"Ikea's innovation was to cut storage and transport costs with flat-pack furniture, and at the same time bring some simple and attractive design to mass manufacturing. Now the Swedish company plans to bring this buying power to alternative energy. Johan Stenebo of Ikea spinoff company Greentech will invest $75 million in solar companies and wants the retail giant to start selling the products in Ikea store in two to four years." - silpol via Bookmarklet
"We got up early on Sunday for this picture opportunity on Lombard Street in the city - the smart car owners club managed to cram about 130 of their cars onto the crooked street - very fun to watch." by Martin Taylor - Rachel L Fisher via Bookmarklet
Yet another life changed by Total Immersion. In November of 2007, I could not swim 100 meters without sucking wind. 10 days ago I completed an Ironman (2.4 mile swim). TI is swimming for geeks. - Sacca via Bookmarklet
Can I get one for the body as well as the face? - Dion Almaer
Very interesting. Hope they post the download link soon so that we can all play with it. - Brady Brim-DeForest
It seems as if the main problem with most people in the examples shown is their forehead is too short or too narrow. Wonder if there's a subtle clue that big brains are beautiful there! :) - Lindsay Donaghe
@Jason - that's an interesting concept. Would you be more likely to trust the girl on the left or right? Would you be more likely to talk to either one of them at a party (or more intimidated by either one?). - Lindsay Donaghe
Notice that for all the women they soften the jaw, while squaring it for men. Everyone also gets a slightly thinner face and upturned almost smiling lips. - Stupid Blogger
@SB yeah and the forehead adjustment... almost like there is a triangle with the forehead at the point and they flip it so the chin is the bottom of the triangle... weird. - Lindsay Donaghe
They are different women! Blame Paul! : ) - Erhan Erdogan
Lindsay: whenever sketching generic faces, the face starts as an inverted triangle and the eyes appear a third of the way down from the top of the forehead; lips and nose appear below and above (respectively) a line 1/3 up from the chin. Looks like these pictures are rearranged to meet that particular school of drawing. - Stupid Blogger
That is interesting yet odd. Seems that the faces are slendered with the software. - Jim Goldstein via twhirl
I wonder what would come out of applying their algorithms to face of black or asian person? Different countries have different concepts of beauty. - artemy tregubenko
This technology should be made available in eye glasses, just imagine how much better your work day can be! - Claude Betancourt
Paul - Think you should definitely add the option. "Click here to be beautiful without the expense of plastic surgery! .... and you may even get more 'Likey's" :)" - Charlie Anzman
Some of the stuff coming out of Siggraph this year is really freaky. How about combining this with the automatic video editing stuff? ;) - Joe Beda
without a doubt amazing. It's incredible how subtle the changes are yet massive difference. - Zee at WeDoCreative
Huh, that's pretty crazy. Creepy, but cool. :) - felix
I haven't read the paper, but I wonder if it adapts to different notions of "attractive" (that changes from culture to culture ...) - Rui
+1 @Claude I was thinking the same thing! Incorporate this software in wearable monitor glasses, and the whole world would be beautiful! I'll bet we can look for these on the shelves in the U.S. just before November. Social media and reality enhancement software have put Winston Smith out of a job. - Chris Kim A
Isn't this something these Japanese photo booth do since years? - minus3
do i sense another manga-style meme starting? - anna
So, if it turns me into Gilbert Godfried... what does that mean? - l0ckergn0me
You know, if these guys had gotten together with the realtime video+photo enhancement folks and approached the Beijing Olympic Comittee then that singing girl in the opening ceremonies might not have had to been replaced with a body double. (Yeah, I just brought three of this week's biggest memes together. I'll be here all week.) - Kevin Fox
The artist proportions were laid out by the Greeks as the perfect human, that's not being used here. This beautification engine, I think, builds on top of a previous study where some students tried to mathematically identify attractiveness. They had participants rate the attractiveness of head shots from yearbooks. What they found was there was a high correlation b/w the geometrically "average" face and high attraction. That "average" is based on the proportions of the di - xero
stances between the individual elements of the face and their relative sizes. IIRC the software adjusts elements so they statistically/geometrically complement each other. It's not actually working toward a golden set of proportions, but a set of proportions appropriate for the individual as defined by the masses. I wouldn't think of it as "facial discrimination" so much as "deviation from ones potential". - xero
imagine if this were available in real-time installed into special glasses. sober beer goggles. - Jess Lee
I'm not fussy. I'd take either out for a romantic dinner. - Andy C
I'm waiting for the first Facebook application that automatically enhances your profile picture like this. Every social network should run this on the avatars. Beautiful people! - Benedikt Koehler
Can you imagine the controversy if dating sites got a hold of this? - xero
