When you see an older celebrity pictured in a magazine and looking 20 years younger, you can't help wondering if some trick is involved.
Well there is -- and we've discovered a way for anybody to do it. (No, it's not Botox.)
It's a $50 program called "Portrait Pro," from PortraitPro.com. Take any photo in the computer and let the program work its magic for a few seconds. The results in Joy's case were so stunning, she is reluctant to accept her old look. She will only walk outside now with the new "Portrait Pro" photo pasted on her face. (This has caused some comment.)
You can see examples of before and after photos on their website. When you see it you would think they must have done something that you won't be able to imitate. But this thing is magic and dead simple to use. (By the way, it's not really magic: Bob looked the same before and after. Sigh.)
To start, open a photo in your computer. The program draws lines around facial features. Adjust the lines if you wish, but we found it unnecessary. Just click on "male," "female" or child and click "next." That's it. It saves under a new name, keeping the original. The program slims faces, enhances skin, changes the lighting, and integrates with Facebook. It all happens as fast as you can snap your fingers. There's also an advanced version that works inside Photoshop or as a standalone, handles more image formats and can improves batches of photos at once.
Free Group Calls on Skype
Engaging in a Skype video chat with a group, where each person is in a different location, used to be part of their premium service. Now it's free.
To start, locate one of your friends on Skype. Then click the plus sign next to the name and choose "add people." Start adding them and when you're finished, click the call icon.
Citizen Science
We recently watched a Nova science show about a guy who created a game that lets people from all over the world help find solutions to cancerous growths and viral infections. The solutions were tested in the lab, and when they didn't work, people went back to their computers and found others that did work.
The latest game, Eterna, is available for anyone to try at EternaGame.org. You play by designing RNAs. (RNA is a chemical cousin to DNA that can perform a wider variety of tasks.) The idea is to engineer molecules to fight disease. The game includes animated videos to explain the science behind the game.
The earlier game, FoldIt, has had more than 500,000 players logging millions of hours. The players helped scientists understand how proteins fold into the intricate shapes that support life. The success of the newer game Eterna has already led to an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and may result in new solutions to disease.
Organizing your iPad
If you're like us, your iPad screen is so full of colorful icons for programs, it's getting hard to find the ones you use regularly. Clean up by putting them in folders and then labeling the folders.
To create a folder for two or more icons, put your finger on one until it begins to jiggle. Then drag it on top of a similar icon. For example, one labeled YouTube might be dragged on top of another labeled Vimeo. The iPad will automatically give the folder a name, such as Entertainment, but if you tap the "x" for delete you can rename it. When you press the home button, your icons stop jiggling.
Numbers Report
Sixty-six percent of players dump free Android and iPhone games the day after they try them out, according to a study by Swrve, a company that helps developers of free games make some money. Around 2 percent of players buy things within a game, spending $20 on average.
For example, Big Fish Games doubled its revenue from free phone and tablet games to $120 million -- a lot of dough from a free game.
How are they making money? Well, if you run out of poker chips in one of their card games, you can buy more. Same is true in other kinds of games. We've enjoyed Big Fish's "hidden object" games, but a phone's screen is too tiny for us. We sometimes play on the PC.
Getting a Jump
Get ready to cancel your automobile club membership. Jumpr is the size of a cellphone and can start a dead car battery.
We're awed. It's hard to believe that something that weighs only 2 ounces more than our smartphone has the power to jump-start a car.
Jumpr, $90 at JunoPower.com, delivers 12-volt, 300 amp output and comes with a jumper-cable attachment. It might not be enough power to start up a V8 engine, but it should work OK on 4- and 6-cylinder engines. It can also charge your smartphone. You can look up a YouTube demo of it. It's supposed to be available in June.
Book: iPad and iPhone Kung Fu
A new book, iPad and iPhone Kung Fu, by Keir Thomas, $19 from the Pragmatic Bookshelf, promises to turn you into an Apple ninja.
Here's what we like about it: Everything you could conceivably want to do on your phone or tablet is listed as a tip right up front. Pick the tip that interests you and then go to the pages on how to do it.
For example: Put a call on hold, take a panorama shot, get free stuff from Apple -- it's all there. And it's listed several ways.
You can look at tips by category, like "Maps and Navigation," "Creativity" or "Productivity." Or browse all 318 tips listed in order of appearance, starting with "taking photos in burst mode," moving on to "quit GPS to save battery life," and ending with calling your iPad from your iPhone using Facetime, or vice versa.
Bob and Joy can be contacted by email at [email protected] and [email protected].
Monday Business on 05/12/2014