TECHNOLOGY

3D Facial Animation Demo By Pendulum Alter Ego Award winning animation studio Pendulum shows a demo of compelling and emotive digital characters from AlterEgo, their facial performance division. AlterEgo demonstrates how they accurately translate an actor’s facial performance into believable and life like 3D character animation..

Mythbusters Draws Mona Lisa Using Paint Balls MythBusters first showed how aCPU drew a smiley face one paint ball at a time and then proceed to show how a GPU used parallel processing to draw an actual Mona Lisa drawing in 80 milli seconds. Add a slow motion version at the end and you get a sensational technologydemonstration.

Future Of Robotics – Self Assembly Robots

This is a view of an early prototype of using a swarm of robots that could physically join and create a three dimension artificial organism. The robots would manage their own hardware and software and even self heal when damaged.

There are ambitious aims to how the technology could be used where these robots would be used to solve tasks too complicated or dangerous for human such as deploying them in collapsed building.

Mars Phoenix Lander CG Animation

An animated illustration of the Phoenix Lander arriving on Mars on May 25th. The Phoenix Lander is programmed to set down near the North Pole of Mars and over the next three months, sample alien soil and ice and look for conditions conducive for ancient microbial life.

This animation shows the arrival, deployment of parachute, jettison its heat shield, thruster fire, landing, unfurling its solar panel, deploying its instruments, scooping and analysis by the Phoenix Lander.

EuphoriaCharacter Animation Engine: This is a demo of Euphoria’s realistic character animation system which is used for the animation tech in Grand Theft Auto 4. It doesn’t require an animator to generate all possible movements and uses a combination of artificial intelligence, physics and biomechanics. This is truly the future development of character animation.

Antonov – The World Heaviest And Largest Jet:

The Antonov An-225 is the world’s heaviest and largest jet for strategic airlift transport built by Antonov Design Bureau. It is larger than the Airbus A380 airliner and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest airplane. It has a landing gear system of 32 wheels and a wing span of 291 feet and designed for the Soviet space program in 1988 to airlift the Energia rocket’s booster, Buran space shuttle or ultra-heavy and oversize freight up to 250,000 kg internally or 200,000 kg on the upper fuselage.

50 INTERESTING FACTS

1. If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on your right side. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on your left side.

2. If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. For when a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.

3. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

4. Your tongue is germ free only if it is pink. If it is white there is a thin film of bacteria on it.

5. The Mercedes-Benz motto is “Das Beste oder Nichts” meaning “the best or nothing”.

6. The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal.

7. The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a person looks at something pleasing.

8. The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.

9. Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.

10. The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.

11. Dalmatians are born without spots.

12. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.

13. The ‘v’ in the name of a court case does not stand for ‘versus’, but for ‘and’ (in civil proceedings) or ‘against’ (in criminal proceedings).

14. Men’s shirts have the buttons on the right, but women’s shirts have the buttons on the left.

15. The owl is the only bird to drop its upper eyelid to wink. All other birds raise their lower eyelids.

16. The reason honey is so easy to digest is that it’s already been digested by a bee.

17. Roosters cannot crow if they cannot extend their necks.

18. The color blue has a calming effect. It causes the brain to release calming hormones.

19. Every time you sneeze some of your brain cells die.

20. Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.

21. The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.

22. When you blush, the lining of your stomach also turns red.

23. When hippos are upset, their sweat turns red.

24. The first Harley Davidson motorcycle was built in 1903, and used a tomato can for a carburetor.

25. The lion that roars in the MGM logo is named Volney.

26. Google is actually the common name for a number with a million zeros.

27. Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan.

28. It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million to make a film about it.

29. The attachment of the human skin to muscles is what causes dimples.

30. There are 1,792 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

31. The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.

32. Human hair and fingernails continue to grow after death.

33. It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.

34. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.

35. Most soccer players run 7 miles in a game.

36. The only part of the body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air.

37. Every day 200 million couples make love, 400,000 babies are born, and 140,000 people die.

38. In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make it look like it
is smiling).

39. Colgate faced big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries. Colgate translates into the command “go hang yourself.”

40. The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning its head are the rabbit and the parrot.

41. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

42. The average person laughs 13 times a day.

43. Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are:Mizaru(See no evil), Mikazaru(Hear no evil), and Mazaru(Speak no evil)

44. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

45. German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog.

46. Large kangaroos cover more than 30 feet with each jump.

47. Whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.

48. Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death.

49. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural cause.

50. The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet!!