Web-based image editing tool Aviary is launching its latest product, called the Dodo. Think of it as a way to turn back the clock on your images. You can turn the clock forward, too. Just check out the aging process applied to this teenager, and Michael Jackson. I’m not sure what’s scarier; Michael Jackson as he is now, or this prediction of how he should have looked. Actually…that wasn’t even a true statement. I know exactly which version of Michael Jackson is scarier.

Anyway, Dodo doesn’t stop at the aging process for faces. There’s also predictive technology that will discern what objects you have in your image, and change the image accordingly. Just about everything, from scenery changing seasons to cars regressing, can be done in a forward- or backward-moving image editing process.

See what you’ll look like in 50 years, or put it to good use and help a nonprofit keep public interest in children that have been missing for several years (seriously). You could even make your own highly unbelievable marketing campaign for a new serum that promises to decrease facial wrinkles, showing before and after images, and slap the ads up all over MySpace.

As you can see, Dodo can be used for a wide variety of purposes, from the very serious to the very whimsical. What Dodo does is frees up time (money) and effort that’s put forth into image editing. Its automated processing techniques lets web publishers and even marketing directors create material for just about anything they see fit. Watch the video below, and be sure to request a beta account. See previous coverage of Aviary here.

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The creators of the insane Velociraptor Off-Road Safari Rampage are well on their way to creating a new opus, which they call Jetpack Brontosaurus. Doubtless it will have the same nuanced plot and fascinating characters as their last game. Actually, it just looks like it’s going to be a ton of fun piloting your dinosaur around Tribes-style.

Indie developers are going all-out with great stuff like this, and they’re the ones who will make the awesomest games for your iPod Touch or GP2X — not EA or something.
[via TIGSource]

Filed under: Cellphones

[Thanks Andrew, Erica]

Update: Yep, it's an April Fool's joke. We're just going to go offline until April 2nd, peace.

 

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That Centro smartphone from Palm? The one now in Obsidian Black? The one I told you about this weekend that you could pick up for a measly $39 on sale at Best Buy? They just sold a million of them. That’s one million people in America walking around with the small yet powerful devices for AT&T or Sprint.

I’ve been a fan of the Centro since it was leaked. I said it was the perfect gateway device, as it retains a phone-like form factor while granting smartphone functionality. And it’s easy for first timers to use. I love being right all the time.

A woman in Florida is claiming that it's a violation of her First Amendment rights that a library is restricting the amount of time patrons can spend on a computer. She's also upset that they're asking for ID before you can log on. The library says they're doing this to keep the wait down for a computer, but the woman says it's to keep homeless people and other low income people from using computers. It may be difficult case to prove, as it hardly seems like the library is preventing people from using the computers altogether -- just limiting how long they can use them in a single sitting. Even then, the limit of two and a half hours, does seem pretty long. The requirement for an ID might be an issue, if there are people with no IDs, but it's still difficult to see this as a First Amendment issue.

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When I started TechCrunch nearly three years ago it was meant to be little more than a hobby. I love startups, and writing about them was fun, not work. But since then this hobby has grown into a real business. We have a number of full and part time employees that need to get paid every two weeks, and advertisers/sponsors that we owe a certain level of professionalism towards. We’ve also acquired a number of other startups. TechCrunch is a serious thing, and needs to be treated seriously by others. We demand some respect around here.

My own personal brand has risen over the years as well to the point where I believe I can say without hubris that I am a very important person. Forbes recently named me No. 2 on their list of web celebrities, for example, and Business Week says I’m one of the 25 most influential people on the web. I’ve also appeared in numerous JibJab videos. More details, if you care to read them, are on our about page. My agent has told me numerous times that I need to be more careful with how I leverage my personal brand, and to be aware of others who are using/abusing it for commercial reasons.

So we’ve been increasingly concerned about developments at Facebook over the last few months that allow advertisers to post ads using my picture and name to endorse their products without my explicit permission. I’ve received literally dozens of emails from readers asking me if I’m associated with Blockbuster’s Movie Clique application, or the new Jackass movie (no to both).

These ads appear in both the sidebar and in my friend’s news feed. See examples below:

Our attorneys believe that the use of my image and name in third party advertising is a violation of my statutory and common law publicity rights (we’ve written explicitly about this issue before). Specifically, this leads to user confusion as to whether or not I am actually endorsing these products.

The key factor in determining whether a use is permitted or not in California (where I live) is Civil Code Section 3344, which was first enacted in 1971. California is perhaps more aggressive than any other state in protecting publicity rights because of the number of people engaged in the entertainment business. The law allows for recuperation of damages, attorney’s fees and injunctive relief, as well as unspecified punitive damages and statutory damages of $750/incident in the event a person’s “name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness” is used “in any manner on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of products, merchandise, goods or services, without such person’s prior consent.” There are additional common law remedies available to us as well.

