Computer learns to mimic artists

 The actual artist drawing is on the left, the computer simulation on the right. A computer program that can mimic the abstract portrait drawings of specific artists has been built by experts at Disney Research.
Seven artists were asked to create quick sketches based on portrait photographs, taking various lengths of time to complete their work.

Each artist generated about 8,000 pen strokes for the sketches.
Individual artist preferences, such as how far apart they drew eyes, were also included in the data gathered.
That data was then used to create sketches of photographs as the computer understood each artist would have done them - even beginning with a particular feature if that had been identified as what the artist would have done.

"There's something about an artist's interpretation of a subject that people find compelling," said digital artist Moshe Mahler, from Disney Research, which is based in Pittsburgh.

"We're trying to capture that - to create a computer model of it - in a way that no-one has done before."
However Mr Mahler added that the results were limited to the practical technique rather than the individual flair of the artists used in the pilot project.

"Our approach only understands the trends of how an artist might work," she said.
Is it art? Dr Nick Lambert, lecturer in digital art at Birkbeck, University of London, and chairman of the Computer Arts Society, that Disney's idea built on non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) processes, which have been around since the 1990s.

"We think of computer graphics as trying to look like photographs, but they can equally be something more sketch-like," he said.

"This is basically modelling the effects of the artist's vision - it's an interesting piece of work, but it does build on a number of things that have been done before."

Dr Lambert added that the art world may take some convincing about the program's creative efforts.
"It's a question of whether the machine can learn and evolve from what it sees in the sketches," he said.
"And in this instance that doesn't seem to be the case.

"So the jury is still out on the art front."

Tech Time Warp of the Week: AT&T Computer Animation, 1964

Before Pixar and Lucasfilm, before Jurassic Park and Death Becomes Her, before even Tron and The Last Starfighter, there was AT&T’s A Computer Technique for the Production of Animated Movies.

Nowadays, just about all animated movies are produced with computer techniques, from the Dreamworks romp Despicable Me to that Disney flop The Lone Ranger, the sort of over-produced modern extravaganza that only masquerades as a live-action movie. But there was a time when the idea was a new one — and that time may be much further away than you thought.

AT&T computer scientist Ken Knowlton produced this film in the mid-1960s under the aegis of the company’s research arm, Bell Labs. It’s what you might call a meta-film. It’s a film about a “computer technique for production of animated movies,” and it was produced using that very technique (see video above).

The researchers bill this technique as a means of simplifying animation — and, yes, reducing the number of people needed for the task. “Animated movies are usually made by a slow and complex process involving the coordinated efforts of many artists,” it says. “This film describes a method by which much the tedious work of animation can be done by an electronic computer.” Little did they know that computer animation would change so much more.

At Bell Labs, Knowlton created a programming language known as BEFLIX — four decades before the arrival of Netflix — and when paired with an IBM 7094 mainframe and a Stromberg-Carlson microfilm printer, the language could produce raster-scan images — aka bitmaps — that could them be printed onto good-old-fashioned film stock:

Yes, the animation is on the simple side — tiny boxes and circles rolling down ramps. But what do you expect? It was 1964.

Another decade would pass before computer animation made it into an honest-to-goodness feature film: 1973's Westworld, where a robotic Yul Brenner battles Richard Benjamin inside the amusement park of the future. Raster graphics were used to show Robo-Brenner’s POV. It’s slightly more impressive than AT&T’s film — and almost as fun.

Nations Buying as Hackers Sell Computer Flaws

The hackers, Luigi Auriemma, 32, and Donato Ferrante, 28, sell technical details of such vulnerabilities to countries that want to break into the computer systems of foreign adversaries. The two will not reveal the clients of their company, ReVuln, but big buyers of services like theirs include the National Security Agency — which seeks the flaws for America’s growing arsenal of cyberweapons — and American adversaries like the Revolutionary Guards of Iran.

All over the world, from South Africa to South Korea, business is booming in what hackers call “zero days,” the coding flaws in software like Microsoft Windows that can give a buyer unfettered access to a computer and any business, agency or individual dependent on one.

Just a few years ago, hackers like Mr. Auriemma and Mr. Ferrante would have sold the knowledge of coding flaws to companies like Microsoft and Apple, which would fix them. Last month, Microsoft sharply increased the amount it was willing to pay for such flaws, raising its top offer to $150,000.

But increasingly the businesses are being outbid by countries with the goal of exploiting the flaws in pursuit of the kind of success, albeit temporary, that the United States and Israel achieved three summers ago when they attacked Iran’s nuclear enrichment program with a computer worm that became known as “Stuxnet.”

The flaws get their name from the fact that once discovered, “zero days” exist for the user of the computer system to fix them before hackers can take advantage of the vulnerability. A “zero-day exploit” occurs when hackers or governments strike by using the flaw before anyone else knows it exists, like a burglar who finds, after months of probing, that there is a previously undiscovered way to break into a house without sounding an alarm.

