Since Mission: Impossible 4 – Ghost Protocol was extremely heavy on tech and special effects, we’ve been able to have some fun with the expensive tactics used in the movie through promotional apps and sites.

I still use the Action Movie FX app that we wrote about to blow random things up.

In another promotional angle, a company called Glasseye has created a 3D mask maker that uses your face in the process. It’s pretty technical, too:

Mask Maker utilizes ground breaking new technology. It combines Adobe Stage 3D, Flash 11, FaceGen and Beyond Face Reality enabling it to realise complex 3D objects and environments and pioneering lighting within Flash, delivering a truly inspired 3D avatar maker. Your image is then rendered into CCTV footage which allows you to be a part of the movie.

I”m not sure what all of that actually means, but you can upload a photo of yourself to the site or take a new one with your webcam, and it will make a 3D mask out of your face, just like that scene from the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, this is one of the best special effects in the entire flick.

After you supply the app with a still photo, you’ll have to meticulously map out the points on your face with little markers that it provides you with. It only takes a minute or two, but the more attention you put into dropping these markers on your face, the better product you’ll get in the end.

Once you’ve dropped the dots on your face, you get to watch a movie scene starring you. Sounds hokey, but it’s actually quite surreal to see a 3D version of your head on someone else’s body.

Check out mine here:

Once you’ve made your mask, you can share it on Facebook or Twitter or download the photo to your desktop. Sure, it’s a promo for the movie, but it’s fun to get to play with technology that’s like what they used in the blockbuster. Give it a try for yourself.

➤ 3D Mask Maker

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be visiting three colleges during an East coast speaking tour starting November 8th. He will be visiting Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard University, and MIT.

Zuckerberg started Facebook in a dorm room at Harvard University and then left the school in 2004 to move offices to Palo Alto.

Carnegie Mellon University says that while at its school, Zuckerberg will join Facebook vice president of engineering Mike Schroepfer to talk to a select crowd of computer science and electrical and computer engineering students.

Facebook spends a lot of time recruiting employees from Carnegie Mellon, which has one of the top-ranked computer science programs in the country.

Dean of the School of Computer Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University said this about Zuckerberg’s upcoming visit:

We are very excited by the prospect of hosting a visit by Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook has profoundly changed the nature of social interactions worldwide. Supporting these interactions requires massive information processing capabilities, for which Facebook has become a leader in advanced computing technology.

Zuckerberg was recently quoted as saying that you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to be successful, suggesting that the next tech whiz kids could be scattered all over the world.

In one of the most interesting scenes of the movie “The Social Network”, Zuckerberg watches a talk by then Microsoft CEO Bill Gates while attending Harvard. Will the next Mark Zuckerberg be watching during the CEO’s East coast tour? More than likely, they will be. The earlier we bring technology into schools, the smarter minds in tech we’ll have.

Entrepeneurs are getting younger, but their ideas are getting more focused.

Take 18-year-old Ben Lang, for example. When you talk to him about his projects, he speaks about some of them in the past tense. Meaning, he has already moved on to bigger and better things.

His latest project is MySchoolHelp, a site focused on helping high school students share notes to prepare for tests and quizzes. This is a type of entrepreneurial focus that excites me, because it’s a service that fits a very specific need. Technology is much-needed in Education, and Ben Lang is taking full advantage of the opportunity.

Here’s a video explaining the note sharing site MySchoolHelp, which will host PDF’s and let people favorite and rate content from those who attend the same school as they do.

I had a chance to talk to Founder Ben Lang about MySchoolHelp and his participation in the Teens in Tech incubator.

TNW: Where did you get the idea for MySchoolHelp, and how long did it take to develop?

Ben Lang: The idea stemmed from RamazHelp.com, a note sharing site I cofounded two years ago just for my high school, Ramaz. Over the past few years the site has gained wild popularity in my high school with over 70% of the student body using it regularly. In its first year over 100 notes were uploaded and in the second year over 200. Also in the yearbooks they joke about it and when they bring in new potential students they mention it.

