Month: August 2007

Soviet revisionism for every one

How many time have you been out taking photographs and the perfect shot gets ruined by by people walking into frame or there is an unfortunately placed building in garish pink. Well now we can all have the ability to retouch pictures in a manner previously reserved for communist dictators with out the need to be some kind of photoshop guru. Slashdot is reporting a research paper released from Carnegie Mellon demonstrating how to replace arbitrarily shaped blank areas in an image with portions of images from a huge catalog in a totally seamless manner.

There is a paper (pdf) on their page that shows some good examples of the process, but it will remain to see if it can be deployed successfully. There is an excellent tool for stitching images, autostitch, that stitches image using spherical perspective rather than 2D stitching. I have used it to put together many panoramic images, but there are times when it can’t put two pictures that were taken side by side together. The scope planned by the Carnegie Mellon guys seems to be orders of magnitude bigger. At the very least the bigger there database if images getting the longer it will trawl to find the correct match.

However I can’t wait for it to come out that are some dissidents spoiling old birthday photographs of mine…

Dynamic mp3 pricing – Good idea, wrong way

A strange entry on slashdot today with a company, AmieStreet.com, announcing a partner ship which Amazon where they want to introduce a demand based pricing model. They are proposing that the price of an mp3 goes up the more popular it is, to a capped value of $0.98. This on the face of it is an interesting concept.

However those of us that lived through the first internet bubble might recognise this as the nonsense that pervaded before the bust (gardens.com was my favourite loser). Surprisingly enough this model exists already in different operator sectors. Some toll operators of tunnels and roads will change at different parts of the day. This however is not to generate revenue (though a lot of them are in the business to do this), it is also to act as a deterrent and give people an added incentive to avoid the tolled section unless you really have to.

Secondly this deterrent is required due to the physical nature of the non digital world. It is more preferable to find ways for people to use the resources more efficiently that to build new roads or power stations. I grew up in the Ireland, the ESB (the national electrical supply board) were always putting out ads for energy saving lagging jackets and power saving heaters. Why would a power company go out of its way to help you use less electricity (and thus save you money)? It’s simple when it is that or build a brand new power station, they ain’t cheap!

The digital world is not as constrained. A few years ago you may want to deter the download of a popular song because you server and/or bandwidth couldn’t keep up. This has pretty much been resolved, the rise of Flickr and YouTube are example of this.

However I think that there may be something in dynamic pricing, but the opposite of what AmieStreet.com are suggesting, the more popular the song the cheaper it gets. You start at $0.50 and the price decreases at $0.05 at sales increase you decrease it on some logarithmic scale. $0.05 decrease after the first 100 sales, then another $0.05 after a 1000, and so on.

That means the is stil a premium for music that exists in the long tail, which is reasonable it does cost money at some point to track it down, rip it, host it and make it available. If Amazon want to enter into a pricing deal with me, given me a call.

Hoverboard by 2015?

It is a common joke that the future predicted when we were young is not the present we currently live in. A lot of people are very agrieved that there are no flying cars or colonies on the moon. Well you can keep all that, the greatest abuse of my childhood dreams is that the Hoverboard has not yet been invented. Seen in Back to the Future II as a levitating skateboard. Robert Zemeckis toyed with my innocence at the time by saying they really existed, but had been band by parent groups, however they were lucky enough to get their hands on some.

I was to find out later that he was lying, all for the purpose of a joke, and there is no such thing as a hoverboard and a little piece of me died that day. However there may be hope yet, to Zemeckis credit there is still 8 years until 2015 (When Back to the Future is set and where we find the hoverboards) which means there is still time (no pun intended). That and the fact that scientists have announced that they have reversed the Casimir effect, so that it repels instead of attracts. The Casimir effect in attraction mode is supposed to the technique that geckos stick to glass or ceilings.

Already they have announced that this discovery could lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate. Why have Physicists such small vision? They should halt that work and start developing the hoverboard. As a personal message to any Physicists reading this, you have teased us with such fanciful futures now is you chance to prove it. That and it could be the “Tickle me Elmo” of 2015, think about it!

Dog renting in Sydney

I suppose it was only a matter of time before dog renting came to Sydney. An American company Flexpetz wants to start pet renting

In the US, members pay US$24.95 ($29) to hire a dog on weekdays and US$39.95 on weekends. Membership fees include an annual fee of $US99.95 and monthly fees of $US49.95.

Those foolish enough to sign up for this service probably deserve to be ripped off. However owning a dog in an apartment in Sydney is not a viable option in a lot of cases. There is an alternative for dogless Sydney-siders.

Doggie Rescue is a registered NO-Kill animal rescue charity, but receives no government funding. It is committed to rescuing neglected, abused and abandoned dogs from the death rows of Sydney pounds and finding them loving homes.

They also require people to help out with the dogs that they have in their care. This includes people to take out and walk the dogs they have. Listed on their website are the volunteer options :

“Pop in to Ingleside from 10am – 4pm Tuesday to Sunday, Drummoyne from 10am – 4pm Saturday to Sunday, or PetBarn at Alexandria on Saturdays only from 10am.”

A company like Flexpetz shouldn’t even be given the option to start a viable business when there is a free service available that will not only make you feel better but help out as well. If you live in Sydney and know of any body interested in dog walking pass on the details.