Scientists Create Easier Way To Embed Objects Into Video 236
Ashutosh Saxena writes "Stanford artificial intelligence researchers have developed software that makes it easy to reach inside an existing video and place a photo on the wall so realistically that it looks like it was there from the beginning. The photo is not pasted on top of the existing video, but embedded in it. It works for videos as well — you can play a video on a wall inside your video. The technology can cheaply do some of the tricks normally performed by expensive commercial editing systems. The researchers suggest that anyone with a video camera might earn some spending money by agreeing to have unobtrusive corporate logos placed inside their videos before they are posted online."
Re:It will, and does (Score:3, Informative)
That was My Name is Earl. The character Joy watched the commercial in the show (they showed most of the commercial in the show) and she started name dropping the product. Soon after during the commercial break that commercial was on for real. I love the show but when the show was over I turned to my wife and said if they did that again I wouldn't be a viewer any more.
It may sound childish but that was too much.
Re:It will, and does (Score:4, Informative)
I was worried about being dismissed as one 'o' them tinfoil-hat people. Will paranoia become the new "sane"? :)
It already has, but we've all agreed to not tell you.
Re:Generics (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, when it comes to generics, drugs are not very different than car doors. The chemicals are supposed to be the same, but the other components may be cheaper. And there may be qualitative functional differences in the packaging. "Time release" is sometimes achieved by coating particles with compounds that have measured rates of decomposition in stomach acid, and with some percentage of particles to be coated heavier than others. There is no guarantee that a generic has to mimic that behavior, or that a generic uses the same coatings, or that a generic will release the same percentage over time. Those coatings and methods are frequently the targets of their own patents.
For example, if a doctor prescribes one 1000mg pill of time release brand X per day, your pharmacist may tell you to take one 250mg tablet of generic X every six hours, or two 500mg tablets every 12 hours, based on the effects of the drug.
Now, does that matter when you're talking acetaminophen? No. Aspirin? Maybe you need to shop around if you have a sensitive stomach, but for the most part no. But antidepressants or blood pressure medications? Do you really know what those extra "brand name" attributes are, or how they would affect you? I'm not a pharmacist, so I certainly wouldn't.
Of course, to your point, scare tactic advertising was part of the lawsuit against Knoll Pharmaceuticals, makers of Synthroid. For seven years, they suppressed their own paid-for study that showed the generic levothyroxine was equally as effective as their name brand Synthroid. They advertised heavily that you should only trust the brand name drug, all the while knowing that generics were bioequivalent.
Re:It will, and does (Score:2, Informative)
Aleve (Naproxen) [wikipedia.org]
They're not the same thing. Although certain OTC varieties might contain ibuprofen, it is not the active ingredient.
Re:It will, and does (Score:3, Informative)
It comes from (if memory serves) a Chinese phrase for "cleansing the mind".
In other words, driving out all those dirty capitalist thoughts and learning to love the communist party
More info here [wikipedia.org]
It might be (Score:1, Informative)