Google Glass Gets One Step Closer to Being On Your Head

It’s a real possibility that Google Glass, the wearable computing device designed to reduce distraction and allow for communicating in a new way, could be in consumers’ hands by the end of the year. It’s the anti-smartphone, writes The Verge, designed to rewire the way we think about and interact with each other and technology. But the question remains: Who would want to wear the device in public? Continue reading Google Glass Gets One Step Closer to Being On Your Head

Disney Short Film Blends Computer and Traditional Animation

Disney Animation debuted its animated short “Paperman” in theaters with “Wreck-It Ralph” at the end of last year. The short is now available online, allowing people to watch it before the Academy Awards. “The Oscar-nominated animated short that blends hand-drawn and computer-generated imagery in a beautiful, innovative way that might just look like the future of animation as a whole,” writes Wired. Continue reading Disney Short Film Blends Computer and Traditional Animation

Revolutionizing Wait Time: DreamWorks and Intel Partner on Rendering

  • Animators at DreamWorks have to work in low resolution — “as if blind” — because rendering takes a week for 3 seconds worth of animation.
  • “CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said his company’s four-year partnership with Intel is developing scalable multicore processing methods and software that will change all that,” reports Forbes.
  • Katzenberg explains the partnership is dedicating tens of millions of dollars in an effort to reengineer animation software “in a way that will halve the number of steps in the production line and ramp up animators’ productivity between 50 and 70 times.”
  • The technology will also be widely applicable in areas that use high-end rendering, including medicine, oil, aircraft design and more.
  • “This literally is going to revolutionize waiting,” suggests Katzenberg.