I still think the eyes are a little off on Emily, but at least it doesn't recoil in horror as much as Beowulf or Polar Express. They used a video of an actor and then mapped those actions onto a CG model, but they also claim they won't be able to make them realistic until 2020.
via Times Online
I think WACOM's pen technology is some pretty interesting stuff; about a year ago, I set about constructing my own Cintiq using whatever was available to the average consumer. In doing so, I learned a lot about how a WACOM tablet works, and what can interfere with the reception of the pen. While I never completed construction of my own Cintiq, I did play around with the WACOM Intuous on a Powerbook for a short time after seeing a video of someone who had crammed a WACOM Graphire inside a 800mhz Titanium Powerbook.
I had started this project in January of 2007, and lazily worked on it until stopping in October, when the announcement of the Cintiq 12WX was made in the UK.
A few months ago, I purchased a WACOM Cintiq 12WX Pen Display. After using it for a few hours, it became very clear to me that even if I had managed to hack the hardware together to make a Cintiq, the software would still be lacking in the functionality that the Cintiq provides (such as a way to calibrate the pen to the screen, and quickly tabbing between screens).
Lenovo has produced a Thinkpad that has a WACOM tablet built in. Rather than using the WACOM Penabled technology that most Tablet PCs use, they are instead making it a traditional WACOM tablet, meaning that right next to the trackpad is a larger pad for the WACOM pen to draw on. The Lenovo W700 has a rather interesting looking wristrest:
The Lenovo W700 features a 17" display, a 512MB or 1GB graphics card, Pantone Color Sensor, and a Core 2 Duo T9400 (2.53GHz 1066MHz 6MBL2) with 2 GB of RAM (expandable up to 8GB) for $2900 -- this is a serious machine aimed at graphics professionals, but I have serious reservations over the actual use of the built-in WACOM tablet. While most artists I know use WACOM tablets, most of them use nothing smaller than a 6x8 pad, and the Thinkpad's is a small 120mm x 80mm (4.73 x 3.15 inches), which is smaller than their smallest tablet available, the old 4x3 (147.6mm x 92.3mm) , which limits the W700's WACOM use to little more than a novelty. Also, notice that there are no extra ExpressKeys for customization, nor any TouchStrips which normally are on the professional-level Intuous models of their WACOM Tablets. Considering the size of the laptop, Lenovo would have better off with a WACOM board that fit under the screen of the laptop, making it a Cintiq-type tablet. For $99, one can purchase a small WACOM Bamboo Fun which is larger than the built-in pad, and includes a mouse in addition to the pen and tablet at a cost less than the cost of the W700's upgrade to the Wacom Tablet. The additional $51, of course is in convenience; you never have to carry a Tablet with your laptop, and the pen is stowed away Nintendo DS style in the base of the computer.
The news this morning in the tech world seems to be that Apple has managed to negotiate the same date of release on iTunes as DVD retail release; new titles are 14.99, and older catalog titles are 9.99. Part of the reason this is such a major victory for Apple is that when this was done on the music side, there was a noticeable increase in iTunes sales, and a decline in retail sales of albums. For music, I can understand the appeal; consumers were buying music, ripping it into MP3, and then copying it onto their music player; iTunes managed to save them the work and know-how of putting their music CD into a format their music player could use. For movies, it isn't quite as simple; iTunes Movies aren't a format TiVo or other DVRs understand, and putting a movie onto an iPod takes up a substantial amount of space.
One of the small victories that Apple has won by doing this, of course, is making it easier for consumers to get the latest releases. Apple's rentals business is certainly interesting; most consumers want to pay to own their media, not rent it, and it is especially true for movies, but until Apple can get the AppleTV capturing the living room market, the way the iPod has captured consumers on the go, I just don't see downloadable video replacing DVD sales anytime soon; it may be for this reason that movie studios have gone ahead with this agreement; previously, DVD sales had a 30-45 day head start on iTunes, in order to preserve the revenue stream of DVD sales. I never saw this as much of a problem, as those who download and those who purchase DVDs are two entirely different audiences; the customers who purchase a DVD are different from those customers seeking to download a movie to watch on their computer. Until Apple can get iTunes onto the living room television, iTunes isn't really competition for DVD sales.
One of the things people have been asking for since the announcement of the iPhone, is an actual iPhone SDK -- previously iPhone apps had been limited to web apps which ran in Safari. An SDK allows writing custom apps specifically for the iPhone without needing network connectivity. There are already many iPhone apps out which require the iPhone to be jailbroken in order to install them, and an SDK will help legitimize these efforts. I can say from experience that developing apps for a much more limited device involves a certain amount of reductionist philosophy, as it is the core of the application that really matters.
