Sushi Singularity is a restaurant concept from Open Meals that sends diners a DNA kit prior to visiting to create hyper-personlized 3D-printed sushi to fit their nutritional needs. Sites are reporting that this will be an actual restaurant opening in Tokyo in 2020, but it’s so ludicrous I’m honestly still not sure if it’s real or a proof of concept.

I don’t know what things are like in Japan, but in what world are people okay just sending their DNA and urine samples to a random restaurant just to eat a meal? I mean, it’s weird enough that my accountant always asks me to masturbate into a cup for him every time I do my taxes. Wait, what? That’s not normal? Hold on, I need to make some phone calls.

Keep going for some more shots of their 3D printed “sushi” and a video of their concept. I don’t know anything about the state of 3D printed food, but I can’t imagine the actual product will or can look anything like what they’re showing.

Source: Geekologie – Sushi resturant uses biometric data to create personalized 3D-printed sushi

This is a video of, well, I’m not sure. The title is “sharpest egg kitchen knife in the world” but that doesn’t quite capture what the video is about. Nothing quite captures what the video is about. Yes, it’s a Japanese man making a kitchen knife out of eggs, but it’s somehow even weirder than that sounds. Everything the guy does makes sense, he just does it in the weirdest way possible. It’s like if a scientist made an experimental art video for a tutorial site and was also maybe a serial killer.

Keep going for the video. It’s twelve glorious minutes and I watched every insane second.

Source: Geekologie – Surreal video of a Japanese man making a kitchen knife out of eggs

Two parks in Tokyo have installed transparent public toilets so users can inspect their cleanliness before using them. The restrooms use “smart glass” which turns opaque when the stalls are locked.

The bathrooms have been installed in two of the city’s parks so far: the Haru-no-Ogawa Community Park and the Yoyogi Fukamachi Mini Park.

The installations are part of The Tokyo Toilet project, which is redesigning 17 of the city’s public bathrooms with different designers.

According to the designer Shigeru Ban:

“There are two things we worry about when entering a public restroom, especially those located at a park. The first is cleanliness, and the second is whether anyone is inside. Using the latest technology, the exterior glass turns opaque when locked. This allows users to check the cleanliness and whether anyone is using the toilet from the outside. At night, the facility lights up the park like a beautiful lantern.”

This is the kind of thing that would only work in Japan. Have you seen the public bathrooms in the United States? You install transparent bathrooms here and the only thing you’ll be doing is showing people poop-covered walls and floors so dirty even cockroaches give pause before entering.

Keep going for some more pictures and what the restrooms look like lit up at night.

Source: Geekologie – Tokyo installed see-through public toilets in a park to let people inspect their cleanliness before using them

Artist Daniel Voshart has taken it upon himself to create photorealistic portraits of Roman Emperors using machine learning applied to images of their busts.

Using the neural-net tool Artbreeder, Photoshop and historical references, I have created photoreal portraits of Roman Emperors. For this project, I have transformed, or restored (cracks, noses, ears etc.) 800 images of busts to make the 54 emperors of The Principate (27 BC to 285 AD).

Artistic interpretations are, by their nature, more art than science but I’ve made an effort to cross-reference their appearance (hair, eyes, ethnicity etc.) to historical texts and coinage. I’ve striven to age them according to the year of death — their appearance prior to any major illness.

My goal was not to romanticize emperors or make them seem heroic. In choosing bust / sculptures, my approach was to favor the bust that was made when the emperor was alive. Otherwise, I favored the bust made with the greatest craftsmanship and where the emperor was stereotypically uglier — my pet theory being that artists were likely trying to flatter their subjects.

You can buy a print with all the portraits on Voshart’s Etsy page. Obviously some artistic liberties were taken, but it’d be cool to apply the same methodology to, say, the Venus de Milo. No, you’re the pervert. I’m just an appreciator of art. Sexy, naked, art.

Source: Geekologie – Creating photorealistic portraits of Roman Emperors using their sculptures

A 7-year-old from New Zealand stuffed a LEGO piece up his nose in 2018 and his doctor and parents assumed it either disappeared or would move through his digestive tract when they couldn’t find it. Two years later, the boy went to sniff a cupcake and the missing LEGO piece fell out of his nose.