“Governments are starting to say, ‘In order to best protect my country, I need to find vulnerabilities in other countries,’ ” said Howard Schmidt, a former White House cybersecurity coordinator. “The problem is that we all fundamentally become less secure.”

A zero-day bug could be as simple as a hacker’s discovering an online account that asks for a password but does not actually require typing one to get in. Bypassing the system by hitting the “Enter” key becomes a zero-day exploit. The average attack persists for almost a year — 312 days — before it is detected, according to Symantec, the maker of antivirus software. Until then it can be exploited or “weaponized” by both criminals and governments to spy on, steal from or attack their target.

Ten years ago, hackers would hand knowledge of such flaws to Microsoft and Google free, in exchange for a T-shirt or perhaps for an honorable mention on a company’s Web site. Even today, so-called patriotic hackers in China regularly hand over the information to the government.

Now, the market for information about computer vulnerabilities has turned into a gold rush. Disclosures by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. consultant who leaked classified documents, made it clear that the United States is among the buyers of programming flaws. But it is hardly alone.

Israel, Britain, Russia, India and Brazil are some of the biggest spenders. North Korea is in the market, as are some Middle Eastern intelligence services. Countries in the Asian Pacific, including Malaysia and Singapore, are buying, too, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

To connect sellers and buyers, dozens of well-connected brokers now market information on the flaws in exchange for a 15 percent cut. Some hackers get a deal collecting royalty fees for every month their flaw is not discovered, according to several people involved in the market.

Some individual brokers, like one in Bangkok who goes by “the Grugq” on Twitter, are well known. But after the Grugq spoke to Forbes last year, his business took a hit from the publicity, according to a person familiar with the impact, primarily because buyers demand confidentiality.

A broker’s approach need not be subtle. “Need code execution exploit urgent,” read the subject line of an e-mail sent from one contractor’s intermediary last year to Billy Rios, a former security engineer at Microsoft and Google who is now a director at Cylance, a security start-up.

“Dear Friend,” the e-mail began. “Do you have any code execution exploit for Windows 7, Mac, for applications like Browser, Office, Adobe, SWF any.”

“If yes,” the e-mail continued, “payment is not an issue.”

20 computer terms every Mac user should know

Throughout the life of Mac 101, we’ve talked a lot about Apple technologies and terms. But with the gentle persuasion of this column’s readers, I’ve come to realize that—all too often—terms and acronyms that many of us take for granted leave users new to technology scratching their heads. Let’s rectify that now with a meander through some common tech terms.

For many of us, our Mac isn’t a one-stop shop. We routinely attach things like printers, cameras, and external hard drives to it. Below, I discuss the technologies that support such connections.

USB (Universal Serial Bus): This connection standard supports the transfer of data between devices and their peripherals. You’ll find USB connectors on computers, keyboards, pointing devices (mice and trackpads), digital cameras, camcorders, printers, portable media players (such as iPhones, iPods, and iPads), hard drives, network adapters, AV receivers, hubs, music keyboards, microphones, headphones, and just about any other device that can be attached to a computer. USB can also deliver power to devices that don’t demand a lot of the stuff.

A regular USB connector appears at one end of this cable (the upper end in the photo), and a Micro-USB connector appears at the other end.

There have been three major working USB specifications—USB 1.1, USB 2.0, and USB 3.0. The main difference between them is speed. Newer versions of USB are faster than their predecessors. USB is backward-compatible, so you can use a device designed for USB 2.0 in combination with another device using USB 3.0 ports.

Three styles of USB connectors are available: the standard rectangular one you find on your Mac; the trapezoid-shaped mini-connector that some digital cameras and hard drives rely on, and the tiny Micro-USB connector that you would use with a modern Kindle reader.

FireWire: FireWire (also known as IEEE 1394) is a technology for connecting compatible devices. It was designed for situations where fast transfer rates are crucial, including computers, storage devices, audio interfaces, and video gear such as camcorders and video interfaces.

A FireWire 400–to–FireWire 800 cable.

Although higher-speed FireWire standards exist, you’ll most often encounter FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 connectors. FireWire 800, the newer standard, supports much faster speeds than FireWire 400 does. FireWire 800 is backward-compatible with FireWire 400 devices. Each bears a unique connector. The typical FireWire 400 connector is oblong, rounded on one end and flat on the other. The FireWire 800 connector is rectangular. You can also find mini FireWire connectors, which are small and have a trapezoidal shape. Recent Macs that have a FireWire connector use FireWire 800.

Apple's Lightning cable.

Lightning: This is the proprietary connector found on today’s most recent iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and iPad mini models. It replaces the 30-pin dock connector found on earlier iOS devices and iPods. Unlike that connector, the Lightning connector works regardless of which side is facing up. Like the 30-pin connector before it, the non-Lightning end of the cable sports a USB connector and lets you transfer data as well as power to an attached device.

