaging, this 4-inch, Gorilla Glass-bearing smartphone isn't for us. Sigh.
Kingdom Heroes marches into closed beta on May 18th
Fantasy MMOs may be a dime -- or less -- a dozen, so there's something special about a game that sets the action in a historical period instead. It's always a side bonus to learn something educational in MMOs, if only to use as ammunition when you want a loved one to pony up cash for another month's subscription ("But I'm learning, mom!") Players looking to stomp around ancient China will have their chance on May 18th, when Kingdom Heroes smashes into closed beta. Kingdom Heroes is striving to hit a sweet spot with engrossing PvP, topping the usual buffet of choices with a few choice gems, such as ship battles, siege engines and customizable armies. Four classes -- warrior, conjurer, tactician and fencer -- and four body types (hm, do you want to be a "maiden" or a "beauty"?) are the tip of the customization Kingdom Heroes sports. The game is set in the era of the Three Kingdoms, and players will choose which kingdom and dynasty to fight for and (repeatedly) die in their name. An ancient Chinese secret no longer, gamers can get their mitts on Kingdom Heroes by signing up for the beta and counting down the days until closed beta on May 18!
Verizon ad confirms Droid is a not-quite pretty 'racehorse duct taped to a Scud missile'
There's something peculiar about Verizon's latest addition to its promotional Droid onslaught. Sure, we get the expected Mad Libs-esque hyperboles like "it rips through the web like a circular saw through a ripe banana," but other nods seem to indicate an acknowledgement that, well, it's not the prettiest of flagship phone princesses. "Should [a phone be] be a tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?" (Wonder who that's a reference to.) Listen Verizon, trading "hairdo for can do" is great and all, but why can't we simply have both brains and beauty? Still, it's nice to know the fighting words haven't all but left the industry. See the ad for yourself after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
