Photo retouching revealed!

http://jezebel.com/#!5762410/models-real-faces-before-the-photoshop-magic

The unreal world of beauty photography exposed. Does knowing this make you any less insecure about your own appearance? Of course not!

Insights and Inside Info on IBM's meat-killing Jeopardy machine

Much of the power comes from IBM's carefully curated collection of data. Jennifer Chu-Carroll, one of the scientists who has worked on the project since it began over four years ago, says that Watson excels, predictably enough, when the answer is a detail stored in its database.

http://www.infoworld.com/t/business-intelligenceanalytics/how-ibms-watson-hammered-its-jeopardy-foes-798?source=IFWNLE_nlt_blogs_2011-02-16

Corollary article:

Lest we get too enamored with our technological prowess, however, the authors make some comparisons with biology. “To put our findings in perspective, the 6.4*10¹⁸ instructions per second that human kind can carry out on its general-purpose computers in 2007 are in the same ballpark area as the maximum number of nerve impulses executed by one human brain per second.”

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/world-computer-data/

Hipstamatic and the Death of Photojournalism [Photography]

Hipstamatic and the Death of Photojournalism [Photography]
GIZMODO | FEBRUARY 10, 2011
http://pulsene.ws/10T2w

Read more

Tetrachromacy In Humans

A timely article, given that we have just discussed human color vision and its relationship to RGB (red, green, blue) monitors in NET105S Computer Graphics. You see, students - I DON'T just make this stuff up!

Tetrachromacy In Humans

via NeuroLogica Blog by Steven Novella on 1/25/11

Are you a tetrachromat? Probably not, but it is possible that the rare person is, with the super mutant power of enhanced color vision. OK – I would rather have Wolverine’s regeneration, but enhanced color vision would be cool.

Color vision in vertebrates is a result of the cones in the retina. Vertebrate retinas have two types of light-sensing neurons: rods see in black and white but have good light sensitivity, and so are specialized for low-light (night) vision. Cones are less sensitive than rods, but they respond to a specific range of wavelengths of light – i.e. color. By combining the color information from different cones with different wavelength sensitivities the brain is able to perceive a wide range of colors.

Different groups of vertebrates have different numbers of cones, and therefore a different range and ability to discriminate colors. Birds, for example, are tetrachromats – they have four different cones and can see farther into the ultraviolet than humans. In fact the common ancestor of tetrapod vertebrates was likely a tetrachromat. Most mammals are dichromats with only two cones. It is thought this reduction occurred during the early years of mammal evolution when our mammal ancestors were nocturnal and burrowing animals, and so needed night vision more than color vision.

Many primates, however, (including humans and our close relatives) are trichromats with three cones, and therefore have rich color vision, but not as good as birds. In fact our understanding of the genetics of cones and color vision provided yet another compelling line of evidence for evolution. Trichromatic primates do not have the same cones as their vertebrate ancestors. They did not regain one of the two cones that were previously lost. Mammals have two cones – an autosomal S-cone (a short wavelength sensitive cone), and an X-linked L/M cone (sensitive to median and long wavelength visible light and located on the X-chromosome).

Sometime after the divergence of new-world and old-world monkey, an old-world monkey ancestor underwent gene duplication of the X-linked cone gene. At first these genes would have been identical, but over time they diverged to become distinct cones with separated wavelength sensitivity. In humans these cone genes are 98% identical. The cones added sensitivity to red wavelengths and resulted in trichromacy.

The research into the evolution of color vision has also led to some interested findings about human color vision specifically. It seems that humans have a significant degree of variability in the sensitivity of the cones. You have probably heard that some people are partially color blind, because it is standard (at least in the US) to test all school children for color blindness. But you may not have known that there is variability in the other direction as well, and that there are cases of tetrachromacy in humans.

One possible mechanism for this is that women may inherit two different versions of an X-linked gene for color vision. Women have two X-chromosomes, and in each cell one X-chromosome is inactivated essentially at random. So the retina would have a mixture (a mosaic) of cones from the two versions on the two different X-chromosomes, functionally producing four different cones in the retina.

In one study they found that most women with this condition did not demonstrate tetrachromacy on color vision tests – they still functionally were trichromats. This is likely due to the fact that the cones were not different enough. Although some hypothesize that the optic nerve or perhaps the brain combines the information from these distinct cones and treats them as one stream of color information. However, going against this hypothesis is the fact that 1 in 24 such women (according to one study) demonstrated four-dimensional (or tetrachromatic) color vision. This means that the optic nerve is capable of carrying tetrachromatic vision and the brain is capable of interpreting it.

There may be other mechanisms as well that could result in true tetrachromatic vision in humans. These cases demonstrate the plasticity of biology and the brain in particular. It also demonstrates that spontaneous mutations can result in the addition of function – in this case expanded color vision. Not only has this almost certainly happened in our evolutionary past, but it is happening today in living humans. This is not likely to result in the evolution of tetrachromacy in humans in general for two reasons. The first is that, in our modern society, there likely isn’t any selective advantage to tetrachromacy. Our primate ancestors probably benefited from trichromacy – the speculation being that it enabled them to forage for fruit and vegetables better. But unless we lived in a world dominated by fashion designers and painters, it’s hard to see how tetrachomacy would provide a significant survival advantaged.

