I think my current boss deserve a spot as a real man of genius.

Enter the Portrait Rights.

Portrait Rights is a sort of copyright protection for an individual who’s portrait has been photographed without his permission. The details on Portrait Rights difference between countries but in some cases almos tnon-existent. In the United States, it seen that those who took or modified a photo holds a stronger right over the photo than the individuals who’s portrait is in it. Lawsuit such this one reported at International Herald Tribune happened from time to time but states court usually rules in the photographer’s favour. In Japan, the reverse is true. Japan’s Portrait Rights act or 肖像権 give the subject of the photo stronger right over whoever took the photograph. Danny has an article regarding Japan’s portrait rights act.

The subject of portrait rights is a difficult one. While the rights protect one’s portrait from begin used without their knowledge or permission, it also restrict photographer’s right to artistic expression. There are no clear definition over what’s right and what’s wrong and lawsuit disputes over portrait rights were usually judged on a case by case basics. However, if someone voice out their objection toward me taking their photo, I will have to respect that and simply keep the photo to myself or even delete it. But I believe I have the rights to take photos in public places and share these photos as long as its lawful (taking upskirt photo of ladies is obivously not lawful) and the privacy rights of the individual in the photo is begin observed by not releasing any form of information regarding the individual in the photo with their permission.

The portrait rights act does not just concern professional photographer today. With almost everyone owning a camera or a camera phone and having numerous means to publish photos to the internet, we need to recognise the fact that everyone holds certain right over the usage of their own portraits, taken with or without their knowledges. I’m pretty sure nobody wants to find their sleeping face taken while they are taking a nap on a train ride circulating on the net like these poor chaps on stomp.

I try to respect the portrait rights of individuals and uses the laughing man smiley from GITS to cover up the faces of those who happen to be in an embarrassing situation(such as snoring in a crowded train) when I took their photo.

Maybe Marvel should create a CG movie with more marvel heroes appearing together. That would be cool. From the quality of this clip, Marvel should have the means if they wanted to.

Now, can someone tell me where does spiderman kept his cellphone in that skin tight costume of his?

“I can’t just sit at home and do nothing, I have been crying my eyes out in the past three days, I have never felt more proud of my country and people… their love, courage and kindness rock me to my core! I have decided to tell these touching stories by drawing comics.”
Thus wrote Coco Wang on the introduction of her website which hosted these comic strips. Some of these strips are light-hearted and comical while most are heart-wrenching. You may have seen footage of broken walls, flatten town and bloodied bodies from news covering the earthquake but these strips retold the many inside details of the human dramas and courages of the victims and rescuers alike that major news provider outside of China may have missed out in their coverage of the major development of the earthquake’s aftermath.

Left : 2 of Coco Wang’s Comic Strips. 1 detail the sacrifice of a school teacher to save his student and another detail the rescue process of another school boy. Head over to Coco Wang’s website for bigger version of the comic and other comic strips.

This has got to be the most addicting clock i have ever seen, i could look at it for hours (ok, that’s not true) but the dances and hand movements are really mesmerizing to look at and the music is kind of catchy and nice to listen to.

The Uniqlock dance clock is the viral marketing vehicle for Japanese retailer Uniqlo. I first saw it over at designtaxi and there’s really no way you can miss it. The clock show the time by the seconds and play a video of a group of young girls dancing or sleeping in a campus like environment depending on the time of the day every few seconds. If it’s past mid-night, you will see the girls taking a sleep in a library with cute small animated balls jumping around. I have no ideas what those cute little balls represent but they are in several other video and sometime within the clock itself too.

Clicking on the clock will bring you to the uniqlock microsite of uniqlo and the clock now occupied your entire browser screen with the music on by default, so it might be safe for workplace. Remember to turn down your speaker volume when you visit the site at work. You have been warned.

On the uniqlock website, you create a blog widget or application to place on your own blog or website and even facebook by choosing your location which will display your location’s time on the clock and choosing a size for the clock and the site will give a set of code for you to copy and paste on your website. Now that’s a really smart move, allowing blog site owner to place a uniqlock clock at will, few others viral campaign spread as fast as making use of blogs. The phenomenon of the clock is best shown on the website’s data visualization section and uniqlo spare no effort in showing it off in a wonderful world chart which by itself is a wonderful piece of visualization art.

Uniqlock is really better experienced than explained, so what are you waiting for, just click on the clock above.