If you share a picture of a tree in a forest, but no one can see it, did you really share it?

Working at Google, where teams aspire to “three-comma moments” (i.e. reaching 1,000,000,000 users), it’s become overwhelmingly clear to me that all the fancy features in the world don’t mean squat if people can’t access them. And traveling in Nepal, I got a taste of just how slow & expensive connectivity can be. Anything that helps deliver content faster & more cheaply means more democratic access to ideas & inspiration.

That’s why I’ve been really excited about RAISR (“Rapid and Accurate Image Super-Resolution”). The Google Research team writes,

[It’s] a technique that incorporates machine learning in order to produce high-quality versions of low-resolution images. RAISR produces results that are comparable to or better than the currently available super-resolution methods, and does so roughly 10 to 100 times faster, allowing it to be run on a typical mobile device in real-time.

I’ve been championing this tech within the company and—because the research paper is public—encouraging friends at Facebook, Adobe, Apple, and elsewhere to check it out. Fast, affordable access is good for everyone.

It’s funny: I came here to “teach Google Photoshop” (i.e. to make computers see & create like artists), yet if I do my job right here, you’ll never spot a thing. I’ve come to prioritize access far ahead of synthesis. Funny ol’ world.

PS—Obligatory (?) Old Man Nack remark: “In my day, Genuine Fractals, blah blah…”

My old Photoshop boss Kevin used to show a chart that nicely depicted the march of tools from simple & broad (think Clone Stamp) to sharp & purposeful (Healing Brush), smartly tailored to specific needs. I love to see how computer vision is helping to extend that arc, as demonstrated here:

Adobe says SkyReplace uses deep learning to automatically figure out the boundary lines between the sky and the rest of the shot (e.g. buildings and ground). It can then not only swap out the old sky and insert a completely new one, but it can adjust the rest of the photo to take on the same look and feel as the new sky, creating a more realistic look.

The N-up UI reminds me of Photoshop’s early-90’s Variations dialog. Maybe graphically, as well as politically, everything old is new again.

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I couldn’t take it; I just couldn’t take it.

In 1984, for the first time since 1945 (when my lifelong-fan dad was 5 years old), the Cubs won their division championship & reached the postseason. I remember sitting in the living room with my dad watching Harry Caray call Rick Sutcliffe’s winning pitch on WGN. Holy Cow!!

The Cubs proceeded to take a two-games-to-none lead in the best-of-five series with the San Diego Padres. No problem! Just win one game—one of three!—and they were through to the Series. Then… then they went full-on Cub, and during that fateful game 5 my cousin Andy & I headed upstairs to play Lego boats in the tub while the team blew their lead, the series, their shot. I just couldn’t take it.

And then… this past Wednesday. You know what happened. We went insane.

I’ll be honest, though, and confess just a little melancholy. It’s not 1984, and I’m not a kid watching the game with my dad. I’m thrilled for the team, but I can still tell you more players’ names from ’84 than from ’16. I’ve long lived in California and won’t tell you I follow the game or the team as I once did. The victory is great—amazing!—but… you can’t quite go home again.

Ah, but what if you could, just a little? Thanks to some clever & lightning-fast editing, Budweiser brought back to life that iconic voice of my youth, Harry “Cub fan, Bud man” Caray. Just watch. I can’t stop.

https://youtu.be/nApTGkLd2hs

And Harry, wherever you are, thanks. This Bud’s for you.

[YouTube]

Snapchat often describes itself as being “a camera company,” and clearly Facebook (owning Instagram, and having bought MSQRD), is taking a similar path:

The new camera will be accessible by simply swiping right while you’re looking at your news feed, making it easy to quickly snap a filtered moment to share.

 TechCrunch reports that there will be filters for your face (selfie masks, overlaid graphics, and geofilters), art-themed filters, and filters that “respond to your body’s movements.” 

We’ll have to see, though: A lot of the appeal of Snapchat’s filters has been in their social context: Here today, gone today—transient fun. As I’ve often said, the genius of Instagram was in helping regular people be a bit better, and the genius of Snapchat has been in letting them not care. Posting lasting stuff to FB generally equals caring. But who knows, perhaps like Instagram FB will introduce “here today, gone today” ephemeral stories. (I’d certainly use them.) Interesting times.

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“There’s no replacement for displacement,” and what’s true in engines holds true for cameras. Polish photographer Miron Bogacki has built his own drones (see PetaPixel for details) that can loft a big DSLR and capture imagery like this:

[YouTube] [Via]

File under Moments of Zen:

Join us for a fly-through of the International Space Station. Produced by Harmonic exclusively for NASA TV UHD, the footage was shot in Ultra High Definition (4K) using a fisheye lens for extreme focus and depth of field.