Based off that success I decided to create a note sharing site for all high schools to use. With a team I brought on, we finished building the site in about 3 months.

TNW: What was it specifically about note taking at school that told you it needed its own service?

Ben Lang: Before each test and final every student would dash to the library to photocopy other student’s notes. It was a madhouse, trees were killed in the process. I decided to make it a more efficient process by allowing students to simply upload all of their notes from their computer onto a central site. They shared notes that they took on their laptops and scanned in handwritten notes.

Even with the growth of learning platforms online the best way to study still is by reading class notes. No teacher teaches the exact same class around the globe which is why it’s crucial to have notes specifically taken in that class.

TNW: How many notes does MySchoolHelp host right now?

Ben Lang: After launching two months ago we’ve had 165 notes uploaded so far. Right now our focus is encouraging more students to share their notes. Even though at my school students uploaded out of their good will we’re trying to make it more “incentivized” to upload. First off, we have a leaderboard with the top note takers from your school: http://prntscr.com/3s1eo, increasing the gameification aspect of submitting notes. We also have some amazing sponsors who contributed prizes to give away to note takers, such as Fandango tickets, premium Evernote accounts, Livescribe pens and Starbucks gift cards.

TNW: Can you share any success stories from students that you’ve heard about how the site helped them with a test?

Ben Lang: Sure, for RamazHelp, the predecessor to MySchoolHelp we’ve gotten amazing feedback such as:

“RamazHelp was the epicenter of all my studying, an absolute academic life saver for me and every other student at my school.” – Zachary Weiner
“I’m going off to college in a few weeks, and I can truthfully say I would have never gotten through school without RamazHelp.” – Shalti Serels

So far in the two months that MySchoolHelp has been in the air there haven’t been enough tests to hear about success stories, but as the school year goes on we’re looking forward to hearing similar stories to that of above.

TNW: Do you want to expand the service into Colleges, if so, when and how?

Ben Lang: Right now we’re testing the service at a few colleges. Some of my classmates from Ramaz who graduated and went to college kept asking for us to expand the service to colleges which is why we’re testing it now. Our focus is still high schools but we’re open to seeing how this model will work in colleges. There are plenty of note sharing platforms for colleges but our “differentiator” is that we’re 100% free, signup isn’t required and it’s more about the positive aspect of sharing and collaborating.

TNW: Tell us about your experiences in the Teens in Tech Incubator

Ben Lang: Attending the Teens In Tech Incubator was certainly an incredible experience. We were all provided with incredible mentors, a wonderful office and helpful workshops. At the end Mozilla was kind enough to extend its hand to a few of the teams for the WebFWD accelerator which we’re now a part of.

The type of service that a site like MySchoolHelp provides could make the difference between a student falling behind in class, and getting a leg up. The way Ben Lang has started the service, by getting over 100 schools to adopt it, is reminiscent of Facebook’s slow infiltration in the 90′s. Schools need technology, and it’s nice to see focus there. Can Lang see it all the way through before getting drawn into the Valley like Zuckerberg did?

Prideaux was born without a left arm, and had to go to extra lengths to use his cell phone.

Thanks to help from Nokia and medical experts in Great Britain, Prideaux now has a Nokia C7 embedded in his prosthetic arm, which makes texting and calling his friends and family infinitely easier.

Prideaux says this about the medical marvel:

I think this is the first time this has ever been done in the world – and it is brilliant

Seeing medical technology merge with communications is extremely exciting, as we’ve seen amazing life-changing stories in the past thanks to technology achievements and creativity.

While listening to some of the companies presenting at ImagineK12 last week, I had a few questions about privacy. I was wondering how teachers and parents were feeling about information about students being stored on the cloud. Some of those answers will come during my interviews with each company in the coming weeks.

One service not at ImagineK12, ClassParrot, takes communications and privacy seriously. Its web app will let teachers set up a group to text to and a dashboard to track activity with their class.

