Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Friday, February 15, 2008

Can photographers be plagiarists?

The father-and-son photography team of Horst and Daniel Zielske caused a stir in September when their show, "Megalopolis Shanghai," opened at MKG, a museum in Hamburg, Germany. But it wasn't the sort of stir any artist could relish. Another German photographer, Peter Bialobrzeski, accused the pair of ripping off two images from his highly acclaimed series "Neon Tigers"—right down to the luminous, Blade Runner-like glow that was the "Neon Tigers" signature.

Top: Peter Bialobrzeski, Shanghai, 2001 (#57). Image from www.pdnonline.com. Bottom: H. & D. Zielske, Nanpu Bridge, Shanghai, 2002. Image from zielske.de.

Tefal Quick Cup Boils Water Faster Than You Can Read This Abnormally Long Headline That We Are Stretching Out OK Done [Gadgets]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/235157723/tefal-quick-cup-boils-water-faster-than-you-can-read-this-abnormally-long-headline-that-we-are-stretching-out-ok-done

Does the ability to heat eight ounces of water in three seconds interest you? Then take a look at this Teal quick Cup, which produces hot (we're not sure if it's near boiling) water by spinning the cold water you pour in around the spiral heating element. Not only is it fast, it's supposedly more efficient than a standard kettle or hot water heater because it only needs to be "on" for those three-ish seconds. Useful for your instant cups of tea or filling up a bathtub the dumb way. [Quickcup via Giz Mag via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Self-reconfigurable Matrix-style camera array soon to be self-aware

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/235019764/

Filed under: Digital Cameras

We're pretty sure this camera setup won't be putting the Wachowski Brothers out of a job any time soon, but some folks at Carnegie Mellon slapped this Matrix-style rig together for a "mere" $22,000. The cameras are mounted on linear guides, making them self-reconfigurable, and each can shoot 640 x 480 video at 30 fps. Their purported aims are "Image-based rendering," creating 3D objects with little scene geometry info, but we're sure they're doing plenty of bullet time scenarios in their free time. Coming to a YouTube near you: Matrix Restitutions.

[Via MAKE]

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CompactFlash-based SSDs get tested

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/235365942/

Filed under: Laptops

You know how much we love SSDs around here, but getting one the legit way currently involves poking a rather large hole in your wallet -- so we were pretty interested to see how a jury-rigged SSD built using that CompactFlash-to-SATA adapter we spotted a while back would hold up. While we probably would have sprung for something a little larger than the 4GB drives used in the test, the results are pretty encouraging: DIY SSD drives were overall faster than the 1.8-inch traditional drive found in the MacBook Air, and even a little faster than the VAIO TZ's 64GB SSD. The drives were bested by a 7200rpm 2.5-inch drive and a 128GB SATA SSD, as you'd expect, but what we weren't expecting was the negligible hit on power consumption -- it looks like SSDs really don't use less power, as the unchanged battery life of the SSD MacBook Air hinted. Still -- you know we want one. Check out all the results and a little howto action after the break.

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Princeton's tiny Bluetooth adapter with big 300-foot range

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/235442403/

Filed under: Wireless

Yes sir, you're looking at a tiny 4.5 x 23 x 14-mm USB Bluetooth adapter with a hearty 100-meter range. It's also Bluetooth 2.0+EDR so you can expect to push a data rate of up to 3Mbps. Princeton's 10-meter adapter released in August now looks like school on Sundays -- no Class 1. Look for the PTM-UBT4 to hit Japan and beyond for ¥2,980 (about $28) later this month.

[Via Impress]

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