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Comment They have to push boundaries (Score 1) 532

by eamonman (#34552312) Attached to: Why Special Effects No Longer Impress

Who remembers the Matrix? I recall gasps in the theatre as the camera rotated around trinity in midair. That shit was tight. What about Avatar? Tons of people were impressed with the world of pandora and the 3D effects. Special effects can definitely impress, but only if you keep them moving forward!

That's the main truth; really, people are only interested in effects if it's pushing boundaries of some kind. Avatar was pushing the realistic 3D boundary (I still haven't seen any other non-animated 3D movie where the 3D is continuous like Avatar (they usually just create multiple planes on which they map different 2D onto them), Matrix pushed that bullet time rotoscoping, etc.

On a link off the end of the OP's story (http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/265869/have_modern_visual_effects_robbed_us_of_reality.html) the author mentioned things like the Bullit car chases and Butch Cassidy crashes were impressive because you knew someone was sticking their neck out to do those things. In a sense, it was their way of pushing boundaries, physical ones.

   
Image

Beginning Blender Screenshot-sm 68

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
terrywallwork writes "Lance Flavell and Apress have been busy writing another Blender 2.5 based book. Lance Flavell (known as Lancer in the Blender community) is a very knowledgeable Blender user. So I was very interested to find out about this book when Apress announced its availability. So off I went and ordered the Ebook version of the book in PDF format." Read on for the rest of Terry's review.

Comment Re:Yippie. (Score 2, Interesting) 95

by eamonman (#34397494) Attached to: Google Earth Adds 3-D Trees

If it was an automated algorithm that ID'd trees, I'd say no, this could be useful in other id'ing applications (maybe rocks, maybe separating natural from artificial objects or vice versa, etc).

If it was 1000 poor interns/schoolkids paid to click on 80000 trees each, then ok, you win, this was a bad idea.
Cellphones

Anti-Smartphone Phone Launched For Technophobes 437

Posted by samzenpus from the I-do-one-thing-and-I-do-it-well dept.
geek4 writes "A Dutch company has launched what it calls 'the world's simplest phone,' targeting users who are sick of new-generation models. Only capable of making and receiving calls, John's Phone is dubbed the world's simplest mobile phone, specifically designed for anti-smartphones users. It does not provide any hi-tech features. No apps. No Internet. No camera. No text messaging. All you have to do — in fact, all you can do — is call, talk and hang up."
Technology

Submission + - High-tech cars can mellow you out (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruhlinger
jfruhlinger writes: Letting the sort of automatic parking systems now available from Ford and Toyota take over doesn't just ensure a better parking job; according to a study from MIT, they can actually reduce stress. Of course, it's still undetermined if that stress is a good thing (because it keeps you more alert) or if the stress drop-off will still happen when such systems are standard equipment on all cars.
Politics

Submission + - The Power of Disinformation (frontwave.eu)

Submitted by frontwave
frontwave writes: disinformation is designed to manipulate the audience at the rational level by either discrediting conflicting information or supporting false conclusions....
Technology

Submission + - UltraFast EV Chargers Use 10 Homes Worth of Energy (gereports.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After a decade of expectation, electric vehicles are ostensibly here. But they still pose questions for consumers — the biggest being, how do we charge our cars fast enough? The charging stations being rolled out for homes, stores, and office parking lots pump out 220 volts and take between 4-8 hours to fully charge. But what about refueling for longer trips? The EVs in showrooms, like the Nissan LEAF, have a range of about 100 miles depending on actual usage — which means overnight charges will be necessary for those bigger distances.

The answer could lie in ultra-fast pumps, known as Level 3 chargers. These zap your car with 480-volts of energy, and can fill ‘er up in a time period closer to a regular gas pump. In Japan, a collaboration of power and car companies installed six Level 3 chargers in Tokyo, and they’re up and running successfully. And there’s strong pressure in the U.S. to follow suit.

So can ultra-fast chargers secure EVs place as the cars of the future?
Microsoft

Submission + - Open Kinect Project Angers Microsoft (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw
Blacklaw writes: Enterprising hackers, excited about the potential of the technology behind Microsoft's Kinect sensor system for the Xbox 360, have put up a bounty for the first person to write open source drivers for the device — and the software giant isn't happy.
"Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products. With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant.

Comment Re:Will, please read. (Score 1) 69

by eamonman (#34102808) Attached to: Will Wright To Make Fan-Participation TV Show

I don't want more Simcites, I just want a patch for Spore where you can assign a damn lieutenant or someone that can take care of your collections/simple alien attacks. I didn't want my dreams of exploring the center of the galaxy to be dashed simply because I didn't know how to hire someone.
Wii

Are Games Getting Easier? 854

Posted by CmdrTaco from the kids-these-days dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I can't help feeling that this generation of games for both consoles and PCs are getting increasingly dumbed down and easier to complete. There's no challenge in today's games, most of which can be completed on the day of purchase. Triple A titles such as Halo, Modern Warfare 2 are the worst of the lot. The whole reason for this article is Medal of Honor, this can be completed within hours of purchase. Where's the fun in that?"
Science

Quantum Computing Explained! (Well, Sorta) 145

Posted by CmdrTaco from the over-my-head dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Valiant effort to 'explain' quantum computing over on silicon.com — covering the difference between classical computers and quantum machines."
Toys

Programmable Magnets 120

Posted by kdawson from the spooky-action-at-a-distance dept.
Martin Hellman writes "A few weeks ago Popular Mechanics awarded one of its Breakthrough Awards for the invention of 'programmable magnets.' Instead of having a single North or South pole, these clever devices have an array of North and South poles. If a matching device with exactly the same array is aligned with the first one, they will experience strong repulsion, just like two single North poles do when brought near one another. If the matching device has the complementary array (North and South interchanged), with correct alignment the two devices will attract. But a slight misalignment will cancel most of the force. Other configurations are possible as well, allowing frictionless magnetic gears and exploding toys. The inventor, Larry Fullerton, used techniques similar to those from CDMA modulation. (Watch the intro video for a brief explanation. While I don't understand magnetism that well, I do understand CDMA and carrying over those ideas to magnetic arrays does make sense to me.)"
Earth

Boeing 747 Recycled Into a Private Residence 239

Posted by CmdrTaco from the would-you-like-to-see-my-cockpit dept.
Ponca City writes "Nicholas Jackson writes in the Atlantic about a woman who requested only curvilinear/feminine shapes for her new home and has purchased an entire Boeing 747-200. They transported it by helicopter to her 55-acre property in the remote hills of Malibu and after deconstructing it, had all 4,500,000 pieces put back together to form a main house and six ancillary structures including a meditation pavilion, an animal barn, and an art studio building. 'The scale of a 747 aircraft is enormous — over 230 feet long, 195 feet wide and 63 feet tall with over 17,000 cubic feet of cargo area alone and represents a tremendous amount of material for a very economical price of less than $50,000,' writes Architect David Hertz. 'In researching airplane wings and superimposing different airplane wing types on the site to scale, the wing of a 747, at over 2,500 sq. ft., became an ideal configuration to maximize the views and provide a self supporting roof with minimal additional structural support needed.' Called the 'Wing House,' as a structure and engineering achievement, the aircraft encloses an enormous amount of space using the least amount of materials in a very resourceful and efficient manner, and the recycling of the 4.5 million parts of this 'big aluminum can' is seen as an extreme example of sustainable reuse and appropriation. Interestingly enough, the architects had to register the roof of the house with the FAA so pilots flying overhead would not mistake it as a downed aircraft."

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