Month: March 2013

By Guest Contributor, Digital Photography School – September 07, 2010 at 07:45PM

A Guest Post by Travis Hill from The Perfect Pose

In recent years photojournalism has been all the rage. Just capture the day or moment as it happens. Honestly that is wonderful style of photography that many people enjoy. The problem is, everyone’s doing it. With so many new photographers in the market today, it’s imperial that we set ourselves apart from the crowd. With that being said lets ask ourselves honestly. How many times have our wedding clients not wanted any formal photographs? How many times have our portrait clients asked; “What should I do”? In these situations we cannot simply rely on photojournalism. We must be able to instruct our clients how to stand, how to hold their shoulders back, we as professional photographers need to tell our clients how to look their best. It’s time for us to take control and make the magic happen.

Know your client: Most people don’t think of this when they think of posing. This is the first step in creating a pose. We need to understand our client’s personality; we need to capture who they are. Establishing a relationship with our clients will not only help us understand what it is they want, it will help build trust. Trust is crucial when it comes to photographing clients. I can’t tell you how many times I have wanted to do something funky, and then get a strange look from the client. Then I just say “Trust The Photographer”. Because I have already established a relationship with the client, they are more willing to “Trust Me”.

Here are some ideas for posing engagement sessions

When you’re posing a couple for an engagement session, remember they’re in love. They want cool artistic images, but they also want some nice romantic images that show their love for one another.

In this image I had my clients lie on the ground and wrap up tight. Of course they didn’t mind! Let you clients have fun with the pose. Remember just because we are posing people, it doesn’t mean they have stiff and boring. Always be willing to go above and beyond the norm.

From this pose we can change our angle and have the couple move around slightly to easily create a few more images. Which is always great, because changing the pose just a little can completely change the image. Tell your clients how good they look. This is going to automatically make them look at you, and then almost always they will look back at each other and smile.

Now just have your clients sit up for the final image in this series. (He actually grabbed his fiancé and rolled her over top of him. That’s why they are laughing, and she is on the other side of him.) Let you clients have fun, and embrace what they do. Posing is about interacting and having fun more than just telling someone what to do.

Two quick poses you can do every time. Look at me, look at each other! This gives them a photo that Mom is sure to love. Plus they have a shot that looks candid, the photo looks natural and doesn’t look posed, but it reality it was. Something important to remember in posing: No matter how posed the shot is, we always want it to look comfortable and natural.

Don’t be afraid to add some background to you shot. Give your clients some space and take in the scenery. Clients are going to want some artistic photos as well.

Notice the pose in this image. They are not facing me. I have there bodies turned toward each other with them looking at me. This will always help slim your clients.

Get two images from one pose. I almost always have my clients pose where the girl is leaning into they guy. Whether it be sitting or standing. It’s a nice relaxing pose that looks very comfortable. And you can always get two images from this one pose. Simply zoom out and give the image a new look and a new feel.

Now when I think; “what do my clients want to look like in an image”? Usually I think they want to look cool. So you always have to set up a cool looking pose. This doesn’t have to be a pose where they are close together. Just brake them a part and make them look cool!

Travis Hill is photographer from Baltimore Maryland. See more of his work at his studio site, his posing blog and on Facebook.

Post from: Digital Photography School

By Sean Michael Ragan, MAKE – September 07, 2010 at 06:00PM

I actually had to send some snail-mail recently and remembered the clever Google map envelope trick from Beste Miray Dogan that made the rounds awhile back. Turns out, a friendly bloke named Stephen has created a handy generator website that lets you input your return address and then automagically creates a printable cut-and-fold pattern.

More:

• AirMail: Felt / homemade Manila envelope laptop sleeve for MacBook Air
• The minimalistic no-cost iBook sleeve (it’s an envelope too)
• Letters without envelopes, cutting or glue
• Envelope and Letter Folding

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » |

Read more articles in Paper Crafts |

Digg this!

By Dennis Crouch, Patent Law Blog (Patently-O) – September 07, 2010 at 05:37PM

The USPTO has publicly released its data visualization center and patent dashboard. The site does an excellent job of providing a visual overview of the current USPTO state-of-affairs in terms of patent backlog, pendency, and allowance rate. The site also breaks-down those numbers in various ways that may be useful for advising your clients.  Data-downloads on the site provide unprecedented public access to PTO numbers that were previously either uncalculated or largely kept secret.

PTO Director Dave Kappos additionally sees the dashboard as providing patent office accountability and publicly facing the challenge of reducing patent pendency. Kappos writes on his blog:

An important part of the effort to reduce pendency is better understanding the numerous factors that contribute to examination delays and measuring their impact in a way that makes the USPTO more transparent to the public.  By looking at the whole picture, we can more effectively develop ways to increase the efficiency of the examination process.  While we know we have to hire more examiners to reduce the backlog, we also know that we must re-engineer the way we do business at the USPTO and have already implemented a series of initiatives designed to improve efficiencies.  These process changes will empower our workforce to be more effective and have already begun to yield important gains.