Second, humans are a large out-bred population. This does not mean that we are not evolving, but it makes it very unlikely that such a mutation will significantly spread throughout the population. It could by chance become prominent in an isolated population – the so-called founder effect. This has been demonstrated for inherited diseases, but can also occur with favorable mutations like tetrachromacy.

For now tetrachromacy remains in isolated individuals who are lucky enough to have their own mutant power.

Snow blanket

Scene illuminated by solar LEDs and full moon, snapped with Camera +, no flash, cyanographic filter, on an iPhone 4.

--Brad

Article: 45365 :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews

45365 :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20100324%2FREVIEWS%2F100329984

(Sent from Flipboard)

Feature set of the next iPad looks awesome!

Check out this Joy of Tech comic, sent using The Funnies, possibly the best app for reading all your favourite comics on iPad. Get your copy today!

Article: The Certificate Solution

The Certificate Solution
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/12/07/certificate

(Sent from Flipboard)

The Mobile Photo Sharing Boom Is Here

History, trends and tools for mobile photo sharing.

The Mobile Photo Sharing Boom Is Here
MASHABLE! | DECEMBER 5, 2010
http://pulsene.ws/scKM

New mobile photo apps such as Instagram, Picplz and Path represent the next generation of photo sharing — where high ... Read more

Cartoon: Conspicuous Me

Interesting question - how much is too much?

Cartoon: Conspicuous Me
READWRITEWEB | DECEMBER 5, 2010
http://pulsene.ws/rZn4

I can directly thank two people for today's cartoon. One is Deb Ng, who tweeted this a few days ago: If I were to propose a ... Read more

Weebly beta testing mobile rendering

Those of you experimenting with Weebly for website creation will be interested to know that they are now beta testing rendering for mobile browsers. Appending /mobile to your weebly website address will open the site in the mobile version.

http://blog.weebly.com/2/post/2010/11/mobile-website-beta-testing.html

Generally its a stripped-down version of your site, but it does seem to get the basics right. Weebly developers are seeking feedback (that's what a beta test is for, after all) so try it out and let them know your experiences.

It will be nice for those of you developing sites for hand-off to the client to be able to tell them that their sites will be mobile-ready with no more work required on their part!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone has a warm and safe holiday!

--Brad

Why Are the Rich So Good at the Internet?

Why Are the Rich So Good at the Internet?
FAST COMPANY | NOVEMBER 24, 2010
http://pulsene.ws/n9em

Pew Internet has released a report finding that income is the strongest predictor of whether, how often, and in what ways ...

New HTML5 image editor from Aviary

We've been looking at the growing field of online image editor, but they have all been Flash based. Aviary is developing an image editor written in HTML5, which makes it ultra lightweight and ultimately usable on mobile devices not all that Flash-based (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch anyone?). Interestingly, the editing tool has been developed as a widget that can be included in other websites through an embed code. I'll let you know how that works.

Pixlr out-Photoshops photoshop.com

In a comparison of online image editors (those that work solely through web browsers, Photoshop.com is a fairly disappointing entry compared to some others.

Among the fastest and most fully featured I've found is Pixlr. One of the Flash-based editors that seem to be one of the few reasons why Flash needs to hang around, Pixlr's interface looks very much like an older incarnation of Photoshop for Windows.

It supports advanced features such as layers, layer masks, blending options, cloning, filters, distort, vector type, and a surprisingly rich right-clickiness (contextual menus). (Side note: Pixlr's interface is so like Photoshop that we wonder how long until Adobe takes note.)

Pixlr is free to use, imports and saves to Flickr and other online sharing sites and social media apps, as well as to and from the desktop. You can load, edit and save images to and from your desktop without creating a Pixlr account. For most users, this may be more than enough image editing power, comparable to the desktop version of Photoshop Elements.

Article: Community College Times

Program portfolio review? Heck of an idea!

Community College Times
http://www.communitycollegetimes.com/article.cfm?ArticleId=3050

(Sent from Flipboard)

20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web

via 20thingsilearned.com

Google has created an excellent primer on the current state and recent history of web apps and such. Don't let the "comic book" look and feel throw you - this is good info in a concise and understandable format.

Also, it is a terrific example of HTML5 web development.

You want an iPad with that Hyundai?

Owner's manual done digital...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2010-11-17-hyundaiipad17_ST_N.htm

Check out this video!

NET student Amy Barr created this video for the contest.

View the video then vote for Amy!

I really dig this video from the AT&T Simplify Your Life video contest - check it out. It could win the $20,000 Grand Prize!

You can see the video here: http://tinyurl.com/2e323rq

eMarketing/Social Media/Web position

Interesting skill set....

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