While pursuing an MBA at MIT in 2010, Tim Fu tore his ACL, an incident that led to surgery and six months of physical therapy. “It was a really tough process, especially at home, without the coaching of a physical therapist,” Fu recalled to Mashable. From his frustration, the idea for a business was born. Home Team Therapy, which launched in private beta this week, is using online video and video games to help physical therapists guide patients through their exercises at home. “The videos are detailed, but have a conversational tone,” Fu explains. “Our Kinect application will actually track patients doing their exercises and will use subtle clues to guide patients in the right direction — think Dance Central for physical therapy.” The Kinect application is being developed for Windows, so all users will need is a PC and a Kinect sensor, the latter of which Home Team will provide. The Home Team platform also allows patients to track progress and communicate with therapists between appointments, Fu says. You can see the program in action in the promotional video below: Fu says he wants therapists and doctors to be able to use Home Team’s tools for free. Patients can opt into the tools for a monthly subscription of about $20 — costs a physical therapist could presumably add on to his or her own standard fee. Fu’s two co-founders are Dr. Anil Ranawat, an orthopedic surgeon, and Dr. Ben Gelfand, a physical therapist, both of whom he worked with when he tore his ACL. The Boston-based startup employs a three-person team of developers and designers and is entirely self-funded. Its product was showcased at SXSW’s Interactive Accelerator in Austin this year and plans to launch its services publicly this summer. Image via Yellow Dog Productions/Getty Images. Read more: http://mashable.com/2013/03/11/home-team-therapy/
I’ve always been envious of people who can freely express themselves and enjoy life to the fullest. It’s not that I don’t like my life, but let’s just say you won’t see me breaking out in dance whenever the mood strikes. That’s because in addition to having absolutely no rhythm, I’m nowhere near as cool as this grandma. Every week, this girl picked up her 88-year-old Nana Feole and took her out to breakfast or lunch. As soon as she would arrive at her house, she’d blast some great oldies from her car and get treated with this awesome sight. You go, nana! She could seriously bring a smile to anyone’s face. Read More: A Group Of Dads Got Together With Their Babies To Do Something That’s Beyond Cute Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/dancing-nana/
If you remove all the shouting, heavy metal has a lot in common with classical music. Both genres are renowned for their emotional, sweeping arrangements, and each requires a great deal of skill to master. Don’t believe me? Maybe this reimagined take on Metallica’s classic single “One” will change your mind. The cover, performed by YouTube sensations Camille and Kennerly, is a haunting reimagining of this metalhead favorite. Showcasing the complicated rhythm and dark melody of the song, Camille and Kennerly take this mosh pit favorite and turn it into something that wouldn’t sound out of place at a church. It may not leave you wanting to buy a leather jacket and feather your hair, but it might just change your perception of the often overlooked heavy metal genre. Read more: http://www.wimp.com/metallica-one-harp-cover/
Urban Explorer Seph Lawless is known for exploring empty, eerie places — and Picher, Oklahoma, is definitely one of the most unsettling. Picher started out as a promising mining town in 1918, but today, it is known as the most toxic city in America. After years of water contamination and sludge buildup, the whole town was evacuated. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘VN_PG_DCBP_ATF’); }); For his latest project, Lawless journeyed to this foreboding town and walked its silent streets. There is nothing safe about being inside Picher’s city limits, but that definitely wasn’t enough to extinguish his curiosity. Abandoned for over a decade, this city once thrived with a booming mining industry in the early 20th century. Seph Lawless googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘VN_PG_DCBM_BTF’); }); During Oklahoma’s expansion in 1913, huge amounts of lead and zinc were found in the area. Being at the center of all this new mining work, a settlement was formed and its population had reached nearly 10,000 people by 1920. Seph Lawless It was named after Oliver Picher, owner of the Picher Lead Company. Seph Lawless It became so successful that at one point, it was producing over $20 billion of ore, quickly making it the most lucrative mining settlement in the state. Seph Lawless Over half of the lead and zinc used by the U.S. military during World War I came from the city. Seph Lawless But everything changed after mining stopped in 1967. Hazardous waste and contaminated water from mine shafts created a toxic environment. Seph Lawless googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘VN_PG_DCI1_BTF’); }); The situation got so bad that the U.S. government designated it as a Superfund site, which identified it as a candidate for cleanup because of the dangerous risk that was posed to people living there. Seph Lawless Unfortunately, Picher couldn’t be salvaged. Officials evacuated the area in 2009 and classified it as the most toxic city in America. Seph Lawless Residents were forced out of their homes and relocated. They left many of their possessions behind, which turned their houses into chilling time capsules that now commemorate an awful point in Oklahoma’s history. Seph Lawless Lawless noticed when he started exploring that people’s clothes were still hanging in their closets as if they’d only just left. Seph Lawless Because of extensive mining, the ground beneath the explorer’s feet could have given way at any time. Seph Lawless As Lawless walked through the streets, he feared that he would fall to his death. Seph Lawless googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘VN_PG_DCI2_BTF’); }); Mining also left behind huge piles of siliceous rock and dolomite waste called “chat.” The mounds are so large that they look like mountains surrounding the city. Seph Lawless Approximately 34 percent of children from Picher were found to be suffering from lead poisoning by the time 1996 rolled around. Seph Lawless In the short amount of time that Lawless spent on one of the hills, he reported feeling nauseous and very uneasy. Seph Lawless But despite all of the dangers, the city’s pharmacist, Gary Linderman, refused to leave […]
