Author Archives: infophile

Microsoft’s Dope New Tool Is Like #Autocomplete for #Drawing | WIRED #digital #animation #interactive #media #tech #software #design #art

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CREATING EVEN A few seconds of a hand-drawn animation—think old-school Looney Tunes, or earlier Disney films like Snow White—is a painstaking process that requires artists to draw hundreds, if not thousands, of frames. Over the years, advances in digital animation tools have streamlined that process and, in doing so, created a new aesthetic best seen in the faces of Pixar’s canon of characters.

Microsoft Research, along with the University of Hong Kong and the University of Tokyo, just unveiled a proof-of-concept technology that could bring back the charm of older, hand-drawn cartoons, with the speed and fluidity of today’s animation software. “Autocomplete hand-drawn animations” debuted at the Siggraph Asia conference, and it’s an interactive system that watches what the artist draws and then predicts what frame or line might come next. READ MORE: Microsoft’s Dope New Tool Is Like Autocomplete for Drawing | WIRED

1200 Years of #Women #Composers: A #Free 78-Hour #Music #Playlist That Takes You From Medieval Times to Now | Open Culture #historical #classical

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The Spotify playlist “1200 Years of Women Composers: From Hildegard To Higdon,” reveals that women started shaping what we now know as classical music far longer ago than most of us realize. (If you don’t have Spotify’s free software, download it here.) The playlist, which contains over 900 pieces and will take you days to listen to, begins in medieval times with the Byzantine abbess, poet, composer, and hymnographer Kassia and ends with female composers from around the world not only living but (especially by the standards of those who write orchestral music) still young, like Misato Mochizuki, Helena Tulve, and Lera Auerbach. This comes arranged by Spotify Classical Playlists, whose site describes how the playlist offers not just an anthology of women composers, but also “a brief history of western classical music…” MORE: 1200 Years of Women Composers: A Free 78-Hour Music Playlist That Takes You From Medieval Times to Now | Open Culture

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Official UK #Trailer | YouTube #adaptations #film

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Clinical Trial Will Test if #GoogleGlass Can Help #Kids with #Autism | WIRED #assistive #tech #gadgets #devices #disabilities #learning

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For Voss, Wall, and their colleague Nick Haber, a Stanford post-doc, the idea is that their Glass software will help autistic children recognize and understand facial expressions and, through them, emotions. It operates like a game or, as Voss calls it, an “interactive learning experience.” Through the Google Glass eyewear, children are asked to, say, find someone who is happy. When they look at someone who is smiling, the app recognizes this and awards “points.” The system also records what the child does for later review. “You can plot, as they wear the glasses, how they’re improving, where they’re improving,” Wall says. “You can look at video to understand why.” READ MORE: Clinical Trial Will Test if Google Glass Can Help Kids with Autism | WIRED

#Microsoft Researchers Test Multi-Person Mixed #VR | MIT Technology Review #virtualreality #tech #research #interactive #augmented #gaming

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Researchers in Jaron Lanier’s lab at Microsoft are exploring ways for people to share the experience of mixed reality. READ MORE: Microsoft Researchers Test Multi-Person Mixed Reality | MIT Technology Review

Makerarm: An All-In-One Robotic Laser Cutter, #3D Printer, Painter, Fabricator And Assembler [Kickstarter] | TechCrunch #makerspaces #diy #3DPrinting #robots #tech

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Makerarm is a robotic 3D printer, laser cutter, drawing and ink printer, fabricator and assembly machine all rolled into one that fits on a desktop and promises to make pretty much anything – including an entire laptop (It milled us the TechCrunch logo into a block of wood instead). READ MORE: Makerarm Is An All-In-One Robotic Laser Cutter, 3D Printer, Painter, Fabricator And Assembler | TechCrunch

The First Great Works of #Digital #Literature are Already Being Written | The Guardian #gaming #video #storytelling #art #tech

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Video games could be the greatest storytelling medium of our age – if only the worlds of art and technology would stop arguing and take notice…READ MORE: The first great works of digital literature are already being written | Technology | The Guardian

Typewriter-Inspired Mechanical #Keyboard | QWERKYWRITER #gadgets #devices #typewriters #digital #tech

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We spend a lot of time on our digital devices and we should be able to express ourselves through them. Unfortunately it’s all beige and brushed aluminum these days. We at Qwerkytoys are about to shake things up with our first product, the Qwerkywriter. Qwerkywriter connects wirelessly via Bluetooth to iPhones, iPads, iMacs, MacPros, Macbooks, Android Tablets Devices, Windows Tablets, and more. MORE: QWERKYWRITER | Typewriter-Inspired Mechanical Keyboard

Related: Qwerkywriter’s retro iPad keyboard is a flawed masterpiece | Engadget

RePhone Lets You Turn Anything Into A #Phone | TechCrunch + Finally, Game Cartridges You Can Plug Into Your #Smartphone | ARSTechnica #makerspaces

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RePhone Lets You Turn Anything Into A Phone | TechCrunch
The project is actually a tiny circuit board with a SIM slot and an optional screen. It also supports Bluetooth. You’re going to want to get the $49 Kit Create, a tiny watch-like system that includes a little case and all the modules. It’s like getting a tiny unlocked cellphone for under $50. This is obviously an experimental board but I checked it out a week ago and it seemed to work fairly well. It includes programming libraries in Arduino IDE, Lua and Javascript that allow you to connect the phone to the web and even IFTTT…

Finally, game cartridges you can plug in to your smart phone: Pico Cassette sends data through the headphone jack using audio signals | ARS Technica
Enter Pico Cassette, a Japanese outfit that says it’s bringing back “the next retro” with tiny game cartridges that plug in to a smartphone’s headphone jack. The tiny “cassettes” (the general Japanese term for cartridges) are built on PlugAir technology, which uses a specially designed iPhone or Android app to draw power from the headphone jack and send data using specially modulated audio signals…

See Book Availability from Your Local #Library while [ Web Browsing] | LibraryExtension.com #books #libraries #Internet #tools #browsers #catalogs

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As you browse books and e-books on Amazon.com, the Library Extension checks your library’s online catalog and displays the availability of that item on the same page. If the book is available at your library, you’ll know instantly – with a quick, convenient link to reserve the title! READ MORE: Library Extension – See book availability from your local library while you browse Amazon.com | Library Extension for Chrome