Rolandt

Google has released a camera app that lets you capture images within a 360-degree sphere by holding down the camera button as if it were the trigger on a spraypaint can.

The intriguing app’s tagline is “a perfectly imperfect VR-ish camera” and it’s an experimental project that hails from Google’s Creative Lab.

In a blog post released today, senior designer Glenn Cochon writes that the project was inspired by the creative outpouring on the company’s Android Experiments open-source platform for innovative Android projects, which launched last year.

Sprayscape is simple to use and a dangerously fun time-waster. Photos are taken continuously as the user holds their finger down on the camera button. This allows for the easy creation of panoramas and collages that form a full circle, perfect for virtual reality viewing.

At the moment, the resulting — inevitably somewhat grainy — artworks can be shared directly to friends Facebook or through a custom link.

The app is now available for download on Google Play, and the open-source code is available here, for those interested in how the tool was created.

Related: Rogers confirms Pixel software updates will come straight from Google [Update]

It’s been a decade since I interviewed Paul English on the subject of customer service and human dignity (audio). He was CTO and co-founder at kayak but in this interview we talked more about GetHuman. It had begun as a list of cheats to help you hack through the automated defenses of corporate customer service and get to a real person. Here’s how I remember The IVR Cheat Sheet back then:

finance	phone	steps to find a human
America First Credit Union	800-999-3961	0 or say “member services”
American Express	800-528-4800	0 repeatedly
Bank of America	800-900-9000	00 or dial 813-882-1103 for Executive Office.
Bank of America	800-622-8731	*
Bank of America	800-432-1000	Say “operator” or “associate” at any point in the menu.
Charles Schwab	800-435-9050	3, 0
Chase	800-CHASE24	5 pause 1 4
Chrysler Financial	800-700-0738	Select language, then press 00
Citi AAdvantage	888-766-2484	Ignore prompts and wait for a human.
Citi Card	800-967-8500	0,0,0,0,0

In our interview Paul said:

Dignity is defined in part as giving people the right to make decisions. In particular if it’s a company I’m paying $100/month for cable or cell phone or whatever, and they don’t give me the ability to decide when I need to talk to a human, I find it really insulting.

…

When the CEO makes the terrible decision to treat customer service as a cost center, the bonus for the VP who runs it is based on one thing: shaving pennies off the cost of the call.

I responded:

Which is a tragedy because customer service is a huge opportunity for business differentiation. If we set up a false dichotomy, where it’s either automated or human, we’re missing out on the real opportunity which is to connect the right people to the right context at the right time. That’s what needs to happen, but a tricky thing to orchestrate and there doesn’t seem to be any vision for how to do that.

I’ve used GetHuman for 10 years. Yesterday I went there to gird for battle with Comcast and was delighted to see that the service has morphed into this:

Boston-based startup GetHuman on Wednesday unveiled a new service that lets you to pay $5 to $25 to hire a “problem solver” who will call a company’s customer service line on your behalf to resolve issues. Prices vary depending on the company, but GetHuman offers to fight for your airline refund, deal with Facebook account issues, or perhaps even prevent a grueling call with Comcast to disconnect your service.

— CNET, May 4, 2016

I’m really curious about their hands-off problem-solving service and will try it in other circumstances, but my negotiation with Comcast was going to require my direct involvement. So this free call-back service made my day:

How our Comcast call-back works

First we call Comcast, wade through their phone maze, wait on hold for you, and then call you back when an agent can talk. We try 4 times, in case we don’t get through the first time. Of course, once you do talk to a Comcast rep, you still have to do the talking, negotiating, etc.

I went back to work. The call came. Normally I’d be feeling angry and humiliated in this situation. Instead I felt happy and empowered. Companies have used their robots to thwart me all these years. Now I’ve got a robot on my side of the table. It’s on!

I’m delighted to announce that I’ve written and recorded Chapter 1 of my new audiobook on productivity. Ostensibly, it’s a second version of my book from six years ago: #uppingyourgame: a practical guide to personal productivity.

As usual, I’m using my OpenBeta publishing model, meaning that this product will get more expensive as I add more content. The earlier you buy into the process, the cheaper it is! If you buy Chapter 1 now, I’ll send you every iteration until it’s finished.

Chapter 1 is concerned with what I deem to be the most important of the three ‘pillars’ of productivity: Sleep. As I say in the introduction to the chapter, it’s a funny place to start as it’s literally the opposite of ‘getting things done’. However, that’s why it’s so important — as you’ll see!

