When you strap on all of the gear required for a modern, immersive, virtual reality experience, you’re all but completely blind to the real world. But interacting with real world objects can often enhance a virtual experience, so Disney’s researchers came up with a way to let users catch a real ball without leaving a…
So far 2016 has been a wild ride, but there’s one less thing to keep you awake at night, terrified about the future, now that Disney Research has finally found a way to render convincing computer-generated sugar that looks and moves just like the real thing. Phew!
As we work towards crossing the uncanny valley so that computer-generated humans don’t look like horrific plastic mannequins, every last facial feature needs to be recreated perfectly. That even includes teeth, which can now be digitized using nothing but a video of someone smiling.
In Disney’s continued quest to breath life into all of its cartoon characters, it might be going beyond a mere costume. Its research branch just revealed what appears to be the first attempt to make a robotic version of Tigger, Winnie the Pooh’s tiger pal, who’s best known for bouncing around on his tail.
The easiest way to make a robot as dexterous and capable as a human being is to simply let a human control it. That’s how Disney Research’s new telepresence robot works, but with improved hydraulics on board, it’s now capable of duplicating a human’s motions with remarkable precision—to the point where it can even be…
Before LEDs and lasers came along, video projectors would shine white light through a rotating color wheel to produce full-color images. But researchers at Dartmouth College and Disney Research Zürich have come up with a more unusual projection approach using prisms and very precise computer-generated black and white…
Not even walls can stop Disney’s and ETH Zurich’s new four-wheeled robot called VertiGo that can quickly transition from rolling on the ground to climbing obstacles like a gecko—and without those sticky feet.
Although undetectable by our limited five senses, most electrical devices emit small amounts of unique electromagnetic noise, which is actually transferred through our bodies. So by modifying the hardware to detect those signals, researchers have created a smarter smartwatch that can sense exactly what you’re holding.
Wifi networks aren’t ubiquitous yet, and other wireless communication protocols like Bluetooth can suck battery life. So researchers at Disney have come up with an alternative way for devices to talk to each other using LEDs blinking faster than the human eye can see.
Given Disney’s amusement parks are packed full of audio-animatronic characters, it only makes sense that the company’s research division would be hard at work finding ways to make them even more lifelike. Researchers may have found a cheap solution to making artificial muscles, using conductive sewing thread you can…
In an attempt to make its theme parks even more magical, Disney’s Research division is working to develop bi-pedal robots and animatronic characters that walk and move like the lively cartoon characters in its animated films and TV shows.
In an effort to bring more functionality and interactivity to a device that is often just a large monolothic touchscreen, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research have come up with a series of accessories that manipulate sound coming from a smartphone’s speaker to serve as an external controller.
If you rely on just a single camera while traveling, it’s easy to organize your photos by time and date when you get home. But most of us use multiple cameras, and smartphones, and action cams, to document our travels. So researchers at Disney and the University of Washington are working on software that can…
Your typical 3D printer works by layering melted plastic to eventually build up a solid 3D object, but what happens when you swap plastic for fabrics? Suddenly you’ve got a machine that can create objects that are soft, deformable, and cuddly.
If you thought elaborate sand castles were the only way one could express their artistic vision on the beach, Disney Research and ETH Zürich want to introduce you to their Beachbot. Slightly larger than a Roomba, the cartoonish robot turtle uses innovative soft balloon-like wheels so that it doesn't leave a trail…
What most often gives away a CG character as fake is their dead, lifeless eyes. It's a common contributing factor to the uncanny valley effect, but now researchers at Disney have developed a system to perfectly capture a performer's eyes that promises to make CG characters finally appear more lifelike and convincing.
Researchers with Disney Research Zurich have developed a method for turning any three-dimensional object into an optimized (i.e. ideally weighted) object that can spin uniformly about a vertically oriented axis. It's very, very cool to see in action, as the following video clearly shows.
The reason your favorite cartoon or movie character hasn't appeared in Macy's annual Thanksgiving Day Parade isn't necessarily because they're not popular, it might be that crafting an inflatable likeness has just been too difficult. But to ensure no fad gets left out, the folks at Disney Research have developed…
3D printing can make an action figure copy of your body and face, but the hair usually ends up looking like a Lego minifig wig. The mad scientists at Disney Research just solved that, with an algorithm so powerful it can trace your hair's shape and color with ultra-realism.
Your religious neighbor may have been wrong about the satanic messages hidden in your new-fangled rock music, but researchers at Disney have figured out a very real way to hide data within songs. In a new study, they explain how the next concert or movie you go to could broadcast content to your phone through sound.
