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via:cnn

A Los Angeles inventor who photographed Michael Jackson 33 years ago hopes those images will now help launch an electric motor he claims could solve the world's energy problems.

Reginald Garcia will use cash from the sale of 130 unpublished Jackson photos to fund testing of the motor, which he claims generates more electricity than it uses. Garcia is in the process of getting the photos appraised and prepared for sale.

The photos show a 19-year-old Jackson and his brothers during a video shoot at a Hollywood studio in March 1978, before he began changing his appearance with surgery.

The Afro hair style and 1970s clothing show "a rare glance" of Jackson in an "awkward teenage stage," an image that he personally tried to bury in later years, according to a collector who sold photographs to the singer.

"If it was an image he didn't like, he was more likely to buy them than if they were images he did like," said Keya Morgan. "Were he alive now, I would definitely go to him and I'm sure he would want to buy them."

With Jackson gone, Morgan's Keya Gallery is buying the image copyrights and helping Reginald Garcia sell the original slides, prints and contact sheets that have been forgotten on his shelf for decades.

Garcia pulled the box of photos out of his closet last month when he was looking for ways to finance testing of his "self-generating" motor, Garcia said in a CNN interview this week.

"He was the greatest guy you could ever talk to," Garcia said of his day with Jackson.

Garcia was a student at California Tech and a freelance photographer when a friend of his sister's, who worked for CBS Records, asked him to take pictures of the Jacksons at Gower Studios in Hollywood, he said.

The color photos show the Jackson 5 dressed in blue tuxedos, singing on a soundstage.

The black-and-white images were taken during breaks in the video shoot, Garcia said.

"I sat him in front of a mirror and shot some photos, and I said 'act like you're reading a letter like you just got from your girl,'" he said. The result was a photo showing Jackson and his reflection in a dressing room mirror. Garcia said he only recently realized it echoes the singer's later hit "Man in the Mirror."

Garcia and business partner David Marohnic brought his photos and the prototype of his invention to CNN's Los Angeles bureau to demonstrate the engine and talk about their plans.

"What we're essentially looking for is trying to take the photos that Reggie took of Michael Jackson, his legacy, use those funds to try to take our prototype to the market and ultimately clean up the environment and use less greenhouse gases as a result of a motor that's very highly efficient," Mahronic said.

The motor buzzed as two voltage meters measured the energy going in and the power flowing out, back to the battery.

"It's generating more energy recharging the battery than it actually draws from the battery," Marohnic said.

Garcia reconfigured the brushes and rewound the copper in a standard motor "so it captures the negative electromagnetic field as it collapses, sends energy to a capacitor and recharges the battery," he said.

The sale of the Jackson photographs will allow them "to certify that the prototype does everything that we say it's going to do," Marohnic said.

"It's written in the stars," Garcia said. "We have a destiny of a greener earth, a door opening today that should lead us to this clean earth."

For Mike Smith, Facebook is a fort for communicating freely with friends online.

Within the confines of that giant yet access-restricted network, the music-software engineer from San Francisco believes he can control what's posted about him through the simple courtesy of asking friends to remove unflattering photos.

But on the wide-open Web exists a harsher environment.

Images that make their way outside the walls of Facebook or similarly closed networks can get indexed by search engines and become almost impossible to scrub.

"I don't want to advertise my life," Smith said. "But my last name is Smith, so there's built-in anonymity. No one can find me."

For those less fortunate, a rogue picture can become an unwanted tattoo. As software matures, more data can be extracted from those images with ease.

A digital photograph is like an onion, and advancements in machine reading and software scanning can help peel back layers to extract information from images.

Each layer of a digital picture often contains data about where and when a shot was taken. Rapidly maturing computer algorithms can interpret what or who is in the frame.

More than half of people online have uploaded photos to be shared with others, according to a study from the Pew Research Center for a report that hasn't yet been published. It was 55% in November, up from 46% in July 2008, Pew's studies found.

Previously, the Pew Internet Project hadn't studied photo sharing as closely as status updates and blogs, said Lee Rainie, the project's director.

