Gadgets

  • Can A Beautiful Mind Create a Beautiful Face?

    Beauty Function 470p
    A team of scientists recently developed software that, using a carefully tested and proven understanding of facial proportion, greatly improves the attractiveness of your face without damaging your defining features or whether people will recognize that the picture is of you.

    Ever seen a picture of yourself that was a little too good? You’re still you, just a tiny bit better than the real-life you. That’s what this software supposedly does. 

    The inventor says this technology could become a product or web service where people upload their photographs and have them enhanced or beautified by the software. 

    So, if there was an “optimize portrait” button on Facebook, would a lot of people use it? Probably.

    Here is a short video.

    Here is a direct link to the video.

    Related Articles:

  • Turn Talking Into Typing, Automatically

    Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 gets it right.  Finally speech recognition that is surprisingly accurate, even with little or no training.  Here is a 20-second video of me talking – and it typing.

    I wrote about using dictation before.  This is different, because it gets smarter as you use it. There are easy ways to edit results, and the program learns from each correction.

    For me, I know it works because I find myself using it to create drafts of many things.  And if it wasn't easier and more convenient than typing … I wouldn't use it.  Instead, I often wait to create the draft at the computer with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  The writing ends-up sounding more natural if the first draft was spoken.

    This program has matured nicely.  Earlier versions were temperamental and took a long time to train.  This one worked out-of-the-box.  I use it with a simple usb microphone (not even the noise-canceling headset they include). It also works with my handheld Olympus voice recorder.

    Give it a try.

  • Turn Talking Into Typing, Automatically

    Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 gets it right.  Finally speech recognition that is surprisingly accurate, even with little or no training.  Here is a 20-second video of me talking – and it typing.

    I wrote about using dictation before.  This is different, because it gets smarter as you use it. There are easy ways to edit results, and the program learns from each correction.

    For me, I know it works because I find myself using it to create drafts of many things.  And if it wasn't easier and more convenient than typing … I wouldn't use it.  Instead, I often wait to create the draft at the computer with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  The writing ends-up sounding more natural if the first draft was spoken.

    This program has matured nicely.  Earlier versions were temperamental and took a long time to train.  This one worked out-of-the-box.  I use it with a simple usb microphone (not even the noise-canceling headset they include). It also works with my handheld Olympus voice recorder.

    Give it a try.

  • “Now” Widget

    I saw this and spent some time watching the items change. 

    It's got lots of
    tickers and content that change as you watch.  You just weren't aware
    that you would enjoy knowing how many emails are being sent or spam
    emails being received.  There are also recent news updates from The New
    York Times, CNN, Newsvine, top Google searches of the day, and lots
    more.

    Here are some tidbits from the background audio patter.

    • "Welcome to Now," the computer says.
    • "How about a big bowl of Now?"
    • "Please keep your hands inside the moment."
    • "Your hair has grown 5 millionths of centimeter in the last second."
    • "It is Now in all timezones."

    Very clever and well-done.

    Below is a limited version.  The link to the complete version is below. 

    Click to play with the full widget.  Here is a screenshot of it – and, yes, that is me in the middle.

    081108 Now Widget Graphic 630p

  • “Now” Widget

    I saw this and spent some time watching the items change. 

    It's got lots of
    tickers and content that change as you watch.  You just weren't aware
    that you would enjoy knowing how many emails are being sent or spam
    emails being received.  There are also recent news updates from The New
    York Times, CNN, Newsvine, top Google searches of the day, and lots
    more.

    Here are some tidbits from the background audio patter.

    • "Welcome to Now," the computer says.
    • "How about a big bowl of Now?"
    • "Please keep your hands inside the moment."
    • "Your hair has grown 5 millionths of centimeter in the last second."
    • "It is Now in all timezones."

    Very clever and well-done.

    Below is a limited version.  The link to the complete version is below. 

    Click to play with the full widget.  Here is a screenshot of it – and, yes, that is me in the middle.

    081108 Now Widget Graphic 630p

  • Election Tools

    With the election coming in less than two weeks, I wanted to share some of the election websites that I check for updated information about how the race is going.