Apple released the information about the SDK, and here are the talking points:
There's a list of program types that are excluded from being part of the App Store, which include porn, privacy, bandwidth hog, unforseen, malicious and illegal.
iPhone software 2.0 goes beta today, with a final release in June for free. iPod touch will get similar updates, but there will be a slight charge for it.
SDK is available on website for free, and joining the iPhone developer program costs $99. The iPhone SDK weighs in 2.1 GB, so as you can imagine, Apple's developer website is getting pretty slammed right now.
New VC fund called iFund, $100 million initiative from Kleiner Perkins, in order to fund young, innovative developers.
One of things I noticed at GDC 2008 was the intensely high Mac to PC user ratio. Almost everyone I saw presenting had brought a laptop, either to run a Powerpoint presentation or to demo their work, and with the exception of the Square Enix people, everyone was using a MacBookPro or a Powerbook. People taking notes at GDC, I'd say the audience of Mac users was about 75 percent. If I saw a laptop, it was usually a Mac. Now, the reason I find this somewhat surprising is that the platform targeted for most computer games, is in fact the PC, by a somewhat large margin. The hardcore Mac game market is mostly dominated by World of Warcraft, and includes a small selection of triple-A titles ported over from the PC. For games, the PC market has shrunken down, while most of the games now are being released for the console. I have been to many GDCs, but I've never seen such a high percentage of Macs being used before.
Part of this, I credit to the affluence of being a game developer; being in the industry and being able to attend the GDC means you have a certain amount of cash -- during the breaks in the sessions, I saw plenty of PSPs and DS Lites, as well as iPhones. I believe that there are several factors in effect here: the iPod halo effect is definitely present; these are folks who probably would have never considered a pre-intel Mac (my ancient Titanium G4 Powerbook was definitely the Methuselah at the conference), but also coming in play is that for programmers who are not working in the Microsoft .NET architecture, the Mac is an overall better programming platform -- UNIX support is standard, and if you need Windows, there are enough ways (VMWare, BootCamp) to install Windows on a Mac with minimal effort, whereas installing Windows and Linux (or using Cygwin) is simply a daunting task. Couple this with the the MacBook Pro's capable gaming performance (for a laptop), and you have an ideal portable notebook for a developer.
I did not see a lot of MacBooks here, nor did I spot in this gathering of developers a single MacBook Air. I did see an black eeePC, and someone from EA had an OLPC. Most laptops seen were in the 13-15 inch range, I did not see any 17 inch laptops, although I did see one XPS Dell laptop being used by an attendee during lunch. Keep in mind that not everyone here brought a laptop; presumably, most of the work they do is on a desktop computer in the office, most likely running some variant of Windows.
I believe we are just starting to see the shift away from Windows in laptops; I suspect that within a few years time, with the withering of the computer as a gaming platform, the choice of computers will largely be based on the preference of the user.
With Yahoo! rejecting Microsoft's offer, expect things to get rather interesting; Yahoo is reportedly rejecting the offer on the grounds that $31 per share is too cheap; in light of the recent run-up in the stock price (Yahoo! is currently trading at about $30, up from about $20 before the announcement), this is definitely true. Depending on how badly Microsoft wants Yahoo!, a few options are available:
Microsoft's actions have inflated Yahoo's stock price 50%, Microsoft's best move at this time is to do things other than raise the bidding price, and in fact, it might be better for them to walk away completely. A recent poll shows that an overwhelming majority say that Microsoft should raise the price; what this tells me is that shareholders of Yahoo want this deal to go through, and they want to profit from it. If Microsoft were to release a statement to the effect of "Sorry you didn't like our offer, we regretted making it, have fun beating Google on your own", I expect we'd see a reversal of those gains. One thing that shocked me about Microsoft's offer was why the purchase price was so high; Microsoft was offering 50% over Yahoo's current stock price, and the market responded in kind, pushing the price to nearly the offer price in a day; Wall Street definitely thought this merger was going to happen, and Microsoft's stock took the appropriate hits, and Yahoo made the appropriate gains.
Yesterday we had Amazon buying out Audible, this morning we've got earnings reports from Google and a bid for Yahoo from Microsoft.
Google earnings are only 17 percent this quarter, making this the first quarter that Google earnings did not exceed 25 percent. As a result, the stock took a tumble of 8 percent, coincidentally, the same amount they missed analyst expectations by.