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Okay, I hesitated to share this as I’m allergic corporate self-congratulation, but A) it’s some pretty amazing aerial filmmaking (including in thunderstorms!), and B) the chase of the Androids is just so weird—and get only weirder/funnier as it progresses. That detail reminds me of Khoi Vinh’s smart observation from a couple years back:

Apple fans like myself often criticize Google for doing things that Apple would never do, and Smarty Pins is a prime example of that. Aside from being an unfair criticism, it’s pointless. The fact that Google endeavors to produce silly things like this is on the whole a positive thing, I believe. It’s acting according to its own compass, which is what every company should be doing.

Props to Joey Helms & crew.

[Via Alex Osterloh]

Wow:

We love VR. We love taking pictures. So we figured, why not try smashing the two together?

Sprayscape is a quick hack using the phone’s gyroscope to take pictures on the inside of a 360-degree sphere. Just point your phone and tap the screen to spray faces, places, or anything else onto your canvas. Like what you’ve captured? Share your creations via a link and your friends can jump into your scapes and have a look around using their phones or even Google Cardboard.

https://youtu.be/6o3_m4-YH9U[

 Nerdy details from the team:

 Sprayscape is built in Unity with native Android support. Sprayscape maps the camera feed on a 360 degree sphere, using the Cardboard SDK to handle gyroscope data and the NatCam Unity plugin for precise camera control.

The GPU makes it all possible. On user tap or touch, the camera feed is rendered to a texture at a rate of 60 frames per second. That texture is then composited with any existing textures by a fragment shader on the GPU. That same shader also creates the scape you see in app, handling the projection from 2D camera to a 360 sphere.

When a user saves a scape, a flat panorama image is stored in the app data. When a user shares a scape, the three.js web viewer takes that flat image and wraps it to a sphere, making it navigable on mobile web by panning, tilting, and moving your device.

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In the word of Beavis, “Fire… Fire.”

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Chuck that Dan Brown shite into some molten rock & peep this Inferno instead. (I mean, I’d listen to Werner read the phone book, and here he is talking volcanoes, for God’s sake.)

Werner Herzog’s latest documentary, Into the Inferno, heads just where its title suggests: into the red-hot magma-filled craters of some of the world’s most active and astonishing volcanoes—taking the filmmaker on one of the most extreme tours of his long career. From North Korea to Ethiopia to Iceland to the Vanuatu Archipelago, humans have created narratives to make sense of volcanoes; as stated by Herzog, “volcanoes could not care less what we are doing up here.” Into the Inferno teams Herzog with esteemed volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer to offer not only an in-depth exploration of volcanoes across the globe but also an examination of the belief systems that human beings have created around the fiery phenomena.

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whoa-oh-oh, I’m on fire…

Yan Liang of The Beauty of Science captures lovely combustion:

And if that’s up your alley, try some crystal:

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Amazing backyard pyrotechnics from The Slow Mo Guys:

“In total,” notes PetaPixel, “that explosion they captured lasted just 0.010004 seconds but they can stretch it out to a total of 50 seconds at 24fps. Bonkers.”

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From Boston to Benghazi, photogs are headed out to create beauty & raise money for a good cause. Scott Kelby writes:

If you haven’t signed up head over to the official site and see if there’s a photo walk set-up near you (if you haven’t checked in a while, it’s worth checking again – we have photo walks organized in over 1,000 cities with over 20,000 photographers walking around the world. – It’s not too late to sign up!)

Find a walk near you (it’s free).

Can’t walk? You can still help support the Photo Walk by supporting The Springs Of Hope Kenya Orphanage.

Don’t forget to share the event with your friends on Facebook or Twitter and use the event hashtag #WWPW2016.

 “POV: Preserve, Organize, Visualize”—that’s always been my mnemonic for Google Photos: your intelligent assistant should keep everything safe, help you navigate it through intelligent auto-organization, and then make it delightful to see & share the results.

Things are taking a big step forward with the introduction of concept movies:

Google Photos has always made movies for you using your recently uploaded photos. Now we’re going further, with new movies that are based on creative concepts — the kinds of movies you might make yourself, if you just had the time. And they’re not only limited to your most recent uploads. One of the first concepts is designed to show your child growing up right before your eyes.

Here’s a little capsule of my son Henry, made with zero work from me:

https://youtu.be/aNiu5mkyBns 


My fam has been loving these. When I sent her the Henry video, my wife said,

Oh my God, honestly? I’m all smiles. It’s so cute!!! The music is really perfect and the timing of shots against the music is also great. I’m feeling all mushy now.

And this is just the beginning:

We’re rolling out a couple more concepts this week, with more coming soon. Look out for a concept to commemorate the good times from this summer, and another one for formal events like weddings. And you don’t need to do a thing — these movies get made automatically for you.

As always, your feedback is most appreciated!

