A Toner Without Pigment

Fifth toner without pigment and FOGRA certified according to ISO 12647-7.

Thermally Pulsing the Surface Tension of Ink

Orange & White Dinosaur Tails

If you haven't seen it, Ed Yang has a nice post (thanks Tim) on some recent results in the area of color palaeontology. Specifically the analysis of melanosomes in dinosaur fossils, which allows some speculation about the color of dinosaurs. The post concludes with the quote:

Mike Benton, a co-author on the new study, says, "In Sinosauropteryx at least, essentially the most primitive dinosaur with feathers, the possession of an orange and white striped tail says 'display' of some kind, but whether for warning or pre-mating contests, we couldn't say."

For more details about phaeomelanin and eumelanin see also this nice primer on color mutations in rats.

16.7 Gb of Color per Second

Color at four hundred feet per minute.

Historical Color Translations on the ISCC Web Site

The ISCC has posted two historical color translations on it's web site. The translations include Aus dem Gebiet der Farbreizmetrik or On Color Stimulus Metrics by Robert Luther and Philipp Otto Runge’s Farben­Kugel or Color Sphere.



So now if you've ever asked yourself what is the Luther Condition, you can refer to Rolf Kuehni's translations of the original text.

Visualizing Crayon Colors

From the inbox (thanks David) comes a link to a nice visualization of crayon colors.



Given data from a little over a century it looks as though number of crayon colors doubles every 28 years.

Photonics West

We are science professionals, not professional bloggers, so we cheat a little by using the auto-pilot feature, where we write posts that are scheduled in the future. This time it back-fired, because Bahaa Saleh did not show up at EI; however, he just received his award at the Fellows Luncheon in San Francisco at Photonics West.

By the way, if you are attending, do not miss the Welcome Reception tonight at 7:00 pm in the Hilton San Francisco Union Square Hotel at 333 O'Farrell Street. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the laser (the first laser was fired up on 16 May 1960 by Ted Maiman), SPIE is featuring the "Cirque du Lasaire," a night of laser infused magic, conversation, acrobatics, and laser displays. For more information see http://spie.org/advancingthelaser.

Ultraviolet Protection Factor of Cellulosic Fabrics

It takes more than sunscreen to keep the sun's UV rays from harming your skin. The type of clothing you wear can offer protection, too—or not. It is not just the type of fiber and the weave of the fabric that matters, but also the color. Ascención Riva of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and colleagues Inés M. Algaba, Montserrat Pepió have addressed the color issue, studying the effects of different optical brighteners and dyes on the UV protection provided by lightweight woven cottons.

EI papers available online

Our EI papers are now available online from the SPIE Digital Library:

Font rendering on a GPU-based raster image processor: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.839486

Color naming: color scientists do it between Munsell Sheets of Color: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.846957

"Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest"

"Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest"

"It is true that other AI programs run forever; for example, if one considers the Google page rank algorithm that sorts web pages to be AI, then it could be considered an example of an AI program that lives forever."

"And then tile on top the bit.ly data and the Twitterfeed numbers (both on different scales) and you have an overall picture of growth of the real time web vs. Google and Amazon."