Thunderbolt: Thunderbolt is today’s faster transfer scheme. Unlike FireWire or USB, it can handle both data and video connections simultaneously. You can string a single Thunderbolt cable between your Mac and, say, Apple’s Thunderbolt Display, and use that connection to view the Mac’s video on the display while using the USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, and ethernet connectors on the back of the display to attach other devices to your Mac.

Thunderbolt is up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0 and up to 12 times faster than FireWire 800. You can connect as many as six compatible devices from a single Thunderbolt port. With a compatible adapter, you can connect USB, FireWire, and gigabit ethernet devices to a Thunderbolt port. The following Macs have Thunderbolt ports:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, late 2012)MacBook Pro (Retina, mid-2012)MacBook Pro (early 2011) and laterMacBook Air (mid-2011) and laterMac mini Server (mid-2011) and laterMac mini (mid-2011) and lateriMac (mid-2011) and later

There are many ways to move video signals around. Here are the video standards you’re most likely to encounter.

With this $39 kit, you can send video and audio from your 30-pin iOS device to a composite-compatible device.

Composite: Composite video is an analog standard that supports 480p video (which has a resolution of 720 by 480 pixels). Composite cables most often use three RCA-style connectors. The red and white connectors are for right and left stereo audio, respectively, and the yellow connector is for video.You'll find these connectors on old VCRs, videogame consoles, TVs, AV receivers, and camcorders. Macs haven’t had composite video connectors on them for a very, very long time—and even when they were available, they were found only on “AV” Macs. Apple doesn’t sell composite adapters for the Mac, but you can purchase such an adapter for your 30-pin iOS device in the form of Apple’s $39 Apple Composite AV Cable.

Component: Component video is another analog video standard, but one of higher quality than composite. Component cables typically have three RCA connectors colored red, green, and blue. In household use, it supports up to 1080p resolution (1920 by 1080) and offers a better picture than composite video. Some video cards offer component connectors, but you won’t find them natively on Macs.

A Mini DisplayPort connector.

Mini DisplayPort: Introduced with late 2008’s Mac models, Mini DisplayPort supports digital video only and offers resolutions of up to 2560 by 1600. The connector is a small rectangle with two rounded corners and looks exactly like a Thunderbolt connector. (In fact, you can use a Mini DisplayPort connector in a Thunderbolt port.) Adapters are available for converting Mini DisplayPort to VGA, DVI, or HDMI signals.

DVI (Digital Visual Interface): The DVI connector can act as both an analog connector and a digital one. It supports three kinds of connectors—DVI, Mini-DVI, and Micro-DVI—and offers resolutions of up to 2560 by 1600. You can identify these rectangular connectors by their two blocks of straight round pins next to a larger thin rectangular pin. DVI connectors were found on Macs in the 2000s until 2008, when Apple replaced them with Mini DisplayPort connectors.

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface): Found on today’s HDTVs and AV receivers, HDMI connectors are also part of today’s Mac mini models and will be available on the Mac Pro that Apple intends to release in fall 2013. HDMI supports resolutions of up to 2560 by 1600 at 75Hz and up to 4096 by 2160 at 24Hz. An HDMI connection includes both audio and video.

VGA (Video Graphics Array): This is a large, 15-pin trapezoidal connector found on older computers and inexpensive video cards. Such connectors can still be found on some modern TVs and computer monitors. VGA is another analog standard and supports resolutions of up to 2048 by 1536. Macs haven’t had VGA connectors for quite some time, but you can attach a Mac to a VGA monitor, TV, or projector by using an adapter compatible with your Mac’s video connector.

Original Apple I computer up for auction

An original Apple 1 computer is up for auction at Christie's until July 9.

One of the few remaining original Apple I computers was put up for bids Monday, and auction house Christie's expects it to attract a winning bid of between $300,000 and $500,000.

Half a million dollars is a lot for a circuit board built in 1976 without casing, keyboard or monitor. In fact, that kind of money could buy you 250 MacBook Pros.

But, the Apple I isn't just any circuit board. It was the first product designed by Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) co-founder Steve Wozniak who built it in his partner Steve Jobs' parents' garage.

Only about 200 Apple 1 computers were ever built by Wozniak and Jobs. At the time, the design attracted the attention of Paul Terrell who owned a Silicon Valley store chain call Byte Shop. He bought the first 50 Apple I computers for $500 each and resold them for $666.66.

In May, an Apple I computer sold for $671,000 at a German auction house, Auction Team Breker. Last year, one sold for $374,500 at a Sotheby's auction.

Bidders have until July 9 to make an online bid at Christie's for the latest Apple I to go on sale. Other iconic computers from the 20th century, including a 1983 Apple Lisa computer, and a prototype of the first Macintosh laptop, are also included in the auction.