Tired of looking at your regular old face when video conferencing? OMOTE, a Japanese artist's collective, can work miracles in real time video.
(OMOTE Real Time Face Projection)
So how does it work? To oversimplify it: an array of cameras tracks the dots on their faces, akin to the way Hollywood motion capture systems work. They then take some truly amazing texture/animation work and digitally morph it around a model of each guy’s face — essentially making a mask of light — and project it onto their skin in real time.
Bruce Sterling's video-manicuring program from his 1985 novel Schismatrix should come to mind for science fiction fans:
Lindsay had a brief glimpse of the man's true appearance - white hair in spiky disarray, red-rimmed eyes - before a video-manicuring program came on line. The program raced up the screen one scan line at a time, subtly smoothing, deleting and coloring.
(Read more about Sterling's video-manicuring program)
Will Whales Be Our First Contact?
'He had piloted the Adastra to its first contact with the civilization of another solar system.' - Murray Leinster, 1935.
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Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
Stratospheric Solar Geoengineering From Harvard
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'