| The IMS Voice-to-Animation Solution Selected to Power Online Christmas ...
Automated voice-to-animation software allows MakeBeliever Productions to automatically create personalized composite digital video greetings from real human characters. Research Triangle Park Area Interactive Multimedia Solutions, Inc. (www.IMS3D.com), a leading provider of voice-to-animation solutions for the multimedia market, is pleased to announce that MakeBeliever Productions, LLC (www.MakeBeliever.com), has selected the IMS V2A MDKTM (Voice-to-Animation Multimedia Developers Kit) product for the development of the companys innovative online personalized video greeting solution. MakeBeliever is an Arkansas-based company that was recently founded to revolutionize and transform the online greeting card market with an unprecedented level of personalization in online video greetings. For the first time ever, consumers can create their own videos and have a real human character say virtually anything you want to anyone you want with an automated process.
Organic rules roost as chicken flies off shelves
One contributor from Fife to an online debate about the subject wrote last week: "One supermarket in Glenrothes has had none at all since these programmes went out."Another said: "In Lanark, at the local supermarket, the free-range chickens were nearly sold out and other people at my work also commented on the same thing happening at their local stores."From now on, it's only free range in our house because standard chicken farming should not be supported by our money."Last night, a spokesman for Sainsburys said its customers in Scotland had been buying free-range or organic chickens in vast numbers.The programmes fronted by Oliver and Fearnley-Whittingstall included images of birds kept in spaces smaller than an A4 piece of paper and spending virtually 24 hours a day in near-darkness.Oliver concentrated on chickens being raised to satisfy the demand for cheap food whilst Fearnley-Whittingstall set up two poultry farms, one free range, the other intensive to try and highlight the differences in both technique and quality of life for the birds.However, many consumers are continuing to buy battery chickens and their eggs despite a recent RSPCA survey showing 75% of the British public thought supermarkets should only sell organic or free-range poultry products.A spokesman for the charity added: "Since recently discovering that standard chickens were farmed in poor conditions these people now buy chickens that have had a better life."Nearly three out of four people feel supermarkets should only sell higher welfare chicken such as Freedom Food, free-range or organic."This directly supports the RSPCA's January campaign in which we asked people to sign a petition calling on supermarkets to sell only higher-welfare chicken by 2010.
For some Hawaii residents, tourists make lousy neighbors
HONOLULU Hawaii's verdant volcanic peaks and crystalline waters have made tourism the state's biggest industry. But not all Hawaii residents are thrilled by the millions who flock to their shores. They complain that some visitors are renting homes and rooms in their residential neighborhoods. These tourists create noise, drive up home and rental prices and destroy the sense of community, residents say. "When you live in a place like Hawaii that is a resort 24-7, you need areas where people can feel at home," said Katherine Bryant-Hunter, chairwoman of a neighborhood board on the island of Oahu. "Our neighbors change everyday. They don't coach volleyball. They don't go to church with us. They are not part of the community fabric." Their concerns have led to a flurry of new proposals by lawmakers on Oahu, Maui and Kauai.
Blog: Auto World's Cheapest Car Greeted by Environmentalist Protests
When your average salary is a $250/month, you don't buy a car. You ride a scooter, a vehicle which for much of Asia's population is the de facto mode of transportation. Of course, putting four or five people on a seat meant for one and a half isn't comfortable or even safe. The children have to be constantly held. Occasionally they'll sit on the rear tire shield or stand on the front, skipping the seat entirely. Accidents are common-- and without any sort of protection, even the most trivial often cause serious injury. Exposure to the elements has its health effects, especially for small children who in bad weather typically arrive rain-soaked and covered in mud from foul city streets. The Indian company Tata is trying to change all that. Its new vehicle, the Nano, has a starting cost of only $2,500.
Women turn on ‘traitor’ Oprah Winfrey for backing Barack Obama
Hillary has the backing of her husband, former President Clinton and no one is balking at the tag team job the two of them are doing on Obama. Just being a former president gives him an advantage over the other candidates so whoever Obama and/or John can get to support them is warranted. We voters need to focus on more important issues than who's backing/supporting who since we have the last say! .
Hobart family claims police abuse
HOBART | Candace Olig couldn't hold back the tears Monday as her lawyers played a videotape they say provides visual proof of her family's accusations of police abuse. Watch the surveillance video (Edited for brevity).The 32-minute videotape, taken on the night of Aug. 30 in the Oligs' front yard, shows police arriving at the home in response to a call by the Oligs, who reported a disturbance in their neighborhood involving a speeding car. In moments, the scene turns violent.Words are exchanged before a police officer enters the Oligs' front yard and then is seen throwing a punch that knocks Candace Olig to the ground. As a struggle ensues involving other officers and family members, the same officer is seen in the video pointing his gun at her.Other family members, including husband James Olig, 46, and sons David, 21, and Brian, 18, can be seen in the videotape being grabbed, wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by police.
IT Best Buy Shines Brightly as CompUSA Fades Away
When it comes to the realm of consumer electronics, Best Buy is the reigning retail leader. Best Buy's market dominance was made even clearer with the company's fiscal 2008 Q3 earnings report. Best Buy reported a 52% increase in its Q3 profits compared to the same period one year ago. In addition, overall quarterly revenue rose 17% from $8.5 billion USD to $9.9 billion USD thanks to 45 new store openings during the quarter. Revenue from Best Buy's online division helped the total with a 65% increase from fiscal 2007 Q3. Not surprisingly, Best Buy attributed an extra week of after Thanksgiving revenue for its stellar third quarter performance. Hot items for Best Buy during Q3 included consoles, flat-panel TVs, notebook computers and GPS units. When all was said and done, Best Buy's sales mix for the third quarter was 41%, 28%, 19%, 6% and 6% respectively for Consumer Electronics, Home Office, Entertainment Software, Appliances and Services.
Students are most susceptible to brain injury
But until recently, the group most susceptible to traumatic brain injuries has been relegated to the bench. High school students are on the receiving end of at least 68,000 concussions a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are likely many more though, because young athletes seldom report the injury. New studies outline dangerous trends in concussions, and professional leagues such as the NFL and NHL are teaming up to promote concussion education. Fellows's September collision was at least her third since she was a freshman in high school, and the worst that coach Jennifer Rockwood has seen in her nearly 20 years at BYU. It was the worst most anyone had seen. As Fellows hit the ground, players were already yelling for the trainer who was on the field before getting the OK from the referee.
The day politics stopped working
Barack Obama calls it the audacity of hope. But what happened? Where did all that energy go? There are all kinds of possible answers, focused on everything from the tactics of the organisers to the idea that modern protest might be a banal matter of registering one's individual dissent - "Not in my name," as the slogan put it - then going home happy. Some people are yet more cynical, claiming that the march was another one of those modern Dianaesque spasms, indicative of not much more than a fleeting national pang of banal humanitarian sentiment, and that very modern desire to break out of our atomised lives and seek solace in crowds. But never mind them. There are reasons to take what happened that day much more seriously, chiefly because the march both dramatised and accelerated an ongoing disconnection between millions of Britons and the people who affect to speak in their name.
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