Wednesday, 18 April 2012
THE WEEKLY ROUNDUP
As expected, a couple of nights ago, a hologram of deceased rapper Tupac Shakur wowed crowds at Coachella, and now a video of the spectacle has surfaced on YouTube. It's a tall order, reanimating corpses, but the performance of Tupac's "Hail Mary" was incredibly lifelike. So how was it done?
The performance reportedly used the same technology that enabled Mariah Carey to perform a concert in five cities simultaneously. Executing the Carey illusion relied on both modern day techniques and an old magician's trick dating back to the 19th Century. First, a video was composed by SFX company MPC using a mixture of live footage, wire-framing, and CGI. This was then fed into Musion's holographic technology, which projects the image onto a special foil. The foil is based on principles set out in the old magician's illusion Pepper's Ghost, which trick audiences into thinking they're viewing a person or object rather than a simple reflection. By using a lightweight foil which mimics the properties of semi-transparent glass, Musion is able to extend the concept's scale without limiting the efficacy of the illusion. The results, as you can see in the video above, are pretty spectacular.
Following an accidental leak on EA's Origin website, the company has come out today to confirm the existence of Crysis 3 with a Spring 2013 release. Players will take control of Prophet in The new game as they return to an infected New York. Following the events of Crysis 2, the New York of 2047 has become encased in a Nanodome. The New York City Liberty Dome is a urban rainforest teeming with overgrown trees, dense swamplands and raging rivers. The Liberty Dome is divided into seven distinct and treacherous environments known as the Seven Wonders.
The New York City of 2047 lies in ruins, according to the official Crysis 3 website. The buildings have collapsed and are wrapped in vines. The streets are now rivers. The subway system has rotted into deep caverns.
"Crysis 3 is a thrilling mix of sandbox gameplay, advanced combat and hi-tech human and alien weaponry that shooter fans will love," Cevat Yerli, Chief Executive Officer of Crytek, said in a prepared statement. "Leveraging the latest CryENGINE technology, we're able to deliver seven unique themes that offer stunning and visually loaded gameplay experiences. We cannot wait until people get their hands on the game."
In an article about the Louvre's 3DS integration, Spanish newspaper El Mundo said that Miyamoto revealed plans to show a new Super Mario game for Wii U at E3. However, without a direct quote, it seemed likely that he had been talking about the Wii U and the (confirmed) 3DS Super Mario game, and the two had become conflated. The other, less likely option, is that Miyamoto had let slip the existence of an unannounced game, which is out of character for anyone at Nintendo.
However, that's exactly what happened. Eurogamer received confirmation from Nintendo. "In a recent interview, Mr. Miyamoto confirmed that a new Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii U system will be shown at this year's E3 Expo," the Nintendo representative told the site. "We'll have more to announce about our plans for the E3 Expo at a later date."
During the last E3, Nintendo showed a Wii U game (above) based on New Super Mario Bros. Wii. It's possible that demo may have evolved into this new game, or it could be something totally different. All we know at this point is that it's a "Super Mario Bros. game."
Last week Facebook has announced it is buying the extremely popular photography app-maker Instagram for a reported $1 billion.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the acquisition in a blog post:
"For years, we've focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we'll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.
We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.
That's why we're committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people."
LIFE SIZE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE WAS NEARLY BUILT IN LAS VEGAS
Yes, all of humanity's woes could've been wiped away if this wondrous project had gone ahead, but alas it was not to be. Gary Goddard recounts on The Goddard Group blog the project his design firm worked on in the early 1990s in an attempt to revitalize downtown Las Vegas. "It would create a new '8th Wonder of the World," he writes, "with an iconic monument that would take its place alongside other 'must see' monuments in the world. (You would be able to see this from the airplanes as they came for landing at the Vegas airport. It's that big.)"
Of course, visitors would be able to board the vessel. "Conceptually, it was to be a 'tour' of the ship, with all of the key rooms, chambers, decks, and corridors that we knew from the movie. There was to be the dining area for the ship's crew (where you could dine in Star Fleet comfort), and other special features. There were also one or two interesting ride elements that we were considering including a high-speed travelator that would whisk you from deck to deck. But we were really just getting into the show aspects when everything came to a head."
In other words, when the warp-drive brakes were slammed on the project. It all came down to Paramount CEO Stanley Jaffe. After five months of work, the plan was presented to him. This is how Goddard remembers the exec responding:
"You know, this is a major project. You're going to put a full-scale Enterprise up in the heart of Las Vegas. And on one hand that sounds exciting. But on another hand, it might not be a great idea for us -- for Paramount. … In the movie business, when we produce a big movie and it's a flop -- we take some bad press for a few weeks or a few months, but then it goes away. The next movie comes out and everyone forgets. But THIS -- this is different. If this doesn't work -- if this is not a success -- it's there, forever…"
And that was the end of it. But maybe it's for the best. After all, everyone knows that the Enterprise was not designed to exist within a planetary atmosphere anyway. That's why they built it on Earth but assembled it in space!
Thats it for the rounds this week, there's plenty more of the usual to come so watch this space for all your delicious tech news and reviews!
0 comments:
Post a Comment