After a very loooong bus ride we finally arrived at Schloss Beesenstadt for another edition of a Nokia Windows Phone event, one of the most fun events I've been to. This time it was time for Window Phone Mission Operation: Secret Castle. I invited Lisa to come along with me and we had major fun after a not so fun 3 hour bus trip and very delicious food. Once again we were handed a Windows Phone, our main tool, to complete challenges and riddles in order to save the internet. As awesome as we are we managed to unlock the password and save the world. After all what would we all be without internet today? ;)
Next week is Berlin Fashion Week!!! I've been having invitations flying in through my mail and inbox over the past few weeks. Some same shows, some new shows, interesting parties (so looking forward to those!) and showrooms.
Ephron died of complications from myelodysplasia, a blood disorder she was diagnosed with six years ago, The Washington Post reports.
The beloved screenwriter, who brought to life award-winning films including "Silkwood," "When Harry Met Sally...," "Sleepless in Seattle," "You've Got Mail" and, most recently "Julie & Julia," belonged to America's top tier of filmmakers, but her talents extended far beyond Hollywood. Ephron was also an accomplished essayist, novelist and reporter, not to mention the Editor-at-Large of The Huffington Post.
Raised in Beverly Hills, Ephron graduated from Wellesley College before beginning her career as a journalist at the New York Post. She then went on to write about the 1970s women's movement for Esquire.
"Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady," Ephron told Wellesley's Class of 1996 in a commencement speech. "I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women."
Ephron had the wit and the guts to follow her own advice.
"She was the funniest feminist, or pseudofeminist, depending on whom you ask," Ariel Levy observed in a 2009 profile of Ephron published by The New Yorker.
In her work and in her life, Ephron refused to settle for predictability. "Every 10 years or so there was a moment when I'd say, even subconsciously, 'Is that all there is?'" she told Ladies' Home Journal in 2009. "You've got to find ways to keep it fresh for yourself. To do the thing, as they say, that is a stretch."
In 1976, Ephron married Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein (she was previously married to writer Dan Greenburg for nine years) on the heels of his induction into the journalism hall of fame. Bernstein and his fellow reporter Bob Woodward had chased down the Watergate scandal, which ended the presidency of President Richard Nixon.
"Carl and Nora were the Brad and Jen of the early eighties," Levy wrote.
Like many power couples, this one ended in divorce -- after four years.
Following her second divorce, Ephron wrote the Academy Award-winning screenplay for "Silkwood," starring Kurt Russell and Meryl Streep. Ephron and Streep would collaborate again on 1986's "Heartburn" and 2009's "Julie & Julia."
"Directing movies is the best job there is, that's all," Ephron told the UK's Independent in 1993. "I can hardly say a word after that. It's just a great job. I just want to go on making movies, and some of them will be completely meaningless, except, of course, to me."
Ephron is perhaps best known for her 1989 film, "When Harry Met Sally...," which has become a cultural mainstay.
"'When Harry Met Sally...' is kind of a dark movie," director Nicolas Stoller told The Huffington Post in 2012. "It's sweet and it ends beautifully and romantic, but those are two pretty messed up characters. They're pretty flawed. They do pretty nasty things to each other. It goes to a dark, pretty real place between them. That's why it's a classic. [Screenwriter] Nora Ephron does not pull her punches in that movie."
Tom Hanks, who starred in not one, but two now-classic Ephron rom-coms -- "Sleepless in Seattle" (1993) and "You've Got Mail" (1998) -- said, "Working on a movie with Nora is kind of like going to a dinner party of hers," Hanks said of Ephron. "There's a lot of great conversation. There's a certain amount of screwing around but, by and large, you wind up talking about what Nora dictates you're going to wind up talking about."
In recent years, Ephron had grown increasingly aware of her mortality. In her latest book, "I Remember Nothing: And other Reflections" (2010) she writes: "You do get to a certain point in life where you have to realistically, I think, understand that the days are getting shorter, and you can't put things off thinking you'll get to them someday. If you really want to do them, you better do them. There are simply too many people getting sick, and sooner or later you will. So I'm very much a believer in knowing what it is that you love doing so you can do a great deal of it."
Ephron is survived by her husband, screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi and her two sons, Jacob and Max Bernstein. A memorial has been planned for Thursday, June 28, in New York.
An advanced camera powerful enough to shoot one billion pixels of still or video image is currently being tested at Duke University. Details of this research were released in the scientific journal Nature earlier this week.
This "supercamera," as Science Mag has labeled it, is actually composed of 98 smaller cameras that shoot at 14 megapixels and rest in a football-sized sphere. "Pixels are individual 'dots' of data," explains a press release for Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. "The higher the number of pixels, the better resolution of the image."
Pictures from the multiple cameras are then stitched together by image processing software on a computer connected to the sphere, creating one highly detailed image. According to the Wall Street Journal, these billion pixel shots generate photos with five times as much detail as what a person with 20/20 vision can see, and produce images 30 times better than the best SLR camera available on the market.
The Department of Defense has funded the research of this device, known formally as the Aware-2, in hopes of using this technology in both aerial and land surveillance, per The Wall Street Journal. The zooming-in capabilities of this camera's images (via supplemental computer software) could provide detailed information once impossible to obtain.
"When you’re in the field, you don’t have to decide what you’re going to study — you can capture as much information as possible and look at it for five years”, says roboticist Illah Nourbakhsh to Nature. He developed Gigapan, which is the software that stitches all of smaller images together.
Nature reports that there have been other gigapixel cameras developed, like the one housed at the University of Hawaii; but none boast a field of view 120 degrees wide and 50 degrees tall like the Aware-2.
If this technology was eventually spread to the general public, a whole new photography world could be created. PC Mag reports that by simply turning on the camera users would be able to collect comprehensive still and video images of the world around them. Media companies might also be able to shoot movies, television shows and sports in defined gigapixels, bringing forth a drastically new viewer experience.
"In many instances, the camera can capture images of things that photographers cannot see themselves but can then detect when the image is viewed later," says developer David Brady from the Pratt School of Engineering.
But it will be some time before this type of technology is available as a handheld camera. Currently, the Aware-2 weighs around 100 pounds and shoots only in black-and-white. The Wall Street Journal reports some industrial gigapixel cameras may be released on a "limited basis in 2013."
For more information on the Aware-2, flip through the images of the camera in the slideshow below. Then let us know what you think in the comments section, or tweet us at @HuffPostTech.
Aware-2 Camera
This device weighs around 100 pounds and consists of 98 smaller cameras at 14 megapixels each. As shown in this picture, the football-sized sphere is also surrounded by wires and a cooling system. Though Duke researchers hope to develop similar technology on a smaller scale soon, this version of the Aware-2 isn't quite ready for the general public.
Picture Details
This is an example of Aware-2's gigapixel photographs, taken in Seattle, Washington. The zoom-in feature shows details like the words written on signs and vehicles.
The 98 Cameras
The Aware-2 boasts 98 cameras that take 98 separate images, which are later stitched together with Gigapan software to form one high-quality image. Here you can see what section of the picture each camera captured and how the smaller images slightly overlap.
Currently my favourite dress is this sheer blouse glitter skirt combination I received from Sheinside. It's the perfect going out dress, but looks perfectly fine during the day, when combined with my favorite oversize blazer and a day bag. What do you think of my look? I say glitter can work during the day! ;)