"The photo piece of this is now rising in importance and volume, we think, so we're going to pay more attention to this in the future," Rainie said. "It's become such a central feature for social networking."

Pew is also considering the privacy implications. "As location awareness now comes in your pocket with that smartphone, it's very likely that there's more of that (GPS data) inadvertently passed along," Rainie said.

Coye Cheshire, a University of California, Berkeley professor who studies social interaction online, is also planning to research this subject more deeply. He's working on a study about people's perceptions of the pictures they post to Facebook and Twitter.

So far in his research, Cheshire has observed that people tend to perceive a loss in their ability to control and contain info about themselves after something bad happens with it.

"What we don't see, however, is any increase in their online discretionary behaviors," he said.

Several factors could account for this phenomenon, which seems to run counter to the experiments where an animal learns to avoid electrodes after getting zapped a few times. "Thankfully, we don't have any data showing people aren't able to learn," Cheshire said with a chuckle.

But perhaps new technologies, with their increasingly slick and simplified interfaces, are outpacing humans' ability to adjust.

How long did it take us to determine the manners and appropriate response times associated with e-mail and text messages? Have we even figured them out yet?

"People are kind of slow, actually, to evolve to large-scale normative shifts," Cheshire said. "It takes a very long time for that to happen."

While we're trying to figure out whether it's appropriate to tag a tipsy friend in a Facebook photo, software engineers are barreling ahead.

Google has already deployed apps capable of identifying objects, goods, text, artwork and buildings by taking a picture from a phone and running some algorithms over it.

That architecture is also used for privacy-related endeavors, such as the blurring of faces and license plates captured by Google's Street View vehicles.

The search giant is also tuning the ability to identify the faces of people who agree to be included in its database, a director for the project said in an interview last week.

Face.com released an app called Photo Finder, which looks for familiar faces in images on Facebook in an attempt to find a person's photos that haven't already been tagged manually. The company's computers have scanned 23 billion photos from people who have installed the app and authorized it to look at their pictures and ones from friends.

"When it comes to normal people's photos, the truth is that most of the photos are within the closed doors of a social network," said Face.com CEO Gil Hirsch. "Not that many people have a lot of photos of themselves out there on the open Web."

Let's say you take a picture at your office that has a business card or envelope with your home address or some kind of sensitive information visible in the background.

Evernote, ZoomReader and many other companies have proprietary image-processing capabilities that can recognize words in images and then make that text searchable. About one-fifth of all notes stored in Evernote's database contain images, Evernote CEO Phil Libin said in a recent interview.

Generally, text transcribed by image services, such as Evernote's, isn't offered up to public search engines such as Google. However, "today, every image that Google touches is analyzed by one or several of our algorithms," said Hartmut Neven, Google's engineering director for image-recognition development.

Flickr, a Yahoo property that's among the largest photo-sharing sites, declined to comment on development plans, but a spokeswoman said, "No idea is out of the question."

Beyond the stacks of info contained within standard picture files, a new breed of applications can pile on even more detailed signals about where a photo was taken.

For example, a new photo-sharing app called Color leverages a smartphone's various sensors to determine more accurately the setting where a picture is taken.

In addition to the phone's GPS location, Color can record gyroscope and compass orientation, as well as ambient sound from the microphone and lighting from the phone's proximity sensor -- tracking 20 to 40 data points in all, Color Labs CEO Bill Nguyen has said.

Some of that info is sent over the internet to Color's servers moments after the app is opened, not just when pictures are taken. Using those signals, the app figures out who is nearby and then displays their photos. On the iPhone, users must tap a button to grant Color permission to access the device's GPS after the app is first loaded, and it won't work at all without that.

Though Color collects all of this info, someone's exact location isn't shown publicly, and the goal isn't to sell any of this data to other companies, Nguyen said. The actual business model involves partnering with restaurateurs and store owners to provide services that make environments more hospitable, he said.