    The first website (called Five-Thirty-Eight.com) is graphically compelling, contains lots of updated information, and is done by someone whose primary job is communicating statistical information. The name comes from the number of electoral votes.

    081024 538 Electoral Projections 600p

    The second website (called Real Clear Politics) has a lot more news, and I like the summary showing how much of a lead each candidate has in contested states. Here's an example of that chart.

    081024 Real Clear Politics 600p

    And, here is a link to the top-10 election tools on the web.

  • Election Tools

    With the election coming in less than two weeks, I wanted to share some of the election websites that I check for updated information about how the race is going.

    The first website (called Five-Thirty-Eight.com) is graphically compelling, contains lots of updated information, and is done by someone whose primary job is communicating statistical information. The name comes from the number of electoral votes.

    081024 538 Electoral Projections 600p

    The second website (called Real Clear Politics) has a lot more news, and I like the summary showing how much of a lead each candidate has in contested states. Here's an example of that chart.

    081024 Real Clear Politics 600p

    And, here is a link to the top-10 election tools on the web.

  • Tune-Up Your iTunes Music Collection, Automatically

    For years I took my music collection for granted. I ripped many of my
    old CDs to disk, and simply allowed the computer to save the
    information anyway it chose to. Over time, it became clear that there were
    mistakes, missing information and, in general … a mess.

    After several limited attempts to clean my collection manually, I
    started looking for a better way. I certainly found something that
    worked for me. It's called Tune-Up.

    080919 iTunes Tune-Up Service
    Tune-up is a software add-on designed to clean your iTunes music collection. For me, that means fixing and standardizing the artist, album, song titles, and other data that helps me find the right music for my mood. I also appreciate how well it finds and updates cover art for songs and albums.

    Tune-Up accomplishes a lot of its magic by connecting to various data services (like Gracenote's MusicID).  While Tune-Up does most of the heavy lifting, I appreciate that it
    allows me to have the final say. It's very easy to accept its
    suggestions; yet, I still have the ability to ignore or override it
    based on how I want my music categorized.

    There's also feature that recognizes the song you're playing and displays other relevant information, like related concert dates in your area, links to videos by the artist, and recommendations about other songs or albums you might like.

    Bottom line:  This tool saved me a lot of time and works better than the other tools I've tried.

    If you don't use iTunes, or just want to check-out another good alternative, you can also look at MediaMonkey. And if you want a clean your music collection by finding duplicate tracks or to clean-out entries where you deleted or moved the actual music file, I recommend looking at Marklesoft's Dupe Eliminator.

  • Another Type of Image Toy – Deep Zoom

    The new Deep Zoom technology in Microsoft's Silverlight is pretty cool.  The smooth in-place zooming and panning that Deep Zoom allows is a true advancement and raises the bar on image viewing. High resolution images need to be prepared for use with Deep Zoom to control the zooming experience.

    Here is an example.

    Also, here are three links worth exploring about Deep Zoom:

    • This is a Deep Zoom site of Hard Rock Café Memorabilia (Hard Rock)
    • This is a Barack Obama supporter site using Deep Zoom (Obama)
    • And finally, here is a demo of a web site designed for Deep Zoom (Vertigo)

    If you want a little more background on this, here is a post about why this technology is new and different.

  • Another Type of Image Toy – Deep Zoom

    The new Deep Zoom technology in Microsoft's Silverlight is pretty cool.  The smooth in-place zooming and panning that Deep Zoom allows is a true advancement and raises the bar on image viewing. High resolution images need to be prepared for use with Deep Zoom to control the zooming experience.

    Here is an example.

    Also, here are three links worth exploring about Deep Zoom:

    • This is a Deep Zoom site of Hard Rock Café Memorabilia (Hard Rock)
    • This is a Barack Obama supporter site using Deep Zoom (Obama)
    • And finally, here is a demo of a web site designed for Deep Zoom (Vertigo)

    If you want a little more background on this, here is a post about why this technology is new and different.