Seven-year-old Sameer Anwar of Dunedin, in the south of New Zealand, inserted a tiny piece of Lego up his nose in 2018. Sameer’s father, Mudassir, and his wife became alarmed when their son told them he had lost a piece of Lego up his nose, and couldn’t find it.

With Sameer showing no signs of pain or distress, his parents soon forgot about the ordeal. “Since then he’s never complained or anything,” Anwar said, telling the Guardian his son was “quite playful and a mischievous character”.

Anwar believes the piece was part of a Lego character’s arm.

Then last night, the “unbelievable” happened Anwar said. A plate of pink cupcakes prompted his son to lean down and take a great big sniff of them.

Immediately, his nose began to hurt. Thinking he’d sniffed up some cake crumbs, his mother helped him blow his nose, hoping to thoroughly clear his nostrils.

But instead of pink cake crumbs, out dropped a tiny piece of black Lego, covered in fungus.

It was not the first time Sameer has put something up his nose. When he was three he pushed an imitation pearl up his nostril, but in that instance, his father was able to retrieve it.

Covered in…fungus? Do they mean boogers or was the thing actually covered in fungus? I guess considering this kid can’t stop stuffing things up his nose they should be thankful it didn’t come out with its own Sea Monkeys colony.

Source: Geekologie – LEGO piece falls out of boy after being stuck up nose for two years

In arguably the best use of the technology yet, YouTuber Shamook deepfaked Harrison Ford into Solo: A Star Wars Story, replacing Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo. I don’t think anybody would be upset if Disney/Lucasfilm released an official special edition of the entire movie like this. I mean, besides Alden. I guess he might be upset that audiences would want to completely replace his face with a face they actually want to see. But hey, that’s his fault for not being born with Harrison Ford’s face and voice and trying to play Han Solo.

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Harrison deepfaked into ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ as Han Solo

Remember that guy who built his own mechanical prosthetic hand? Well apparently he wasn’t satisfied with mechanical fingers, and now he’s fashioning functional prosthetic hand tools like this 1/4″ impact driver. At this rate, by the end of the pandemic he’ll have a full Mega Man collection of swappable attachments. Who needs fingers when you’ve got hand that can shoot saw blades out of it?

Keep going for the video of the hand drill prosthetic in action.

Source: Geekologie – Man with missing fingers creates impact driver prosthetic device

Apple removed the insanely popular game Fortnite from the App Store last week after the game developer Epic created their own in-app payment system to avoid paying Apple’s fees. In response, Epic is suing Apple and also created this Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite video mocking Apple’s iconic 1984 commercial.

As of this post, Google has also pulled Fortnite from the Google Play Store. Both Apple and Google’s app stores take a 30% cut from every app, meaning Epic has already paid over $500 million to Apple and Google just to be listed. It’s hard to feel sorry for Epic since they’re also a billion dollar company, but their lawsuit could have a huge impact for indie developers and the future of apps as a whole. Hopefully after the dust has settled I can convince Epic to pay me $500 million to be listed in my app store instead. And sure, my app store is less of a store and more of a notepad where I write down the names of apps I like, but for that price I’d be willing to highlight the listing with a highlighter.

Keep going for Epic’s Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite video as well as Apple’s original 1984 commercial.

Source: Geekologie – Epic mocks Apple’s iconic ad in their ‘Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite’ video

Over the course of two months, designer Lydia Cambron did a shot for shot reenactment of the iconic ending scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey in her apartment.

2020: an isolation odyssey is a reenactment of the iconic finale of 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968). Restaged in the context of home quarantine, the journey through time adapts to the mundane dramas of self-isolation-poking fun at the navel-gazing saga of life alone and indoors.

This project began in late March and was completed in late May, spanning the height of the pandemic in New York City. Staged in a one bedroom Brooklyn apartment, 2020 presents an obvious similarity to the domestic setting of 2001. The stacked videos and synced movements also reveal parallels in emotion. The narrowness of daily life in a single space, transitioning from confusion to acceptance, a distorted sense of time, and ‘returning’ after a transformational event-all experiences analogous to quarantine.

How are people so productive in quarantine? The only thing I’ve done the past few months is eat cereal and master Fortnite and even that is an exaggeration because I’ve nowhere near mastered Fortnite. Why are 8-year-old kids shooting me in the face and then making fun of my mom? Just let me build my fort in peace!