It’s a very smart application of SMS features and social communication. Students are texting more and more, and what better way to interact with kids than by using the tools they’re more accustomed to.

The company says that since it launched two weeks ago, its seen over 1,200 teachers sign up for its services. For the education market, that’s a sizable number, and shows that teachers everywhere are looking for cutting edge ways to reach and speak to their students. Teachers are always looking for ways to be “cool” and ClassParrot could be a tool to facilitate that.

Setting up a class

ClassParrot lets you create as many classes as you want, and once you give your class a name, you’re given a unique 10 digit US number to give to your students. They can text the number with a code that ClassParrot gives you.

It’s as simple as that, really. And completely secure since the teacher isn’t giving out their cell number, and neither are the students.

Interacting with your class

The web app lets you send a message to students, and even has a polling system where students can reply with a simple reply via SMS to have their response counted. This could be great for real-time classroom polling on a variety of topics.

The other nice feature of ClassParrot is that you can schedule texts to go out at any given time. For example, if an assignment is due on a Wednesday, you could set up a text to go out Tuesday night as a reminder.

Group texting apps like GroupMe were all the rage last year, allowing you to text within small groups as if they were a virtual chatroom. That didn’t necessarily stick or become a major business avenue, especially since Apple introduced iMessages with built-in group chatting. However, things like privacy are very important to teachers and schools, so creating a service specifically for the education niche is often overlooked. It’s good to see that ClassParrot went ahead and did it.

When you sign up for ClassParrot, you are given 500 credits. Each credit is worth one text message out or in, but you can upgrade to an unlimited plan for $9 a month, or $90 a year. Depending on the size of the class you have, or your amount of usage, you should be able to give the app a good try-out with the free 500 credits. Students and teachers don’t need to download an app or have any specific type of phone, as ClassParrot works completely through SMS and its web interface.

Last night, I attended a gathering of some of the smartest technology minds focusing on Education for grades K-12. I didn’t know what to expect, other than Newark Mayor Cory Booker and LinkedIn‘s Founder and Chairman Reid Hoffman being there to listen to seven companies from the ImagineK12 startup incubator in Palo Alto.

In a small office within the Palo Alto aol building, teams with big hearts (and sometimes very nervously) discussed their views on the future of Education for children all over the world.

I’m going to be doing a few interviews with some of the companies in the near future, which include Goalbook, educreations, and Eduvant. This is a space that I’m very passionate about.

Each team had one thing in common, their belief in the importance of technology to make change happen in a system that hasn’t changed in decades.

That change could very well come out of the ImagineK12 incubator, which says this about itself:

We believe technology is transforming K-12 education. The infrastructure, hardware, software, and platforms are either available or being developed that will change the nature of how we teach our children in profound and far-reaching ways. A high-tech wave is beginning to sweep through the educational world largely driven by technology entrepreneurship. But the impact of those entrepreneurs will depend on the quality of their ideas, their ability to execute, and their ability to get funded.

Imagine K12 is a for-profit enterprise looking to invest time, experience, energy and resources in entrepreneurs who have a passion for education and the technical know-how to create their vision. Over a three-month period, we will draw on our extensive entrepreneurial experience, understanding of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, and knowledge of the education industry to help bring your idea to life, get your company funded, and to get your company on the road to success.

Last night wasn’t a pitch session for funding, although I’m sure most of the startups hoped that Reid Hoffman would take interest, as he is an extremely prolific VC now. Most of the nearly three hours were spent on presentation of the products, and Q&A by Mayor Booker on the nuts and bolts of education, and business advice and guidance from Reid Hoffman. For these companies, this type of audience is nearly unheard of, and each one took notes and paid full attention. And of course, vice versa.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker shared that he can no longer watch the way school systems have worked, there has to be change. Technology, he believes, can bring that change.

The theme of the night appeared to be data. Educational institutions have a huge flow of data, some not even digitized, and have no way to pour through it to make smart decisions for their schools or more importantly for their students. Some of the companies have come up with ways to use data to incentive students with behavioral issues, make better use of a Principal’s time by giving them a dashboard of student and financial data in real-time, as well as share lesson plans all over the world.

