I noticed a few videos on Digg today were from the University of St. Arvin, a viral site made by Kraft. They have a few random videos of people microwaving objects like Christmas lights, which they hope to become viral. Of course, sprinkled in are videos exalting Kraft’s line of easy microwaveble foods.

I still like Microsoft’s Clearification site better, which promotes Vista. Demetri Martin makes everything better.

I just discovered the funny people at Waverly Films. They make short one to two minute clips that are funny by being unexpected and weird–just my sense of humor. Here are a few of their clips.

A funny little animation about a king, queen, and a peasant:

Jonathan Watts gets a hangover:

Me and my hostage:

A friendly game of poker:

The slit-scan effect is a cool technique in photography and video where a slide with a slit is moved across the imaging device. Basically, you can do weird effects that treats each row of the image in an independent manner. For example, in the image of a hammer thrower above, the slit was moved across the film instead of a shutter, and produces an image whose rows slice the thrower at different points in time. It’s a startling effect.

In the video below, the same effect is used in video. A woman turns around in place, but, instead of seeing it all happen at once, we see her body impossibly contort as the slit scan is performed. In this case, it’s a digital version called the “time displacement” effect.

And of course, this effect has been used in various other media, like this music video from the Belgian band Goose below (effect start at 1:53). Also, they have a giant version of the rotating window optical illusion. Fun stuff.

There’s a whole subgenre of videos online focused on showing people making difficult or awkward basketball shots. Usually, these make the serious basketball aficianados whince, since many of these shots are usually practiced over and over simply for the sake of the shock value when they finally do make the shot. But nevertheless, they are entertaining to watch (and quite viral).

5. Behind the Head

This one is a bunch of people making shots at around half court while facing the opposite direction on their knees.

4. Compilation Around the House

A compilation of various shots from an awkward looking kid at his house. A lot of them are quite amazing.

3. Compilation Around the Indoor Skate Park

There have been many claims that this video of a bunch of skaters making ridiculous shots around a skating rink is fake. I think they just have a lot of time on their hands.

2. Over the House

A kid shoots a basket over his entire house.

1. From a Jeep

A guy shoots from the back of a speeding open air jeep. Simply amazing.

Coolest Basketball Shot Ever - Watch more free videos

You may have seen the Microsoft Surface teaser video, which introduces Microsoft’s multi-touch research. It’s going to be interesting to watch Microsoft and Apple battle it out for the title of superior touch interfaces.

In the mean time, SarcasticGamer has made a great parody of the teaser vid, complete with a voice over that is just spot on to the original.

This goes into the inane category: Jeremy Harper is counting to one million and broadcasting the entire thing live. He’s also blogging about the whole experience. To make money, they’re letting advertisers sponsor blocks of one thousand numbers, using eBay to auction off each block. Basically, it’s similar to the one million dollar homepage idea, except this time, it’s a boring video of a guy counting.

However, as we’ve learned from the internet before, viral media can be both boring in principle and successful. He’s currently on the 29000 block, and they’ve gotten around 30 sponsors.

Below is a YouTube vid of Jeremy starting his count:

I attended the June NewTeeVee Pier Screenings tonight, which had a great turnout. The heat lamps were burning bright, and the crowds gathered around the big screen. The theme of the night was parodies, and many of the videos were pretty funny. My favorite of the night was The Real World IKEA.

Of course, I spent most of the night taking photos. Enjoy the set!

This is probably one of the clearest explanations of the double slit experiment I’ve ever seen, done in a 3D animation. Remember, observing the universe collapses the probabilities. Enjoy!

Came across a trippy video by Bat for Lashes, the stage name of Natasha Khan, a Brighton-based songwriter. Wait until you hit 40 seconds in the video. It’s a very simple idea with mesmerizing results. She’s been called the new Bjork.

The field of robotics has been rapidly changing, especially during the recent years. For many of these, we have reached the Uncanny Valley, a point in the spectrum of human realism that basically creeps us out. The closer to real a robot is, the creepier it gets (unless of course, we get to the point where we can’t tell the difference). According to Wikipedia:

The phenomenon can be explained by the notion that, if an entity is sufficiently non-humanlike, then the humanlike characteristics will tend to stand out and be noticed easily, generating empathy. On the other hand, if the entity is “almost human”, then the non-human characteristics will be the ones that stand out, leading to a feeling of “strangeness” in the human viewer.

Without further ado, here is a video list of the creepiest human-like robots that I could find:

Jules

Created by David Hanson, this robot is able to converse pretty fluidly with people. Although, I’m not sure how much of it is scripted.

Akiba

Another Actroid based robot. This one is particularly creepy in the eyes.

Transport Robot

A transport robot commissioned by the Army. It’s able to carry large amount of weights over rough terrain. This one doesn’t have a realistic face, but those legs are just so eerily human-like, especially when the guy kicks it near the end.

Repliee Q1

Created by Hiroshi Ishiguru, this Actroid based robot imitates human behavior. According to Wikipedia:

The Actroid can also imitate human-like behavior with slight shifts in position, head and eye movements and the appearance of breathing in its chest. Additionally, the robot can be “taught” to imitate human movements by facing a person who is wearing reflective dots at key points on their body. By tracking the dots with its visual system and computing limb and joint movements to match what it sees, this motion can then be “learned” by the robot and repeated.

Geminoid HI-1

Fashioned after Hiroshi Ishiguro, a senior researcher at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, this robot sometimes sits in for him during his lectures. It was built using body casts from Hiroshi. It even fidgets in his seat, just like a real human. I find this one to be the creepiest of the bunch.