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Designer reenacts ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ in quarantine

Researchers from the Seoul National University Biorobotics Laboratory have developed a lightweight and low-profile crawling phone case robot. The legs retract flat when not in use, keeping the form factor as small as possible. According to IEEE Spectrum:

To move the robot forward, a linkage (attached to a motor through a gearbox) pushes the leg back against the ground, as the knee joint keeps the leg straight. On the return stroke, the joint allows the leg to fold, making it compliant so that it doesn’t exert force on the ground. The transmission that sends power from the gearbox to the legs is just 1.5-millimeter thick, but this incredibly thin and lightweight mechanical structure is quite powerful. A non-phone case version of the robot, weighing about 23 g, is able to crawl at 21 centimeters per second while carrying a payload of just over 300 g. That’s more than 13 times its body weight.

Okay, so it can’t technically choose where to crawl, it can sort of just vibrate itself in a relative forward motion. However, it’s not hard to imagine this thing with enough sensors to actually make it functional enough to crawl to a charging pad or, better yet, into your hand. Sure, right now it looks like a disgusting vibrating phone monster, but imagine if that disgusting vibrating phone monster could also think. No matter where you go, you look over your shoulder and there’s your phone. Sitting. Waiting. Plotting.

Keep going for video of the case in action.

Source: Geekologie – A smartphone case that can crawl to a wireless charger

The last Blockbuster Video on the planet is now available for rent on AirBnb at the whopping price of $4/night. Located in Bend, Oregon, the rental sleeps four and is described as a 1 bed half-bath studio. According to their description on AirBnb:

When you call dibs on this stay, you’re booking a night back in the 90s, but this time you won’t have to beg your parents to rent the latest horror flick-we’ll give you the keys to the entire store!

On 8/17 at 1PM PT, we’re inviting movie lovers from the area to request to book one of these three, one-night stays that will take place on 9/18, 9/19 and 9/20 for up to four people.

So what’s the 411? As the last standing location in the world, our BLOCKBUSTER store is an ode to movie magic, simpler times and the sense of community that could once be found in BLOCKBUSTER locations around the world. Over the past few months, we’ve been missing the regular visits from friends, neighbors and tourists from around the world. So, we’re opening our store to three quarantine pods of Deschutes County guests for a socially-distanced movie night, just like those of decades past!

Keeping our customers (and now our guests!) comfortable and feeling at home is our priority. You’ll have the store to yourself from check-in to check-out, and it will be cleaned prior to your arrival in accordance to Airbnb’s Enhanced Cleaning Protocol which is informed by recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Plus we’ll provide you with a pack of face coverings, disinfectant wipes, and endless hand sanitizer!

I’m honestly a little confused as to why they made it so cheap. They could’ve doubled or tripled the price and people would still pay just to say they had se– I mean were able to sleep and not have sex in a Blockbuster Video.

Keep going for a few more shots of the converted Blockbuster Video.

Source: Geekologie – You can spend the night at the last Blockbuster Video for /night

13 were injured Monday afternoon when a gas station in Volgograd, Russia exploded. Apparently a fire had broken out at the gas station and firefighters were unable to prevent it from getting out of control and turning into a scene from a Michael Bay movie. If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if a gas station exploded, it is exactly what you expect. My favorite part is how everybody driving just casually makes a U-turn and nopes out of there. It’s Russia, so I half expected them to continue about their business and drive towards the comically large explosion like nothing had happened.

Keep going for some videos of the explosion. Nobody died, so you can appreciate it for all its fiery glory.

Source: Geekologie – A gas station exploded in Volgograd, Russia

You know those fake virus messages that pop up when you’re browsing a website? Obviously they’re scams, but this is a 20 minute video of internet hero Jim Browning calling and exposing them. He reverses the connection when they remotely connect to his computer (most likely via a trojan he tricks them into installing) and uses their own computers against them. He goes so far as to uncover the scammer’s real name and even tracks down their Facebook profile. His calm and collected voice when confronting the scammers is beautiful and chilling. If he wasn’t on the side of good, I’d be convinced he was a serial killer. Or maybe Liam Neeson in Taken.