Facebook will argue that users give permission in the terms and conditions. They also allow users to opt out of having their images placed in ads. Our lawyers say that’s a pretty good defense but that they can most likely win over a jury anyway if they focus more on emotional issues rather than the actual facts and legal precedent.

In truth, there hasn’t been much in way of actual damages to back up the lawsuit. But where we’ll really be able to stick it to Facebook is the $750 per incident statutory damages. It’s a stretch, but we’re going to argue that every impression of an ad that includes my name or likeness is an “incident.” Based on our calculations and recent comscore data, we estimate the number of impressions to be in the hundreds of thousands at the very least. Multiplying that number by $750 gets us to damages of at least $150 million.

At this point we’re prepared to settle the case for $25 million in Facebook stock (priced at the employee option price, not that ridiculous $15 billion Microsoft valuation), a small fraction of the amount we’ll almost certainly receive if this case goes to trial, plus guaranteed exclusives on all new Facebook product releases. A recent case involving Taster’s Choice, for example, had an award of $15.6 million in damages.

I am sad that this had to blow up to the point where we are publicly suing Facebook over the matter. We’ll be filing the lawsuit tomorrow along with a related civil case for assault and battery. In a round of negotiations over the lawsuit with Facebook led by Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly, things got out of hand. When our team of lawyers offered to settle for a mere $50 million, Kelly told me Facebook would “bury you and bury your crappy blog” if we filed the suit. He then threw his steaming hot triple soy latte espresso at me, which caused extensive second degree burns over the top half of my body. Later on, he also unfriended me.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Google announced today that they would be adding the ability for users to work offline in their popular web office suite Google Docs. Offline support will be powered by the Google Gears API, which is a browser extension that allows developers to store application data offline and sync it back up again later when users are reconnected. Some lucky Docs users will get access to the new feature today, with offline support being rolled out to all Google Docs users over the next few weeks.

For now, Google Docs on Gears will only support editing of documents -- you can't create new ones -- and is currently only available on the word processor app. Deployment of offline support for the spreadsheet and presentation applications will come later, and will be read-only to begin with.

As we wrote in February, offline access was the one missing component to make Google's web office a serious competitor to Microsoft Office. Computing in the cloud is great because it means access to your information from anywhere, and on any machine, but it also means reliance on a high-speed Internet connection. Offline access removes that drawback and lets web applications behave even more like their desktop counterparts. Our only question is: what has taken Google so long?

They released Gears in May of last year, and so far the only service of theirs to use it has been Reader. Competitor Zoho launched an offline version of its word processing application using Gears last November, and we've long pointed out offline access as a major competitive advantage for Zimbra.

So what has been taking Google so long? Why isn't it eating its own dogfood and releasing more of its web apps with Gears support? What about Gmail? These are some important questions. The longer Google waits, the more time its competitors have to push out offline versions of their web applications and the longer Microsoft has to finally come up with a web app strategy that makes sense.

Below is a video of Google Docs offline created by Google. As you can see, the offine features function more or less the way they do in Reader.

It wouldn’t be right of me to know about this excessively creepy 3D mouse-following Flash lady and not share it with all of you. If I must suffer, you must suffer. That is the price you pay for my genius.

This will sort of blow your mind a little bit. You’re welcome.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Seeing as our high school network hijinks pretty much led to semi-permanent suspension, our barren hearts were actually warmed by the story of 11-year-old Jon Penn, who has been in charge of his elementary school's 60-machine network since last year. The previous network administrator at the Arkansas school simply up and left, leaving the IT systems in shambles -- and in the hands of Jon's mom, the school librarian. Jon's since scrubbed the aging Windows 98 machines of their accumulated viruses and spyware, and he's installed a firewall and virus / spam filter to keep things clean while he works out a plan to move to Windows 2000 and centralized system management. Right now though, Jon's got his hands busy doing everything from fixing everything from paper jams to revising server configurations, and it sounds like he's having a ball -- he says he's been testing out virtualization products lately, and he's studying up for A+ technician certification this summer. Looks like school's a lot more fun when you're running the show, no?

[Via Switched]

 

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Seeing as our high school network hijinks pretty much led to semi-permanent suspension, our barren hearts were actually warmed by the story of 11-year-old Jon Penn, who has been in charge of his elementary school's 60-machine network since last year. The previous network administrator at the Arkansas school simply up and left, leaving the IT systems in shambles -- and in the hands of Jon's mom, the school librarian. Jon's since scrubbed the aging Windows 98 machines of their accumulated viruses and spyware, and he's installed a firewall and virus / spam filter to keep things clean while he works out a plan to move to Windows 2000 and centralized system management. Right now though, Jon's got his hands busy doing everything from fixing everything from paper jams to revising server configurations, and it sounds like he's having a ball -- he says he's been testing out virtualization products lately, and he's studying up for A+ technician certification this summer. Looks like school's a lot more fun when you're running the show, no?

[Via Switched]

 

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