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Buy now for £1

(click the button to see the proposed chapter listing)

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Need a sample? Here’s a two-minute intro:

Note: I’ll email existing backers and keep posting here when each new chapter is available. The ‘canonical’ page for this audiobook, however, is here. That will always be up-to-date!

Raleigh Werberger, Edutopia, Oct 15, 2016

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Here's the teaser: "Arts-based research is beginning an investigation without expectations and remaining open to all possibilities. Now imagine asking a ninth-grade class to deconstruct and recreate a Happy Meal. Now I wouldn't want a ninth-grade class to ever be in the same room as a happy meal. But I get the point; I remember at SXSW a decade ago watching participants take café offerings and turn them into nouveau cuisine. "Arts-based research, a methodology of inquiry promoted by Professors Shaun McNiff and Elliot Eisner, asks the researcher to begin an investigation, not with a predetermined sense of what is useful, but by remaining open to all possibilities for diving in." That's how I like to do my work, but it's far from universally accepted.

[Link] [Comment]

Alison Gopnik, Mind/Shift, Oct 15, 2016

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I like the argument. And I think it's more right than wrong. "There is no particularly good reason why ballet or basketball should be taught through apprenticeship while science and math are not. As any scientist will tell you, our profession is as much a  matter of hard-won skill as piano or tennis. In graduate school, where we really teach science, we use the same methods as a chef or a tailor."

[Link] [Comment]

Last month Pitch Interactive launched an online tool for tiled cartograms, or tilegrams for short. Upload your state-by-state data, and it does the rest. Now you can make them in R, thanks to Bhaskar Karambelkar, since I know you’re just itching to make your own election maps.

Tags: cartogram, R

For the technology sector, the province of British Columbia is an exciting area to grow in. Though the history of this support through accessible resources and funding is relatively long, it hasn’t always been at the forefront.

Those that have been in the industry long enough may have experienced a lull of sorts in early 2007. There was a determination to reinvigorate the drive around 2007 when the Province of B.C. and then-known WINBC (Wireless Innovation Network of BC) collaborated to tackle the problem. Wavefront is the product of those two organizations, which in turn grew into its own entity. Co-founder and current President/CEO James Maynard has been heralded as the ideal individual to steer the course and to gain the critical mass needed to drive growth and awareness.

“To a certain extent, it was figuring out how do we not just enable growth but support it so that it’s scalable” said Michelle Sklar, vice president of marketing at Wavefront. “How do we expand that and really build out a national ecosystem that can be globally competitive? That is the trajectory of what Wavefront is all about.”

Headquartered in downtown Vancouver, Wavefront is at an opportune place in terms of both located at the seeming epicenter of tech start-up creation as well as the focus on supporting innovation. Being a national centre of excellence, Wavefront focuses on the adoption, acceleration and commercialization of mobile, wireless and IoT technologies. In other words, they are one part think-tank and one part commercialization facility for companies that either building themselves into a next generation technology or companies that are trying to figure out how to adopt those technologies.

“Our move from being purely wireless and focussed more on the infrastructures of technology; from anyone who is building anything in mobile to the latest in internet technology. It’s really that iteration of some sort of mobile enablement,” said Sklar.

Part of their value lay in their partnership oriented beliefs. As companies pass through their doors, as hundreds have done prior, they need to have a product and some sort of customer validation. Wavefront guides them to their next stage through partner connections that in turn connect them with necessary technology to enhance what they’re already accomplishing. The partnerships that Wavefront has stretches across the country; and they’re continuing to develop more.

“It’s not just about figuring out how to grow and sustain companies in BC but how to we do that across Canada. I think in Canada, BlackBerry being an ideal example, we are amazing at incubating innovation, but we are challenged when it comes to holding onto it and really supporting the scalability of those companies,” said Sklar.

On the accelerator and incubator side, the partnership resources are complimented by their tech resources; such as their recently rebranded Wireless Zone where a vast catalog of smartphones, tablets, sensor boards and wearables are at their disposal. This allows start-up s and SMEs to ensure their app or tech works, thanks to partnerships with Rogers, Samsung and Sierra Wireless.

On the enterprise side, Wavefront works with enterprises who may not be a nimble or as innovative as they want or need to be. They’re able to connect them with companies emerging through their accelerator program and present them as a potential partner. What this means is that the Wavefront supply and demand model helps enterprise work from the edge while helping start-ups create their success stories.

