Man's biggest friend: Devoted owner Dave Nasser with George, the world's biggest dog
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Man uses Barcode for Animated Tatoo in France
First QR Code Tattoo: Bar Code on Man’s Chest Activates Advertising Animation | Breaking news and opinion on The Blaze
Technology First QR Code Tattoo: Bar Code on Man’s Chest Activates Advertising Animation
Posted on July 9, 2011 at 4:00pm by Christopher Santarelli Christopher Santarelli
Quick Response Codes are specific matrix barcodes that when detected by QR barcode readers, and a growing number of mobile phone devices, pick up encoded information such as text, URL, or video. QR codes have become more popular in the U.S. as many advertisers use them as opportunity to connect with customers thanks to the growing number of mobile phones capable of detecting QR Code encoding. Usually seen in magazines and train billboards, Ballantine whisky has found a new QR code canvass for their latest “Leave an Impression” advertising campaign. One man’s chest.
The tattoo was engraved by Paris-based tattoo artist Karl Marc onto his friend Marco’s chest. When scanned, the QR code unnlocks an animation via a live stream on the brand’s Facebook Page.
Mashable:
“What makes this tattoo special is not just that it links to an animation,’ Marc says. ‘It’s that we will be able to change the animation as time goes on. As Marco grows older and his ideas change, we can create new animations that link to the Matrix Code.’
You’re probably wondering if the tat is fake — after all, that Facebook friend tattoo turned out to be an advertising campaign, as did the Ray-Ban tattoo. But Marc says that the ink is the real deal. And it does seems likely. There’s no hidden viral agenda here: Ballantine’s hosted the live stream of the process on its brand page.
Check out the code and animation yourself:
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
What happens on the Internet every 60 seconds
Technolog from msnbc.com - What happens on the Internet every 60 seconds
What happens on the Internet every 60 seconds
Shanghai Web Designers.
Let's say that it takes you exactly one minute to read through this post. In that time, over 6,600 photos will be uploaded to Flickr, about 70 new domains will be registered, over 1,200 new ads will be created on Craigslist, and more. Here's what happens on the Internet every 60 seconds.
Now keep in mind that the data below and the infographic above come from the Shanghai Web Designers team. We have done our best to confirm that the statistics provided line up with known data, but you should still take everything with a hefty serving of salt.
That disclaimer aside and without further ado, here's what's happening each minute:
- Search engine Google serves more that 694,445 queries
- 6,600+ pictures are uploaded to Flickr
- 600 videos are uploaded to YouTube, amounting to 25+ hours of content
- 695,000 status updates, 79,364 wall posts and 510,040 comments are published on social networking site Facebook
- 70 new domains are registered
- 168,000,000+ emails are sent
- 320 new accounts and 98,000 tweets are generated on social networking site Twitter
- iPhone applications are downloaded more than 13,000 times
- 20,000 new posts are published on micro-blogging platform Tumblr
- Popular web browser FireFox is downloaded more than 1,700 times
- Popular blogging platform WordPress is downloaded more than 50 times
- WordPress Plugins are downloaded more than 125 times
- 100 accounts are created on professional networking site LinkedIn
- 40 new questions are asked on YahooAnswers.com
- 100+ questions are asked on Answers.com
- 1 new article is published on Associated Content, the world’s largest source of community-created content
- 1 new definition is added on UrbanDictionary.com
- 1,200+ new ads are created on Craigslist
- 370,000+ minutes of voice calls done by Skype users
- 13,000+ hours of music streaming is done by personalized Internet radio provider Pandora
- 1,600+ reads are made on Scribd, the largest social reading publishing company
Impressive? Scary? Overwhelming? We're not sure. But we do know that a lot happened in the few moments it took to look at this blog post — so you better rush to catch up.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Cars 2 - Gunnison, UT Real-Life Mater
ksl.com - Meet Utah's real-life 'Mater'
Meet Utah's real-life 'Mater'
June 30th, 2011 @ 6:30pm
By Sam Penrod
GUNNISON -- Main Street in Gunnison, isn't exactly the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but it is where you will find the world's most popular movie star right now.
As "Cars 2" tops the box office, the star of Pixar's "Cars" sequel, is in front of the Casino Star Theatre.
"It's Awesome" says one girl who stopped by to see him.
A boy adds, "He actually does look pretty real, I like it."
It's Tow Mater, better known as Mater, the star of the latest "Cars" movie. If you don't think it really is Mater, just look at the faces of the young kids who are showing up to see him.
