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The following video demonstrates a software application that resizes images in such a way that the content of the image is preserved intelligently. The basic idea is that if you want to stretch out an image, it will keep the key elements of the photo in sensible places while filling in less important areas. The same goes for shrinking an image - it will eliminate the less important features of an image and leave the main subject areas intact and in the same relative location as they previously appeared in the image.

This is the work of Dr. Ariel Shamir from Efi Arazi School of Computer Science.

RSS readers should click here to watch the movie.

Via Fábio Pedrosa.

A great video, showing what subliminal messages can do. Personally, I never thought this would work a this level, it's pretty scary, if you ask me. Watch the video till the end, or you'll lose the best part:

Via Sérgio Rebelo.

Back on February, I posted one article about a Pulp Fiction dialog, presented with moving typography, perfectly synchronized with the text, with a lot of funny and creative details.

Later, I found out this presentation technique was named kinetic typography, and that is being explored in the School of Design at CMU since 1996, by Johnny Lee under the direction of Scott Hudson and Jodi Forlizzi.

But, after all, what is the definition of kinetic typography?

Kinetic typography refers to the art and technique of expression with animated text. Similar to the study of traditional typography of designing static typographic forms, kinetic typography focuses on understanding the effect time has on the expression of text. Kinetic typography has demonstrated the ability to add significant emotive content and appeal to expressive text, allowing some of the qualities normally found in film and the spoken word to be added to static text.

In the meantime, I've collected some of this movies, and arranged them in a YouTube playlist. If want, you can watch the movie explaining what is kinetic typography, or be still and watch the playlist (12 videos, aprox. 22 minutes):

RSS readers should click here to watch the movies.

Related article: Vodafone's kinetic typography with user generated content. An idea for a Christmas card.

Google's motto is and always has been "Don't be evil". Are they planning to change it?

• Evidence #1
• Evidence #2

Two weeks ago, ASAE (Economics and Food Security Agency) seized the servers of three portuguese torrent aggregators, BTuga, ZeTuga and ZeMula. The news also informed that ASAE was planning to investigate all the users of this sites. Yes, we are talking about more than 200 thousand users. If the task seems impossible to achieve, due to the huge number of users, it also seems illegal under the EU law, as stated by this article from The Register (concerning a different case).

What do you think about it?