. . . [The Dashboard] will help the entire IP community to better understand our processes, and enable applicants to make more informed decisions about their applications, especially as we develop more opportunities for applicants to control the timing at which their applications are examined.  The new dashboard, which will be updated monthly, will also be used internally by the USPTO to analyze and improve our examination process and to track the effectiveness of our improvement efforts.  We intend to further refine the dashboard and welcome your input about ways we can improve it.  A dedicated mailbox [feedback@uspto.gov] has been set up for your comments and we intend to monitor your feedback carefully. 
 
The dashboard introduces six new measures of pendency designed to give a better overall picture of the contributions of different parts of the examination process to application pendency.  For example, the traditional total pendency measure stops the clock with the filing of an RCE, which may not provide an accurate measure of the total time it takes to complete the examination of an application through request for continued examination (RCE) practice.  A new measure, called “Traditional Total Pendency Including RCEs,” looks at pendency of applications from filing of the original application to ultimate disposal of that same application, including any additional time attributable to RCE filings in those applications where RCE filings are made.  Similar measures are provided relative to divisional applications and other types of continuation practice.  We also provide information about pendency for applications in appeal practice.

Links:

• Data visualization center and patent dashboard
• Kappos Blog
• [It appears that the site has a few kinks to work-out as the data downloads are not working properly]

By Anil, Anil Dash – September 07, 2010 at 01:34PM

There are some links I just keep finding myself sending around to friends and coworkers. Hmm, isn’t that what a blog is for?

• From back in April, a look at the service guidelines for staff at Momofuku offshoot Má Pêche. Though the Eater commenters respond with their typical asinine snark, what you see in this list is the extraordinary level of detail it takes to get consistently great service, and how thoughtful a successful organization needs to be to the culture it creates and the communications that shape that culture. “No pointing.”

• Mike Monteiro continues his fantastic series of fundamental posts about the business of design over at Mule Design’s blog with Presenting Design Like You Get Paid For It.

• From the always-great Danc’s Lost Garden, a visualization of the creative process. Absolutely brilliant in capturing a concept I’ve wished I could articulate for years.

• Andre Torrez on meaningful work. Where the first two links are about motivating a team to be of service, Andre’s is similar to Dan’s in focusing on giving a group of people work they can be proud of.

We will build this application. You might use it or you might not. We have an actual plan for making money and we have such low overhead that we can play with that plan until we think it’s right. It would be nice if more people did it this way. Life’s too short to spend it sitting in a stupid meeting wishing you had more time to make something good.

Each of these pieces is, essentially, an exploration of the process of cultural accommodation, of communicating and understanding communication in a way that frees others to be more comfortable and happier. And, incidentally, also leads to them being excited about the potential for giving you money or opportunities, instead of resentful or suspicious.

By James Johnson, ForeverGeek – September 07, 2010 at 11:36AM

If you’re a fan of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody then you’re in for a treat with this remake of the song based around Star Wars Episodes 1, 2 and 3.

The song, renamed Midichlorian Rhapsody relies on footage from those films with all new words and an actually decent vocal recording, although not quite as good as Queen’s original version.

The song features such brilliant lyrics and by brilliant I mean funny as “Mama Shmi-oh let me go” and covers the span of the prequel films.

Here’s the song synced up to the movies:

What did you think about Midicholrian Rhapsody? It could have done with a unique made from scratch parody video in my opinion, but the lyrics weren’t awful and it actually seemed to fit the editing job that was done for the song.

By James Johnson, ForeverGeek – September 06, 2010 at 01:12PM

The International Space Station is used as a hub for medical research, various space based sciences and as a means for international cooperation, it’s also a pretty cool place to Earth gaze, as was demonstrated by ISS crew member Don Pettit.

Pettit took a bunch of footage from one of the stations windows that face earth and then placed those images into a time-lapse demonstration of earth.

Notice the northern lights, over electrified cities and other odd changes to the earth as it rotates through space.

Here’s the video:

The movie goes by quickly, but damn New York City, Japan and most of China, how about turning down the neon lights a little bit.

By Joel Jordon, MakeUseOf – September 04, 2010 at 09:30PM

I intend to open up to you the corners of the internet that can help tap into the darkest corners of your own mind. Last month, I brought you the best optical illusions on the web, which tested how your mind manipulates your perceptions, and now I bring you some of the web’s best psychological tests. These tests may reveal to you the deepest parts of your own subconscious, which may horrify and astound you — but at least taking the tests will be fun.