"I think the problem that happens to me a lot online is I never remember: Is this public or private?" Nguyen said of competing social-networking services. "One of the great things about Color is we're telling you, 'Hey, it's public; it's public.' "

However, some people have complained that Color has not been totally upfront about the extent of data that's collected, some of which is instantly made available to nearby strangers. Nguyen acknowledges these concerns and said an upcoming version could make the terms "more clear."

"We think there are, without a doubt, moments where you share things privately and where you share things publicly," Nguyen said. "This is a way that you share openly."

Even popular smartphone systems, such as the iPhone and Android, aren't always explicit about the info they store in photos. Evidence of that can be found in the stream of pictures that are shared online from people unwittingly publishing data that can pinpoint their whereabouts.

Photos shared through e-mall or using Flickr, Photobucket and others can include precise location info, easily surfaced by free software, according to a CNN report in October. Facebook, the most popular photo-sharing site, wipes that info from each image uploaded for security reasons, a spokeswoman said then.

A computer program, aptly named Creepy, demonstrates how easily the location data in photos can be surfaced and plotted on maps. Various apps have popped up that let users selectively strike sensitive data from pictures. Alternatively, smartphone owners can disable location tagging in their phone's settings panel.

AnchorFree, a security-software firm, is planning to offer a feature in the next six months that can automatically remove GPS data from photos before they're sent over the Web.

"IPhone doesn't protect itself," said Eugene Lapidous, AnchorFree's chief architect. "So we have to provide some intermediary service in the cloud."

Any existing privacy concerns we have may be perpetually aggravated by the constant strides made in technical laboratories.

"As we think of new ways to use the content, there's no way to go back," Berkeley's Cheshire said. "It's an added problem to think about how this could be indexed, searchable on a completely separate system that hasn't been invented yet."

When Alexey Ivanov and his future wife, Marina Kiseleva, were dating, she gave him a memorable gift: a photograph of himself that looked as if it were hanging in the Tate Modern in London.

To create the image, she used a simple photo-editing program. And it gave the couple the idea for their Web site, Photofunia.com, which allows users to upload a photograph, select an image from dozens of templates showing a scene, and then merge the two photographs. It is just one of many Web sites for enhancing photographs that are becoming easier than ever to use.

The Web sites cater to novices, unlike sophisticated software packages like Photoshop, making it possible to create a greeting card, make photo collages, design new images for a Web site and tweak personal photographs without doing much more than clicking a button.

Some sites, like Photofunia, which is based in Ukraine, merge or mash up images. Others are aimed at transforming pictures to look as if they come from another time or place. Some sites have a more commercial aspect, selling products like lipstick by letting you try it by painting a virtual copy of the makeup on a photo of yourself.

Photofunia contains dozens of templates — of art galleries, urban scenes and locations like the Sphinx in Egypt. For example, users can put a picture of themselves into a scene from Times Square so that it looks as if the user’s image is on a billboard. The site also has tools to digitally detect a person’s face, extract it from a picture and graft it onto the head and body of another image, like Santa Claus or the Mona Lisa.

A similar site, based in Russia, is Photo505.com. It offers a wide array of templates, and can place a face in a wanted poster or the cover of a magazine like Cosmopolitan.

“We experiment and realize every idea we have in mind,” said the site’s founder, Vasily Giharev. “Even the most insane ones.”

Mr. Giharev said he was inspired to create the site after seeing the film “Forrest Gump,” which sliced film of the actor Tom Hanks into historical images from the 1960s, making it seem as if the character was present at the important events of that era.

Other sites — like Aviary.com, Pixlr.com, Splashup.com, and Citrify.com — are competing to offer simple tools for cropping an image, fixing red eye or making other tweaks to an image.

“The typical user is not a professional, but a step below, a beginner,” said Ola Sevandersson, the Stockholm-based founder of Pixlr.

While Pixlr itself is meant to be easy to use, Mr. Sevandersson also created an even simpler version that does most of the work with the push of a button.