Microsoft, in the meantime has decided that if you can't beat the competition, you can try to buy them out. With a purchase price of 44.6 billion dollars, a number well over its book value of about 10 billion dollars. As a result, Yahoo stock is up 48 percent, bringing the market cap of Yahoo! to about 37 billion. Google, of course is number one in search engine traffic at 65%, Yahoo is number two at a respectable 21 percent, while MSN ranks at third with 7 percent. In November of 2007, Microsoft made a bold statement that they aimed to be in the top two in search; while I originally thought they would do it through efforts in engineering and better advertising of their search engine, it looks like Microsoft is throwing money at the problem in a different way.
Microsoft has been one of those companies that came late to the internet party; they didn't realize how important it would be, and ended up spending a lot of time and money on it trying to catch up to the rest of the pack. One of their first internet-related purchases was the code to Mosaic, which they used to create the first versions of Internet Explorer. Another was the purchase of WebTV, a television set-up box which allowed users to surf the web on the television. The potential of buying Yahoo! would boost Microsoft's web presence greatly; not just in search, but in many other service areas as well. Yahoo! owns Flickr, del.icio.us, upcoming.org, and 46% of Alibaba (one of China's biggest search sites) among other acquisitions not branded by the Yahoo! label.
I've always found some of Yahoo's services superior to Google's -- namely Flickr over Picasa, and My Yahoo! over iGoogle, but rarely do I find any webapp of Microsoft's even remotely useful. With share prices of Yahoo! skyrocketing over this news, I'm pretty certain a refusal of this buyout bid would not go over well with shareholders.
Apple announced the MacBook Air today, an ultrathin, ultraportable, ultralight made-to-be wireless laptop computer.
The Apple Store has a nice little chart comparing the different laptop options, detailing the differences and similarities between the model.
One of the differences between the MacBook Air and the regular MacBook is the difference in thickness, but the overall footprint of the device is the same. The MacBook Air also weighs a great deal less than the other laptops in the MacBook family, 2 pounds less than the MacBook, and 2.4 pounds less than the MacBook Pro. A substantial amount of that weight savings lies in the removal of the optical drive from the MacBook Air, along with a whole bunch of ports (Ethernet, FireWire 400, line-in, and only one USB 2.0 port instead of two) that are standard on the MacBook. An external optical drive is available for the MacBook Air, but with third-party external DVD drives being rather cheap, my guess is that only those that absolutely must have Apple branded products will purchase the $99 SuperDrive. Apple has designed the MacBook Air to be able to share the optical drive from other computers, making the external rather extraneous if they have access to another computer with an optical drive.
The MacBook Air uses the same Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor as the MacBook, so the weakness of this chip is that it uses part of the system memory for graphics memory. The graphics memory is more likely to be accessed by programs that use 3D graphics, intensive graphics programs like Maya, or even complex 3D games will cause this graphics chip to lag.
Processor-wise, the MacBook Air is the slowest of the Mac laptops with its 1.6 GHz ($1799) or 1.8 GHz ($2099) GHz Core 2 Duo processor. The MacBook is available in 2.0 GHz ($1099) and 2.2 GHz ($1299) configurations, while the MacBook Pro includes processors that are a step up from the MacBook, running at 2.2 GHz ($1999) and 2.4 GHz ($2499). While all models except the MacBook come with 2GB of RAM, an upgrade for the MacBook is available for an additional $150, making a similarly equipped MacBook priced at $1249.
for $1249, you can purchase a MacBook with a 2.0 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive and all ports included, or for $1799, you can purchase a MacBook Air with 1.6 GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, 80 GB harddrive and no optical drive.The difference? The additional $550 which covers the two-pound weight loss of the MacBook Air. Of course, going the other direction, for just $200 more than the MacBook Air, you could get a very nice 15" MacBook Pro. In all of my cost analysis for this product, I can't figure out where the $550 premium is justified -- the weight savings? The higher cost of aluminum for the MacBook Air case instead of the plastic for the MacBook? The cost of research and development of the product? The cost of manufacturing a smaller form factor? I think part of it also is that in an effort to stratify their laptop lines; while I believe they parked the price too close to that of the MacBook Pro, the $550 premium definitely puts it far above the economic reach of those who should be buying a MacBook and below the logical usability of those who rely on MacBook Pros.
Professionals, artists, designers, engineers and other people who rely on Macs to get their work done are still going to buy MacBook Pros. No other laptop is going to offer the specs that meet their requirements. While I hoped for a 13 inch model that has all the power of the 15 inch ones, the MacBook Air has pretty much torpedoed that hope, as they would have done it by now if it were possible.
Students, who are going to have only one computer to take to school, are still going to buy MacBooks because they're relatively cheap and for the type of work they need to do on it, a MacBook is going to get them through school. An exception is going to have to be made for students who might need more computing power, but most students are going to get by with a MacBook.