Zach Anner’s Reddit-powered cross-country road trip is complete, and finally premiering on YouTube. The series, Riding Shotgun With Zach Anner, is a travel show that evolved from Anner’s former show on the OWN network. The comic won a contest after charming the online communities of Reddit and 4chan with self-deprecating humor that poked fun at his own affliction — cerebral palsy. Anner took to Reddit after the short-lived cable series was cancelled due to poor ratings. The new series is the first to have an official branded subreddit. With help from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Anner and his friends traveled to six cities, suggested by the Reddit community: Montreal, Boston, Baltimore, Blacksburg, Va., Savannah, New Orleans, Denver and Vancouver. After selecting the itinerary, the team sought out local redditors to give their take on each city. Throughout the six-week trip, the guys released teasers of the crazy antics to keep viewers updated on their travels. They did everything from reading romance novels at the filming location of Dirty Dancing to performing on Bourbon Street with the 610 stompers to drinking “dragon’s blood” in Montreal. The new series, which is hosted on YouTube, already has more than two million views and 25,000 subscribers. Anner will host a Reddit AMA on Tuesday at 11 a.m. EST to kick it off. Will you be tuning into Riding Shotgun With Zach Anner? Let us know what you think of the online-powered endeavor in the comments below. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/23/reddit-powered-travel-show/
Hooking a GoPro camera to a quadcopter “drone” is all the rage in aerial filmography these days, and this video shows you why. GoPro gives some amazing new perspectives of things that you wouldn’t want to capture from a helicopter. Watch as one man sends his drone through a fireworks show, capturing some stunning footage, all set to the sound of Andrea Bocelli beautifully singing “Con Te Partiro”. From now on this should be the ONLY way that people film or take pictures of fireworks. Forget your camera phones people, I want birds eye view! Source: Jos Stiglingh Share this cool fireworks drone video with your friends below. Read more: http://viralnova.com/fireworks-drone/
When Woody’s owner died, the family sold the house and left poor Woody behind to fend for himself. For a year, he waited under a nearby shed hoping his owner would return, kept alive by the food and water that neighbours left for him while they searched for someone to help save him. Eventually, dog rescuer Eldad Hagar and his organization, “Hope For Paws” heard about Woody and came to his aid. They rescued him and gave him the feeling of love for the first time in a very long time. That poor little guy; dogs are so loyal to their owners. Good thing Eldad and Hope For Paws was there to lend a kind hand. (Source: Eldad Hagar) Share this heartwarming rescue with your friends by hitting the button below. Read more: http://viralnova.com/scruffy-dog-rescued/
When it came time to protect his pony brethren, this guy clearly wasn’t horsin’ around. Visitors at the Paynes Prairie Preserve, in Micanopy, Florida, were in for quite the sight when they witnessed this utterly ridiculous exchange between an alligator and a large horse. While grazing in the high grasses, this brave horse noticed an alligator getting a little too close to his pony pals. Taking things into his own hands (hooves?) our hero charged the gator and stomped him straight to Hell. After circling around his foe, the horse was in for a surprise when the gator tried to take a bite out of the competition. Here’s another angle of the harrowing footage. I can’t even imagine standing right there when this went down! Luckily, nature preserve staff have checked in on both the horse and the alligator and neither one was seriously injured. Share this video to remind others that in the animal kingdom, no brawl is off limits. Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/horse-stomps-alligator/
When Irrational Games needed to create a distinctive look to promote the female lead in the video game BioShock Infinite, it looked to 3D scanning rather than traditional modeling software. The game’s leading lady, Elizabeth Comstock, is one of the most original and engaging digital characters in years, and her realistic appearance in a commercial for the game revealed how effectively the technology can convey facial features and emotions. Elizabeth’s in-game design came from a traditional combination of motion-capture for her body and 3D modeling for her face, but Irrational needed a face for Elizabeth in the promotional materials — billboards, print and online ads and even TV spots. As the game neared its release in March, Irrational knew that Elizabeth would have to grab the audience’s attention right away, and set about crafting a TV commercial for the game. Elizabeth’s expressive face and realistic features come by way of an Artec 3D scanner: a professional-grade product made by a startup company in Moscow. “Our scanners are a little different,” Anna Zevelyov, Artec 3D Scanning’s director of business development, told TechNewsDaily. “Actually, they’re a lot different!” Whereas most professional-grade 3D scanners rest on a tripod and require a person to move them around an object very slowly, Artec’s scanner is handheld and operates like a video camera. “You take it in your hand, you walk around the object, and you capture it at 16 [frames per second],” Zevelyov said. “It automatically aligns all the strains together to create a single object in 3D.” The Artec scanners’ size and rapidity make them a natural fit for capturing human subjects, Zevelyov said. “Humans can’t stand still very long,” she added. Irrational Games sought out Anna Moleva, a popular Russian cosplayer — someone who dresses up as characters from pop culture for conventions or photo shoots — to represent Elizabeth in the commercial. As a Russian scanning company, Artec was a natural fit. “This beautiful young Russian woman came by and she was posing,” Zevelyov explained. “We scanned her here and sent the scans to Los Angeles. They did all the postproduction on it; they made her come to life.” “We made her do a bunch of faces,” Zevelyov said. “Here she is angry, here she is sad, here she is laughing, here she is frowning … Once [artists] get these scans, they don’t have to imagine what she might look like, because they’ve never seen her.” Zevelyov estimates the whole scanning session took, at most, 20 minutes — a far cry from the eight-plus hours it can often take designers to create a face from scratch. Without 3D scanning, making a face for a video game character can be an arduous process, to say nothing of animating it or connecting it to a moveable body. “It takes [designers] about four hours to draw a face, and another four hours to draw the texture and color of the face, and the shape,” Zevelyov said. “Let’s say they want to digitize Brad Pitt,” she […]