Pixlr includes another feature that allows users to modify the colors in a photo. For example, effects named Melissa, Sophie or Tony (to make them easier to remember) will mute colors and change the focus to imitate the film and lenses commonly used in different eras. The vintage ’60s effect, for instance, amplifies the red tones and mutes the blues, effectively producing more yellows and purples, and imitating the way that films and photographic paper of that time reproduced light from the scene.

Other sites take photo editing into different realms. Taaz.com, for instance, allows people to test various colors of makeup.

“Our main positioning is not as a photo modification site,” said Deepu John, vice president of marketing at Taaz, which is based in San Diego. “It’s a site where women can try on thousands of different makeup colors on themselves.”

Users upload a photo of themselves and can then modify it by trying on foundation, lip gloss, blush and other cosmetics. Cosmetic companies pay fees to the company to include their products. Making the images look realistic was a challenge for the company’s software designers, Mr. John said. “We have to focus on light interacting with surface. That’s part of the key to realism.”

The makeup test is licensed by Taaz to other Web sites like People.com and Esteelauder.com.

Mr. John said more than a quarter of a billion tests of makeup products were performed each month on all the sites.

Yet another site is Bighugelabs.com, where users create badges, jigsaw puzzles and art work meant to emulate the styles of Andy Warhol or David Hockney. John Watson, the site’s founder, said it had almost a half million registered users.

The most popular service, he said, produces images that imitate a popular line of black-matted, motivational posters often found in office hallways. The site matches a picture with a caption and produces an image with the correct typeface. Many of the people visit the site to produce posters that are sarcastic, not inspirational.

“I think most people can be creative but not everyone is going to learn to play guitar,” Mr. Watson said. “But there are other ways for people to be creative. You can give them tools that allow themselves to express themselves in ways they couldn’t before.”

Via:mashable

Hop into this Ego Compact Semi Submarine, and without any extensive training you can be on your way to exploring the deep blue sea in no time.

Why is this called a semi-submarine? The entire boat is not submerged, but it’s more like a pontoon boat with a transparent waterproof compartment hanging from its middle.

That means James Cameron is not going to be using one of these subs for that deep-water shoot for his Avatarsequel, but it’s still suitable for giving you an eye-popping view of the undersea world. Think of it as more akin to snorkeling than scuba diving.

The little boat cruises along at a leisurely sightseeing pace that’s unspecified by its maker, which will only say that its batteries will last eight hours at cruising speed or four hours at top speed.

It’s built by South Korean company Raonhaje, which plans to sell fleets of these Ego Semi-Submarines to resorts, as well as individual subs to individuals and yacht owners, for whom the company offers to build custom moorings for the craft.

We’re thinking super-safe leisure subs like these would be a huge hit at a resort, especially one with reefs nearby with their colorful and bustling underwater wildlife. Just think, even people who can’t swim can enjoy the spectacular view.

View As Slideshow »

Ego Semi-Sub

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Ego Semi-Sub, Topside

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Ego Semi-Sub Side View

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Ego Semi-Sub Seating

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Ego Semi-Sub Drydock

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Ego Semi-Sub Colors Available

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Skim through the photos on Flickr or Photobucket, and you'll find pictures of cats pawing at living-room sofas, children playing in backyards and mothers gardening at home.

Dig a little deeper, and you can unearth the exact locations of many of those homes, embedded in data within the pictures.

Images often contain a bundle of information and various traces left by digital cameras or photo manipulation software.

This data, called Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF), is a key tool for many professionals. It can detail whether the photographer used a flash, which digital effects were applied to a picture and when the photo was taken.

EXIF can also contain the precise GPS coordinates for where a photo was taken. This information is readily accessible and can be plugged into software such as Google Maps -- leading some security and photography experts to express concerns about amateurs unknowingly disclosing private information, such as the location of their home.

"What could go wrong with that?" Roger Thompson, the chief research officer for digital security firm AVG, said sarcastically.

Thomas Hawk, an active Flickr user and the former chief executive of competing photo site Zooomr, said EXIF is an important part of his archival process. But he has also used that data to track down someone who was harassing him online and managed to coerce an apology, he said.

