Tomorrow Daily 037: Crazy facial projection tech, origami solar cells, and an LED basketball court

A producer showed off a crazy new face tracking and projection technique, just in time for Mission Impossible 5. Researchers are working on new solar panels that fold up like origami. If anything like my origami, it looks like a cross between a bird and a unicorn. In other words, pure garbage. And, Kobe Bryant played on an interactive LED. Full size basketball court. Bringing my dreams of rollerball league ever so close to reality. You know, your shirt looks like origami. Oh, thanks. Do you fold up. Nope. Tomorrow Daily. [MUSIC] Greetings, citizens of the internet, welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best tech talk show in the known universe, I'm your host, Ashley Esqueda. Joining me once again, Michael Hobbs, hello! I'm here again? You are here again, Rich is out, Monday, Tuesday, and Ooh. Wednesday. He'll be back Thursday. Nightmare. [LAUGH] Mike's like this is my nightmare. But we will have Mike here. And hopefully I may have a surprise guest. Ho oh. I have a surprise friend come in and co host the show. Terrific. Yeah should be fun. But you know we have to talk about all the news and some of the stories this week are pretty crazy. So let's hit the headlines. [MUSIC] All right. I saw this and immediately freaked out. Yeah. This is crazy. So I mentioned in the [UNKNOWN] in this crazy face tracking and projection technology. This comes from a Japanese producer and technical director named Nobumichi Asai. And he released this video showing off his techniques. They have done some different projection tech before but this one in particular really caught my eye. So what this is, is they took this woman's face and they have the dots on her face, as one would for face tracking technology. Right. And, like you'd see in a special effect for movies. Right. And they scanned it and now that's an actual LED production, where she has makeup, and that part where she's opening her eyes, is not her opening her eyes. It's a little off, just a little, and you can still see her eyelashes. But, now they've added more makeup. Very dramatic. Amazing. It's really cool. And so so here's. See the blinking is a little weird. I think that's the only thing they need to work on is the eyes. Right. Well, yeah. I mean, she has to keep her eyes closed. So now look. She looks like she's made of metal. Yeah, this is awesome. Now she's, like this is unreal to me. This is amazing technology. So, so cool. So here it looks like her face in pieces, Yeah, it reminds me of that reveal, that cool reveal in AI where that robots face opens up, Yeah, and as she turns here head, this is really neat, it shimmers, and you can see some of the work underneath the skin, that they're hinting at. And then all of a sudden her face opens and she turns into a robot. And that is all projected on her face. Yeah in real time as she is moving around. That is incredible. Really cool. It is truly incredible. So there are a lot of things that this could be used for int he future. But I really love this idea of sort of first of all obviously future use. Makeup application, like beauty make overs things like that. The next Bourke video. [LAUGH] The next Bourke music video, I'm sure we'll see this in some bodies music video Beyoncé, somebody who wants to do something avantgarde. We'll be able to see that. But I actually thought I started thinking about what other applications we might see. Hm. We may see this type of technology in phones for photography at some point. Oh? Just because you know, it would track your face just like in Google Hangouts where you're able to have sort of those little fun like horns or top hat or a monocle. Oh. Right, right. Funny chat things. But it would get more. Sort of advanced and sophisticated. And then we'd be able to kind of have that really cool special effects technology on our phones. And where would it project from? I don't know. A little, tiny, just I guess. Well, we've heard that projection phones could have been a thing at some point. Sure, that could be coming. That could be coming. And I think one of the other applications I thought might be interesting is plastic surgery. Yeah. You could get a preview, a sneak peek at how you might look. You know after, Which would be very helpful for people because I think it's very difficult for them, I mean you can do 3-D rendering now, everything is kind of expensive and it takes a while. Right. So I think it would be, I just think it's really cool. Now you can see real time, look around, move your head. Yeah. That might look. This guys site has all kinds of projection stuff. He did something for Subaru where's theres a bunch of cars dancing in a window at a On a building. Projected on the building. It was really neat. Pretty cool. So yeah, here's some, some more of their stuff. Producer Logan is on it today. So they do a lot of this, sort of, projection technology. So they're, they're clearly very into what they do and and man, it shows because that face, that face stuff is That was cool nuts. I can't wait to see the next application. Oh, totally. [UNKNOWN]. Sony, so tell me about this origami solar cell business. Oh. Well, I don't know if you know this or not, but, getting things into space, the biggest enemies of that are weight and size. Right. Correct. Because you have to basically have the amount of, weight is used in fuel to get something up. So the smaller something can be, the better, so these researchers at, Bingham Young University and NASA, and