Award winning animation studio Pendulum shows a demo of compelling and emotive digital characters from AlterEgo, their facial performance division. AlterEgo demonstrates how they accurately translate an actor’s facial performance into believable and life like 3D character animation.

MythBusters first showed how a CPU drew a smiley face one paint ball at a time and then proceed to show how a GPU used parallel processing to draw an actual Mona Lisa drawing in 80 milli seconds. Add a slow motion version at the end and you get a sensational technology demonstration.

This is a view of an early prototype of using a swarm of robots that could physically join and create a three dimension artificial organism. The robots would manage their own hardware and software and even self heal when damaged.

Interesting robots inspired by animals in nature ranging from fish, salamander, gecko, water strider and others. The last robot has got to be my favorite with its cool modular motion and genetic algorithm.

1 videoclip of robots inspired by animals after the jump.

An animated illustration of the Phoenix Lander arriving on Mars on May 25th. The Phoenix Lander is programmed to set down near the North Pole of Mars and over the next three months, sample alien soil and ice and look for conditions conducive for ancient microbial life.

This is a demo of Euphoria’s realistic character animation system which is used for the animation tech in Grand Theft Auto 4. It doesn’t require an animator to generate all possible movements and uses a combination of artificial intelligence, physics and biomechanics. This is truly the future development of character animation.

Earlier on we had the new video on Boston Dynamics infamous BigDog robot which impressed everyone with its life like movements and coordination. This is footage of its earlier predecessor when the BigDog robot was still in beta.

1 videoclip of the BigDog Beta after the jump.

Boston Dynamics BigDog Robot is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency and looks totally futuristic albeit the spooky movements. This is the latest footage of the BigDog robot as it walks on snow, ice, stones, cement blocks and even endured a kick to its side. It feels like a mix of biological machine since the way it behave is just like an animal.

Cool technology similar to the one in the movie Minority Report where visitors can actually try out themselves at the T-Online booth shown at CeBIT 2008. Virtual reality has come a long way and it wouldn’t be surprising that we will all be using our hands to interact with our computer screens in the future.

Check out the world’s largest and most powerful vortex cannon in action by Erbert and Gerbert. The vortex cannon pumps out a cloud of air which blowouts anything in its path. Entertaining and fun to watch.

1 videoclip of the candle cannon after the jump.

VideoTrace is a modeling software From Australian Center that uses objects from video to create realistic 3D models. The user interacts with VideoTrace by tracing the shape of the object to be modelled over a number of frames in the video. The software then interprets the sketch drawn and generates a realistic 3D model.

This is a footage taken from Japanese TV where it shows this new 3D technology where people can actually interact with the gaming environment for e.g. display different realistic hairstyles before a hair cut.

A test by the US government using an F4 quantum jet that does 500 miles per hour into the concrete wall of the nuclear plant. Because of the vulnerability and danger towards a nuclear plant, the concrete wall have to withstand great impacts if it was under attack one day.

1 videoclip of the airplane vs concrete wall test after the jump.