Technology company Nvidia has always been the best when it comes to delivering high-quality graphics. Now, they try to surpass their limits as they change 2-D images into 3-D models through the use of encoder-decoder architecture.

Paul Lilly in Hot Hardware was among the tech watchers who made note that the way they went from 2-D-to-3-D was news. It's no big surprise when the path is the reverse—3-D into 2-D—but "to create a 3-D model without feeding a system 3-D data is far more challenging."

Lilly quoted Jun Gao, one of the research team who worked on the rendering approach. "This is essentially the first time ever that you can take just about any 2-D image and predict relevant 3-D properties."

Why is this technology “news”? Because it is insanely fast. The renderer can produce a 3-D object from a 2-D image in less than 100 milliseconds. If that is not impressive, I don’t know what is.

The technology also has real-world applications such as in security and autonomous cars.

More details over at TechXplore.

(Image Credit: Nvidia)

When Nichola Mullen-King from Newcastle returned home on Monday, December 2, she was extremely surprised when she found her whole kitchen under wraps… literally! Her husband Carl had covered the entire room and almost everything in it in Christmas wrapping paper, including the fruit, the chopping board, as well as the utensils. Talk about dedication!

The amusing act took him around two hours to complete and it's fair to say Nichola wasn't all that impressed with his work.

Sharing snaps of her 'new' kitchen on Facebook , she wrote: "My a******e of a husband came up with the bright idea to wrap part of the kitchen for elf on the shelf…

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Caters News Agency)

The oceans are our world’s most significant carbon sink. They absorb the carbon dioxide and excess heat generated by greenhouse gas emissions. With this in mind, they could be a great ally in reducing the impact of climate change. There is a problem, however. Overfishing, global warming, and plastic pollution are destroying the ecosystems of the sea, and this hinders the capacity of the seas to store carbon and absorb heat.

It is vital to halt overfishing and to curb the stream of waste entering the precious oceans. It could help tackle the climate crisis. If governments forged a new treaty to protect the oceans and created ocean sanctuaries around the world, it could restore many areas to health. By setting a target of safeguarding 30% of the oceans (at least) by 2030, it would combat global heating, according to a new report by Greenpeace International called In Hot Water.

Learn more about the capabilities of our oceans over at Intelligent Living.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

In 1912, the body of a murder victim was found in Georgetown, Connecticut. She had been tied with wire and had holes in her head. The eventual discovery of a burned crate nearby led police to look for the killer in New York City.

Two weeks after the body of an unidentified woman was discovered in a Connecticut mill pond, a cat helped police find the murder weapon in the East 40th Street apartment where the woman had been killed.

The story had everything a news editor could want for writing eye-catching headlines: murder, sex, mystery, gore, and some very colorful characters, including an Italian laborer called Monkeyface Suciciada, a prostitute named Grace Carbone, and a beautiful teenage girl named Turiddi.

Oh yes, there was also a cat named Tipsy involved in the drama. The cat had a reputation as an expert mouser. The man she helped nab was called Salvatore “the mouse” Geracci.

Read the story of the murder investigation, and how Tipsy the cat factored into it at The Hatching Cat. -via Strange Company

This lonely hearts ad looks like a joke, but it is a real story about a real duck. Chris Morris of Blue Hill, Maine, had three ducks, but two of them were taken by a bobcat. Yellow Duck fell into a funk, mourning the loss of Brown Duck and Gray Duck, one of which was her mate. She stopped hanging around the chickens and quacked at unusual times.

So the 31-year-old special education teacher crafted a singles ad for her and hung it on the community bulletin board at the Blue Hill Co-op.

“Duck seeking duck,” Morris wrote. “Lonesome runner duck seeks companion. Partner recently deceased. Serious replies only.”

“We wanted to post about this to try to find a duck, and that just seemed like the best fit,” Morris said.

The ad worked! Yellow Duck will have her pick of new mates. Read the details of the story at the Bangor Daily News.  -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Brook Ewing Minner)
 

When ur dad finds ur extensions pic.twitter.com/cJWTnKLqiT

— Not Evan (@actuallynotevan) March 4, 2017

These wisecracking dads being themselves on the Internet are the 'dad joke' meme equivalents of the digital age. In 24 posts, here are moments that made the Internet collectively facepalm or laugh out loud at these jokes, or rather anti-jokes. Wholesome, simplistic, and often pleasantly unexpected, some kinds of humor (and people) never change.

View this post on Instagram

But imagine how sellable it’ll be at a future garage sale. 💻✨ @ClassicDadMoves . . Source: u/I-love-llamas (Reddit r/mildlyinfuriating)

A post shared by Classic Dad Moves (@classicdadmoves) on Oct 24, 2019 at 1:32pm PDT

What’s more is that Merriam-Webster recently added the informal term as a dictionary entry: 

a wholesome joke of the type said to be told by fathers with a punchline that is often an obvious or predictable pun or play on words and usually judged to be endearingly corny or unfunny 

It’s interesting to know how jokes become culturally considered as dad jokes, without the stereotypical notion of being told by a literal father or father figure.

Here’s the original thread. 

(Image credit: BuzzFeed)

Private Wojtek served proudly with the Polish Army during World War II, although he never set foot in Poland his entire life. He was a diligent worker, loading ammunition before and during battles, and retired as a hero. Also, Private Wojtek was a bear. In 1942, a unit of Polish soldiers adopted a baby bear in Iran after its mother had been shot by a hunter. The bear, named Wojtek, ended up with the 22nd Artillery Supply Company.  

Sergeant Peter Prendys was appointed as Wojtek’s principal guardian. The quiet 46-year-old sergeant, soon dubbed “Mother Bear” by his soldiers, truly became the cub’s surrogate mother, wrapping the bear in his army coat on chilly evenings and cuddling him to sleep in their shared tent. Soon, Wojtek graduated from condensed milk to fruit, marmalade, honey, and syrup. But his favorite treat was cigarettes, which he preferred to eat rather than smoke.

As Anders’ Army headed toward Palestine to meet up with British forces, Wojtek grew up playing with Prendys and his other human friends, who taught him to wrestle and salute. He enjoyed lingering in the camp’s kitchen area, where he would happily eat or drink anything the cooks offered him. When he had been a very good bear, the men would give him a bottle of beer or wine, which he would gulp down before staring mournfully into the empty bottle until one of the soldiers took the hint and tossed him another.

By 1944, Wojtek was full-grown and the unit was ordered to Italy. In order to take the bear, Wojtek was drafted into the army as Private Wojciech “Wojtek” Perski. It was in Italy that Wojtek showed his bravery, utility, and heroism in battle. Read the full story Wojtek the war hero bear, or listen to it, at Damn Interesting.

How many ways to soften butter can you think of? Off the top of my head, I can name the lazy cold-butter-on-really-hot-toast style, the precarious microwave method (unless done right), and well… that’s the extent of my experience from preparing butter on toast for breakfast. But there’s plenty more uses for melting butter other than breakfast (as I just learned), in particular for baking cakes and cookies:

If it’s not soft enough, the butter won’t cream well with the sugar (frequently the first step of baking recipes); it simply won’t get to the right light and fluffy consistency. And that could result in dense cake layers that fall flat. On the other hand, if your butter is too soft, your cookies will spread out all over your pan.

These butter-ficionados made it their mission to find out which softening methods work best and how long do they take. Oh, and by ‘softened’ they mean that the butter “easily bends without breaking and gives slightly when pressed.” 

Here are the results for your educational enjoyment. Follow the The Kitchn for more!

Photo: Pixabay

It’s pretty much inevitable that you’d come across an article like this as the year draws to an end. Not to mention it’s the season where some adults make frantically searching online for ‘the best gift to give a loved one’ look like a sport.

The top suggested tech products of 2019 are here. And sitting at #1 is the eyeglasses that has music playing and wireless calling capabilities and looks like it came straight out of a modern spy movie. Also making it to the top are: a Robot Unicorn that helps you learn coding, a ultralight drone that can technically fit in the palm of a hand, and a cordless vacuum that's slightly cheaper than its rival counterpart. 

Check out The Guardian for the full article. 

Photo: Bose Corporation

If you happen to be lurking the web and are interested to learn more about photography, try this list of various photography-related links that cover a range of topics including How To’s, People’s Choice Photos, Tips & Techniques, and Sample Shots.

In this weeks list of hand-curated links we find tutorials, special features and great photography to learn from and enjoy, all brought to us by some of the best people working in the field today.

There are useful suggestions for both the beginner and the hobbyist. You can learn what aperture settings pros recommend for maximum image quality. And the list isn’t limited to any one kind of style of photography, but allows you to access information about many other categories, even the fun and light style. 

I find the tutorials on holiday-themed photos particularly timely. Head over to the full article here. 

Photo: pxhere

A Kickstarter campaign is crowdsourcing funds for their ‘intelligent’ indoor dog toilet known as “INUBOX: The First Fully Automated Dog Toilet.” 

Clean, smart, heavy-duty & modern design. INUBOX captures, processes & contains liquid and solid dog waste in a hygienic way. After each use, it releases a treat for your dog’s training. Our patented process prevents bad odors & delivers an eco-friendly sealed bag for disposal. INUBOX is THE next step for your smart home.

The INUBOX comes with several unique features including a fragrance dispenser, multiple senors (weight, ultra sound, and thermal), touch screen, anti-scratch powder coating, and an automatic system for clean and efficient waste removal.

What do you think about this project? 

Check out their story here. You can also find them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

(Image credit: Inubox via Kickstarter)

Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs has now a stage editor feature thanks to the new update of the said VR game. This update lets players to be creative with their pig-destroying mischief.

This is the first-ever level builder for the series, according to developer Resolution Games. Players can place blocks, planks of wood, explosives and pigs in an environment, setting up challenging structural puzzles or cathartic domino-effect demolitions.

Resolution Games hopes to release an online version of the stage editing mode next year. This would allow players to share their creations with others and compete for titles like the most difficult and creative levels, or the highest score.

Angry Birds just got more fun!

(Image Credit: Resolution Games)

For the first time ever, determining whether the person behind a wall is the same person who appears in a given video footage, using only a pair of WiFi transceivers outside, is now possible, thanks to researchers from UC Santa Barbara.

This novel video-WiFi cross-modal gait-based person identification system, which they refer to as XModal-ID (pronounced Cross-Modal-ID), could have a variety of applications, from surveillance and security to smart homes. For instance, consider a scenario in which law enforcement has a video footage of a robbery. They suspect that the robber is hiding inside a house. Can a pair of WiFi transceivers outside the house determine if the person inside the house is the same as the one in the robbery video? Questions such as this have motivated this new technology.

More details about this study over at The Current.

(Video Credit: Mostofi Lab/ YouTube)

‘Oumuamua, the much-discussed interstellar space rock, is best viewed as a comet with strange properties and not as an alien space probe, astronomers at Yale and Caltech suggest.

The space rock is the first macroscopic object of clear interstellar origin that can be seen within Earth’s solar system. It has been traveling through space for millions of years before it entered the Solar System. It has a length of 900 feet.

Researchers from the University of Hawaii first discovered ‘Oumuamua on Oct. 19, 2017, more than a month after it passed its closest point to the Sun. They named the object after the Hawaiian word for “scout.”

In the months since then, ‘Oumuamua’s behavior has baffled astronomers. For example, the object has showed a small but persistent acceleration that could not be explained simply by the Sun’s gravitational pull. As observations came in, there were a number of reclassifications and revisions to theories: It was classified as a comet, then as an asteroid, and finally as an interstellar object. Theories about its origin include everything from being a planetary fragment to a spaceship.

Check out more details about this weird space object over at Yale News.

(Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser)

How would you respond to a rude customer? A thread about a highschooler who works weekends at a coffee shop has gained popularity on Reddit’s AITA. According to this recent post, the employee thought it would be a fun idea to get back at rude customers by asking the shift manager to pretend-fire her after a hot headed customer made a complaint about the coffee not being hot enough. 

Redditors on the r/AITA thread generally had mixed judgements on the situation, with some saying she was wrong for causing a big fuss and being unprofessional, others criticizing the customer and justifying her prank, and still there were those who said both the employee and customer suck. 

Read the original article from Bored Panda, they also share helpful suggestions from the “How to be Barista Guide.”

Photo freestocks.org / Pexels