NASA's jet propulsion laboratory have come up with this novel new way of folding solar cells. Based on the ancient Japanese art of origami, or paper folding. And also based on the research of Japanese astrophysicist Kodi Omura, came up with this technique, and they've expanded on it. So here- Whoa. So here you can see the idea is that he could basically make a solar cell, make a solar panel one tenth its size. If you fold it up like this. And then deploy it after it gets into space. Deploy it once it gets into space. I see. So it launches in the, what, what they call a satellite friendly sort of cylindrical form. Mm-hm. And it gets up and then unfurls to, and here's the perfect example. Whoa! This is a one twentieth scale model that they've built. Wow! So it's from something that, you know, it goes about 4.1 feet and the idea is to make something eventually that's about What, 20 times it's size. So it would unfurl to let's say, 80 feet. That's amazing. About, 20 meters. So for power in future satellites, even powering future deep-space vehicles with the microwave thrusters. Or even beaming energy back down to Earth. Wow. Things like this. That is so cool. Yeah. I wonder, I, I just like, it always blows my mind. I always wonder the thing that they are thinking of. Like, I wonder if we could do it like origami. Like, Yeah, that's what, who's the person who was like, I just, that, the, Japanese researcher that you were talking about. Like, he's like, you know, we could fold this like origami and then, they made it happen. That's just really neat. Then they made it happen. Yeah. It's awesome. So, It's just, so cool. I think we'll be seeing that in the next few years. Yeah. Launching. It'll be pretty neat. Yeah. I sense just a lot of really good, practical space application for that technology. So the third story is something that may not help us go to space, but this is very cool in terms of sports entertainment, this could change the way that we watch sports. So Nike has created this. Full court LED installation. So here they are in a time lapse, getting everything together. And, and there it is. It's, it's a full court. It can, it can play video. It can, display, it can track player movements. It kinda reminds me of those, projections at the mall where it projects down and then you can, like, walk around in koi fish and the koi fish move based on where you are. But so, the point of this is, is that. It was created for this Nike competition called Nike Rise, which sends one winner to the Nike World Basketball Festival in Barcelona next month. And this is actually in a place they've dubbed house of mamba as Kobe Bryant the Black Mamba L.A. Laker, Kobe Bryant. Is is training the group, the, the group of sort of, I don't think they're finalists quite yet, but the group of contestants for this competition. Was that in China? Yes, it is in Shanghai. Okay. Oh, okay. It's in Shanghai, and and it's really neat because they're able to show all of Kobe's moves and techniques. And then the floor could actually create a drill. Based on that and, show, you know, and repeat itself so everybody can, you know, gets in line and they do the drill and they do it just as Kobe would. Right Which is pretty neat. I mean, what do you, do you think this will be the future of basketball courts. Well, I feel like it could be for a couple of reasons, Mn. the first one being that a lot of other sports are played on hardwood floors. So, volleyball, for example, Mhm. So let's say at the pyramid at Cal State Long Beach, they have a big sports complex called, or Polypavillion at UCLA. So let's say they have this giant LED floor and it would be really expensive, of course. So it would sort of be a luxury for quite a while, but at the end of the day, you wouldn't have to lay down and paint all of those lines, and refinish those wood floors every single year. Good point. And for me, to be able to go from volleyball to basketball courts with out any interfering lines. So you're not sure like some times younger players go well I don't know if that's the basketball court or the volleyball court. Right. And so. It's nice to think that you might be able to have a clean court for every sport that's played. Badminton. Mm. There's a lot of different sports that are played on those courts and so I think that would be really neat to have a clean court there for any sport that's playing. Yeah, easy. Just like changing a wallpaper. Yeah. On your computer. Just change your [UNKNOWN] button and then it's done. The new, whole new court. I want to see something like, video games where the person with the ball has like a little ring around them. [CROSSTALK] NBA Jam. Yeah, or like, remember, I think it was a story we did last week of the, you could move someone's limbs from afar. Yeah. Move real people around on the court. Move real people around on the court with your Occulus Rift and your, Yeah. Kinect. Yep. That would be amazing. Wouldn't that be weird? I just want to see the NBA Jam invitational sponsored by Sega. Mm. That would be really fun, And then you could use projection mapping to give them giant heads. Yeah. Perfect. Oh man, look it. We just combined almost all the technology. I mean, I'm sure we'll figure out how to do the origami. For ourselves, it'll power everything. It's spiked up on the- Is it spiking or like flame-like height? Oh, yeah, perfect, great. On that note we're going to take a quick 30 second break. We're be right back with another Mario Kart throw down, really good ring. And, we'll also be back with an episode of Back it or