Our World, Slowed Down 100 Times [VIDEO]

Come with us into a world where everything is slowed down more than 100 times. Thanks to an expert videographer and editor named Tom Guilmette and a Vision Research Phantom Flex camera, we get a peek into an alternative universe — the same one we inhabit, but where the temporal element has been distorted in a variety of ways.

According to Guilmette on his Vimeo site:

“I was working a gig in Vegas with a brand new Phantom Flex high speed digital cinema camera. I had to try it out. In fact, I never did go to bed that night. I opened up a wormhole shooting at 2,564 frames per second.”

Most video ambles by at somewhere between 24 and 30 frames per second when it’s shot and viewed, but when you play back this 2,564 frame-per-second video at the usual speed of 24 or 30fps, things are slowed down so much, you can see things you’d never be able to detect in real time.

I’m always amazed at the way extreme slow motion techniques can turn everyday occurrences into mind-bending art. Beyond that, I’m impressed with the way Guilmette makes his video so entertaining with convincing sound effects, music and sharp editing, further playing with speed differences to create an astonishing timescape.

Google Docs Viewer Now Handles 12 More File Types

 

The Google Docs Viewer just got a whole lot more useful. Now, it lets you view more than just PDFs, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents, displaying 12 new file types, launching from the Gmail application, Google Docs, or embedded in any website.

According to the official Google Docs Blog, here are the dozen new file types you can view in the Google Docs Viewer, including two different kinds of Microsoft Excel files, and .PPTX file compatibility for PowerPoint 2007 and 2010:

• Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 / 2010 (.PPTX — before, only .ppt and .pps were supported)
• Apple Pages (.PAGES)
• Adobe Illustrator (.AI)
• Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)
• Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)
• Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)
• PostScript (.EPS, .PS)
• TrueType (.TTF)
• XML Paper Specification (.XPS)

Keep in mind that you can’t create documents in these formats using Google Docs — you’ll still need the original applications to do that.

I gave this a try with a Photoshop document, and it was an unusual feeling to see that “view” link in Gmail when I sent myself a 1.8MB .PSD file. And, when I clicked on that link and the Google Docs Viewer appeared, the Photoshop file rendered just as well as it does inside Photoshop itself, perfect for a quick peek.

This adds welcome usability to Gmail and Google Docs. What other file types would you like to see viewable in the Google Docs viewer?

Now Microsoft Office user can Sync With Google Docs

Google just made it easier for people to collaborate with each other using Microsoft Office by officially launching Google Cloud Connect Thursday.

The service, which has been in beta since November, is now available to all and uses Google’s vast cloud to store and synchronize any Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel document.

If you have Microsoft Office, using Google Cloud Connect is as easy as downloading a plug-in, installing it and then seeing a toolbar at the top of your Office application.

After your authorization, Cloud Connect saves a copy of your document online and lets you share it with anyone you choose via an e-mail address. The recipients clicks on the shared link and the file opens in Google Docs. At that point, they can download the document and work on it in Microsoft Word. When they make changes, the edits show up on the original document, too.

Documents can be edited in either Google Docs or Microsoft Office, and whoever is collaborating with you does not need to own Microsoft Office to edit those documents and synchronize the files with each other. It would seem that Google is using this free and convenient plug-in as a lure for those who might be tempted to use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office.

Although the service was synching slowly when we tested it this morning (probably because of everyone who wanted to try the new service), it worked well and kept a Word document up to date on both PCs. Its file synchronization isn’t as immediate as the live typing of the now-defunct Google Wave, but it’s still able to sync documents efficiently.

Here’s a video showing how the system works, and be sure to see the additional demo videos Google released on its blog today:

Google Chrome launches URL blocker for search results

Google has released an experimental Chrome extension that attempts to curb the proliferation of so-called content farms.

The extension, Personal Blacklist, adds a new link underneath any Google search result that lets users remove an entire website from search results.

Personal Blacklist also places a link at the bottom of search result pages affected by the extension so users can still see the results they’ve blocked. Users can also manage their block lists by clicking on the extension’s icon.

Google says that this Chrome extension is all about curbing the rise of content farms, websites that create vast quantities of low-quality content and rely on search for their traffic. When users block such a site, that information is transmitted to Google, where it could potentially be used as part of the company’s complex search algorithms.

In other words, Google is debating whether to use explicit user feedback and human input in its search algorithm. It’s a move that’s definitely out of character for the famously algorithmic-centric company, but it has had limited success in stopping content farms — often characterized as sites like Yahoo’s Associated Content or some of Demand Media’s properties (though Google doesn’t call out anyone specifically) — from dominating search results with low-quality articles created on-the-cheap.

Last month, Google’s Matt Cutts outlined the company’s plan for combating search spam, emphasizing recent changes to the algorithm and a redesigned document-level classifier as just the start of its anti-spam efforts. However, Google also admitted that there has been an uptick in search spam, mostly from the content farms.

We welcome Personal Blacklist extension as a great tool for personalizing search results, but it’s also an admission that Google hasn’t quite figured out how to weed out the content farms. Google is hoping that an injection of human input can help it clean up its search results pages.