20 Artistic Architectural Optical Illusions

 ”Seeing is believing… or is it? Aided by high-tech materials, today’s artists and architects are finding that if it can be imagined, it can also be built. This selection of architectural optical illusions showcases 20 more very public ways to fool the eye, please the mind and satisfy the soul.

View Illusions

The Future of Motion Controls

While the Wiimote control came as a fabulous gaming surprise, it has its sensitivity drawbacks, something that the Truemotion 3D system really overcomes. Check out these demo videos. Sixense designed this to use magnetic field detection so it can track both your hands on the controller position in full 3D real-time, accurate to within a 10 millisecond refresh rate.

Amazing Video Demos

Patternicity: Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise

“Why do people see faces in nature, interpret window stains as human figures, hear voices in random sounds generated by electronic devices or find conspiracies in the daily news?”

Does everything we see mean something, or are we just imposing meaning on random events?     Full Article

Street View is Fullscreen, Cooler

There are some interface changes for Google Maps (primarily in the way street view works).  There’s no longer a Street View button, so you must click and drag the orange ‘human icon’, who lives atop the zoom slider and drop it onto the map.  The display instantly converts into a 360 degree street view with a less cluttered, more “you are there” experience than before.  To return to a normal map, click the “X” on the top right of the map.

http://maps.google.com/

I think this IS an Alien!

“A mile and a half underwater, a remote control submersible’s camera has captured an eerie surprise: an alien-like, long-armed, and—strangest of all—”elbowed” Magnapinna squid.”

Or do they just want us to believe it’s a squid?

Story with video of the creature

Safe and UnSafe

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has released its list of 72 vehicles earning their Top Safety Pick awards for 2009. Do you feel safe in YOUR car.

http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr112508.html

Meanwhile MoPIRG’s 23rd Annual Toy Safety Survey highlights potentially dangerous toys and identify trends in toy safety.

http://mopirg.org/MO.asp?id2=45918#1

We Are People of the Screen

“Everywhere we look, we see screens. The other day I watched clips from a movie as I pumped gas into my car. The other night I saw a movie on the backseat of a plane. We will watch anywhere.  Screens playing video pop up in the most unexpected places — like A.T.M. machines and supermarket checkout lines and tiny phones; some movie fans watch entire films in between calls.”

Full Article

What’s this is a picture of?

Make your guess, then click this link for the full photo-story.

Hint- it’s not an alien monster.

Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs trailer

Follow this link to watch the adorable trailer.

New Digital Library from EU

“This new digital library was launched by the European Union this Thursday. Now with a single click of your mouse you can get access to the world’s cultural heritage.

The website ( www.europeana.eu) provides an impressive multi-lingual collection of two million books and other digitized items that were treasured in European museums and archives. This is just the beginning. By 2010 you’ll be able to find about 10 million items at this unique online library.   full story

NOTE: The site is down at the moment from being overloaded, but they claim they’ll be back by Mid- December – HUH?