Hack it and your user feedback, so don't click away [UNKNOWN]. [MUSIC] Welcome back to the show. We again, because Mike might only be here one day this week, we had to play our Mario Kart Throwdown. Now this happened this weekend? It did. It was a great session. It was, it was a long. It was like a couple of hours, but we picked the last race to be played. Yup. Which ended up being rainbow road. So producer Logan, let's check out the footage here. All right. So I'm rambling in my mic again. This race was pretty exciting. Mike was up there, Mike was in front of me actually. I want to say for the first, what, break, the last and a half? At least- First half of the race. I was beginning to think of victory. Yeah, Mike was really excited. Green shell, insurance. Yep, oh yeah, you've got a shield in the back- Yeah. if you're gonna get hit. But I don't know what happened to it. I think I'm assuming you shot it or maybe someone tried to hit you and then saved you. So and everything was going well. And and then. Well, things just, things just started going downhill for Mike. Ashley did something. yeah. Very bad. This is that, this is my brother also, by the way, we were playing. Oh this is it. So there it is. Boom. I hit Mike with a green shell. A master marksman. And a green shell from which I never recovered. Did not recover from that green shell. And, and I took off down the, down the stretch. And there I am finishing in first place. That's me. Showing off as usual. And Mike, you dropped all the way to sixth. I did. That's pretty bad. I was upset. You were two points ahead before. Or no, I was. You were ahead, still ahead by two. I won by two, 21-23. Now I have. 38 points, and you only got 6. Incredible math. So now, I'm ahead by 10. That might be right. I think it is. But, that can be turned around very quickly. It can be, and all it takes is one victory, one major victory, and me, one major loss. Right, you need to lose badly. Which will never happen. Down to the bottom. Nope, sorry. I foresee it. No way. So, that was our Mario Kart throw down. I'm still ahead. I feel really good about that. For now. Somebodys gonna have to try real hard to take me down. Me Not gonna happen. But now, and we have a graphic for this, I'm so excited, it's time for Back it or Hack it. Good old hatchets. Oh axes. Oh that hatchets or axes? I say hatchets. You hold them in your hand. They don't look big enough to be axes. Interesting I learned something. So I backed this, this weekend. Full disclosure. oh. I saw it, immediately backed. Have you ever had that problem where you have a stick of butter and it's too hard. I hate that, yeah. You can't, and it's so annoying. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I don't know how it took us 2000 years to reach the, the zenith of butter knife technology, but we finally have done it. This is, this is the Kickstarter video. And you can see he's obviously, this guy is struggling to butter his bread. The person in the infomercial that can't do anything. Which, I don't know who's making white bread with just butter on it. I mean, I guess as a snack, maybe I've done it. So here it is. This is the knife. This is called the Stupendous Splendiferous Butterup. And that is why it's so special Whoa. Look at that. It's like a butter grater. It is. It's like a, it's like a little, butter peeler almost. So the idea here is what? To make, to make it much easier to spread your hard butter? Much easier to spread. And it, the nice thing is I actually really like this so. They were showing like you could see as he's, as he's using it, it curls and then as you spread it, it actually pushes through to the other side so you actually also get a very even spread across you piece, piece of bread. Amazing. It's so great. You wanna know how much it is. Well how much is it? $14 and $0.95 He. Available now! Call now, operators are standing by. Do I get two if I order now? I ordered two. I got, well let's see it was, it was like, I think it was $15. Dollars for the knife. Uh-huh. And then it was another ten bucks or six bucks cuz it's shipping from Australia. These are two Australian Oh, a couple of Aussies. A couple of Aussies have thought this up and so it was an extra $6 for shipping, and then I paid an extra $10 for an extra knife. Ooh, okay. So 31 bucks total for me. And that was to get it by Christmas. I paid a little extra to get it by Christmas. OK. OK. OK. So they met their goal? I think they have. Oh, by far. Like I think 300%. Oh wow. They're just, they're crushing Kickstarter right now. But i had to tell you guys about it. Because listen. Technology does not have to be high-tech. The amazing technology, I feel like that was a really good example of that. Just clever. Just very clever and evolution of something that we've used for thousands of years without any problem. And somebody found a way of making it better. I love that. I've surprised it's taken this long. I know, that's like 2000 years, and it's taken longer than that to come up with a good idea for a butter knife. I mean I"ve been using soft, spreadable butter. Yeah, margarine. It's not margarine. I use it, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and now I get to go to real butter. I'll never do that. But, but yeah, now you can go right to the real butter. The real stuff. You know. And then I can gain a bunch of weight. No, no, no. I was gonna watch that figure. Alright, so that's our Back it or Hack it, I say, I say back it, obviously because I did. You say yes? yes, I say yes, why not? Back it. Yep. It's got quite