Software – Page 7

Adventures in Windows 7

January 13, 2009January 14, 2009 drsquid 32 Comments

Microsoft opened the Beta of Windows 7 up to the public over the weekend. It can be downloaded here. Windows 7 has been misconstrued as a response to Vista’s bad press, even though it has been in development since well before Vista even shipped. However, I am sure the all hype surrounding this very early public preview (it might not even ship in its final form until 2010) is a response. Vista has generated a lot of ill will towards the Redmond giant (most of it unfounded), and Windows 7…

Havok Tool Available

December 5, 2008July 25, 2009 Doug Groves 1 Comment

Just about anyone who plays video games these days should recognize the above logo. Havok is probably the most widely used physics middleware in game design these days, and they’ve just made the 3D tool available for download. The Intel-sponsored Havok PC download is a binary-only bundle that includes all of the standard features and functionality of both the Havok™ Physics and Havok™ Animation products. The download includes Havok SDK libraries, samples, and technical documentation for software developers; as well as Havok’s Content Tools for preparation and export of physical…

Oblong’s G-speak Points the Way to Tomorrow’s Interface

November 21, 2008November 21, 2008 Paul L 3 Comments

When I first laid eyes on Jeff Han’s next generation touchscreen interface, it gave me that tingle that told me, “Welcome to the future.” The same tingle I got when I saw my first command line interface in the late ’70s, or when I spotted my first GUI in the mid-’80s. Oblong Industries’ newly available (after more than a decade in development) “spatial operating system“, G-speak, has turned that tingle into a burning itch. Nothing I have seen in tech innovation has made me as eager to live long enough…

Wall Street Journal Welcomes iPhone Overlords

October 29, 2008October 29, 2008 Paul L 18 Comments

The Wall Street Journal has raised the spectre of smartphones replacing laptops, not even realising, it seems, that it is a spectre. Apple’s “cutting-edge” iPhone is held up throughout the article, without a hint of irony, as the prime example of the sort of device that the author sees one day bumping your main mobile computer into a Sarlacc Pit. No mention at all is made of the completely closed and capriciously-controlled nature of application development through the iPhone’s App Store (practical unofficial alternatives to which, in a 180-degree turn…

The “Podcaster” lesson: Users want more than Apple’s Walled Garden allows

September 19, 2008July 25, 2009 Danny X iPhone, review7 Comments

As we’ve discussed before…and before…and before, Apple’s practice of blacklisting applications from its App Store is something of a controversial move on the part of the Cupertino-based technology company that once described its products as “the computer for the rest of us”, and told us that their company will be “nothing like 1984”.

Apple Beset by Criticism From Leading Mac Bloggers

September 15, 2008September 15, 2008 Paul L 37 Comments

When lodestar users like Harry McCracken, Dave Winer, and even John Gruber are gunning for you online, you know your mobile platform has a real problem on its hands. Thus, is Apple reaping what it has sowed with its increasingly pathological obsession with control.

Jobs and Woz, In Manga — For Kids!

September 5, 2008September 13, 2008 Paul L 0 comment

By way of Boingboing.net, my attention has been drawn to an amusing ’80s manga by Mitsuru Sugaya about the birth of Apple. Not speaking Japanese, I managed to get some gist of the artist’s commentary (though not the comic dialogue itself) from the Babelfish version. I particularly enjoyed their rendition of Mitsuru’s descriptions of one of Woz’s teen pranks. (See if you can guess what it does…)

Apple vs. Art, Part II: Apple vs. Fart

September 4, 2008December 23, 2008 Paul L 3 Comments

I have to say, when I wrote my first post on Apple’s attempts to soup-nazi new media spaces, I had no idea a sequel would be so soon in the offing. In this week’s episode, we have an actual App Store rejection letter from Apple, which is so galling in its casual application of censorship to a harmless fart joke app, that even in the unlikely event that it would be a good idea to let any one posse of techno-dudes carry the keys to the new media kingdom, it’s…

Google Chrome: The Zero Day Satire

September 3, 2008September 4, 2008 Paul L 2 Comments

You knew it had to happen. The patronising 38-page webcomic Google had Scott McCloud pen in order to explain, with excruciating deliberation, Google Chrome, has been wickedly lampooned. In this case, by The Register and its readers. This is probably just a small sample of the massive innoculations of irony we will all require if Google’s plans to lay claim to a platform on top of everybody else’s platforms, actually come to fruition. Buy more blue paint, indeed.

Video Enhancement Using Photographs

September 2, 2008July 25, 2009 Doug Groves video2 Comments

Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene from pro on Vimeo. Photographic manipulation seems to be all the rage these days, especially with the recent release of the initial version of Photosynth, the 3D environment building photo software from Microsoft. Some of the most useful techniques seem to come out of universities though. A few years back, the University of Manchester’s Advanced Interfaces Group released Icarus, which was an amazing piece of move matching software that allowed the user to remove objects from video, generate 3D camera positions…

Rumours of Steve Jobs’ Demise are Greatly Exaggerated

August 28, 2008August 28, 2008 Danny X 7 Comments

From the “oh, crap” files: The Bloomberg Financial Newswire is experiencing a little “send all” remorse today after mistakenly releasing Steve Jobs’ obituary into the wild. The 17-page obit was apparently being updated when the author mistook the “Save” button for the “Freak out shareholders” key and accidentally published the document across the entire newswire. A retraction was published almost immediately, but not before rgbFilter was able to get its hands on a copy of the obituary, which you can see below.

Apple vs. Art

August 27, 2008September 13, 2008 Paul L 6 Comments

It took the appalling spectacle of Apple trying to deny iPhone distribution to these artists at Murderdrome to draw my attention to Infurious Comics and their neat little enterprise. My willingness to try to distribute my own webcomic through the iPhone’s App Store will hinge on how Apple responds to criticisms like this one. I could be comfortable with an App Store-wide rating system that treats all media equally, but it would depend on whether it’s just a cloak for more censorship. (After all, nothing about having a rating system…