Alters

Photographer Robbie Cooper explores the modern convergence of personal and social identities in a portrait series that pairs gamers with their virtual avatars.

Cooper traveled around the world for three years, visiting places like Korea, China, France, and Germany to capture the online and in-person lives of MMO participants.

His photo project evolved into a photo book called "Alter Ego" that further scrutinizes the role of absorbed fantasy in the gaming metaverse through interviews, biographies, and essays.

The book also paints a range of identities behind the avatars. It's not just a bunch of oily adolescents mashing keyboards in a basement; Cooper's subjects range from a gold farmer in China, a paraplegic in Texas, and even an octogenarian who all teach a valuable lesson to never judge a gamer by his or her avatar.

Plenty more pictures of gamers and their avatars after the page break.… Read more

It appears Apple may be hiring Photoshop artists alongside lawyers for its legal battle with Samsung Electronics.

Webwereld.nl, the Dutch sister site of Computerworld, claims that Apple is using an image of the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone resized to more closely resemble the iPhone 3G. This follows similar claims that Apple had doctored images of the Galaxy Tab to look more like the iPad.

The reportedly altered images--which were presented as evidence in court--would place Apple on shaky ground. The company's primary argument is that Samsung's products are "slavish" imitations of Apple's hit mobile … Read more

In 2009, computer programmer Adam Gurno was looking at photos from The New York Times Magazine online and thought one of the shots just didn't look right. The image of a room under construction seemed too symmetrical. Using graphics-editing program Macromedia Fireworks, Gurno created a mirror reflection of one half of the image and discovered that it matched the online photo perfectly. He notified the newspaper and the images were quickly removed.

Gurno told CNET that he just "got lucky" in managing to spot something more-trained eyes had missed. And while it's assumed that models are routinely Photoshopped in fashion magazines, in general it's not always easy to tell when an object or person has been removed from or inserted into a photo or when an image has otherwise been manipulated.

The ability to scrutinize images has become a topic of conversation since President Obama refused earlier this week to release any postmortem photos of Osama bin Laden, despite calls for him to provide them as evidence that the Al Qaeda leader is really dead. Meanwhile, online scammers wasted no time in distributing fake images of bin Laden with a bullet hole in his head in order to dupe people into clicking on malicious links.

The discovery of the original, unmodified photos of bin Laden on which the faked images were based provided immediate proof of the trickery. And though the shots might have fooled naive Web surfers, they were fairly transparent to experts. … Read more

Want giant biceps in all those home videos you're posting to YouTube? Forget hassling with barbells and simply adjust the muscularity control slider in MovieReshape, an image alteration program developed at the Max Planck Institut Informatik in Germany. The system allows for "quick and easy manipulation of the body shape and proportions of a human actor in arbitrary video footage"--without frame-by-frame manipulation.

The approach is based on a morphable 3D model of human shapes and poses derived from laser scans of more than 100 men and women of various shapes and sizes. The program--which is currently … Read more

We got our first close look at the AlterG antigravity treadmill at a health expo in San Francisco earlier this year, and at the time, the price was floating up there somewhere near the space station.

But we've good news for those who like the idea of running like an astronaut: Fremont, Calif.-based AlterG on Monday plans to announce a more affordable model, the AlterG M300. The two treadmills in the M300 series deliver the same antigravity technology as AlterG's pricey $75,000 P200 series, but at a third of the cost--$24,500 to $27,000.

Yes, we know that hardly puts the AlterG in the range of the Total Gym, but it does move the device beyond the realm of the sports elite into a bracket accessible to more gyms and physical therapy clinics.

Medical institutions, college athletic programs, and sports teams around the country (including the Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas Cowboys, and Arizona Diamondbacks) already use the AlterG, but wider distribution could prove beneficial for Parkinson's patients, stroke survivors, and others reporting progress as a result of the technology.

AlterG's antigravity technology was originally developed at NASA and tested at Nike's Oregon Research Project by America's top distance runners.

The treadmill works by pumping air into an enclosure that surrounds users from the waist down. They zip themselves in, and an increase in air pressure lifts them so they can run at a fraction of their actual weight (pressing the up/down arrows on the control panel decreases body weight at increments of 1 percent, as much as 80 percent).

The reduction lowers the impact on joints and muscles to improve training and performance or help provide a smooth recovery from injury or surgery. Speed and incline are adjustable as with any treadmill.

"Removing the physical burden of weight bearing has remarkable results," said Bryan Nadeau of AlterG customer Muir Orthopedic Specialists, located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Paty Shives, 46, is one patient who has seen such results.… Read more

In this episode, we pack a lot of content into a relatively small amount of time.

First off, Eric has his nerd cred questioned because of a Warcraft comment made in a previous episode, and Dong discusses making love, not Warcraft.

Serious business then as Dong presents another PSA: how to be on the lookout for fake antivirus software.

Then, can being left-handed be equated with being gay? Not usually, but Dong finds a way to connect them. Then, getting drunk. Dong tells a "scary" Halloween story about puking in a bucket.

Thanks to a resourceful reader, we … Read more

Every once in a while, usually on a Friday, I get into something incredibly addicting and distracting. Today is one of those days. If you're like me (and gods help you) and you like to manipulate your voice in different ways--you know, to freak your cats or even your wife/girlfriend--Smule has come up with something cool to make your Friday go by faster.

Sonic Vox is an audio engine for the iPhone that alters your voice in real time. While you speak, the program contorts and shifts your voice depending on how you set the pitch … Read more