Smile Though Your Day Is Crumbling...

Admittedly, it's not really easy to flash a smile when you're in the middle of a chaos, like working inside a train station. But for people in Japan, not smiling is almost a crime! And because of that (coupled with classic Japanese ingenuity), they created the Smile Scanner. I am betting it has the same principle/technology behind the Smile Shutter function of the newer Sony Ericsson mobile phones and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras, wherein it actually looks for your smile. Only then will you be able to click.

So why is smiling a prerequisite in the Japanese train system?

The Freakonomics section of New York Times Online tells readers:

Japan’s Keihin Express Railway Co. has set up “smile scanners” at 15 of its stations, where railway employees have their smiles assessed by software in the hopes of perfecting a customer-friendly look.

However, BBC reports that it's not really a compulsory thing:

Some of the busiest train stations in the world have installed computerised 'smile scanners' to help employees deliver a better service.'

Well, forcing people to smile is really something. But if it's for the sake of achieving satisfactory customer feedback, then let's all hold a peace sign, smile, and say "kawaii!!!"

*Image aggregated from Destination360.

**Parts of news article courtesy of BBC and NYTimes.

Ford Automobile's "Rear-view" Message

Wow. One look at this Ford ad and I get it! Fantastic messaging. I hope soon every automobile company will employ this feature on their cars. It will help reduce the number of deaths caused by accidentally backing a vehicle over an innocent kid playing by the driveway.

Copy:

Ford Expedition Wth Rear View Camera.

*Image aggregated from WPP and is copyright by ad agency JWT.

The Ten Commandments of Facebook...

...and that's according to TremendousNews! This list is hilarious so you may want to check it out. This one really cracked me up:

7. I will not make my profile picture a picture of myself when I was a baby.
Yeah, you were an okay-looking kid. There’s nothing grotesque about you, which is disappointing. But all kids look the same and you’re old now. Stop trying to recapture your fleeting youth by pretending you’re six again. Also, I refuse to engage in a serious wall-to-wall conversation with an eight year-old boy in a sweater-vest sitting on a staircase. Why do all baby pictures take place on a staircase?

Read the rest of the commandments by clicking here.

More hilarity at TremendousNews.

Parts of article/content aggregated from TremendousNews; Image aggregated from Lonewolflibrarian. Please contact them for commercial use of their content.

How To Freak Out Your Neighbors

No, the image isn't playing tricks on you. That seemingly "ghostly" figure in the middle of the woods is really a sculpted wire mesh. If you want your own scare piece, click here for the step by step instructionss on making one. :-) Perfectly for Halloween--and it's fast approaching!

Boo!

Image aggregated from Vision02.

An iPhone Lost Is A Life Lost...

This is just sad.

I can understand the strict security measures with new product releases. But I don't think it has to end this way:

SHENZHEN, China — When a closely guarded prototype of a new Apple iPhone went missing at a huge factory here two weeks ago, an internal investigation focused on a shy, 25-year-old employee named Sun Danyong.

Mr. Sun, a college graduate working in the logistics department, denied stealing the iPhone. But he later complained to friends that he had been beaten and humiliated by the factory’s security team. On the night he was questioned, he sent an anguished text message to his girlfriend.

“Dear, I’m sorry. Go back home tomorrow,” he wrote, according to a message she later posted online. “I ran into some problems. Don’t tell my family. Don’t contact me. I’m begging you for the first time. Please do it! I’m sorry.”

Soon after, in the early-morning hours of July 16, Mr. Sun apparently jumped to his death from the 12th floor of an apartment building in what his employer, Foxconn Technology, says was a suicide.

Apple and Foxconn, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of consumer electronics and a major Apple supplier, issued statements last week expressing sorrow for the death. Foxconn said it suspended one security officer, pending a police investigation, and that the company was now considering counseling services for its employees.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Parts of the article aggregated from NYTimes.com

What?! No two raindrops are alike?!

Well, not that I'd be surprised. Being a hobbyist photographer who loves macro photography at its finest, I have always known that raindrops vary in size and shapes. It's just that simple for me. But some scientists think otherwise :-) They have finally figured out the science behind the variations on size and shapes of these raindrops:






To read the rest of the story on how they were able to prove that fact, click here.


Fantastic! Now I love raindrops more than ever!


Image and parts of article aggregated from Dailymail. Check out the comments section of the article, some are just too witty not to notice :-)

The Paper Castle

The picture definitely looks like an aerial shot of a grand, uber-lighted castle somewhere in Europe. But it's a castle made of paper--hand made craft that took four years to complete! That's like graduating in high school! But I must say, I am amazed at the outcome of this project.

Tokyobling takes us to this amazing creation through photos taken from the gallery. Click here to view more of this paper castle.

Image aggregated from Tokyobling.