Wavefront is excited about working with the Industrial IoT; how those in the Mining, Agricultural, Manufacturing and Transportation industries are understanding and utilizing the technology available to them. Connection and awareness are both key to building those partnerships between start-ups and companies. They recognize the biggest challenge is the awareness and brand identity, but with their own track record, and key partnerships, they are poised to overcome these obstacles.

Wavefront is hosting their 2017 IoT Summit on May 1st and 2nd where they will help deliver insight into the process of adopting IoT solutions and provide compelling examples of this digital transformation that businesses have taken.

“We help with acceleration, commercialization and adoption. By being able to provide that is really important because we want companies to grow big and grow strong in Canada; that means that they need to be globally competitive,” said Sklar.

This is me today, a year ago, and three years ago. Two and a half years ago I changed my lifestyle. I had always been a couch potato and I have always been fighting with my weight. But instead of dieting I became active. 50 pounds came off in 2014, and more importantly they stayed off.

You can try and write witty comments but I am not budging. I need to exercise and I will continue to do so. Every. Single. Day.

The certifier has been revoked by Globalsign. I expect this to be fixed immediately. There is just too much attention on the site.

You don't know minimalism until you've spent time in the Forth community. There are recurring debates about whether local variables should be part of the language. There are heated discussions about how scaled integer arithmetic is an alternative to the complexity of floating point math. I don't mean there were those debates back in the day; I mean they still crop up now and again. My history with Forth and stack machines explains the Forth mindset better than I can, but beware: it's a warning as much as a chronology.

Though my fascination with Forth is long behind me, I still tend toward minimalist programming, but not in the same, extreme, way. I've adopted a more modern approach to minimalism:

Use the highest-level language that's a viable option.

Lean on the built-in features that do the most work.

Write as little code as possible.

The "highest-level language" decision means you get as much as possible already done for you: arbitrary length integers, unicode, well-integrated data structures, etc. Even better are graphics and visualization capabilities, such as in R or Javascript.

"Lean on built-in features," means that when there's a choice, prefer the parts of the system that are both fast--written in C--and do the most work. In Perl, for example, you can split a multi-megabyte string into many pieces with one function call, and it's part of the C regular expression library. Ditto for doing substitutions in a large string. In Perl/Python/Ruby, lean on dictionaries, which are both flexible and heavily optimized. I've seen Python significantly outrun C, because the C program used an off-the-cuff hash table implementation.

I've been mostly talking about interpreted languages, and there are two ways to write fast interpreters. The first is to micro-optimize the instruction fetch/dispatch loop. There are a couple of usual steps for this, but there's only so far you can go. The second is to have each instruction do more, so there are fewer to fetch and dispatch. Rule #2 above is taking advantage of the latter.

Finally, "write as little code as possible." Usual mistakes here are building a wrapper object around an array or dictionary and representing simple types like a three-element vector as a dictionary with x, y, and z keys, or worse, as a class. You don't need a queue class; you've already got arrays with ways to add and remove elements. Keep things light and readable at a glance, where you don't have to trace into layers of functions to understand what's going on. Remember, you have lots of core language capabilities to lean on. Don't insist upon everything being part of an architecture or framework.

This last item, write less code, is the one that the other two are building toward. If you want people to be able to understand and modify your programs--which is the key to open source--then have less to figure out. That doesn't mean fewer characters or lines at all costs. If you need a thousand lines, then you need a thousand lines, but make those thousand lines matter. Make them be about the problem at hand and not filler. Don't take a thousand lines to write a 500 line program.

(If you liked this, you might enjoy The Software Developer's Sketchbook.)

Keegan Matheson @KeeganMatheson
Likely to be your favourite read of the day, @elliottbaseball on the timeline of the #BlueJays signing Martin. canadianbaseballnetwork.com/canadian-baseb…

Dear adfraud whistleblower,

First of all, I respect you a lot for wanting to do the right thing.

Posting the information that you did, where you did, is a dangerous way to do it.

As you pointed out in your posts, you are risking your job and risking physical harm.

But you're also risking a complex legal case, where you as an individual could be accused of all kinds of crimes. Your complaints against the web of companies that you know about would be forgotten, and you would have to carry out a costly legal defense. Most of the companies you mention are in good standing in the adtech industry. You'll be coming in looking like an employee accused of wrongdoing and making up stuff.

