Don’t worry, it’s not a gross mauling video, but Brad Josephs’ “A Grizzly Ate My GoPro!!!” video is generating some viral buzz today, and with good reason.

Well, here’s how that drug-fueled night on the town would look from the perspective of a cat.

All its owner wanted to do was see what her kitty does when it goes outside a runs around. So she strapped a camera to its collar and sent it on its way. Boy, she’s in for a surprise.

[via Fark]

What I do want, badly, is summer fun and slip n’ slides. Especially giant slip n’ slides that launch you and your friends into kiddie pools. Oh, and watching it all in slow-motion isn’t too bad, either.

I finally had to break out the gloves today. Because of that, let’s take a look at a better time. And if you’re still in a part of the country (or world, for the matter) where something like this is still possible and sane, take advantage of it. (courtesy Scott Winn and Jay Davis)

This short comes just in time for Halloween, from director Ross Ching for The Thrash Lab. Earlier this month he had a viral hit with this popsicle stick bomb video, shot at 1000 FPS.

Check out the top 10 ways to smash a pumpkin, at 1500 FPS:

These are some pretty good ideas for pumpkin smashing. I guess I’m obligated to tell everyone not to try this at home – or at anyone else’s home. At least wait until after Halloween. If you smash any of my intricately carved pumpkins, I’m going to go all Liam Neeson on you. I’m sure others feel the same way.

If you’re around eight years old and want to get the cute girl at the beach to come sit next to you, how do you go about it? I’d say that creating a giant stick bomb with popsicle sticks is one of the coolest ways you could possibly do it.

“There’s a unique manner in which you can weave Popsicle sticks so that when you undo a stick on one end, it creates a chain reaction that ripples down the line at 35 mph. We decided to take this idea a step further and to build this story around it. I conceptualized this idea about two years ago, but we could never find the right project with which to incorporate. Since the sticks fly off so fast, we knew that we would need a high-speed camera to capture it. Until recently, high-speed cameras were very expensive to rent for a project that really had no budget,” says director Ross Ching.

Check it out below (it may make you miss summer):

According to Ching, this is only a spec commercial and isn’t affiliated with the official Popsicle brand. I’d strongly suggest they consider it, however.

Speaking in Shanghai, the Woz said that he likes to use a product for himself before he passes judgement, but did have one hope for the new iPhone.

“I am always excited about every iPhone product because there are always good advances,” he said. “A better quality on the pictures will mean a lot, because when I show people pictures on my iPhone 4 and my Galaxy S III, they always say the Galaxy S III, or even the Motorola Razr, pictures look better.”

Better photos than the iPhone? Oh no he di’int.

““I think they took some very important steps,” said the Woz. “I’d like to get a product, use it myself before I judge it and compare to others. I’d like to have it myself and tell what’s good and bad about it.”

Not exactly a shining endorsement for someone who camped overnight to be the first in line for the iPhone 4S. But he has a point. It’s hard to speculate based on simply watching that media event.

There’s good news for Wozniak, if Apple is to be believed. They say they’ve improved the camera in the iPhone 5, saying that “the Camera app…features improvements including 40 percent faster photo capture, better low-light performance, and improved noise reduction. So you can snap more shots with more detail and clarity than ever before.”

The 8 megapixel camera features backside illumination, a hybrid IR filter, a five-element lens, and f/2.4 aperture, specs that an iPhone 4S owner may be familiar with.

We’ll let you know if Wozniak camps out again this year. I’m sure he’ll let us know via Foursquare check-in cross-posted to Twitter.

[via Bloomberg]

And you know it’s straight from the folks at Apple because it features a guy in a black shirt sitting in front of a stark white background.

Okay, it’s not actually from Apple. It comes courtesy of Adam Sacks, and it’s a parody video that puts a “truth” about the iPhone on display:

It’s just a digital camera that happens to be a phone.

Now, I could argue that I use my iPhone for texting, Tweeting, Foursquare check-ins, Spotify, and much much more. But it’s hard to argue against the fact that a lot of people simply use their iPhones to snap Instagram photos of their dinners.