"I don't geotag any pictures to my house," Hawk said on the phone last week. "I think it's a huge concern. I think a lot of people don't realize or recognize what's in all of the EXIF data that they're publishing."

Most gadgets ignore the geotagging component of EXIF because relatively few cameras contain the GPS chips needed to tag them. However, many smartphones, such as those from Apple and Google's Android system, let users employ this feature.

Apple's and Google's systems ask each user once or a few times for permission to access their location in order to provide additional services. If they click "OK" on that popup, every photo they take is tagged with GPS coordinates.

Smartphones are fast becoming the camera of choice for many people. Cameras on newer phones have come to rival dedicated point-and-shoots, and many smartphone owners carry them just about everywhere. Smartphone sales have increased 50 percent since last year, according to a report by research firm Gartner.

Millions of images are uploaded to Facebook using the company's iPhone, Android and BlackBerry applications. The iPhone 3G is the most popular shooter among photographers on Yahoo's Flickr website, according to a report on that site.

Judging by the abundance of pictures in Flickr's database that include geolocation data in the EXIF, some smartphone owners aren't thinking twice about opting into their devices' GPS feature. Doing so can facilitate useful tools. For example, software like iPhoto and Picasa can group images by location and display them on a map.

But amateur photographers may not realize that this info stays with the image when it's uploaded to Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa Web Albums and some other photo-sharing services. (Facebook says it strips the EXIF data from all photos to protect its users' privacy.)

Pictures uploaded to Photobucket by one woman show her children preparing lunch and bathing in a kitchen sink. The location data, which is displayed directly on each photo's webpage, can be inputted into Google Maps to find a satellite image of her rural home in Edmond, Oklahoma. The woman couldn't be reached for comment.

"We added EXIF data a few years ago at the request of our users," Rob Newton, a spokesman for Photobucket, wrote in an e-mail. "To date, we have not received any complaints from users who were previously unaware of the GPS tagging feature."

Displaying the GPS coordinates on the page can be disabled in a user's settings panel, Newton noted.

However, anyone could still download the original file using a link on Photobucket and view the location info in Adobe's Photoshop or in software included with every new Mac and Windows 7 computer.

Flickr's and Picasa's pages don't show the coordinates by default. But the services similarly offer links to access the original files, which can contain EXIF.

"Having the ability to download the original version of photos on Flickr is an important feature for our members," a Flickr spokeswoman wrote. "However, we help people maintain their privacy by stripping the EXIF data of an image from view on the site and making the default control option to keep this information private."

Users who don't want their photos tagged with GPS data can either disable the option on their cameras or run the images through software, such as Photoshop, that can remove the EXIF.

"We realize not everyone wants to share this information with others," a Google spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. She notes how to disable GPS tagging, but added: "This is a popular Picasa feature that many people find useful."

Some photo services, including Facebook, TwitPic and Yfrog, strip EXIF once a file is uploaded and don't offer a way for users to access the original.

For Yfrog, the lack of EXIF is a byproduct of automatic image optimizations done by the system, not something designed specifically with privacy in mind, Mike Harkey, a spokesman for the ImageShack-owned Yfrog site, wrote in an e-mail.

While Facebook's system compresses some photos, it doesn't do so for every one.

"For those that we don't compress, we still strip out EXIF data," Facebook spokeswoman Jaime Schopflin wrote in an e-mail. "We do this since users can unintentionally leak sensitive information in EXIF data."

Thompson, the security expert from AVG, commended these efforts.

"Chalk one up to Facebook for that one," he said. "One of the alarming things is that every [Facebook] application wants to access your profile and your contacts and your photos. So if they weren't stripping that [EXIF data], it would be particularly alarming."

Ahhh, 2009 is about to be over, personally im looking forward to 2010. If it's anything like this last year from me personally then it should be a great one, there's been alot of sad times as well as alot of great ones as well, so instead of trying to write to you about it i think we'll just put it in pictures for you. Have a safe and happy holidays to all.