A few of these companies seemed to intrigue both Booker and Hoffman, causing Booker to set up meetings between the companies and schools in Newark immediately.

Why isn’t there more of a focus on technology in education? Lack of money. Schools are notorious for having financial issues, even though technology can help with that, and there isn’t a steady flow of VC funds for those who want to focus their efforts on the education space. It seems as if ImagineK12 is set to change all of that, and having Booker and Hoffman involved certainly doesn’t hurt its cause.

Let’s also not forget that if we put more technology in schools, we’ll have more technologists like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs for years to come.

You can view more photos from last night below:

Healthcare is something that is getting a facelift as technology advances. In fact, former Apple CEO John Sculley discusses this trend in an interview today on Fast Company.

One company taking full advantage of a more social and technical way of living is One Medical Group.

One Medical Group was founded by Dr. Tom Lee, based in San Francisco, and he wants to take a new approach on primary care.

One Medical Group is like any group of primary physicians in that they take most major insurances, and have a few offices scattered around San Francisco, New York City, and Washington DC for now. The difference is in how you interact with their offices, set up and manage appointments, and ask for assistance with medical questions.

It’s all done online or via their iOS app.

Using its iPhone app, I was able to find an available appointment with a One Medical Group Doctor tomorrow at a time that worked out for me for the nagging cold that won’t go away. The companies target demographic is “busy professionals” and when you arrive, that seems to be spot on. Everyone has their iPhone app. Because the company uses newer systems, the appointment is always on time, and never goes over. This keeps things moving fast if you have a busy work or lifestyle.

With the One Medical Group app, you can also ask for refills, all without picking up the phone. This leads me to believe that one day, you may be able to have a quick Doctor’s appointment over the internet. Or is this too much information to be sharing over the iPhone and desktop? You be the judge.

It’s not all about the app though, the One Medical Group staff is courteous and patient, and the Doctor’s are top notch at their specialities. When I signed up, they matched me to a Dr. based on the medical history I entered into its database. It was a good match.

It converts outside wind power into electric energy, and the electricity then transfers wirelessly to your phone through induction. The techy treehugger inside of me is nearly whining for one.

Found on RoundedOff, a new “diversity blog,” the sleek, wire-free AERO E  was designed by Lance Cassidy. Unfortunately, since it is a concept design, it is not for sale at this time.

A new concept design by Kyu-Hyun and Sol Lee aims to bring drivers a more efficient electric vehicle by turning the rear wheel of the car into a battery that can be easily swapped out.

We’re beginning to see fast-charging stations pop up across North America, some of which are being funded by the Federal Recovery Act in the United States. One of the most impressive being in Washington State where the government is funding a 120 mile stretch of fast-charging stations along Stevens PassGreenway. While this electric-vehicle friendly scenic byway is great if you live in Washington, they are few and far between, and many consumers thinking about purchasing an EV are concerned about the time-consuming task of a recharging the batteries.

In Washington, the fast-charging stations are said to bring a vehicle from 0 to 80 percent in an estimated 20 minutes, but would it not be easier to just swap out the battery ?

Enter the MET.

This 2-seater electric vehicle looks more like a space pod than a car, and we’re not so sure if we’d feel very safe driving it due to its size, however, the high-tech design sports an interesting feature that would potentially enable drivers to carry multiple charged batteries with them in the form of a wheel.

The rear wheel of the MET is the battery, and was designed for a quick swap out. The battery-wheel sports an installed handle, making it ideal for carrying, and it also has an LED light that measures the level of juice in the battery while charging.

Let us know what you think of the design, the MET is attractive and coupled with the ability to exchange the battery for a fully-charged wheel seems pretty convenient.