[YouTube]

Watching David Weiller’s footage of this Lychen Katydid from Costa Rica, I’m reminded of an old Creature Comforts bit featuring some animal being distinctly unimpressed with stick bugs: “Have you seen my impression of a stick? Yes.” (Damn if I can find the exact episode just now.) Anyway, here it is, your moment of specially evolved zen:

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Saving Private Ryan’s grueling first 28 minutes are iconic, but Evan Puschak provides a level of background (e.g. comparing the footage to battlefield films like John Ford’s The Battle of Midway) and insight I hadn’t heard before. Check it out:


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This is your DSLR.
This is your DSLR creeping along wires via a little drone cart doohickus. 

Awesome. Check out the demo & read more at PetaPixel. 


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Where we’re going, we won’t *need* waves…

Gizmodo writes,

Freefly Systems’ Alta 8, designed to carry heavy video equipment, has eight rotors making it strong enough to tow a surfer on a wakeboard. Say hello to the new sport of dronesurfing where waves aren’t necessary.

[YouTube]

Watch a camera-wearing eagle named Darshan plunge off the top of the Burj Khalifa—and just wait til he turns on the jets:

FREEDOM is delivering its message to urban audiences by capturing never-before-seen footage taken from the backs of Eagle’s flying from iconic city landmarks. Flights have taken place from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Tower Bridge, St Paul’s Cathedral, and the ArcelorMittal Orbit in London. … As a partnership FREEDOM is a pioneering movement for the conservation community. It not only seeks to reintroduce threatened birds of prey, but it also serves an ambassador role for all species, highlighting ways for people and organisations to become involved in supporting effective frontline nature conservation programmes.

The only thing that could improve the footage is Danzig pumping out a little Where Eagles Dare.

I’m not sure about all this “Darshan” talk, though. You know damn well it’s Donald.

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Wow.

“Using a GoPro Hero4 Session,” PetaPixel writes, “the clip puts you in the driver’s seat of a Hot Wheels car as it hurtles down 8 expertly crafted pieces of track connected by ‘teleporting tunnels…’ In all the car traversed about 200ft of track, most of it in the 4th section. As for the underwater drive, it’s real too.”

[YouTube] [Via Maria Brenny]

If somebody made Grand Theft Walnut, I’ll bet it’d look a lot like this:


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Here it is, your moment of Zen:

[Vimeo] [Via]

“Some of these end up looking like decaying clowns,” writes Jason Kottke. Well put. Now enjoy a little unexpectedly beautiful macro photography:

[YouTube]

The results of Plotagraph Pro, which enables warping still images to create animations, look pretty interesting (see below), though at a subscription rate of $300 (roughly 2.5x that of Photoshop & Lightroom combined), I think it’ll be a challenging sell. You can see the tool in action via a tutorial on the site.

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Check this out: 

A new personalized image search engine developed by a University of Washington computer vision researcher called Dreambit lets a person imagine how they would look a with different a hairstyle or color, or in a different time period, age, country or anything else that can be queried in an image search engine.

After uploading an input photo, you type in a search term — such as “curly hair,” “India” or “1930s.” The software’s algorithms mine Internet photo collections for similar images in that category and seamlessly map the person’s face onto the results.

Beyond obvious fun & beauty applications, tech like this could be amazing for the age-progression work of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

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Props to Le Cut Studio and their DJI Phantom 4 drone: 

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Tired of waiting for Street View cars to capture the beautiful, winding roads of the Faroe Islands, local residents have devised SheepView360! Resident Durita Dahl Andreassen writes,

I gently placed a 360˚ camera, powered by a solar panel, on the back of a sheep that would take photographs as the animal freely grazed the open hillsides of the Faroe Islands. Photos are then transmitted back to my mobile phone so that I can upload them to Google Street View myself, finally putting the Faroes on the map in a very unique way!

Sometimes, in an often dark & sad world, someone—and some sheep—go and make it less so.

Cool stuff from GoPro, though I’d have liked a bit more detail on the actual camera/lighting settings: 

Please note PetaPixel’s important note of caution:

Warning: This photography technique can be very dangerous and can cause serious bodily injuries and damage to a place if not done in a safe and controlled manner. In 2016 alone, steel wool photography has been blamed for burning down an iconic shipwreck and a 1920s landmark. Thus, it should only be done with appropriate care for surroundings, adequate safety equipment, and permission to use the specific location.

[YouTube]

I dig the sharp, split-screen editing of these bodies in motion:

Inspired by the mythological chimera—a fierce hybrid of a lion and a goat with a snake’s head for a tail—director Steven Briand’s balletic short sees dancers merge three unique movement styles through a single sequence, all choreographed by MIA collaborator Cathy Ematchoua.

[Vimeo] [Via]

Sure, it’s no “frickin’ laser beam,” but the GoPro on this ill-tempered sea bass’s shark’s fin offers a novel perspective: