Archive for the ‘Tecnología’ Category

The best Octave tutorial

Posted: 2 May, 2013 by Mayitzin in Ciencia, Internet, Science, Tecnología
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Yes, as the title says, the best Octave tutorial out there is the one made by Professor Andrew Ng from Stanford. He started his world-famous Coursera almost two years ago. Now is one of the most successful companies in the world, why? Because it really gives what it promises and more: makes you understand Science.

Well, well go deep on it by yourself. These videos down are one of the first videos that Profr. Ng made for the course “Machine Learning”. I took it a year ago in its original website ml-class.org and it amazed me. I understood everything and didn’t have to smash my head to do so.

One of the chapters of his class was about handling Octave, the best free substitute for Matlab. Are you eager to master these computing tools? Dive into Octave next to Professor Ng. I promise you will be also amazed by the clear and concise way he teaches. This, my dear people, is the best Octave tutorial ever:

Part 1:
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Visual Navigation for Flying Robots

Posted: 19 April, 2013 by Mayitzin in Ciencia, Entertainment, Entretenimiento, Internet, Science, Tecnología
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Free lectures! Free courses on-line! Free! Free!

Got your attention? I’m like spam.

So far, so good. It has been a year since I decided to get fully involved in this field of Computer Vision, and hasn’t been easy, but I gotta say it is full of surprises. My University has been strongly doing some research about it, and a proof of that is that the 3D Computer Vision course given in Coursera is actually done by a Professor in my university (tho in German). So, I think we’re moving quite strong.

quadrocopter

My curiosity took me to the Computer Vision chair of the Informatics Department at the TUM and I think this semester they completely got me, as I’m planning to get the 3 lectures given there: Visual Navigation for Flying Robots, Multiple View Geometry and Machine Learning for Robotics and Computer Vision. Robotics, Machine Learning and Computer Vision! Makes my mouth water. Huh! Beautiful. (more…)

VHS mode in Youtube

Posted: 15 April, 2013 by Mayitzin in Ciencia, Cine, Entertainment, Entretenimiento, Humor, Internet, Science, Tecnología, TV
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Not sure if a late Easter egg, a passing joke or a permanent feature (would be fun), but Google gives us again the opportunity to play around with the common things on the internet.

This time comes all through Youtube. A new feature was added to the player of Youtube: the “Tape Mode”. You click it and your image will seem like an old VHS-cassette-like video. Quite nostalgic, I would say. I just discovered it watching some Ellen videos (I admit it, goddamit, that woman’s jokes are funny for me), and discovered this one with Steve Carell (better if you watch it in Youtube‘s website):

The legend says that they do it because of the 57th Anniversary of the commercial realease of the first VHS cassette. Well, quite a random number for me, but anyways. Not all videos have this feature. Apparently you just have to randomly find them too. Buuuu!!

Oh yeah, click “Pause” and it will keep the old effect of the cassette. These hipsters are everywhere with the electronic vintage effects. First their instagram, now this. I don’t think is gonna last, but I’d activate it for fun only.

Find a nice video and give it a try!

Festo and its biological inspiration

Posted: 2 April, 2013 by Mayitzin in Ciencia, Entertainment, Entretenimiento, Internet, Science, Tecnología
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Many companies around the world are fascinated with natural selection, because there is no wider range of inspiration for technology than the nature itself. Machines, robots and software are being designed with a strong background in biological elements. It is not coincidence that terms like mouse, virus or bug are common in the thecnological field.

Festo is a german company whose main goal is to design and build actuators for the automation industry. They are one of the biggest in this field. However, the german engineering is challenging through Festo again, and the innovation lovers in the company created the Festo Bionic Lab, where they have a complete freedom to experiment with their creativity. What have they done? A field entirely made of biological immitation. Their creations may  deceive your eyes at first sight, but oh boy! They have nailed it. Let’s check their main robots (my favorites), just for you to have an idea what I’m talking about…

The Airacuda was the first project, released in 2006, and the big challenge was to create a system that could really be an underwater robot, behaving and moving as a real fish. It still seems quite “robotic” with no emphasis in its out-looks, but the engineering behind such an underwater systems has been a true innovation copying the fish.

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Treasure Hunt in Google Maps

Posted: 31 March, 2013 by Mayitzin in Comedy, Entertainment, Entretenimiento, General, Humor, Internet, Tecnología
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And the guys in Google seem to have lots of free time. Following the concept they created last year with an 8-bit Google Maps, this year they come with a new idea for April’s fool: an old style Treasure Hunt. I don’t know for how long it’s gonna be available but this trick looks very odd (tho funny).

When you open Google Maps for the first time you can see on the upper right options of visualization, an option that states ” Treasure”. Click it. That’s it, you can see now your map as an old middle aged map. They say you can find some hidden treasure chests, but I think it’d be very hard and time-consuming.

