杏吧原创

J-Pop band member is digital fake

She鈥檚 pretty, stylish, oozes star quality 鈥� and doesn鈥檛 actually exist. Aimi Eguchi, the newest member of the Japanese pop band AKB48, has been unmasked as a virtual composite of six other band members. Eguchi first appeared in an advert for Japanese candy, and had her own profile on the band鈥檚 website. Her computer-generated features were created by blending the nose, hair, mouth, eyes, eyebrows and body shape of the other band members, using digital motion capture. Some clues to her identity were there, but fans were fooled for weeks.

鈥淵ou might not know this, but one of my responsibilities as commander in chief is to keep an eye on robots鈥�

Jokey reassurance from President Barack Obama during a speech last week at the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

End of LulzSec 鈥� now what?

LulzSec has disbanded after nearly two months of hacking its way into the headlines. But the group鈥檚 members won鈥檛 be giving up on hacking any time soon. 鈥淲e are not tied to this identity permanently,鈥� the 鈥渃rew of six鈥� declared in a statement. There are rumours that they have joined infamous hacking group Anonymous.

Learning to code the painless way

Good news for students: your next batch of homework may be several hours of video gaming. SpaceChem, a science-themed game designed to inspire a new generation of computer programmers, catapults the player into distant galaxies to fabricate chemicals for use by space pioneers. The complex reactor designs required are a form of visual programming.