The state of the VFX industry was a big topic at this week’s CG conference.
During a session on the state of the industry VFX supervisor Scott Squires lamented that he had talented colleagues who are planning to leave the business. “One problem is we love what we do, and accept a lot of things that ‘normal’ people would not—like working 80 hours a week and [sometimes] not be paid for it.”
Read the full story here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/reflections-siggraph-making-money-are-594123
Siggraph: Oculus Rift Creator Says Wider Use of Virtual Reality Is ‘Inevitable’
Panelists agreed that content is king. Henry Fuchs
, professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, asserted that a key obstacle to mass adoption is that "it's not clear what the application is that millions will want to use augmented and virtual reality for. Until we find that, we'll be limited to a few hundred thousand users. Not millions."
AR pioneer Steven Feiner of Columbia University emphasized that "entertainment is the next big thing in VR."
Luckey warned that VR hardware makers should be careful not to focus too much on marketing a "quantifiable" feature such as resolution. He added that there needs to be improvement in numerous areas, including ergonomics and latency.
See the full story here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/siggraph-oculus-rift-creator-says-724481
If You Think Big Data’s Big Now, Just Wait
GE has been working with Pivotal to better understand this problem. (It’s worth noting that GE owns a 10 percent stake in the EMC/VMware spinoff). The two companies are working together to build what they are calling a “data lake.” This is a more flexible approach to large data sets than a data warehouse, which they point out was designed a decade ago with ERP and CRM data in mind. The quantity of data today is so much greater that it requires a much more flexible architecture to accommodate it.
One of the first areas where GE is testing this technology is in its jet engine division where it estimates each engine can generate 1TB of data of data from a single flight. Multiply that by many flights per day and you are facing monumental amounts of data from just one industrial device.
Ruh claims that using data lake software cuts the time they can begin working with the data from days to minutes. How much did it improve the process? According to GE, they whittled down a data warehousing approach that took 30 days to ingest, structure, integrate and process and brought it down to 20 minutes with the data lake approach. Yes, you read it correctly, 20 minutes.
To that end they combined it with technology they developed with the consulting firm Accentureto build a tool called Taleris, which they claim can actually accurately predict part failure. The trouble was that they needed a serious amount of data for the prediction platform to do its job. The data lake developed with Pivotal gives them that.
Read the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/10/big-data-bound-to-get-really-really-big-with-the-internet-of-things/?ncid=tcdaily
Announcing the Virtual Reality Awards Event, Coming Live to Riftmax Theater November 28th
Devs, start your engines. Now that the Oculus Rift DK2 is reaching the hands of excited developers around the globe, the VR media community is ready to unveil the Virtual Reality Awards, coming live to Riftmax theater.
See the full story here: http://www.roadtovr.com/announcing-virtual-reality-awards-event-coming-live-riftmax-theater-november-28th/
Sony Planning to Debut a Pair of Curved 4K TVs Next Month
Sony will soon join LG and Samsung in offering curved 4K LCD television sets. The Japanese company is expected to unveil two models at 65- and 75-inches during next month’s IFA show in Berlin. While Sony has yet to announce pricing and availability, the curved sets will compete with Samsung’s HU9000 line, which includes a 65-inch model priced at $4,300 and 78-inch model at $8,000. Sony currently sells a 65-inch curved 1080p TV for $2,500.
The new curved sets from Sony “feature edge-lit LED backlighting, 4K X-Reality PRO video processing engine, Triluminos Display tech, Motionflow XR 800Hz motion-compensated frame interpolation (MCFI) system, active 3D capabilities (two pairs of glasses included), and its X-tended Dynamic Range to boost contrast,” reports UK reviewer HDTVtest.
“Meanwhile its 4.2 channel Multi-angle Live Speakers use separate drivers for the first time, helping it to direct left, right and surround sounds around the room more accurately.”
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/sony-planning-to-debut-a-pair-of-curved-4k-tvs-next-month/
Inside a Drone Pilot Cockpit
Interestingly, some of the newest drones or UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) incorporate the PlayStation2 controller design to assist pilots in navigating menus. This is probably a good thing since many believe the best recruits for drone flight school are already wired differently. “These kids have grown up playing Xbox and PlayStation and using other gaming systems … they have a incredible multitasking capabilities, they collaborate differently with their fellow pilots”, said Brad Hoagland, a former U.S. Air Force colonel, who now studies drones and drone pilots at the Brookings Institution.
See the full story here: http://droneinsider.net/inside-a-drone-pilot-cockpit/
First-Look Of “The Marvel Experience” 2-Acre Custom Mobile Dome Complex
Hero Ventures released a first-look rendering of the highly anticipated design of The Marvel Experience domed complex set to tour the country in 2014.
Canvassing a 2-acre footprint of more than 80,000 square feet, this state-of-the-art, custom built multi-Dome complex will represent the first time a venue of this type, size and scope will be utilized for a mobile tour. From the outside, The Marvel Experience resembles a temporary S.H.I.E.L.D. installation or “Mobile Command Center,” with the facility’s apex towering more than six stories high. Inside, a maze of connected Domes will lead guests through an array of interactive games and original animated short films including the first- ever traveling motion-based ride, where guests become immersed in this original adventure only found in The Marvel Experience. This unique, themed entertainment experience is scheduled to visit select US and Canadian markets for weeks at a time in each city and is designed to engage audiences through compelling family entertainment with a production value consistent with the iconic nature of the Marvel Super Heroes.
See the full story here: http://themarvelexperiencetour.com/about/
IBM Unveils Chip Simulating Brain Functions
The technology company has developed a microchip that simulates functions of neurons, synapses and other features of the brain to perform calculations. IBM says the chip, a sharp break from the fundamental design used in most computers, excels at chores like recognizing patterns and classifying objects while using much less electrical power than conventional hardware.
TrueNorth, IBM says, uses 5.4 billion transistors—four times more than a typical PC processor—to yield the equivalent of one million neurons and 256 million synapses. They are organized into 4,096 structures called "neurosynaptic cores," each able to store, process and transmit data to any other using a communications scheme called a crossbar.
The design is "event-driven," Mr. Modha says. That means that individual cores fire up only when they are needed, rather than running all the time.
See the full story here: http://online.wsj.com/articles/ibm-unveils-chip-simulating-brain-functions-1407434402?mod=ST1
Best Buy Bets Ultra-High-Def Screens Make TVs Cool Again
The world’s largest electronics chain has teamed up with Samsung Electronics Co. andSony Corp. (6758) to open in-store showrooms staffed with Blue Shirts trained to tout the merits of Ultra High-Definition, or 4K, technology, which generates a picture four times sharper than existing high-definition TVs.
Televisions in particular have been dragging. While Americans continue to buy TVs to watch communal events like the Super Bowl in their living rooms, secondary sets for bedrooms and kitchens are losing out to tablets and computers, said Veronica Thayer, an analyst for IHS Technology based in Austin, Texas. U.S. TV shipments fell 13 percent to 34.3 million last year from 39.3 million in 2011, according to IHS. Best Buy’s U.S. revenue in the category has declined the past four years.
TV makers have been trying to come up with a successor to flat-panel, high-definition sets only to watch 3D televisions flop and Web-connected sets fail to catch on.
See the full story here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-31/best-buy-bets-ultra-high-def-screens-make-tvs-cool-again.html