Camera + Facebook = Facedeals. No, this won’t cause a panic…

Part of me wants to think that this is just a hoax but no, I think it’s real.

So how this works is that you sign up on Facebook to let Facedeal use your info. Now every time you walk into a store that has a Facedeal camera that can scan your face you get offers and junk sent to your smart phone.

“Facial recognition cameras are installed at local businesses. These cameras recognize your face when you pass by, then check you in at the location. Simultaneously, your smartphone notifies you of a customized deal based on your Like history…The Facedeals app must be authorized via your Facebook account. With your help, the app verifies your most recent photo tags, using those to map the physical appearance of your face. Our custom-developed cameras then simply use this existing data to identify you in the real world. Personalized deals can now be delivered to your smartphone from all participating locations—all you have to do is show your face.”

I can’t help but think that this is going to freak people out or at least prompt folks to wear Nixon masks when they post self pics to Facebook and walk around in public. Another use for the ‘V for Vendetta’ masks? Read more about this ‘wonderful’ new technology at the L.A. Times:

Facedeals checks you in with facial-recognition cameras – latimes.com.

Video from Facedeal…

Lego Minifigs Headed for Deep Space


Looks like there will be LEGO mini figs on the next NASA mission to Jupiter! Full scale minifig replicas rendered out of aluminum will be bolted to the Juno probe bound to the largest of the gas planets in our solar system. So for the next five years a tiny god Jupiter, his sister Juno, and the astronomer Galileo will be hanging out on a one way trip to promote children’s education in the area of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

[via Wired]

Lego Minifigs Soon Headed for Deep Space

Human Eye Like HDR Video System

I’ve long been a fan of the HDR image. Shooting full motion video has never seemed to be an option until now:

Anyone who regularly uses a video camera will know that the devices do not see the world the way we do. The human visual system can perceive a scene that contains both bright highlights and dark shadows, yet is able to process that information in such a way that it can simultaneously expose for both lighting extremes – up to a point, at least. Video cameras, however, have just one f-stop to work with at any one time, and so must make compromises. Now, however, researchers from the UK’s University of Warwick claim to have the solution to such problems, in the form of the world’s first full High Dynamic Range (HDR) video system.

World’s first full HDR video system sees like the human eye.

X-37B Returns from First Space Flight

Great news in the world of secret space flight:

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – The U.S. Air Force’s first
unmanned re-entry spacecraft landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base at
1:16 a.m. PST today.

The X-37B, named Orbital Test Vehicle 1 (OTV-1), conducted on-orbit
experiments for more than 220 days during its maiden voyage.  It fired
its orbital maneuver engine in low-earth orbit to perform an
autonomous reentry before landing.

The X-37B is the newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft. Managed
by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (AFRCO), the X-37B program
performs risk reduction, experimentation and concept of operations
development for reusable space vehicle technologies.

“Today’s landing culminates a successful mission based on close
teamwork between the 30th Space Wing, Boeing and the Air Force Rapid
Capabilities Office,” said Lt Col Troy Giese, X-37B program manager
from the AFRCO. “We are very pleased that the program completed all
the on-orbit objectives for the first mission.”

OTV-1’s de-orbit and landing mark the transition from the on-orbit
demonstration phase to a refurbishment phase for the program.

The Air Force is preparing to launch the next X-37B, OTV-2, in Spring
2011 aboard an Atlas V booster.

Brian Webb
http://www.spacearchive.info

I wonder if the X-37B has enough delta V to make it to the ISS? If it did then there might be hope for more re-supply missions that don’t rely on the Russian Progress launches.