The Tokyo Girl Who Defies Gravity
Natsumi Hayashi works as a photographer's assistant and probably spends her day the same as the rest of us gravity-bound earthlings. But once an impromptu burst of inspiration strikes the 20-something Tokyo native, she can't seem to keep her feet on the ground. And so Hayashi takes pictures of herself as she travels around the city. Looking at her photographs, it's easy to see why her amusingly peculiar self-portraits have created a healthy stir of interest from all over the world. What makes all of Hayashi's outdoor pictures so remarkable is that she appears to levitate without warning. To be more specific, she manages this illusion by jumping. Many times. "Sometimes I need to jump more than 300 times to get the perfect shot," she says.
Granted, levitating pictures aren't anything new, but Hayashi's flights of fancy have a ballet-like beauty to it, and she has a wonderful habit of including strangers into her shots with dramatic effect. Take, for example, a picture of a dead-pan Hayashi floating amidst a chaotic Tokyo train station rush hour: while people make their way along a crowded flight of stairs, she just takes a leap, not minding any of the bewildered looks from the commuters. You can almost imagine what these people must think of this strange jumping woman. There's even a surreal quality to some of her photographs where she's being deliberately ignored by passers-by, like they're used to seeing someone jump in public for no apparent reason. Drop by Hayashi's website and see for yourself why she doesn't need wings to fly.
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LulzSec Shutting Down
It seems that the Lulz will be coming to an end. After a 50 day hacking spree, LulzSec has announced that it will be shutting down operations. The news came on Saturday in the form of a note on pastebin.com. In the note, the group said that it encourages its followers to continue the group’s anti-government agenda, hoping that their recent actions would lead to a revolution. While the group claims that the 50 day hacking spree was planned all along, some have speculated that the group is shutting down to avoid getting caught, after the arrest of a purported LulzSec member and the releasing of hundreds of Arizona law enforcement documents. The group also revealed in the note that it was a crew of six, but went into no further detail on its makeup, or plans for the future.
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Hands-Free Driving With the Volkswagen Auto-Pilot System
Self-driving systems for automobiles have been steadily gaining ground with Google's autonomous Toyota Prius, along with Audi's TTS Pikes Peak car. If this kind of progress speeds up even further, we just might be seeing fully-controlled AI cars sooner than we think. Volkswagen continues that trend with its Temporary Auto Pilot system. The prototype technology lets the car drive independently up to a speed of 80 mph. Volkswagen has made this possible by combining current automotive features such as adaptive cruise control, sensors for tracking location and other vehicles, and lane-keeping assist. So far the technology shows great promise, with the semi-automatic mode perceptively making sound judgments in maintaining safe distances from nearby vehicles, decreasing speed before a bend, as well as observing traffic rules. The system still requires the driver to continuously monitor the vehicle, so dozing off is certainly out of the question. It is possible that Volkswagen may have a production version up-and-running in a few years' time. And while a lot of us would still prefer to have our own hands on the wheel, we could be looking at a future where cars might be driven more by computers.
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