Hasta La Gadget!

Just toss the ball in the air and it will shoot a full, 360-degreee panorama. Photo Jonas Pfeil

Imagine spending the time to take 36 perfectly spaced photographs and then later combining them into a fully scrollable 360-degree panoramic image. Now imaging doing the exact same thing, only instead of all that tedious work, you just toss a football-sized ball into the air.

This is just what the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera can do. Developed by Jonas Pfeil, Kristian Hildebrand, Carsten Gremzow, Bernd Bickel and Marc Alexa of the Computer Graphics Group in Berlin, the ball automates everything but the actual throwing.

Arranged around the ball are 36 2-megapixel fixed-focus cellphone cameras. When the ball is thrown, they fire simultaneously at the apex of the ball’s flight, capturing the scene in every direction (and including the photographer). Back at the lab (or home), you pull the images off via USB and view them in custom software developed by the team.

The result is somewhat akin to Google Street View, only more spectacular. This video shows it in action:

Because all the cameras in the 3-D printed foam-padded ball fire together, there is no ghosting between images. And because it is airborne, it can even fire downwards — something impossible if mounted in a tripod.

I’d love to play with this. I’d also love to see a video version, although the processing involved in stitching 360-degree movies together might make this less practical. Still, these pan-able panoramas are pretty awesome as it is.

Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera [Jonas Pfeil via Petapixel]

See Also:

• Camera Designed For Tossing
• Lomo Spinner Puts 360-Degree Panoramas Onto Film
• 18-Gigapixel Panorama Offers Breathtaking View of Prague …

This article was written on December 28, 2007 by CyberNet.

There is a bug in WordPress right now that is rather critical for anyone who uploads posts without immediately publishing. Simply by manipulating the URL any visitor can view all future, draft, or pending posts. Our site was vulnerable to this issue, but we patched it quickly because it could be used to retrieve the CyberNotes posts that we write ahead of time.

Why is this such a big deal? By gaining access to our future and unscheduled posts other sites could copy our articles. They would then look like the ones who originally wrote the article, and we would look like the copiers since our post would not publish until after theirs. To make things worse your future/draft posts may also be available in the format of an RSS feed.

–How it Works–

Without going into too much detail we’ll just say that WordPress is incorrectly checking to see whether a user is an administrator. Using Problogger.net as an example, you can visit this URL to reveal some of his upcoming posts:

http://www.problogger.net/index.php/wp-admin/

If a website is not using the FeedBurner redirect plugin all of the future posts will be available through an RSS feed as well. The URL for that would look something like this:

http://www.address.com/?feed=rss2&x=wp-admin/

That would not be good because there are thousands of sites out there that are setup to scrape feeds from websites, and then publish the content to their own site. This would give them easy access to all of your unpublished content.

–How to Fix It–

UPDATE: The workaround below didn’t do as much good as I thought, but a new version of WordPress has already been released which corrects the issue. We recommend upgrading your WordPress as soon as possible.

WordPress 2.3.2 is in the works, and the bug should be fixed by the time it is released. The How-To Geek tipped me off on a quick fix for all of you who just want a temporary workaround. Here’s what you have to do:

1. In your blog’s WordPress files open the wp-includes\query.php file.
2. Find line 37 which should look something like this:
   
3. We need to make the wp-admin/ portion more specific. For us we changed it to cybernetnews.com/wp-admin/, but yours will be a bit different. Just go to the page where you login to your blog, and copy the portion after http:// and before wp-admin/. Then paste that before the wp-admin/ on line 37:
   
4. That’s it! If you’re using a cache plugin you may need to clear the cache, or give it some time for the pages to be refreshed.

This is just a temporary fix, and when WordPress 2.3.2 is released you’ll obviously want to upgrade.

[via Black Hat Domainer]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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TouchPad firesale hysteria may have finally died down, but those of you with newly acquired HP slates should pay attention. A poster by the name of Chomper has uploaded a walkthrough of Android running atop webOS. Yes, you may have seen that particular feat before, but this time ’round the appropriated Google OS gets the emulated treatment. The mobile platform, installed via an .ipk, is accessible as an app and appears to run somewhat smoothly, although certain tics become noticeable when switching between homescreens or attempting to playback YouTube video. Audio and multi-touch have both yet to be successfully implemented in this rogue use of Android, and there’s also a pesky power off issue that requires a hard reset of the system. Still, it’s good to see the dev community doing what it does best, and inching us ever closer to a Rubin afterlife on HP’s deceased tab. Skip past the break for a silent video tour.

Continue reading Android on HP TouchPad: yes, there’s an app for that (video)

Android on HP TouchPad: yes, there’s an app for that (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s pronounced “twerp,” but don’t mistake TeamWin’s Recovery Project for a run-of-the-mill chump. The software is intended as a touchscreen replacement for ROM managers such as TWRP 1.0 and ClockworkMod Recovery. In addition to the all-important backup, restore and install functions, the utility now provides a full GUI for touch input that’s fully customizable with XML themes. As a particular boon, developers will have the option to design custom installation processes unique to their particular ROMs, which is a lovely (though very metaphorical) cherry on top. As you’d expect, the software supports both phones and tabs, and if you’re interested to see more, just check the full demo video after the break. According to the developer, the utility still needs some work before it’s ready for prime time, but it’s rather nice to see the group stay productive as it matures.

[Thanks, Ian]

Continue reading TeamWin demos TWRP 2.0 recovery manager for Android, scoffs at your volume rocker (video)

TeamWin demos TWRP 2.0 recovery manager for Android, scoffs at your volume rocker (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading IRL: WildBlue satellite internet, international charging, a flashing habit and failing to get work done on an iPad

IRL: WildBlue satellite internet, international charging, a flashing habit and failing to get work done on an iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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