a, It's got quite a few days left so you can go check that out. If you have any other choice. You guys, it's time for your user feedback. [MUSIC] So last week, you weren't here on Thursday, but we mentioned the robo swarm Oh yeah, I, I saw the story. Well, storm of a thousand robots. Sure. We asked you guys to use the hashtag TDroboswarm and tell us, what your, what your, how big your robo swarm would be and what you would have them do with it. Mm. Like, what would you make them do. And Matt wrote to us and said, my swarm would be brain implants in every person to keep the peace and to leak very future apple products. Whoa Wink, wink That's the weird one. Wink. That's was, no, that is a little weird. What's the winking about? Brain control. Well, he had a wink there. It's a very future Apple product. Maybe he knows something. Hm. Possibly. How's that gonna. how's the robots gonna do that? I don't know. Oh well, maybe it'll be like Wrath of Khan where they put it in his ear. Oh, great reference. Yeah. Yeah. Mind control. And then just say get right in there. But if he doesn't know anything about the Apples devices he can't say anything about it. That's true. He'd have to infiltrate Cupertino. Hm. Either that, or plug into the web. Oh boy. That would be terrifying. Then our next one's from Devin. And he said #tdroboswarm I would have 5,000 and they would make my bed for me. Yeah. That's a pretty reasonable goal. I like that. I think I would just like to be taken, like around. Yeah. I just lay on it. It just moves me around the house. I just like that idea of, you know like in X-Men where it's like, Magneto has like all the plates underneath him as he walks? Yeah. He would be like that with robots. Exactly. I would like that. Like a walking carpet. That would be great. Today's hashtag is hashtag #TDCOURTS. For the LED court. And I want to know is this good or bad. These LED courts. Do you think they're a good idea or a bad idea. And, and what would you want to see them used for specifically. You mean other than sports or what would they do with the sport? Either or. Oh. Your choice. User's choice. So basically I mean it's a big TV on the floor. Yeah. Yeah. For all kinds of stuff. So you, you can use it for all kinds of stuff. Yeah. So anything. Non-sports, sports, whatever you want. But I just want. I'm really curious. I think you guys are going to come up with some really creative stuff. Mm. All right you guys. It's time for our phonetographer of the day. [MUSIC] And our phonetograph for the day comes from Alfonso R. Oh, good. But he said we can call him Al. Okay. He said, hi, my name is Alfonso, but you can call me Al. [LAUGH] I have a photo I'd like to submit. This photo was taken from my recent trip to a Disney Theme Park, Animal Kingdom. With all the high-heat temperature readings to go through as random weather as Florida gets, it's nice to have a well humidified rainforest-like atmosphere to take a breather and chill. The natural sounds of water from a river or waterfall can't be beat from the concrete jungle most of us are adapted to. Besides, it kinda reminds me of my birthplace in Puerto Rico. I miss our little island from time to time. Haven't been back for years. It's overdue for a visit. And, yes, I know this waterfall, you can see it very barely in the background, is man made but, ssh, I'm escaping in this moment of make believe. Mm. So that is the that's the image. I've been there. It's gorgeous. I mean, the nice thing is, is they actually do, these are all real plants. It's not like it, they're plastic. Even these red things? Yeah, yeah. Looks like wax. Nope. Nope. They're real. Hm. That's a really nice picture. It's gorgeous and that is definitely, I mean, wow. It's really well-maintained, but, you know, Disney. Now, before, I wish Al had told us which phone he used to take this picture. It's a mystery. A mystery device. Mystery phone. Mystery phone. What do you think? Looks like a Galaxy picture to me. I was gonna say a Galaxy S5 of a Note 3. Oh boy, hopefully not wrong. Right, those are my choices. Hope he tells us. Yeah, so, Al, or, I'm gonna call you Fonzie. Listen Fonzie. He, he didn't say that. No, I'm calling him Fonzie. Listen, Fonz. Email us and tell us what phone you used, because I'm, got, now I'm really curious. I can't survive without knowing the answer to this mystery. I can survive, but I'm just slightly curious. Okay. Fair enough. Mm. That is it for the show, if you would like to send your phonetography in, you can email us a link to your phonetography, tomrrow@cnet.com is our email address. No attachments please, cuz I won't open them. 'Kay. And also we have to be able to get them reproduced for Logan to put in the show. And then, you can also send us your hashtag of the day. If you don't wanna use Twitter, totally fine. You can email it to us. Or you can find us on social media. Mm-hm. Yeah, we're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. We'll all over the internet, Tomorrow Daily, except for Google Plus. Where. Tomorrow Daily TV. Mm-hm. That's us. Right. Where can we find you on the internet? Pretty much just on Twitter. Okay. At Valus23. Valus23 with a V. Make it known. Do it. Just go harass him about Mario Cart. Do not. Give him a little, give him a little, you maybe should motivate him to win. Don't do that. I get easily depressed. [LAUGH] So yeah, you can hit up Mike Eviles 23 on twitter. I'm Ashley Escanda, I'm pretty much anywhere on the internet, you can look it up, and we will be back tomorrow with a new show. Be good humans you guys. [MUSIC]