Get your own UAV piloted by your iPhone.
This personal UAV, called the AR Drone from Parrot, is controlled via WiFi using your iPhone or iPod Touch, wifi control begs the question about its range. It also sports two cameras on it, although I suppose their video rather than still (hopefully, HD video).
If I could get something like this and mount a 12 megapixel camera to it, I’d be in heaven. I’m trying to shoot aerial shots for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for their 2011 calendar and something like this would be great. My guess is is that it’s going to be really expensive and not strong enough to hold more cargo. Still, I can dream, no?
I think I know what I want for Xmas this year.
New camera sees like the human eye. Costs $140k!
TechOn is reporting that a company has produced a camera that can record the same colors that the human eye can see.
“We confirmed that the camera can take pictures with colors in the full visible color gamut with a color difference of less than 1.”
I suppose this is where things are going in the Land of Digital Capture. But at $140k for a 10.6 megapixel camera and no monitor or printer that can even come close to displaying that color gamut (at least ones that we can afford), I don’t think we’ll be seeing this kind of tech in consumer products anytime soon. Seriously, this is a great bit of news. Capturing RAW images with the same color gamut as the human eye is what we are all waiting for. Actually, wake me when they get the dynamic range to match that of the human eye. Then we’re talking!
Read the whole article here.
My Journal Entry: The Morning Before #9/11/01
I wanted to share this story with everyone on the last 9/11 anniversary, but I couldn’t find this journal. Since I’m doing a little cleaning up here, I found it and scanned the relevant pages.
The morning before the 9/11 attacks, I awoke and started to write in a journal. I did this at the suggestion of the book, The Artist’s Way.
The view from our window in Park Slope was the entire downtown NYC area, dominated by the Twin Towers. That Monday morning was heavily overcast, with low clouds obscuring half the view of the towers. I decided to write what I saw out the window that morning. Remember, this was 9/10/01.
(My writing skills first thing in the morning are pretty poor, so excuse the grammar. I also blurred out the parts in the scans that were not relevant and more personal)
“The clouds have cut the buildings in half just like they did when I was younger. Watching the Empire State Building cut in half by the fog. That used to scare me. I thought that Godzilla tore the building in half. Imagine a building that size broken in half! or even the world trade center. What would have happened if the terrorists had made their plan work? there would not be any twin towers. Maybe they would call it the orphan tower and the other would be turned into scrap metal and then turned into a memorial.”
Pretty freaky, eh? Must have been a real negative energy in the world that day and perhaps I picked up on it when I awoke that Monday morning, September 10th, 2001.
Click on for closer scans of the actual entry.
Parrots in #Brooklyn: Sight & Sounds
Walking along one of my local streets this morning, I heard the strange sounds of parrots about. Bet you didn’t know there’s a large, wild parrot population in Brooklyn. Yup. They even have their own website! Read their story; it’s really quite interesting.
The shot above was taken somewhere along Glenwood Road last year while my wife and I were searching for an apartment.
This sound bite I recorded today on Marlborough Road.
So it seems as if they have spread quite a distance. I wonder what their population is.
Why We Hate George Lucas
Just in case you weren’t sure, there IS a scientific explanation as to why you’d like let loose a huge can of whoop-ass on George Lucas’s big head.
Read about it here.
Balloon Art
Photographer Paul Grave’s balloon sculptures are just amazing. I would love to see what they looked like after they deflated.
What does a billion dollars look like anyway?
ArtMarcovici let’s us know what a billion dollars looks like. Perhaps the most expensive sculpture ever.
Show me the money!