As computers make more decisions for us; who will be there to question their choices? In my constant search for knowledge, which is best undertaken when deadlines loom, I found an interesting news story published in the New York Times after Chief Justice Roberts gave a talk at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He was asked by the college president Shirley Ann … Read more
PTC says it is happy with the way its current strategy is going. The company is transitioning its customer base to subscription, which will smooth out the company’s revenues and it is building new business in IoT. The company hopes to see a synergistic effect between its IoT business, its IoT tools, its PLM products, and its service products. It’s … Read more
Crossing boundaries: we are the next frontier for computing As we learn more about the human body and our brains, we’ve learned that we’re more like machines than we’d like to think. Even our precious brains, which seem so unique, so much us, are turning out to be driven by chemicals and neurons and mechanics – it’s just all squishy. … Read more
New updates, demonstrate Corel’s commitment to its longtime flagship CorelDraw has outlived all its competition except for one notable exception, the 300 lb. gorilla in the creative software market, Adobe. Corel’s longevity owes itself to the company’s original strategy of offering a suite of powerful products in one box (or download as the case may be); Supported for Windows from … Read more
Integrated products for reality capture Bentley Systems is building a significant ecosystem around its Context- Capture products. Over the past two years Bentley has been showing the building blocks of its reality capture system, which it has been building since its acquisition of Acute3D in 2015. The company has announced partnerships with Siemens and drone maker DJI. At the SPAR … Read more
Targeting new markets First the news: at GDC Allegorithmic of France released its latest version of Substance Designer 6. A major part of this release is the increased ability to create HDR textures. Dr. Sébastien Deguy, founder and CEO of Allegorithmic says “with this iteration, designers can find everything they need to prepare, author and tweak their digital materials, whether … Read more
AMD has been doling out news with a big ladle these days. The company is riding on its new line of CPUs, Ryzen and its upcoming Vega graphics processor, which is no longer code named Vega, it’s officially named Radeon Rx Vega. So, yeah, that was one bombshell that was a bit anticlimactic. However, in other news AMD also talked … Read more
Over the past year, the message from the game engine companies has been that game engines can do a lot more than just make games and the message from GDC has been that games can go to totally new places thanks to the advances being made in game engine technology. Also, AR and VR are changing the way game developers … Read more
Getting Cinematic The game engine biz is growing. All it has taken is a whole lot of perseverance, constant work, and creative thinking. At their GDC keynote, Unity CEO John Riccitiello told the audience “your games were downloaded 16 million times.” Unity 5 was released 2 years ago, and Riccitiello, admitted that the company’s advance has been uneven, but he … Read more
And that time seems to be now for 3D Sometimes it seems that what happens in the game community stays within the game community. And sometimes that’s a very very good thing. But for generations it has seemed as if all the amazing technical achievement that has taken place to power lush real time, and immersive imagery didn’t have much … Read more
Naples arrives to serve AMD’s new CPU is finally here and getting “complicated” reviews. It’s not blowing Intel out of the water, but the company is delivering a very capable, low cost CPU that will enable a wide range of competitively priced computers with little compromise on performance. Does that sound weasely? It’s not meant to because, the computer industry … Read more
In the final weeks of 2016, Autodesk announced its plans for its 123D apps. Plans that may or may not come as a surprise to people who have been watching the company. Autodesk assuredly went a little app crazy and especially around 123D where there were some apples and oranges all rolling around in the basket. For instance, it’s been … Read more
