Blarbus

Alpha 60

I might not be a fan of Jean-Luc Godard, but I do have to give him credit for creating what I would consider to be the most amazing, terrifying voice ever to to be featured in a film.  HAL just seems like an amateur after listening to this old computer grumble existential questions into a mechanical larynx.

Before you watch this, I suggest you lower the lights and turn up the volume.  Berets are also welcome.

While we're on the subject of mechanical larynges, here's a video of one particularly amazing innovation called the Trutone Electolarynx that allows you to modulate your pitch with the touch of a button.

If you can't already tell, I have a paper due tomorrow.

"Onlive" Set for Release

Naysayer's and skeptics of the groundbreaking video game distribution service Onlive must be getting tired of feasting on their own words.

A recent announcement by the company's founder and CEO Steve Perlman has marked June 17th to be the day the service becomes available for residents of the 48 contiguous states, at which time subscribers will be able to open their single core laptops, download a simple browser plug-in and start playing Crysis at full quality within minutes.

How is this possible?  The magic lies in the fact that all of the actual game processing is happening in Onlive's data centers, which could very well be hundreds of miles away.  The gamer's computer is merely displaying a live video feed from these data centers, which, in turn, have received control inputs from the gamer and done all of the processing far away from where the game is actually being played (their website explains it a little more clearly).

 

Basically, Onlive allows gamers to play any game on any computer at full quality with no loading times, all for only fifteen bucks a month (not including game purchase costs).  If you compare this subscription fee to what it might cost to upgrade your computer every few years in order to keep up with the latest games, it's a fantastic deal.  Onlive upgrades their computers for you, so that you're always able to play the latest games with the latest hardware.

The implications are staggering.  As far as I'm concerned, this marks the death of all console systems, not to mention conventional digital distribution systems like Steam.

Ironclad

This evening I stumbled across an intriguing synopsis for an upcoming English film by the name of Ironclad:

"A ragtag group of Knights Templar hold out for months against the hard-fought siege of Rochester Castle in the thirteenth Century. Set in the time of King John's signing of the Magna Carta treaty, the group struggles against the King to defend the freedom of their country."

Congratulations, England.  You just nailed my demographic with a rail spike.

It's purportedly a medieval remake of Seven Samurai, the classic holdout film by Japanese film god Akira Kurosawa.  If it turns out to be even halfway decent (which, after glancing at the cast, I'm guessing it will be,) I'll have no choice but to cross off another entry from my list of movies I need to make some day.

You can find more info here, including a strange, half-baked "raw footage trailer" that I suggest be taken with a grain of salt:

 http://ironclad-movie-trailer.blogspot.com/

By the way, if you were intrigued by the use of my term "holdout film" and you have a lazy weekend coming up, I invite you to watch the following movies back to back to get a better idea of what I'm talking about:

Seven Samurai (1954)

Zulu (1964)

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

The Nest (2002)

Unlimited Detail

So here's an interesting nugget I found today...

A group of programmers has claimed to have found a method of rendering 1000 times the level of detail found in PS3 level graphics, all without the use of a graphics card.

Smells like a scam to me, but the logic they provide in their video demonstrations seems to be at least theoretically sound.  And just when I thought onlive was going to turn the game industry on its head...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ATtrImCx4&ttl=1

http://unlimiteddetailtechnology.com/description.html

Scenes like the one above would traditionally require billions and billions of polygons and weeks to render.  "Unlimited Detail" renders this in real time.  On a one-core processor.

CAMS Logo

Here's an animated version I made of the pre-existing Carleton Cinema and Media Studies logo.  It's the first chance I've had to integrate what I've been learning in Lightwave3D into a legitimate project. The awesome sound design was created by Sam Scherf.

Download CAMS LOGO-LQ-sound