With just 260 seats, The Casino Star Theatre in Gunnison rarely gets a new blockbuster when it's released, but last weekend was able to open with "Cars 2."
The theatre had no idea about the special guest.
"This showed up here the night before the movie was to open," said Diana Spencer of the Casino Star Theatre Foundation. "It had people climbing all over it, every kid in town."
Lifelong Gunnison resident Seth Hendrickson brought the 1951 Dodge to life as Mater a few weeks ago.
For decades, the old truck was parked in a lot full of weeds.
The owners, D&D Buick, told Hendrickson they didn't want it anymore and let him haul it off.
"I kind of noticed it right when that first 'Cars' movie was coming out," said Hendrickson, "and so I hauled it down to the farm and stored him and decided this was a good time to get him out, and make him look like that."
It didn't take much.
A mouth, some eyes and just a little bit of paint, and it was all done in a day's work.
Everything with Mater is pretty authentic, including the rust. And Mater was really a tow truck in Gunnison, serving the community in the 1950s and '60s.
"You get talking to the old guys in town and they all recognize him from the good old days," adds Hendrickson. And now it seems everyone wants to have their picture taken with this old tow truck that doesn't even run.
"You've got to tow Tow Mater," laughs Hendrickson. "We had to tow him here, but maybe next year we'll have him ready to run."
He's a big attraction in a small town that feels a lot like Radiator Springs.
E-mail: spenrod@ksl.com
Thursday, June 30, 2011
CA ends internet tax free deals - Amazon quits Affiliate program
Amazon has already emailed its termination of its affiliate advertising program with 25,000 websites. The letter says, in part:
(The bill) specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers - including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you - even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.
We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Super Computers - Japan #1, China #2, USA, #3
Japan builds world's most powerful supercomputer - Techworld.com
Japan builds world's most powerful supercomputer
K system knocks Tianhe-1A off number one spot in Top 500 list
By Mikael Ricknäs | Published: 10:00, 20 June 11
A Japanese computer has taken first place on the Top 500 supercomputer list, ending China's reign at the top after just six months. At 8.16 petaflops, the K computer is more powerful than the next five systems combined.
The K computer's performance was measured using 68,544 SPARC64 VIIIfx CPUs each with eight cores, for a total of 548,352 cores, almost twice as many as any other system on the Top500 list. The computer is still under construction, and when it enters service in November 2012 will have more than 80,000 SPARC64 VIIIfx CPUs according to its manufacturer, Fujitsu.
Japan's ascension to the top means that the Chinese Tianhe-1A supercomputer, which took the number 1 position in November last year, is now in second spot with its 2.57 petaflops. But China continues to grow the number of systems it has on the list, up from 42 to 62 systems. The change at the top also means that Jaguar, built for the US Department of Energy (DOE), is bumped down to third place.
The latest iteration of the bi-annual list was released Monday at the 2011 International Supercomputing Conference.
Unlike other recent supercomputers, the K computer doesn't use graphics processors or other accelerators. It uses the most power, but is also one of the most energy efficient systems on the list, according to Top500.org. The supercomputer is installed at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe. When complete, it is intended to run at over 10 petaflops.
This is the first time Japan has had the most powerful supercomputer since the country's Earth Simulator was surpassed by the DOE's IBM BlueGene/L and by Nasa's Columbia in November 2004.
For the first time, all of the top 10 systems achieved performance over 1 petaflop, although they are the only systems on the list that reach that level. The US has five systems in the top 10, Japan and China have two each and France has one.
The DOE's Roadrunner, the first system to break the petaflop barrier in June 2008, is now in tenth place. The performance of computers on the list is measured using the Linpack benchmark, a set of routines that solve linear equations.
The last system on the new list was at position 262 six months ago, meaning almost 48 percent of the list has changed in the last six months, and the turnover rate has steadily increased during the last few lists, according to Top500.org which publishes the list. While performance at the top is advancing by leaps and bounds, movements lower down the list are more modest. The entry point for the top 100 increased to 88.92 teraflops from 75.76 teraflops six months ago.
IBM is the dominant manufacturer on the list with 213 systems in the Top 500, compared to HP with 153.
Intel continues to provide the processors for a majority of the systems on list, followed by AMD and IBM. Intel's Westmere processors are now used by 178 systems, up from 56 systems 6 months ago.
The Top 500 list is compiled by Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim, Erich Strohmaier and Horst Simon of NERSC/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee.
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