A Very Unusual Apartment Building in Tokyo

Published by Nattyb

From: http://unrealitymag.com/

I love Japan for so many reasons. Mainly because of their game shows but I tell ya there’s just so much more. And in the life of the “unreal” you’ll find a pleathora of material in this country. Let’s take this wacky apartment for example.
This apartment is a geometric wonder.  The designer Sou Fujimoto created one of the most unusual apartment buildings in the world.  It is located in Tokyo and is composed of 5 distinct units with independent rooms which are all linked by stairs.
Hmm.  Linked by stairs.  Is that like a fire hazard or something?  Who knows.  Pics after the jump….

Fastest Book Scanner Ever Captures Flipping Pages with High-Speed Camera

The technology blows away the competition by scanning 200 pages a minute

By Jeremy Hsu

From http://www.popsci.com/

Super-Fast Book Scanner A high-speed camera eye takes speed-reading to a new level ... at least for Johnny 5 University of Tokyo/IEEE Spectrum

A new super-fast book-scanning technology could make publishers cringe even more than when they heard about Google Book Search. A University of Tokyo researcher has developed a "book flipping scanning" method that does exactly what it sounds like, digitizing 200 pages per minute, according to IEEE Spectrum. The Japanese researchers hope to enable a digital library for Japanese manga comics.

The scanner's camera runs at 500 frames per second, and captures rapidly flipping book pages in two modes. First, a regular line shines on the page to capture text and images. The second mode then manages neat the trick of reconstructing the curved, distorted pages in their original form. A laser device projects lines onto each page that the system can use to recreate the 3-D page model and correct the deformed lines.

Google's own proprietary book-scanning technology seems to use some sort of infrared camera to capture the 3-D shape of book pages, but the book lies flat and the page-turning mechanism is unclear. Other book scanners boast of capturing about 50 pages per minute, which is four times slower than the new method.

Masatoshi Ishikawa -- the University of Tokyo researcher behind the book-scanning marvel -- previously developed the fastest robot hands in the East, so he's probably not too worried about tiring out human hands by flipping book pages.

Miniaturized versions of this technology could eventually find their way into our smartphones for completely legal digitizing delights. Or it might combine with the robot hands to bring Short Circuit's Johnny 5 to life.

[via IEEE Spectrum]

2009’s Most Gorgeous Auto Show Babes

Editorial Team

from: http://www.nitrobahn.com/

With the conclusion of the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show, the blogosphere has been abuzz with the latest auto models that the world’s best automakers had to display. However, amidst all this, most failed to notice the insanely beautiful “Booth Babes” that have been paraded in tandem with every new car. And I personally wouldn’t be surprised if I end up being entranced more by these “Babes” than the Nissan GTR or Maserati GranCabrio on display right beside them. Here’s a compilation of some of the best booth babes to grace the auto show circuit this year.

2009 Geneva Auto Show

Source: [WorldCarFans]

2009 Detroit Auto Show

Source: [auto-o-holic]

2009 Frankfurt Auto Show

Source: [WorldCarFans]

2009 Shangai Auto Show

Source: [WorldCarFans]

2009 Melbourne Motor Show

Source: [PressPortal]

2009 Moscow Auto Show

Source: [EnglishRussia]

2009 Tokyo Motor Show

Source: [CarScoop]