@paul automatically apply it to all profile photos, huh? are you sure you ready for results? check my picture - try to see wonderful cossacks writing infamous letter to Turkish Sultan :) - silpol
I wonder if they'll turn Mickey Mouse into Mighty Mouse - Dave Q
@Lindsay; A)Maybe/? 1=Left 2=Right 3=N/A - Jason Brooks
this will have a lot of practical applications to create a (virtual) world of beautiful (or more acceptable facially) people. - Apostolos Tsompanopoulos
Just a complicated high tech implementation of beer goggles. - Hayes Haugen
"Usain Bolt celebrated his coronation as the world’s fastest man 20 meters early, throwing out his arms and thumping his chest. But he still obliterated the world record in the 100 meters Saturday night, turning his Olympic gold medal performance into a show of astounding talent." - Bret Taylor via Bookmarklet
I haven't seen the final yet, but during the heat before, it looked like he was jogging, yet he was ahead of everyone. It is like he is holding back so he can break his own record later. Bolt is insanely fast. - Bret Taylor
Adewale - you're right. Either his sponsor or some race director will pay him well to set the record again this year. - Hutch Carpenter
I agree with Bret, Adewale, & Hutch. Much better to break the record as many times as possible. Plus, it gives him more personality! Yesterday I was watching his 9.92 and it didn't even look like he was breaking hard...it was so easy. - Mitchell Tsai
Ugh, photobucket has the worst flash media player ever. - Tanath
What an feat of performance - he just blew away the other "fastest men" in the world. Between Bolt and Phelps, I really have to wonder how much further we can peak in human performance... - Vince DeGeorge
seriously @vince...he obliterated the field! - .LAG
I wonder if he can challenge MIchael Johnson's "Beamon-esque" 19.32 200m record. It sure seems like it. - Jeremy Raines
Also -- you know, we're not promised tomorrow. It seems like a true champion would want to set the record as low as possible on a fast track & grand stage, regardless of future incentives. - Jeremy Raines
now that everyone's seen it in HD. - that guy just pushed everyone else who ever sprinted off the table. - Richard Lawler via twhirl
Just watched the French video of this. He looked like he coasted to a 9.69. wow. - Harvey Simmons
I hate it when they don't push hard till the very end.. He could easily have run much faster, but instead had to start celebrating at the 90m mark. It was such a big race as well. I would have been more impressed if he ran it all the way in 9.60-9.65 than 9.69 or whatever it was officially at the end. - Colin Archer
he just doesn't care about the time, honestly, in ten years when the time has been broken, I think we'll all remember the watching him shut it down at 70m and start celebrating - Richard Lawler via twhirl
That was insane. Never seen a 100m run so fast and err .. so casually - Deepak
As with the recent satellite visualisations, there will no doubt be a glut of people who think these are actual realtime images of what Britain looks like from the sky. Heh, if it was that well lit, my electricity bills wouldn't be this high. :-) - Slippy Lane
Shown last night on BBC, pretty good visuals and interesting stats too! - Jason Brooks
Hmmm, mildly NSFW, definitely inappropriate if pregnant ladies are in the workplace, clearly too true to life, and absolutely LOL; oh yes, I will continue to LOL - Pete Delucchi
"Recording the Birth" was my favorite, should have been captioned with a Qik video url. - Jody Carbone
I needed to be reminded to keep my top on ;-) - Kate Kapetanakis
I can relate... There were plenty of palm to forehead, duh moments for me as I, uh, matured. - Raoul Pop
I actually had the reverse experience once when I was at Simpsons Night with a (relatively new-to-me) group of friends and one suggests that she and I 'go out for donuts'. It wasn't until we were back in her bedroom for about 15 minutes that I asked 'won't they be wondering where the donuts are'? Too bad I didn't fancy her. - Kevin Fox
My blog software generated an odd permalink today: blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-08-08-n88.html (the "n88" part is always randomly choosing an unused number between 10-90, and there are only two posts today). - Philipp Lenssen
Philipp, that is weird! I thought you might have fixed that... - Tony Ruscoe
"Looking to get the most value out of your laptop? Then check out these unusual ways of using your old trusty notebook (Note: actual results may vary, DRB can not be held responsible for the accompanying data loss)" - Anne Bouey via Bookmarklet
I bet I can cook an egg on my MacBook Pro. It only takes it a few minutes until it gets super hot. - Karen Padham Taylor
"More than just a striking façade, the building’s hexagonal curtain is based upon climate modeling and serves to regulate the structure’s temperature and daylight by varying the size of each cell’s window." - Corie Allison via Bookmarklet
Warning: If you want to click on the pictures, some of the small ads on the side are NSFW. - Mitchell Tsai via Bookmarklet
Amazing pictures. And sorry this is a little off topic, but Kamchatka was the most evil spot in the game of Risk. Now I know what it actually looks like. :) - felix
Felix: I loved Risk. That's how I learned a ton of country names. I liked owning Kamchatka! - Mitchell Tsai
![[daily dose of imagery] watching the city](http://friendfeed.s3.amazonaws.com/b710b34558c438ed16c5070d10a50a2876d65599 "[daily dose of imagery] watching the city")