And, if half of what you're saying is true, you know how quickly they can delete information or move it to a new "clean" company.

If you're really motivated to bring these guys down—and that's something that only you can decide—there is a better way.

You can send documents to a trustworthy reporter who knows Internet security issues. Look for someone whose writing about complex technology doesn't make you facepalm, and who has either put up a personal PGP key or writes for a company that's on the SecureDrop Directory.

You shouldn't contact me, since it's just one more opportunity for someone to mess up. The best way is to do some reading and see who knows the malware/adtech business and can receive documents securely.

Regulatory action follows "viral" news stories, not the other way around. We all know that regulators are relatively uninterested in adfraud, but you have a story that can change people's minds.

The "tl;dr" of all this is "delete your account" but please don't take it that way. Again, much respect and stay safe.

Don

UPDATE: Twitter thread

• Debugging tests on interactive workers (only Linux on TaskCluster)
• Improve end to end times on Try (Thunder Try project)

• No new progress

• Android xpcshell
• Blog/newsgroup post

• The following platforms are now supported: linux, linux64, macosx64, win32, win64
• An option was added to download symbols for our compiled artifacts during the artifact build

• Debug artifact builds on try. (Right now --artifact always results in an opt artifact build.)
• Android artifact builds on try, thanks to nalexander.

• Brittle running example here:  http://people.mozilla.org/~klahnakoski/temp/End-to-End.html
• Problem with low populations; 90th percentile is effectively everything, and a couple of outliers impacts the End-to-End time shown.

• Figure out what to do with these small populations:
• Ignore them - too small to be statistically significant
• Aggregate them - All the rarely run suites can be pushed into a “Other” category
• Show some other statistic:  Maybe median is better?
• Show median of past day, and 90% for the week:  That can show the longer trend, and short term situation, for better overall feel.

• Bug 1306167 - Updated build machines to use SSD. Linux PGO builds now take half the time

Nothing to add on this edition.

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This work by Zambrano Gasparnian, Armen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

You will find these here and there — a reminder of a vulnerable road user, now dead.

This is at 8th Ave and Ontario St in Vancouver.

Price Tags contributor  Scot Bathgate of the Daily Scot sent  this CTV news article reporting on the increase in the dreaded “Bus Pass Ups” in Metro Vancouver.As reported by Jon Woodward , those people left waiting at a bus stop while the bus passes by  have increased by 50 per cent over the last five years. The reason? Increasing ridership and delayed infrastructure investments, like the Broadway subway extension.

“Every time a bus leaves someone behind, bus drivers press a button that logs the incident. In 2010, bus drivers pressed that button 211,184 times.In 2011, after the Canada Line opened, that number actually dropped to 199,743. But in subsequent years that number increased again, to 259,994 in 2012, and 317,276 in 2013. As TransLink was pressed to reorganize its routes for efficiency, bus pass-ups dropped in 2014, to 297,217. But that improvement was short-lived: last year, the number rose again to 313,744, and this year it was at 214,080 in August – putting it on track to be around the 320,000 mark by the end of the year.” The most crowded routes are no surprise-Four of the five most crowded routes travel east and west through Vancouver: the 49, which heads from Metrotown to UBC; the 41, which heads from Joyce Station to UBC; the 25, which heads from Brentwood Town Centre to UBC; and the 99 B-Line, which goes along Broadway from Commercial Drive to UBC. As people move to the region, they use the bus. Unfortunately those newcomers are also using the most popular, well serviced routes. Ridership increased 2.8 per cent since last year, or approximately 6.6 million rides. And some of those routes, like the popular 99 B-Line is at capacity, with a three-minute service  at stops along the route. The answer-Resources. The Broadway subway has been on the table since 2008 with a promise of connecting to the University of British Columbia. That plan was nixed by the current Premier Christy Clark who wanted a regional vote on a sales tax to fund transit improvements, including a shorter Broadway line that would terminate at Arbutus. The Federal government has offered transit project funding but it is dependent on provincial and municipal governments matching contributions. It is time now to start that conversation so that the region can move forward efficiently and sustainably in its transit services.

Toronto’s Metro News has written about Countdown Pedestrian Signals . In Ontario its against the Highway Traffic Act to start crossing the street if the hand on the signal  is flashing. Of course people being human will dash across the street, or be too slow or infirm to make the crossing within the designated time. It is what happens.