Munich vintage

But what happens when you wanna have a closer look? Well, unfortunately it zooms in until a definite distance, as they didn’t rendered all buildings and streets, just the main ones. However, if you choose the “Street view”, you will have a surprise having an old telescope-like look.

Munich landscape vintage

Aaaaand, that’s this year’s Easter Egg from Google Maps. Maybe not so special but, quite creative and entertaining. Have a look at your city. How much stuff is in it? Did you see the most interesting things?

3D Reconstruction of a face from a single image

Posted: 11 January, 2013 by Mayitzin in Ciencia, Entertainment, Entretenimiento, Science, Tecnología
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I don’t know if scary, jaw-dropping or simply impressive, but it turns out that there is already an algorithm developed here in Germany by Professors Volker Blanz and Thomas Vetter, that reconstructs a face in 3D from one image. Yes! out of a single image!

Maybe it wouldn’t sound that amazing at first sight, but you have to think about all the possible applications. Besides identifications, you can entirely play around with the information out of peoples’ faces, prediction, tracking, augmented reality, medical procedures, etc.

Is it something new? No way! It was presented in the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive techniques of 1999! That’s right, fella, 14 years ago!

But why nobody used this impressive technique? Well, my guess is, of course, because of the computation times of it. Yes yes, very good, looks great and reconstructs faces pretty good, BUT took 50 minutes to reconstruct a face.

But wait a second! It was 14 years ago, right? With slower computers. Certainly, according to their paper, they used an SGI R10000 processor, which at that time was as powerful as 250 MHz… Well, I think is time to try it again with our new multi-core processors at several GHz.

Is it still on development? Did the creators give up? Are they preparing some new surprises? Well, we don’t know; but so far I can say that this technique has tons of applications with the new devices focusing in computer vision applications.

Just check the demo about this great procedure and the explanation of its development:

Everything about Finance and Investment

Posted: 8 December, 2012 by Mayitzin in Ciencia, General, Internet, Science, Tecnología
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For some weeks now, I’ve been learning about Finance and Market, it is a very challenging field for me and, as usual, has given me a lot of new knowledge.

This time, through the great group “Big Think“, Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, explains fast but on detail everything you need to know about Finance and Investment.

Taking us by the hand and with really simple examples, his very graphical explanation gets rid of any common mistake we could have.

Highly recommended to learn a bit more. Less than an hour but a lot to catch.

The playlist of the nerds

Posted: 6 December, 2012 by Mayitzin in Entertainment, Entretenimiento, Humor, Internet, Música, Music, Science, Tecnología
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It is like a spell to get my attention, and work perfectly. Jazz music and the concepts of Numerical Computation, Machine Learning and Image Understanding might seem very difficult to mix, but it happens and it is entertaining as nothing else.

First of all those topics entertain me a lot and, being a big fan of Jazz, I actually love the many people try to involve the listeners to my passions, like if they know what I like and put them together for me. For sure many people feel like me.

Well, many versions of these Nerd songs are rolling in internet. Following you’ll find a Playlist I made dedicated for the classic songs of the most used Numerical Computation Methods. A nerd list among the nerdiest things. Enjoy it! (more…)

Predator Algorithm

Posted: 26 November, 2012 by Mayitzin in Ciencia, Entertainment, Entretenimiento, Science, Tecnología
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The more I go into Machine Vision, the more I get amazed by the Engineering behind the most common thing around me.

Now, this post is not abut something that we can see daily now, but I’m sure it’s gonna be soon among us. Very soon. I’m talking about the Predator Algorithm (originally named TLD), developed by czech scientist Zdenek Kalal. This algorithm is implemented in such a way that the computer learns continuously detecting the features and objects in it.

Yes, it learns and with time detects easily every object. But well, nothing better than a graphical explanation of what I’m trying to explain, by the inventor himself:

The creator of this algorithm had such a success that he already started his own company to start the implementation of this great Engineering tool: TLD Vision.

These are the kind of things that really inspire.

The Fundamental Matrix song

Posted: 12 June, 2012 by Mayitzin in Ciencia, Comedy, Entertainment, Entretenimiento, Internet, Música, Music, Science, Tecnología
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Annoying, exciting, boring, awesome… Computer Vision and its applications might be sometimes a roller-coaster of emotions, but it is always a pleasure to work with. Some of those familiar with Vision systems, might be aware of some nice properties and most of all, some fancy tools that help us to play around with images and computers; but one important thing that no one should forget in this field is the so-called Fundamental Matrix. If you have still some doubts about its development, then here you have a bit of its application:

Looking for the lyrics. Well, I totally recommend you to go to the website of Daniel Wedge, the creator of this totally entertaining song.

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