High-Speed Robot Hand

Here is yet another amazing research done at Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory. They've created a high-speed robot hand that can perform impressive acts of dexterity and skillful manipulation. The original paper was presented at ICRA 2009. The video shows the manipulator dribbling a ping-pong ball, spinning a pen, throwing a ball, tying knots, grasping a grain of rice with tweezers, and tossing / re-grasping a cellphone!



Kudos to Victor Reshetnikov for sharing this awesomeness. He'd like to send greetings to everyone who've been bored enough to read this post and watch the video ;-)

Little Drummers

A friend of mine shared an awesome video of a 4 year-old Jonah's drum cover of Michael Jackson's Beat It. Unfortunately they had to shut off video embedding for legal reasons as the videos are of a child, and the music covered is owned by respective artists. Regardless of the formalities however, it definitely worth following the link and watching! Jonah has his own web-site www.JonahRocks.com and can be followed on YouTube, Twitter and MySpace.

Kids probably get some innate ability to drum as it turned there are quite a lot of other kid and baby drummers on YouTube:

Julian Pavone is 2 years old in this video, but already recruits for his band:



Another 2 years old Zaiven is playing his first show at Lannie's Clocktower Cabaret in Denver, Colorado!

Levi Eshleman is a 3 year old drummer that was featured on "Be A Drumhead" DVD:



Igor Falecki is a 4 year old in these videos. Aged 7 now he is touring the world with concerts.





Thanks to Ulli for sharing the link that inspired this post.

P.S. Turns out kids are good not only in drumming: see the talents Ukraine's got ;-)

Augmenting Aerial Earth Maps

An interesting research paper from Georgia Institute of Technology introduces methods for augmenting aerial visualizations of Earth (from tools such as Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth) with dynamic information obtained from videos. The goal is to make Augmented Earth Maps that visualize the live broadcast of dynamic sceneries within a city. They propose to analyze videos of pedestrians and cars, under differing conditions and then augment Aerial Earth Maps with live and dynamic information.



See also:

• Project's web-page
• Layar - World's First Mobile Augmented Reality Browser
• Sixth Sense Technology
• Yellow Bird

Luv Deluxe

Official Music Video of Cinnamon Chasers' "Luv Deluxe" from their album "A Million Miles From Home". Filming style is borrowed from The Prodigy's "Smack my bitch up", but the screenplay is very interesting, while the music is surely awesome!



Modus Records / Koch Entertainment (US)
Directed by: Saman Keshavarz
Produced by: Francis Pollara
Assoc. Producer: Nate Eggert

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

This hilarious sketch by Jeff Dunham has had more than 90 million views on YouTube since 2007! Awesome! -=8-)

Funkstyle on Cheboksary roads

В Чебоксарах поклали новий асфальт.



На перший погляд може здатися, що в новому асфальті для пішоходів нічого доброго нема. Але якщо добре придивитися, то на 33-ій секунді відео можна помітити, що дідок знайшов в цьому велику користь - він просто вирішив тряхнути стариною, і потанцювати брейк-данс перед своєю бойовою подругою! :)

Men's Brain Women's Brain

In this hilarious sketch, national marriage expert Mark Gungor explores the differences between men and women or what he calls, "The Laws of Relational Physics". Enjoy ;-)



Thanks to Zhanna for sharing!