the_Bionic_lemming writes: Raising over 6.3 million dollars in just one month MST3K fans helped push the new 14 episode series past the Official Kickstarter Veronica Mars total of $5, 702, 153 by raising $5, 764, 229 On Kickstarter. $600, 000 + Was added to the total from the Add on store at MST3K.com . And what’s more, they did it with only 48, 270 backers compared to 91, 585 Veronica Mars backers. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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MST3K Breaks Kickstarter Record
The new tool out of Disney Research’s labs could turn an ingénue’s semi-decent attempt into a finely nuanced performance. This software called FaceDirector has the capability to merge together separate frames from different takes to create the perfect scene. It does that by analyzing both the actor’s face and audio cues to identify the frames that correspond with each other. As such, directors can create brand new takes during post-production with zero input from the actor. They don’t even need specialized hardware like 3D cameras for the trick — it works even with footage taken by regular 2D cams. According to Disney Research VP Markus Gross, the tool could be used to lower a movie’s production costs or to stay within the budget, say, if it’s an indie film that doesn’t have a lot of money to spare. “It’s not unheard of for a director to re-shoot a crucial scene dozens of times, even 100 or more times, until satisfied, ” he said. “That not only takes a lot of time — it also can be quite expensive. Now our research team has shown that a director can exert control over an actor’s performance after the shoot with just a few takes, saving both time and money.” Considering the lab also developed a way to make dubbed movies more believable and to take advantage of incredibly high frame rates , we wouldn’t be surprised if filmmakers arm themselves with an arsenal of Disney Research tools in the future. It’s probably hard to visualize the way FaceDirector works without seeing an example, so make sure to watch the video below to see it in action. Source: Disney Research (1) , (2)
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Disney’s FaceDirector changes facial expressions in movies
schwit1 writes: Federal investigators looking into the San Bernardino massacre deployed a spy plane overhead after the attacks in an apparent attempt to find additional suspects. The Department of Homeland Security is said to have put up the single engine craft over the California city and ordered it to make repeated circles overhead. The craft would likely have been equipped with Dirtbox technology which can scan tens of thousands of phones in one go to identify suspects. The report adds to the intrigue about whether or not there were accomplices in the San Bernardino attacks, which took place last Wednesday and were the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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DHS Deployed Plane Above San Bernardino To Scoop Up All Phone Calls After Attack
Scattered hand bones, severed arms, cracked skulls: if one thing is clear from this Neolithic burial pit, it’s that some some serious shit went down 6, 000 years ago. Read more…
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6,000 Year Old Death Pit Points to One Hell of a Brawl
9 planets where aliens could live When NASA scientists announced earlier this year that they had found evidence of liquid water on Mars, imaginations ran wild with the possibility that life could exist somewhere other than here on Earth. Scientists continue to explore the possibility that Mars once looked a lot like Earth — salty oceans, fresh water lakes, and a water cycle to go with it. That’s exciting stuff. So where else are they looking? What exactly are they looking for?
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9 planets where aliens could liveWhen NASA scientists announced…
Southern California residents witnessed a foreign substance falling from the sky as rain swept through the region over the last 24 hours. The storm also brought huge waves to the coast which ended up smashing the city of Ventura’s pier. Read more…
jjslash writes: For a few years now, Intel CPU overclocking has been limited to more expensive Core i5 and Core i7 ‘K’ processors. Skylake launched this year with the rumor of strong non-K processor overclocking through an adjustable base clock, but that never eventuated… until now. In overclocking circles it was rumored that BCLK (base clock) overclocking might become a possibility in Skylake processors, but it would be up to motherboard manufacturers to circumvent Intel’s restrictions. Asrock, Asus and a few other motherboard manufacturers are said to be issuing a BIOS update soon that will unlock base clock overclocking on Z170 motherboards. TechSpot has got an early look, overclocking a locked Core i3-6100 to 4.7GHz on air cooling. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Locked Intel Skylake CPUs Can Be Overclocked After BIOS Update
Model railroader John Ott has devoted years to creating a fantastically detailed, HO-scale recreation of Arkham, the site of HP Lovecraft’s horror stories, complete with model railroad engines and historically accurate cars. (more…)
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HO fhtagn! Detailed model railroad layout recreates HP Lovecraft’s Arkham
It looks like an alien parasite come to invade our brains, but the truly bizarre creature pictured above is a mud dragon—a tiny worm, roughly half the size of a grain of rice, that squirmed about the seafloor 530 million years ago. It’s one of the first fossils of a mud dragon ever discovered, and it could help scientists answer some big evolutionary questions. Read more…
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This Ancient Armored Mud Dragon Could Help Solve an Evolutionary Mystery
Add / Remove There has been much talk about driverless cars, and we’re seeing an abundance of assistive driving technology, such as this software for car-to-car communication . To demonstrate just what driverless cars are capable of, electric vehicle racing series Formula E have partnered with Kinetik to announce the world’s first driverless car race. The Roborace, scheduled for the 2016/17 season, will involve ten teams using the same basic driverless vehicles — the challenge will be in developing the competitive software. Teams will develop artificial intelligence that must be capable of dealing with real-time obstacles, overtaking maneuvers, and weighing up risk and reward scenarios. The races will take place on Formula E circuits (which host e-vehicle races) in major cities around the world, with the aim of showcasing the performance and ability of driverless technology in the extremes of speed and risk. Besides the professional teams, at least one team is to be crowdsourced. Further details are set to be announced in early 2016. First person drone racing has already been around for over a year. How else can autonomous robotics be applied to sports? Website: www.roborace.com Contact: hello@roborace.com The post Formula E announce first driverless car championship appeared first on Springwise .