3D content and equipment for you

CNet reports on Nvidia's 3D website:

A quick glance at the site reveals some imagery that one might expect to appeal to the stereotypical gaming nerd who pays for premium graphics technology--photos of scantily clad women and stills from various video games. There also are plenty of landscape and other subjects with potentially broader appeal.

Also of interest:

Samsung and 3D specialist RealD announced a plan today to jointly develop a technology called RDZ that they say will mean brighter 3D TVs that work with 3D glasses used in RealD-equipped movie theaters.

Darn! I just threw away a pair of 3D glasses I got at the theater.

tags: content, information, entertainment, video, movie, source, tool, games

The future of video conferencing

Here's how creators of the Avatar technology solved the problem of producing realistic facial expressions:

Weta’s specialty is motion capture, which relies on sophisticated software and hardware to transfer an actor’s body movements and facial expressions to an animated character. The actor wears a black suit with light-colored dots; to detect his movement, optical systems track those dots.

Imagination by combination

In the Middle Ages cotton was cultivated in Asia and shipped to Europe either as raw fiber or cloth. Through their contacts with Asian traders, Europeans learned that cotton originated as a plant, but the only source of fiber they knew was sheep. That is, sheep produced wool, which was a major European, mostly English, trade good at the time. Putting two and two together, a) cotton is a plant; b) fiber grows on sheep, people came up with Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, a plant with sheep fruits.

By today's standards, this creature would represent a marvel of genetic engineering.

Wool loomed large in medieval thinking in England. Here's how King Charles II stimulated consumption of this strategic product:

Subsequent to the BURIAL IN WOOL ACTS 1667 and 1678 all bodies were to be buried in wool only, unless they have died from the Plague and an affidavit sworn accordingly. The penalty for not doing so was £5. These were repealed in 1814.

It was decreed that: 

"No corps should be buried in anything other than what is made of sheep's wool only; or put into any coffin lined or faced with any material but sheep's wool, on pain of forfeiture of £5."

So, here we have a new imagined animal created by a simple combination of two common very important natural objects: plant and animal. Their regular sizes and functions do not change: plant produces fruit (sheep), the sheep produces cotton.
Nowadays, we got a lot more sophisticated imagination. For example, in Avatar they have the Na'vi people, who look like a combination of a cat and a human. But to make the new creature appear more fantastic, designers doubled her size, made her skin blue, and added the ability to connect her nervous system to local plants and animals. Why? Probably, because network looms large in our lives today, just the way wool loomed large in medieval England.



tags: imagination, brainstorm, movie, economics, biology, information

The magic of the familiar.

While looking at the list of Top Grossing American films of the decade, it is hard not to notice that all of them are cinema versions of fairy tales. Moreover, it appears that movie audiences had been well primed by either a popular comic strip, a book, or previous movie based on the same characters. Technology-wise, the development of computer graphics enabled creation of magical effects that were practically impossible during the previous decade.

The Dark Night
Release date: 7/18/08
Domestic boxoffice: $533.3 million

Shrek 2
Release date: 5/19/04
Domestic boxoffice: $436.7 million

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Release date: 7/7/06
Domestic boxoffice: $423.3 million

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117961277.html?categoryid=1&cs=1

Box office data this year suggests that filmgoers seem to be having a great time at the multiplexes. The critics, by contrast, may be shopping around for a new line of work.

In reviewing "300" last week, for example, A.O. (Tony) Scott of the New York Times, said the movie was "as violent as 'Apocalypto' and twice as stupid."

That comment reflected the consensus among critics not only on "300" but also on "Ghost Rider," "Wild Hogs," "Norbit" and the other movie miscreants unleashed on the public since Oscar time.

The situation underscores yet again the disconnect between the cinematic appetites of critics vs. those of the popcorn crowd. The kids who storm their multiplexes to catch the opening of "Night at the Museum" don't give a damn what the critics think ("Museum" has passed $525 million worldwide).

The distribution gurus say they prefer "four-quadrant movies," but I"d suggest that there are only two: One quadrant consists of the hardcore fans who are propelled by "buzz" and the second embraces the rest of the filmgoing public who wait to learn whether the movie"s any good or not.

So several questions present themselves: If the established media want to stay relevant, should their critics make a passing attempt to tune in to pop culture? In short, should at least someone on the reviewing staff try to be relevant to both quadrants?