Please Raise Your Right Hand: The Other Right Hand

The Illusion of Owning a Third Arm

"In these experiments two visible rubber hands or virtual hands were stimulated in synchrony with touches applied to the hidden real hand, which, reportedly, produced a referral of somatic sensations to both rubber/virtual hands. These studies indicate that supernumerary limb illusions might be possible."

Guterstam A, Petkova VI, Ehrsson HH, PLoS ONE 6(2): e17208. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017208

Metadata in images

I just received the latest issue of the print version of Optical Engineering in the mail. It has a paper on storing metadata in images that is related to some work I described recently, namely Rob Tow et al.'s glyphs, and the watermarking and steganography work by Gaurav Sharma et al. respectively Robert Ulichney et al.

The citation is: Jen-Chang Liu and Hsiang-An Shieh, "Toward a two-dimensional barcode with visual information using perceptual shaping watermarking in mobile applications", Opt. Eng. 50, 017002 (Jan 21, 2011); doi:10.1117/1.3529430.

The link is: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.3529430.

Mik Lamming's Digital Darkroom

In the mid-eighties the world of electronic imaging was still rarified. Researchers were pushing the state of the art on very expensive computers and vying to get their papers into SIGGRAPH. Some years earlier, IBM's monochrome Selectric typewriter and the monochrome Xerox copier had banned color from the office, with the demise of color ribbons (black and red, sometimes blue too) and multicolor mimeographs.

Pity the Pilcrow

Fascinating ancient history of ¶, and writing in general. Who knew that ¶ started life as the letter 'Κ' for kaput?
Aside: I’m puzzled by the claim that ‘K’ represents kaput or head. As neither an epigrapher nor an etymologist, I would’ve thought the Κ was a Greek kappa, based on surrounding the text; unless it was inserted at a much later time. In which case, it would be the Latin caput for head, wouldn't it? But that's not a K. If, however, it’s a later Teutonic inscription, the word for head would be kopf.

Open Access

I am not an expert in social media and do not know why all the feedback on this blog comes through email instead of comments. Today, I am answering to an emailed comment on my post of Friday, January 28, 2011 where I announced the links to our EI papers. The topic is open access.

The Business of Color and Bose-Einstein Condensation

Surprised to hear this piece about Pantone on NPR this morning.

"One of the most influential committees is a group of 10 people whose names are a secret. They meet in Europe twice a year (May and November) at the invitation of Pantone, a company based in Carlstadt, N.J., whose only business is color. In fact, Pantone has a hand in the color of roughly half of all garments sold in the U.S."

"Why would any designer want to run with the pack? John Crocco, the creative director for Perry Ellis, calls color forecasts 'a self-fulfilling prophecy.' He says if designers choose to follow such forecasts, then they'll be 'part of what ultimately becomes the trend.' But if designers disregard the trend, they risk irrelevance — just about the worst thing imaginable for any label."

All of which begs the obvious question: Is this is an example of Bose-Einstein condensation (winner takes all) in a scale-free marketplace?

More on combatting bit rot with steganography

Last December First, I wrote about the story behind the data glyph technology and the preservation of digital images (here is the link). As it happens, at the Electronic Imaging Symposium two weeks ago, two papers presented recent progress on this technology.

Mirror Measures Body Temperature

A Japanese technology firm unveiled a mirror-like thermometer that can identify a person who is feverish. "Thermo Mirror," which looks like a table mirror, measures the skin temperature of the person looking into it, without the need for physical contact, said the firm, NEC Avio Infrared Technologies. The person's temperature is displayed on the surface, and the device has an alarm that will beep when detecting a subject who is feverish. "We foresee uses at corporate receptions, schools, hospitals and public facilities," NEC Avio said in a statement. The company said it aimed to sell 5,000 units in one year.

New SPIE Fellow at EI

Each year, SPIE promotes members as new Fellows of the Society. Fellows are Members of distinction who have made significant scientific and technical contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics, photonics, and imaging. They are honored for their technical achievement, for their service to the general optics community, and to SPIE in particular. "The annual recognition of Fellows provides an opportunity for us to acknowledge Members for their outstanding technical contributions and service to SPIE," says Katarina Svanberg, SPIE President.

At this year's EI, Prof. Yu-Jin Zhang of Tsinghua University was promoted for achievements in image engineering