Festo and its biological inspiration

Posted on 2 April, 2013 by Mayitzin

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.

Continue reading →

Treasure Hunt in Google Maps

Posted on 31 March, 2013 by Mayitzin

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.

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.

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?

Naquito Abroad: The Oktoberfest Challenge

Posted on 28 March, 2013 by Mayitzin

Finally my first video of “Naquito Abroad” is out. And after days of editing, I finally got some material out. The language of that series of videos is most of the time Spanish. But, as in my other videos, you can find the subtitles in English. Actually, a big portion of the video is also in English (when I was rambling in the tents of Oktoberfest).

This is the product of a day in the biggest Beer festival in the world. I show you here the history and organization of the Oktoberfest, so you can have a look into the event as everyone else.

For a deeper and more detailed information of it, you can read it (although in Spanish) in my other post “Bienvenido al Oktoberfest“.

So, come this year, but in the meantime, Proooooost!

Song of the day: Piensa en mí

Posted on 21 March, 2013 by Mayitzin

It seems that Agustín Lara has been one of the favorite composers of the most-renowed tenors. His songs have been sung countless times by Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Fernando de la Mora, Alfredo Kraus, Rolando Villazón, Juan Diego Flores, José Carreras, Andrea Bocelli, and the list goes on and on.

This time I want to share a performance that happens to be very original for me. Recently, Roberto Alagna has released a new album called “Pasión”, where he pays tribute to some of the most appasionate songs from Latin America. As probably you might have guessed, some songs from Agustín Lara are present in this album. The first track is also the one that gives the name of the title of this post: “Piensa en mí”. There is actually a video released for this song from Roberto Alagna, which I post following:

Continue reading →

And the summer of Horror…

Posted on 14 March, 2013 by Mayitzin

Zombies, vampires, monsters and many other imaginary creatures are rising up again, like 30 years ago. After a long season of “slasher” films that re-started with “Scream” some time ago, the film industry has decided to put on the road again some super-productions and re-makes of classics, a few new stories that might give us this year nice surprises. What am I talking about? Horror, boys and girls. Blood, screams, tension, adrenaline, rampage, hunting, limbs, darkness, unconstrained eroticism with creatures of a fantasy world and a long list of elements continues.

This year we will get a decent amount of Horror in our cinemas, or maybe in yours only because I don’t know if these pieces will come to Germany. Among all the up-coming films, I have chosen these ones as my personal favorites. I hope they don’t disappoint me: Continue reading →

Song of the day: Matando Güeros – Brujería

Posted on 13 February, 2013 by Mayitzin

Today is a special day and I want to share one of the funniest songs. Many people might not understand it, but there is a band named “Brujería” (“Witchcraft” in Spanish) that has some powerful songs. This is a Gore Metal band, so don’t expect it to be a pussy-ass rock. It is heavy and brutal.

Now, the thing here is that they have very cool songs, that are not supposed to be taken seriously. That is an important part of their personality as a band. Their lyrics are surrealist, as they are also part of this cruel music and raged feeling while playing. They sing in Spanish or Spanglish, as the band was created mainly by Mexicans (or Chicanos).

The song today is “Matando Güeros” which means “Killing Blondes”. This song gave the band a big success worldwide because of the lyrics, but most of all because of the cover of the album. A bit crude for sensible eyes, it shows a partially burned head being held in the middle of the album cover. It is about Mexicans calling to arms and kill blonde people in the United States. Continue reading →

Das Lied des Tages: Te quiero, dijiste – Maria Grever

Posted on 25 January, 2013 by Mayitzin

Manchmal schreibe ich auf Deutsch, aber jetzt will eins der besten Lieder, die ich immer genieße, teilen. Maria Grever war eine der produktivsten Komponisten ihrer Zeit. Sie hat u.a. „Júrame“, „Despedida“, „Alma mía“ und viele anderen Werke komponiert.

Jedoch möchte ich heute das Lied „Te quiero dijiste“ übersetzen und hier mitteilen. Manche Leute nennen das Lied auch als „Muñequita linda”; beide sind richtig. Viele Künstler haben verschiedene Versionen des Lieds gemacht, wie Plácido Domingo, Linda Ronstadt, Alejandro Fernández, Nat King Cole, etc. Meine Lieblingsversion? Ja, von Rolando Villazón.

Ein Paar Bemerkungen zu machen: An erster Stelle, Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, deswegen bitte ich deine Hilfe, ob du etwas unklar liest. Schreib mir und ich kann es korrigieren. An zweiter… ich hab’s vergessen.

Oh ja, an dritter Stelle, es ist keine wörtliche Übersetzung. Es gibt Ausdrücken, die nicht ganz gut auf Deutsch klingen, und ich hab’s ähnlich auf Deutsch versucht. Für diese Ausdrücke kannst du eine Erklärung am Ende finden.

Na ja, dann geht‘s los! Continue reading →

3D Reconstruction of a face from a single image

Posted on 11 January, 2013 by Mayitzin

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:

Naquito abroad!

Posted on 6 January, 2013 by Mayitzin

Good day, my people, this time I want to share with you the trailer of a new project I’m starting. This 2013 I decided to record my adventures around Europe for you to see what can you find in these places.

As I’m going to live it totally with the Mexican mentality that I have, I decided to name it “Naquito abroad”. Naquito is the diminished word in Spanish for “naco”, one of the many interesting subcultures of Mexico. A naco is basically a person without cultural background nor proper education. Well, I wouldn’t consider myself as uneducated, but I do consider myself as an apprentice in this world. Besides, I take it in the funniest way.

“Naquito abroad” will be my personal videodiary in all these journeys. I hope you like it and you feel attracted to visit those places. I’ll offer certainly lots of information (historical and cultural) about the places I’m going to. I’m gonna meet new people, and most of all, I’m looking forward to have fun here.

Thank you very much for watching. Feedback is always welcome and Happy new year!

Song of the day: Fallaste corazón – Pedro Infante

Posted on 4 January, 2013 by Mayitzin

The mexican culture has still some bits of “Machismo” in it, but is actually double faced. The Machos are people unable to be in contact with their feelings and try to set a screen, so when they are faced with their feelings, they react in very bad ways.

In the mexican society, the Machos are allowed to cry for 2 things only: family and women. And the way to do so is always singing and drinking. You can see it in almost every classic film of Mexico’s Golden Era, where a broken-hearted man sings to his beloved woman in sadness.

I found it always funny, and instead of making me sad or something, always made me smile. Beginning the year I felt a bit homesick and started to sing lots of Mexican songs, being Chavela Vargas, Vicente Fernandez, Antonio Aguilar, and many others a constant reminder of my culture.

Cuco Sánchez composed “Fallaste Corazón” (You failed, heart) many years ago, and several artists have made great covers of this song. Personally I think Chavela Vargas gave the best performance with her amazing voice and feeling. Damn! You can even feel her pain while she sings! Moving!

Anyways, we Mexicans have some weird ways to overcome tragedies, but it actually works 🙂 “Fallaste corazón” is dedicated to the heart of a Macho, yeah, the heart. And the Macho is mocking at his own heart. Yeah, bit weird, right? But this is one of the thousands of expressions you can find in Mexican songs.

Here you have one of the most entertaining performances from Pedro Infante “The idol of Mexico”. He sings the song as it should, with sadness, taunt, anger and passion. Subtitles are included in the video:

Ay ay ay!