Who do we have left? We have people who have multiple computers who can do without an optical drive, and people who use their computers on wireless networks primarily. We also have people who can afford to pay the $550 premium for the weight savings. For a traveling computer I wouldn't mind having this around, just for the size and the weight, but it would not take the place of a primary computer.
World of Warcraft Dell XPS Laptops in both Horde and Alliance flavors.
I saw these at BlizzCon back in August, but I thought they were one-offs, customized laptops that Dell did just for fun. I don't think it ever occurred to me that anyone would want to sell a laptop that advertised their online vice. However, it does appear that these are actual computers, but you'll be paying $4499 for these gaming laptops, which include a 2.2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, equipped with 2GB of RAM, 17 inch screen, a 512 MB GeForce 8700, a DVD-R drive, Wireless and 160 GB Hard drive. Now, last I checked, you could get a Apple MacBook Pro with almost identical specs for $2799. The MacBook Pro is a little bit faster -- 2.4Ghz instead of 2.2Ghz, and the MacBook Pro includes built in Bluetooth (a $20 option at Dell), and has a slightly different graphics card with less RAM -- A GeForce 8600M GT with 256 MB for the MacBook Pro, and a GeForce 8700 with 512MB for the Dell (about 25% faster). So, the question that you should be asking yourself as a buyer is whether or not having the backlit Horde/Alliance and a faster graphics card is worth a $1700 price difference. That's like over a 100 months of World of Warcraft!
My advice, if you really want to buy a gaming laptop, get the MacBook Pro, and enjoy the next 8 or 9 years of playing WoW on it with the money you save. Of course, if you're really hardcore into WoW, you've already figured out the best way to do it is to go with a multiboxing setup.
Amazon has just launched their Kindle e-book reader. Sporting a display of 6 inches with 167 ppi of electronic paper (e-paper) resolution, and weighting just 10.3 ounces (about the size of a small paperback book), it features both Wi-Fi and has a built-in EVDO modem.
The EVDO modem utilizes the cellphone network so that hunting for a Wi-Fi hotspot isn't necessary, making books available to purchase anytime you can get reception from the Sprint network. Despite the fact that it uses Sprint, there's no fees and no contract for using the wireless network. Can you surf the web on it? Yes. Can you e-mail from it? Yes, for 10 cents per e-mail.
The design of the device feels a mite unfriendly (and ugly) to me, with the buttons for next and last page mounted on large buttons on the sides of the device, I feel that you're essentially holding the Kindle at the bottom of the device, rather than the middle, which I believe may be problematic. The keyboard is a good idea, but I feel the keyboard should have been hidden in a sliding design, as the only time you need it is a small percentage to the main function of the device, to read books.
Keeping in mind that this device is released by Amazon, their motivation for releasing this device is pretty clear: they want to sell you reading material. Despite the free wireless service, putting anything on this device has a cost associated with it. Unless otherwise marked, all New York Times bestsellers and new releases are 9.99 or less, and magazines and newspaper subscriptions are reasonably priced and are priced on a monthly basis such as the New York Times for 13.99 a month, and TIME for 1.49 a month. Since the new media publisher is the internet, high volume blogs like Boing Boing are also available on Kindle for 1.99 a month. While I read Boing Boing daily, much of their content is based on providing links to other sources, and I'm curious if being part of Amazon's subscription is going to change their style of writing up articles. Content being offered for Kindle of course, provides another alternate revenue stream for bloggers and authors.
While I think the Kindle e-book reader is a revolutionary new attempt at e-books, it falls a little short of being a book replacement for me, for a number of reasons. The price of the reader is $399.99, and while that's as much as an iPhone, it does depend on multiple pieces of technology that may or may not exist in the years to come.
The big worry on my mind is obsolescence -- while one would assume that should the Kindle program succeed, newer, faster, better e-readers would be on the horizon, and essentially you're paying $400 for an e-book reader that might be replaced in a few years. Which leads me into the ecological impact of e-books. On one hand, they save paper, but each e-book reader also generates an amount of dangerous e-waste in the process of manufacturing and disposal, and books decompose with less ecological impact, as most of the material will just naturally breakdown. The plastic case and the circuit boards shouldn't be disposed of in the garbage, but I'd say that a small proportion of them will still end up there, unless Amazon has a trade-in/used program for the future.
The applications for Kindle I see mostly using it for would be, interestingly enough, the things that they don't have on the device yet -- maps and photographs/graphics, both of which would require much higher storage capacity. I can see this being useful for educational purposes -- provided that a future Kindle would have color and graphics, you could have all your textbooks on one device, in much the same way that an iPod allows people to contain their entire music collection in their pocket.
It's a good idea, however, I feel that the initial implementation isn't polished enough. Time will tell if this is the future of e-books or just another electronic novelty.
