Category Archives: Interesting

Inside a Single Cell

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Occasionally a project takes me off on an unusual tangent. Researching for a recent project I came across Harvard University’s The Inner Life of the Cell. A medical illustrator David Bolinsky spoke at T.E.D. about the video he was working on in 2007. (A better copy of the video than I show here is at T.E.D., but I can’t embed that one.) I thought these too neat not to share.

The collection of animations created by Harvard for their project can be found here: Harvard Multimedia. The 8 minute video The Inner Life of the Cell can also be found at YouTube, which is what I have below. It is a poorer quality than you’ll find at the Harvard site. If you watch from the Harvard site I recommend you use Internet Explorer.  Continue reading →

Oculus Rift Retail Pre-Order DELAY

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Word is out that the Oculus Rift consumer version can be pre-ordered for a mere US$600. :/

What I find today is that if you order now, you MAY get your Rift by June… That is six months. If you have already ordered, you should see yours get shipped to you in the March 28th shipment, 3 months.

No one is saying how many were ordered. Lucky Palmer only said they sold in 10 minutes what he thought they would sell in hours… not very definitive. But, it does indicates sales were several orders of magnitude larger than expected.

We are told the online order system went down, it overloaded.

See: Oculus Rift Pre-Order ETA is Now June for New Orders. (Jan 8 – Road to VR)

At this point I am waiting for reviews of the Oculus Rift that compare its performance to other HMD’s. Is it really going to be worth $400 more than the competition’s HDM’s?

I’m almost due for a new phone. So, I may trade my S5 for a newer S7… and start with Cardboard.

Lit Up Festival Online

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Interesting… A friend asked me to post this press release. I’ve seen bits of information about the festival floating around the net. If you are into machinima, check it out.

Issued: December 18 2015
PRESS RELEASE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT
Rahimah Rasith, Lit Up Festival Online.
rahimah23@gmail.com

UWA Challenge Machinima Stars Commissioned for Lit Up Festival in Singapore

As a virtual door closes a real life one has opened for the top three winners of the final University of Western Australia Machinima Challenge VIII. The diversely talented machinima makers have each been offered a commission to create something for a cutting edge live literature digital arts festival in Singapore.

Kobuk Farshore, Tutsy Navarathna and the third-placed team of Lilia Artis and Haveit Aeon will collaborate with the Writers Centre, Singapore and its seven year old flagship festival .

The lucky artists may also get to travel to the tech hub of South-East Asia in November 2016 for the launch of their new films.

“This will depend on funding, but we hope they can come and give talks, workshops and participate in panel discussions on the relationship between virtual art and the real word.”

She went on to say that the machinima makers will hopefully get to meet up in person with their Singapore collaborator Chris Mooney-Singh who is providing original material for the three projects. In SL he is better known as Singh Albatros, back in world after a long spell having completed a doctorate in Creative Writing from Monash University in Australia.

Ms Rasith also went on to say that the Writers Centre, Singapore, a non profit organisation was glad to support SL artists in world and out world.

“In a sense we feel we have been passed the torch by Art Challenge director Jay Jay Zifanwe and the University of Western Australia.”

“Its a creative alliance. Following UWA’s lead we hope to execute other in world events and stream them live to Facebook,” she added.

 

More information can be found at:
http://www.litup.sg
https://www.facebook.com/LitUpSingapore/?ref=hl

How Virtual Worlds Will Take Over Real Life

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From a speech by by Philip Rosedale, former Linden Lab CEO – 28 minutes. Philip uses Second Life to show what is happening in virtual worlds and how it will affect society. His thinking is interesting and in some ways a bit scary.

The video is the basis of an NPR show TED Radio: Why Build a Virtual World? Follow the link to see the video. I can’t embed it, only the audio portion, which is 9 minutes. The video and audio have different content. Both are interesting.

NPR/KPBS presented a radio show titled Screen Time. Philip Rosedale was a guest for the show. The audio above is also here: KPBS: Screen Time. The video is where some of the sound track for the show came from. The video is more interesting than the audio. The radio show has more context and less content, the audio is only 9 minutes long. It is worth checking both.   Continue reading →