In Toronto  there has been a horrifying spate of pedestrian and cyclist deaths in the past few years. Every four days a pedestrian is hit by a car. Every ten days a pedestrian dies. Since 2011 163 pedestrians have died. There has been a real call for enhanced road design, increasing visibility of intersections, slowing cars down to 30 kph and driver behaviour campaigns. Not much has happened-yet. Toronto has suggested working towards a 20 per cent reduction in pedestrian deaths in ten years, which means that the other 80 per cent – 400 pedestrian deaths and 3,000 serious injuries-will be acceptable.

Toronto’s latest  answer has been to do an “enforcement blitz” to remind pedestrians they can not cross the street when the hand on the signal is flashing. While Toronto is harassing pedestrians  New York City scrapped the countdown law altogether last month – framing it as a matter of life and death.

“Nearly every day, someone is injured or killed crossing our streets and it is past time we update our laws to adequately protect pedestrians,” said New York’s Public Advocate, Letitia James, after city council unanimously approved the change. “This common sense legislation will ensure that countdown clocks accurately portray the time pedestrians have to cross our streets,” James added. Pedestrians in the Big Apple are now allowed to start crossing during the countdown, until the ‘don’t walk’ signal appears.

New York City sees as part of their Vision Zero for pedestrian deaths that they are going to allow pedestrians to cross the street, and that drivers making turns into crosswalks must yield the right of way to the pedestrian every time-even if the orange hand signal has already started flashing”.  New York has figured out that not everyone walks at the fast pace indicated by the countdown signals, and is giving disabled, elderly, and others the legal right to safely cross the street until the countdown ends.

Samsung faced issues with the Galaxy Note 7, its latest flagship phablet, soon after its launch earlier this year, ultimately leading to the unit being discontinued altogether. Continue reading →

I have some good news for the 22,000 individuals in Canada who bought a Galaxy Note 7s prior to its complete recall earlier this week.

If you’re still salty about the prospect of returning the device, there may be a device just around the corner that could potentially fill the void left in your heart by the Note 7’s fiery exit from the world.

Meet the Huawei’s upcoming Mate 9 smartphone. According to perennial device leaker Evan Blass, the unannounced device will be available in both flat and curved variants. When it comes to the latter, minus the Huawei logo on the top bezel, it’s hard to distinguish the curved Mate 9 from the S7 Edge and Note 7. In fact, one has to think Samsung is assembling its team of lawyers right as I write this piece.

This is the Huawei Mate 9, in standard and curved screen designs https://t.co/4sdo8VnbH8 pic.twitter.com/kHs3xFx0y5

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) October 12, 2016

In his usual terse style, Blass doesn’t say much about the device. Moreover, with no photo of the bottom of the device, it’s impossible to tell if it has a stylus.

In any case, we’ll likely find out more about the Mate 9 through various leaks in the coming weeks and months.

This post compares 3 of the best bike lights: Light & Motion Urban 350 vs. CatEye Volt 700 vs. NiteRider Lumina 750. All 3 of these bike lights used to cost a lot more, but their prices have come down recently. All 3 are now excellent bike lights for very reasonable prices. Use our comparative table of 3 the best bike lights to compare these bike lights for commuter cyclists, and decide which one is right for you.

The post 3 of the best bike lights for commuter cyclists – Light & Motion Urban 350 vs. CatEye Volt 700 vs. NiteRider Lumina 750 appeared first on Average Joe Cyclist.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Verizon Wireless would be handling the updates for the upcoming Phone by Google, the Pixel and Pixel XL. Continue reading →

Our users often tell us how collaborating on a team helps them get work done—from finishing projects faster to discovering new ideas. But keeping teams in sync can be tricky, especially when you’re working with people in different offices and job functions. That’s where Dropbox Paper can help—it’s a new way for teams to work together and stay on the same page.

Make info available

When information gets stuck in siloed emails and personal folders, collaborators lose visibility into a project. Paper helps by letting you create a central hub for your team’s content. Just start a Paper doc or folder and invite collaborators—they’ll be able to edit and access the most up-to-date information, anytime. Teammates who join a project in progress can easily catch up by reading through Paper docs or checking version history. Paper even shows you who’s seen a doc, and when, so you know who’s up to speed and who might need a nudge.