Source: Geekologie – Exposing those fake virus message scammers and calling them by their real name

This is footage taken in Big Bear by Eddie Garcia of him and his friends allegedly aiming a laser pointer at a UFO. The UFO zips around and at one point even flashes a bright light back at the camera. According to Eddie:

This was at big bear with a ce5 team, myself included, in these videos you can see everything. from bugs, airplanes and satellites to the real good stuff the et crafts. this is raw footage, nothing added, very successful night.

I’m not insane so I also did not know what a “ce5 team” was, but apparently it stands for Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind (CE-5) team. So, yes, these guys are actively looking for space aliens, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a space alien. I just need somebody better at video debunking to tell me why this is fake. Or, if not fake, some reasonable explanation for what I’m looking at. Because taken at face value, these guys may have just started an interplanetary war.

Source: Geekologie – Witnesses aim laser pointer at alleged UFO in Big Bear

A guy was buying fruit with his girlfriend when wind started picking up and turned into a dust devil that completely took out this fruit stand. From the guy who took the video:

” It lasted about three minutes and the dust devil took all of the guy’s cash money and blew it all up into the air. After it ended, people who saw and watched it came to help clean up the big mess, there was fruit and boxes all over the place.”

Yeah, sure, “clean up” the mess of strewn about cash. I love it when I’m given the opportunity to help “clean up” cash too. Particularly at banks or outside ATM machines.

Source: Geekologie – Dust devil destroys fruit stand like a miniature tornado

Researchers have developed a system for taking photo collections from the internet and turning them into 3D reconstructions. They call it NeRF-W, which stands for Neural Radiance Fields which they’re applying to “in-the-wild” photos found on the internet. According to the researchers:

NeRF-W captures lighting and photometric post-processing in a low-dimensional latent embedding space. Interpolating between two embeddings smoothly captures variation in appearance without affecting 3D geometry.

With enough time and computing power they could effectively crowdsource creating a 3D model of the entire world. Which would be great for me, since I haven’t been outside in over eight years. Is that burning ball of fire still in the sky?

Keep going for a video explaining the process and demonstrating the mind-boggling results.

Source: Geekologie – Using internet photos to create 3D reconstructions

This is a video of a Japanese YouTuber walking around Shibuya like he’s in Grand Theft Auto. He absolutely nails the motion, and my favorite moment from the whole thing might be at 2:10 when he collides with the subway car. It’s probably the least exciting thing that happens in the video but it looks and feels perfect. The whole video is like watching 11 minutes of somebody playing Grand Theft Auto in Japan, but without running anybody over or beating any hookers with bats. So really, it’s nothing like Grand Theft Auto.

Keep going for the full video, though you can skip the intro and go to the actual “gameplay” at 1:30.

Source: Geekologie – This guy walked around Shibuya like he’s in a video game

Proving once and for all the things you learn in cartoons are actually useful in real life, three men were rescued from a tiny Pacific island after writing a giant SOS sign in the sand that was spotted from above. The AP reports:

The men had been missing in the Micronesia archipelago for nearly three days when their distress signal was spotted Sunday on uninhabited Pikelot Island by searchers on Australian and U.S. aircraft, the Australian defense department said Monday.

The men had apparently set out from Pulawat atoll in a 7-meter (23-foot) boat on July 30 and had intended to travel about 43 kilometers (27 miles) to Pulap atoll when they sailed off course and ran out of fuel, the department said.

I wonder if they decided to write the SOS sign before or after they built a bunch of coconut radios. Also, I can’t help but be reminded about this Far Side strip:

Keep going for a few more pictures and a really poor quality video of the rescue.

Source: Geekologie – Three men rescued from tiny island after writing ‘SOS’ in the sand

Using an ensemble of neural networks, YouTuber Denis Shiryaev upscaled the oldest recorded video: Louis Le Prince’s Roundhay Garden Scene which was shot in October of 1888. His source wasn’t even a video, but this glass copy negative he pulled from the Science Museum Group website:

There are a lot of weird artifacts, but the results are pretty damn impressive considering the source was just a single image of 20 frames. At this rate eventually you’ll be able to pull three images off somebody’s Facebook page and let computers spit out a feature length film. And in my case the film would be about a man’s love affair with store-bought frozen pizzas. Where do I collect my Academy Award?

Keep going for the full video which includes an explanation of Denis’ process.

Source: Geekologie – Upscaling the oldest recorded video using neural networks