It’s called gamma stupid.
Funny that this kind of simple thing can happen. But then again you never know how much of the real issue is left once the BBC got a a hold of it.
Category: technology
Don’t tell George, but you can create masses of people in the computer. Pretty easy:
Massive is a software that will generate crowds for you.
Of those commecial I really only like the this PSA . Otherwise it appears as if digital crowd duplication is this years ‘frozen moment’. A visual effect that is nice at first, but if not backed up with content or meaning it becomes a yawning experience as long as it serves a replacement for an original idea.
In a supportive role it certainly can save some money by replacin lots of people.
The Carlton ad is alright as well. Carmina Burana. Like in the late eighties. But that one I have seen too often. It’s made it’s rounds.
The Aids PSA reminded me of another PSA. That one did not use Massive.
If you use Firefox then try this site. Nothing special, just that the pink cross will start spinning. Firefox can display animated gifs as favicons. Yes, there is no point to this. Now, the good news is, that once more people start cluttering a simple information system like a favicon, there will be an extension for Firefox to make them stop twitching if you so desire.
A favicon is a one-look information confirmation. It helps you to get very very quickly where you are. When it starts moving it does not at to this functionality. It actually breaks the purpose of those sixteen by sixteen pixels: First of all it’s distracting. Something moving is a visual cue. We are evelotunary trained to look at moving things: If it moves then we might want to eat or fuck it, or it might want to do the same to us. No, favicons probably don’t. But our visual perception system does not know that. So we look at it.
But there is nothing to see. Which is the second problem of this juvenile Firefox feature: What’s the point? You can not really make a meaningful animation at this size. Animation can help the meaning of signs. An arrow symbol can be suported if it moves. An animated favicon is like a moving letter. There is a reason why animated type is not the default setting, even though computers could jiggle letters around at ease. It’s annoying, distracting and simply pointless.
Which is the third and final problem of those 256 pixels playing quick chameleon: if you need eye candy like this, then you might be a little bit insecure if the actual content and your site is worth remembering. It’s the equivalent of a loud dress. It’s fad, and it will come and go. Dancing Baby, moving icon. Seen that. Ignored that.
Cingular is one of these phone companies. They have a website. Allegdly you can do certain thing on this site.
Well, I just tried it, and it is broken. Never mind the cluttered design or the appauling animations. And
that html code that rushes over the page. It claims it can not find my phone number. It accepts a login, but
then can not find the records. Trying Safari instead of Firefox is says now that my account has been locked.
That’s all fine. But why did they waste their money on a website in the first place if they can’t make it work.
Can’t wait for skype to clean up with those telcos: I will not shed a single tear after any of them. Mindless stupid companies. They need to go away. Oh, and they will. They had it coming.
Ars Technica took notice that Nokia is stop selling their phone/game combination ‘N-Gage’.
Cellphones and gaming both have enjoyed huge growth rates since Nokia introduced the device in 2003.
Somehow Frankenstein concepts don’t seem to work.
Vilodex jumped into the alphabet soup: It has an XML button now that actually features an RSS feed. Since there is not much to read this is only interesting if you give this feed to something that can handle the so called ‘media enclosures’. iTunes 6 can. Ant can as well. There are probably others too.
Media enclosures will make sure that your capable RSS reader will download the latest vilodex videos for you.
You could get fancy and compress them so that they fit your PSP or iPod Video. Probably an automator job.
The xbox crashing meme has reached slashdot.
Sony is huge. Their Music division probably messed up on a scale that will be stellar for times to come. But their Playstation 3 dept. does rather well: For the XBox 360 this week is really really important. People listen to what people have to say. If the bad news continues to stick with the XBox 360 then this could be tricky for those brave people in Redmond that took on the gaming market. All the pre order sales have been done by hard core gamers. I don’t numbers on this, but my guess is that you really start making money with games (and therefor the consoles) once you reach the broader range of the not so hard core gamers. And for those people it matters if they spend 400 now or 400 later. These people might just wait for the PS3. If they do then Micosoft just lost a big part of the head start bonus. Looking at those ‘internets’ right now it appears as if Sony does an excellent job in putting bad word of mouth around the 360.
Just don’t think that the Music division could benefit from Sony’s PS3 underground marketing skills. They will simply never find the person who might in charge for this. That has nothing to do with the cladestine nature of this. It’s just that Sony is as broken as most big companies are.
of course I am not a gamer. Let’s put it that way: the last time I looked a t fps (-> that also could mean “First Person Shooter” I have learned) was when it was called doom. I think doom runs on cellphones and/or iPods these days.
So, back to the Xbox 360: It really looks, well, not that great. The power supply is a big black brick. The thing itself is oddly shapped.
It has surprisingly few connections: A 7(?) ended whiplash for the video. USB and ethernet. And some memory thingy in the front.
HD is nice. 1080i and 720p look alright. Only looked at so-so Panasonic Plasma. That top of the line stuff from two years ago.
The aliasing was the biggest dissapointment. Some Racing game and it was PS1 all over again. But maybe I just have not see enough games. Never really get used to it. I am surprised though.
Modeling and texturing was so nicely done in this particular games. Just a shame that the anti aliasing was making every sizzle.
Glad I am not a gamer. Didn’t look like fun to me …
surprisingly simple yet nice.
Forbes writes about Digital Domain
Yes, that’s the company that did the effects for Titanic. Last century.
Maybe the company is stuck there, I am not sure. The Author of the article certainly is:
Competition for assignments is cutthroat, and increasingly powerful off-the-shelf software from Autodesk, Microsoft, Apple and others lets anyone with a workstation concoct the same stunts as the big guys.
Microsoft? Maybe I am missing something here, but Microsofts involvement in the visual effects industry is as important as in lets say the poultry industry: Office, and that’s it.
Autodesk: yes. Apple: yes. But Microsoft? They sold Softimage to Avid in 1998. Have they bought it back? Or is the author just stuck in the last century like Cameron or DD?