There aren’t silly pop psychology tests that have no basis in fact; they’re legitimate psychological tests that are either backed by significant research or are actually parts of ongoing studies that are using your results to obtain more data. They’ll help you dig into your mind and explore your subconscious, memorization abilities, personality, and much more.

BBC’s Tests

The BBC has a surprisingly large collection of free psychological tests online. The subjects that they cover really run the gamut: you can find out how good your memory is, whether you experience synesthesia, what sex your brain is, and much more.

Many of the tests are parts of ongoing studies, so rest assured that the results you’re getting are coming directly from professional psychologists and researchers.

Cognitive Fun

Cognitive Fun is an excellent website with tons of unique psychological tests. Many will test your reaction time and memorization abilities, and you’ll also find the classic Stroop color test on the site.

One of the site’s best features is that you can register an account and save your stats on all of the site’s tests. Then you can compare your results to those of everyone else who took the tests.

Jung Typology Test

The Jung Typology Test reveals your personality type using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a well-established personality test first published in 1962.

Results of the test will provide you with four letters that summarize your personality type (don’t worry, it also explains, in detail, what those letters and your particular type actually mean). You’ll also find out what famous people had your personality type.

Project Implicit

Project Implicit is an excellent Harvard study that may reveal your subconscious biases regarding race, gender, religion, and more. It does this by requiring you to distinguish between different images and words and group them into correct categories.

For example, in the race test, you have to distinguish between faces of European and African origin and good words (like “joy” and “love”) and bad words (like “agony” and “terrible”). Then you have to group bad words and images of European American faces together and good words and images of African American faces together (and vice versa). To get accurate results, you have to sort quickly. Based on whether or not you make mistakes when grouping images, the test purports to reveal whether you may have a subconscious preference for faces of European or African origin. The results of this test and others on Project Implicit may astonish and unsettle you.

Face Research

The face research tests also primarily use images of faces. Here, however, you are making choices like whether faces look healthier, more trustworthy, or more attractive.

To participate in the tests you have to either register an account or login as a guest. These tests could reveal how you subconsciously assume things about the people you’ve just met based only on very subtle changes in their faces.

Conclusion

Psychological tests are both fun and can reveal a lot about us. If you want more information behind the results that you’re getting from these tests, consider checking out some informative psychology websites. In all of your pursuits to better understand yourself and the workings of your mind, I wish you luck.

Image source: Obscenity

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By Mike Masnick, Techdirt. – September 03, 2010 at 04:58AM

For many years, we’ve discussed how the Bayh-Dole Act, which created incentives for universities to patent the (often federally-funded) research results of professors, has been a dismal failure. The failure is based on the same faulty reason for why people think that patent system itself increases innovation — even in the face of an awful lot of evidence to the contrary. The mistake is in thinking that the key incentives for research is to extract the greatest dollar value in return, and that the key to commercialization is licensing. Neither is true. In academic settings, research is driven by a variety of factors, many of which have little relation to commercial incentives. Second, the key to commercialization tends to be market need, not licensing opportunity.

But, because of this, tons of universities thought they were going to be rich and set up “tech transfer” offices to help license this new found wealth of patents. Reality hasn’t been kind. With a small number of exceptions (the big famous universities like Stanford and MIT), nearly every one of these tech transfer offices have lost money for the universities that set them up. In part, this is often because tech transfer offices like to overvalue the patent, and completely undervalue the actual execution necessary. But, more importantly, the research that comes out in this manner often just doesn’t have that much commercial potential — and a big reason for that may actually be the patents themselves.

By locking up the technology with patents, it’s decreased incentives for sharing ideas, which is where real growth and real innovation comes from. The end result is — entirely contrary to the predictions of Bayh-Dole supporters — that the law has decreased the output of researchers and decreased the value of that output. In other words, it’s done the exact opposite of what it’s promised — and yet we still don’t hear any talk of repealing such a dangerous law.

There’s now some new research on trying to patent and commercialize university research, this time coming out of Canada, and it, too, has found that there’s very little evidence of benefit from patenting and trying to license university research. Effectively, it found that the costs and benefits almost even out.

The latest report is based on survey data from 2008 which finds that the total IP income (primarily from licencing) at reporting Canadian universities was $53.2 million. The cost of generating this income? The reporting institutions employed 321 full-time employees in IP management for a cost of $51.1 million. In other words, after these direct costs, the total surplus for all Canadian universities was $2.1 million. The average income per university from IP was only $425,000. Patent applications and patents issued were actually down in the reporting institutions and there were less than two-dozen spin-off companies reported by the universities.

So, it’s another bit of research suggesting this effort to patent university research has not done what it promised to do. So why do politicians still support such laws, when the empirical evidence has long shown that it does not do what those very same politicians promised?

