Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The ninjas of advertisement

Growing up with television and the Internet, we have become accustomed to advertisements bombarding us in every way possible. Our sneaky little friends over at Kameraflage felt that this wasn’t enough, and have come up with a new way to get a point across, using a 21st Century version of subliminal messaging.

The company’s founders thought it would be clever to decorate billboards, T-shirts and an assortment of other objects with colors we cannot see. Sounds pointless, right? Well, it turns out the creations are visible through the lens of a camera, which still makes the discovery sound pretty silly.

Needless to say, when I started reading about Kameraflage, I thought it was a joke. I was expecting someone from The Onion or the now-defunct Weekly World News to have “created” the product. I understand how the technology works — through using colors our eyes cannot see but can still be picked up by electronics — but I couldn’t readily understand why anyone would want to use it. Who walks around all day with a camera stuck to his or her face?

The obvious answer is the paparazzi. I guess the celebrities who don’t enjoy being followed by the media can now voice their displeasure on a T-shirt, a refreshing change from the traditional vulgar hand signal or bouts of profanity. Big-name fashion designers can add another dimension to their clothing lines and annual fashion shows by featuring Kameraflaged garments. In fact, a prototype garment was worn during 2006 Fall Fashion Week in Paris, according to the company’s Web site.

The film industry could also benefit from the invisible text in order to cut back on movie piracy; a big “nice try” stamped on the entire film may deter people from distributing illegal copies. If this idea doesn’t fly, film makers could always use Kameraflage to provide subtitles to a deaf audience or on a foreign film. Of course, theaters would probably have to distribute a viewing device, since the screens on camera phones are only so large.

But then there are the people who would use Kameraflage for the purposes of evil, such as advertising agencies.

Imagine taking photos of a landmark on vacation, only to later find McDonald’s famous “golden arches” proudly displayed on the structure, or the Web address for Internet casino GoldenPalace.com. Although I’d like to think that corporations have better things to do than deface buildings with invisible ink, there is no way to tell what tricks the executives may have up their sleeves; I would hate to see the Statue of Liberty’s green torch replaced with an invisible bottle of Coca-Cola.

Although it is pretty neat that someone thought to use these invisible colors, I still don’t think Kameraflage will be the next “in” thing for the American public. It doesn't really give us the instant gratification that we've become accustomed to in this country.

You can read more about here and here, although all of the news articles about the product basically say the same thing.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

A combination of things

Throughout life, we learn to associate colors with different tasks: red means stop, yellow means caution, and red and yellow together mean McDonald’s.



I learned my senior year of high school that green and pink together induce nausea, but only after we chose them as our class’s Homecoming colors. Oddly enough, though, not everyone sees color the same way you do.

Apparently some women can see more colors than the rest of us, which may cause them to spend more time comparing shades of hairdye. Called tetrachromats, these people can see four different channels of color, instead of just the red, green and blue variety that most humans can see. Unfortunately, there is no way to describe these other or more intense colors. If you've read The Giver, you probably know what I mean.* Anyway, there's also no online vision test for these extra colors, since computers monitors tend to use three colors.

Of course, there are people who can't even see all three colors, in a characteristic that is more common in men than women: color blindness. Many mammals are color blind, but, thanks to science, there are now three mice that can see color, says Scientific American. This was done in an effort to figure out the evolution of our eyes — or play God, if you're of the Brother Micah variety. For those of you who don't know who Micah is, or if you just miss him,** here's a video of one of his visits to FAU Boca. (Note: The video may not be safe for work.)



Anyway, back to the mice. The researchers bred "genetically altered" mice (whatever that means) into passing along a gene which allows the mice to see the color red. If the scientists wanted to get really fancy with the human-rat vision evolution, they could've also given the mice a nifty pair of contact lenses, since mice are relatively nearsighted.

Nearsightedness, or the inability to see distant objects clearly, is caused by light not quite reaching the retina while remaining in focus. It's almost as though your eyes are too big for the amount of light they let in, and thus the light cannot reach the back of the eye. Farsightedness, the inability to see close objects clearly, is caused by too much light hitting the retina before the object comes into focus. You could also pretend that I said your eyes are too small for the amount of light they let in.

Anyway, besides just seeing colors — or not seeing them, in some cases — there are also people who feel colors. No, this isn't some sort of New Age philosophy, but an actual neurological condition. Called synesthesia, people with this condition can not only feel colors, but also hear, smell and taste them, says LiveScience. I guess it's like eating Skittles all the time.



There are variations of synesthesia, such as seeing time, but there is no explanation for any variation. While it would be neat to experience this condition without the use of illegal drugs, I am truly glad that I do not have it, as Skittles make me sick after a while.


* For those of you who haven't, most of the people in the book see in black-and-white, except for a select few who can see red. Those who can see red in the book cannot describe why the red objects look different, since no one can conceptualize the color. This is similar to how certain people in the 1950s, like Joseph McCarthy, could spot a communist.
**Brother Micah week is better than Christmas, and I love Christmas.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

We're going in circles again

From the early morning into the evening, the campus parking lots look like those at the mall around Christmas: cars circling around for hours, vehicles parked on the medians and hundreds of frustrated drivers. Unlike the mall, though, there is usually plenty of parking out in the middle of nowhere - such as the fifth floor of the Art and Letters parking garage on the Boca campus - but who wants to park there?

Not most students, apparently. So, based on research done by real scientists, I've drawn my own conclusions about why we would rather drive in circles than walk a few extra yards.

One possible reason is that our brains are full; there's just not enough room to remember our multiplication tables, all six American Idol winners and where we parked our car. LiveScience says we have such horrible short-term memories because we try to remember too much. Given that we're college students who thrive on cramming sessions and memorizing answer sheets, I can believe it - sort of. The problem arises in that we have no idea how to forget things; it’s easy to say that our brains are nearing capacity, but there's really nothing we can do about it. And if you think your memory is bad now, just wait a couple decades and see how many more useless memories are clogging your brain – you may just need to tie those plastic flowers to your car’s antenna or put a dozen flags on your windows.

Another reason could be that we need the false sense of accomplishment which getting a closer spot - or even preventing someone else from getting it - brings to us. Like our grade-school bullies, some people live only to make the lives of others more difficult. And I’m sure you know who I’m talking about: The people who follow you too closely so that you can’t back up a foot or two, and the people who try to cut you off and steal your spot. According to Reuters, odds are that these bullies are your bosses on a nice power trip. So next time, try to keep in mind that the jerk who took your spot may actually be the same person who lost your transcript or short-changed you at a campus venue. And I’m just going to leave it at that, since I’m all against retaliation when I’m on the record.

Of course, we could also claim that we are fulfilling our supposed urge to hunt by following people to their cars. Based on what Science Daily says, this could easily backfire, since our immediate response to being followed is to run, freeze or weave in and out of cars. The guy who conducted this study (which used a Pac-Man-like game) says this reaction "is a poor survival strategy and makes it more likely that the animal will be eaten and not pass on its genes." It also makes us more likely to stand there and point when Godzilla wanders out of the ocean and stomps all over the city. So, it turns out that following a person for too long may only make him or her nervous and instinctually try to ditch you, but at least this method also serves as something to do if you have time to kill.

Anyway, the truth of the matter is that we probably just drive around in circles because it's hot outside and we're lazy college students. But, really, where's the fun in that?