Imagine a world where you can walk out the front door and find your car waiting to greet you. It drives itself, so you can spend the ride writing e-mails, catching up on paperwork, or even crocheting a lovely scarf. All around you, cars criss-cross seamlessly through intersections, automatically determining the most efficient way to keep the flow of traffic moving. When you arrive at your destination, your car drops you at the curb and then scurries away to park itself.

It sounds like science fiction and eerily similar to the traffic scene in “Minority Report.”  After the debut of GM’s mini concept vehicle at CES on Thursday, this vision of transportation might not be so far from reality.

The EN-V is a two-seat electric vehicle that incorporates the dynamic stabilization technology of the Segway. There are three models – the  Jiao (Pride), the Xiao (Laugh), and the Miao (Magic). The car, which has a top speed of about 25 mph, is powered by a lithium-ion battery that can be recharged by a standard wall outlet, and can go roughly 25 miles between charges. The EN-V is autonomous and features collision avoidance systems that can detect pedestrians as well as other vehicles. It can be remotely retrieved from parking spots, and even has a “platooning” feature, which allows it to coordinate with and follow other vehicles when traveling on city roads.  Built for urban areas, the energy efficient cars are designed to alleviate traffic congestion and parking frustration. In fact, GM says that six EN-Vs can fit into a single parking space designed for a traditional vehicle.

So what’s preventing these tiny bubble cars from hitting the streets? After the demo, I sat down with with Chris Borroni-Bird, the Director of Advanced Technology Vehicle Concepts for GM, to try to find out.

What needs to happen in order for these cars to be a reality? It seems like EN-V concept would generate a lot of interest, especially since you mentioned in the presentation that these would be more affordable than standard cars.

CBB: Yes, that’s right. Since the EN-V is 3 or 4 times lighter than a traditional vehicle, the battery required to propel it isn’t very big and the wireless communications technology is also inherently affordable. Really, it’s not the vehicle per se that’s the challenge, it’s finding a place where we could introduce this where we don’t have to necessarily worry about it co-existing with cars.

Would you need to get an entire city to agree to use them? Because that might be difficult.

CBB: I think that if we could find a test bed, or even just a closed off zone, it would be enough for people to say “I get it now, this could be real.” It doesn’t have to be very large, it could be a small area of a city, or a little island, or a tourist resort of some kind, but if we could find some place where we could test this, then I think the benefits would be compelling. And from a test bed like that, we could also see what we could transfer to an existing city.

Could elements of this concept be introduced sooner?

CBB: Of course. I mean, you could imagine shared electric vehicles being introduced in Los Angeles very soon. Not necessarily as small as this, but perhaps conventional vehicles such as small electric cars that are networked together.

Sounds similar to an updated version of Zipcars?

CBB: Not exactly. Imagine that they could be smaller and networked together, and I think you can begin to see more of the integration. Today’s public transport offers very few opportunities for integration because they are large mechanical stand-alone devices. But small electric vehicles could be easily parked or charged at train or bus stations and networked together to share schedules.

Then those cars could be shared really easily, because they could drop one person off and go pick another person up.

CBB: Right, and they could even be owned by the public transport system;  it could be a form of public transport that provides personal mobility. And that’s where it gets very exciting because normally we think of personal mobility and public transport as two completely independent things, almost at opposite ends of the spectrum. But this blurs the distinction: you could have personal mobility that’s publicly owned.

For example, what if a public utility, instead of buying a bus, bought a fleet of these vehicles for the same amount of money? Buses are a huge capital investment with a fixed route and schedule. When people move to a different part of the city, they have to work out a whole new route. The whole process can be very complicated. But the EN-V vehicles can be deployed with so much more flexibly. Plus, the concept is much more energy efficient, considering that most buses run on diesel, and aren’t even fully occupied most of the time.

After the interview, I was treated to a drive around the convention center parking lot in the Xiao (Laugh) model. While it felt a bit like being inside of a giant Scrubbing Bubble, the ride was super smooth and the car can swivel and turn on a dime.  And if the EN-V ever does go into production, I know I would choose a little pod car over a crowded, stuffy subway in a heartbeat.