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By Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo – September 03, 2010 at 01:40AM

From Star Trek: The Motion Picture to Star Trek 2009; from the first Enterprise and Birds of Prey to the NCC-1701-E and back to the Enterprise: This video shows all the warp jump effect types in all the movies. Engage! More »

By Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog, The 271 Patent Blog – September 02, 2010 at 08:56PM

The USPTO recently published a 15-page notice updating the 2007 KSR Guidelines.  The update reviews all of the most relevant Federal Circuit caselaw (over 20 cases) dealing with obviousness since KSR, and distills the rulings down to a reader-friendly format that concludes each case with a handy “teaching point.”

In a nutshell, the update covers (1) principles of obviousness, (2) the impact of the KSR decision, (3) obviousness examples from Federal Circuit cases, which includes

• Combining prior art elements
• Substituting one known element for another, and
• The “obvious to try” rationale

Finally, the update includes Federal Circuit cases discussing consideration of evidence in cases of obviousness.

The USPTO is also seeking comments from the public, and is “especially interested in receiving suggestions of recent decisional law in the field of obviousness that would have particular value as teaching tools.” Comments concerning the 2010 KSR Guidelines Update may be sent by email to KSR_Guidance@uspto.gov.

The 2010 update is a fantastic teaching tool, and should be read by every practitioner.  Some highlights from the update:

The Principles of Obviousness:

It is important for Office personnel to recognize that when they do choose to formulate an obviousness rejection using one of the rationales suggested by the Supreme Court in KSR and discussed in the 2007 KSR Guidelines, they are to adhere to the instructions provided in the MPEP regarding the necessary factual findings.

[I]t remains Office policy that appropriate factual findings are required in order to apply the enumerated rationales properly. If a rejection has been made that omits one of the required factual findings, and in response to the rejection a practitioner or inventor points out the omission, Office personnel must either withdraw the rejection, or repeat the rejection including all required factual findings.

The Impact of KSR:

Office personnel as well as practitioners should also recognize the significant extent to which the obviousness inquiry has remained constant in the aftermath of KSR.

[W]hen considering obviousness, Office personnel are cautioned against treating any line of reasoning as a per se rule . . . for example, automating a manual activity, making portable, making separable, reversal or duplication of parts, or purifying an old product may form the basis of a rejection. However, such rationales should not be treated as per se rules, but rather must be explained and shown to apply to the facts at hand. A similar caveat applies to any obviousness analysis. Simply stating the principle (e.g., ‘‘art recognized equivalent,’’ ‘‘structural similarity’’) without providing an explanation of its applicability to the facts of the case at hand is generally not sufficient to establish a prima facie case of obviousness.

Combining Prior Art Elements:

Even where a general method that could have been applied to make the claimed product was known and within the level of skill of the ordinary artisan, the claim may nevertheless be nonobvious if the problem which had suggested use of the method had been previously unknown. [In re Omeprazole Patent Litigation, 536 F.3d 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2008)]

Office personnel should note that in this case the modification of the prior art that had been presented as an argument for obviousness was an extra process step that added an additional component to a known, successfully marketed formulation. The proposed modification thus amounted to extra work and greater expense for no apparent reason. This is not the same as combining known prior art elements A and B when each would have been expected to contribute its own known properties to the final product.

[M]erely pointing to the presence of all claim elements in the prior art is not a complete statement of a rejection for obviousness. In accordance with MPEP § 2143 A(3), a proper rejection based on the rationale that the claimed invention is a combination of prior art elements also includes a finding that results flowing from the combination would have been predictable to a person of ordinary skill in the art. MPEP § 2143 A(3). If results would not have been predictable, Office personnel should not enter an obviousness rejection using the combination of prior art elements rationale, and should withdraw such a rejection if it has been made.

Substituting One Known Element for Another:

[I]f the reference does not teach that a combination is undesirable, then it cannot be said to teach away. An assessment of whether a combination would render the device inoperable must not ‘‘ignore the modifications that one skilled in the art would make to a device borrowed from the prior art.’’

“Obvious to Try”:

Some commentators on the KSR decision have expressed a concern that because inventive activities are always carried out in the context of what has come before and not in a vacuum, few inventions will survive scrutiny under an obvious to try standard. The cases decided since KSR have proved this fear to have been unfounded. Courts appear to be applying the KSR requirement for ‘‘a finite number of identified predictable solutions’’ in a manner that places particular emphasis on predictability and the reasonable expectations of those of ordinary skill in the art.

[T]he Federal Circuit cautioned that an obviousness inquiry based on an obvious to try rationale must always be undertaken in the context of the subject matter in question, ‘‘including the characteristics of the science or technology, its state of advance, the nature of the known choices, the specificity or generality of the prior art, and the predictability of results in the area of interest.’’

Read/download the USPTO’s 2010 KSR Updates here (link)

Read/download the original 2007 KSR guidelines here (link)

Visit the USPTO KSR Examination Training Materials site here (link)