Collaborate in real time

Gathering feedback helps move a project forward, but emailing files back and forth can lead to version control issues and one-off conversations. With Paper, you and your teammates can all work together in one doc, at the same time. Changes are reflected immediately so you always see the most up-to-date version. If you want to share feedback without editing the doc, you can just add a comment. Comments are visible to all collaborators, so everyone stays in the loop.

Assign tasks and take ownership

Knowing who owns each part of a project, or who’s taking action, helps keep the team aligned on progress. Paper gives you visibility by letting you @mention specific people in the body of a doc. Once mentioned, collaborators are added to the doc, and can edit or update their section. You can even assign tasks on the fly by using the @mention function in a check list. Paper will even notify you when they complete the task.

Keeping a team aligned can be challenging—whether you’re just starting out or already months into a project. But, when you work together using Paper, you don’t have to be in the same room to stay on the same page. Give Paper a try on your next project.

You are invited to a conversation on transportation in Vancouver on November 3. An expert panel will be on hand, and the free event is billed as a “community conversation“. RSVP HERE.

Oddly, given the magnitude and intractability of modern Vancouver transportation issues (like transit funding), the “conversation” is framed in its title as highlighting bike lanes. Since bikes and bike lanes are probably a solution of sorts, and comparatively not much of a problem, it is a strange tabloid-like flavouring that seems designed to slant the entire conversation towards a hot-button commuter motorist gripe-fest. Hardly a very productive choice.

Our Transportation Challenge: The Good, the Bad, and the Bike Lanes?

Vancouver is grappling with transportation challenges on all fronts: from an increasingly congested commute, to a lack of adequate public transit, to confusion over shared transportation alternatives, and an infrastructure unable to handle a growing population. So what must be done to address this critical issue.

KCTS 9’s Enrique Cerna moderates a community conversation featuring Mayor Greg Moore of Port Coquitlam, and Chair of Metro Vancouver; Andy Yan of Bing Thom Architects, and others working to find transportation solutions.

Where: Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver, BC When: Thursday, November 3rd, 2016 Time: Doors at 5:30 p.m. | Start at 6:00 p.m.

Google’s Android Experiments, a lab it launched last year to see new, creative options for the mobile platform, has created a brand new camera app. Continue reading →

Ed Key @edclef
Bad news: washed my good headphones so have to wear a Skype headset to listen to late 90s drum and bass while runni… twitter.com/i/web/status/7…

Kamila Hinkson @HinksonK
Sportsnet broadcaster Jerry Howarth hasn't said Cleveland's team name since the 90s and isn't going to start now on.thestar.com/2e6SWOT

Brandon Yan @CitizenYan
My first decree as Mayor: whereas they are a terrible invention, whereas they are a menace to society, I decree leafblowers illegal.

Joanna @HumandChuck
America, what's with these deadlines to register? We can show up, register with ID and vote our little faces off. twitter.com/HillaryClinton…

Jamie Campbell @SNETCampbell
The Cubs victory ensures a World Series drought of at least 23 years will end.

It’s official. After weeks of turmoil, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is officially discontinued. Samsung will no longer manufacture, sell or replace the Note 7. That means, that if you already had a Note 7 or were looking to buy one, you need to look somewhere else. Where exactly? Below are your best options. Continue reading →

GIF by the author, via

When it comes to projection mapping the human face, Japanese artist Nobumichi Asai has been creating some truly spectacular work. The lastest development in his constantly evolving technique is a "real-time face generator"—this sci-fi sounding installation, called Kagami, is like a high-tech digital mirror.

It works by first getting someone to stand in front of a face scanner so that a 3D model can be created. Next, a recreation of their scanned face is generated in real-time and projected onto 5,000 motorized rods. Controlled by linear actuators these form the contours of a 3D face. Further animations and effects are then projection mapped onto it for a stunning performance—where a replica of their face is the stage.

"On its 'face,' many electric makeup art images are projected and simulated," explains Asai. "[The] theme is 'beauties of nature (ka-cho-fu-getsu),' morning glory, bamboo, butterfly, kingfisher, Japanese crested ibis, sunset, cherry blossom, gold (moon)."

The result is astonishing and completely mesmerizing to watch—especially the opening and creation of the mask, which comes across like a scene from Ghost in the Shell. (Asai has worked on a VR app for the film, so maybe it influenced the tone.) Check out the video below and head to Asai's website for more of his incredible work.

GIF by author. (via)

via Prosthetic Knowledge

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