So why fight it? Introducing the iPhone 5:

The latest rumor puts the launch of the real iPhone 5 on September 21st, with the worldwide kickoff event scheduled for September 12th. We’ve also heard that pre-orders will start on that same day.

Instagram wasn’t enough for Facebook, however, as they have also created their own dedicated camera app for iOS. Despite being owned by Facebook, Instagram had to do something to compete. They turned to the only avenue there was – stand-alone camera hardware.

The above scenario is all true except for Instagram launching a stand-alone camera. What if we lived in a world where they did though? The super talented guys over at ElectRoulette, who brought us the genius Google Glasses parody Meme Glasses, has brought us an in depth look at the Instagram camera.

Resembling that old Kodak that’s gathering dust in the attic, the Instagram camera merges retro design with new technology like sepia filters. The camera can apply various filters and even add in new elements like mountains and flowers with the nature filter. The technology on display can also make your car appear more retro than it has any right being.

It’s pretty much accepted that the stand-alone camera market is really only for aficionados anymore. The general user now has a smartphone that can replace the camera and a wide variety of other functions. What if Instagram were to release a camera though? Would the same people who have flocked to the app buy a camera branded with their favorite camera app? The world may never know.

And in order to make sure we have a great final product, Googlers are out testing Project Glass prototypes. These real-world appearances of the Google Glasses have a way of winding up on Google+.

Last month, Google X’s Sebastian Thrun sat down with Charlie Rose to discuss the project. During that interview, he snapped a picture of Rose with his Google Glasses and posted it to his Google+ profile (also with his Glasses).

That photo failed to truly impress. But this newest photo taken with the Project Glass spectacles shows just how awesome these things could be when regular people start getting their hands on them.

From the Project Glass Google+ page:

We announced Project Glass in part to let our team start testing prototypes outside the office. +Sebastian Thrun, one of our project leaders, tried one out last weekend and we just had to share the result.

We’d love to hear about the types of moments you’d capture if you didn’t have to wait to pull out a camera or your phone. Please share your thoughts in the comments!

That looks like another eventual marketing strategy for Google: “for all those times you missed a moment because you didn’t have your camera at the ready.” The photo, of Thrun and his son, really is cool:

Now that we know about Project Glass and the fact that other companies are working on their own prototypes of similar technology, it’s only a matter of time until the camera once again evolves. We just now hit the point where almost everyone has a camera in their pockets – and soon many people will have a camera on their face.

According to Nature.com, the camera works by exploiting what researcher Ramesh Raskar calls “echoes of light.” Essentially, a very high-speed camera fires a super quick (50-femtosecond) laser pulse at a wall, that pulse breaks up into photons and scatters, and some of those photons hit objects out of view of the camera, ricochet off the objects, bounce back to the wall they first hit, and re-enter the camera lens. The camera’s time resolution is two picoseconds, the time it takes light to travel 0.6 mm, so when photons reach the camera at different times, positions, and angles, a computer is able to determine how far each photon has traveled with an accuracy of less than a millimeter. To adjust for different photons hitting the camera at the same time, the laser’s position is changed 60 times, and the results, processed through a complicated algorithm, yield a 3D image that would otherwise be hidden from view.

Right now the process takes several minutes, but researchers have a goal of speeding up the process to under 10 seconds, reports Nature.

The implications of such a device are all over the place, especially if researchers meet their goal of speeding up the process to someday create realtime images, even of moving objects. Safety is cited as the major advantage of the technology: Nature suggests the camera could be used in dangerous or inaccessible places, like moving machinery or contaminated areas. Beyond that, far more advanced versions of the technology could in the future help rescuers know what’s going on inside a room before they enter. This could be invaluable in fires, hostage-rescue situations, and even bomb scenarios. Of course, if there’s anything that operates faster than the 50-femtosecond laser pulse, it’s governments’ desire to weaponize new technologies. I wouldn’t be surprised to someday see related technologies mounted on gun barrels or military and police vehicles, or integrated into individual warfighters’ heads-up displays. Of course, it could also be used for spying — both on criminals and law-abiding citizens alike.

But that’s a long way off for a camera that still takes several minutes to create a single image. Regardless of the potential for future application or abuse, it’s a really impressive technology. Here’s a video from Nature that shows how the camera works:

[Nature.com]