Get your brain in the game Neurable’s vision is to use braincomputer interface to allow people to control software and devices using only their brain activity. Immersive computing requires a new approach to human-computer interaction. Neurable thinks tier design and software solutions will function as a natural extension of our brains. The company’s approach is science-driven and cross disciplinary, incorporating elements … Read more
JPR at a lunch At its core level, the subject of Siggraph is human human creativity. Increasingly though, we're seeing machine creativity get more attention as AI breaks out of the labs and gets into the everyday work of artists and creators. That was a major theme at Siggraph this year and the annual JPR luncheon was a reflection of … Read more
A workstation in a backpack HP showed their VR backpack at Siggraph 2016, and it was well received, but not offered for sale. Except for a few old timers, no one could think of VR and not think of games and so the HP backpack seemed clever, but not what a gamer might want. However, HP wasn’t thinking about the … Read more
Workstations and 3D graphics hardware don’t hold the same status they used to at summer’s annual convening of Siggraph, a conference today with more focus on computer graphics applications and productions than the underlying platform. If you remember (we certainly do), Siggraph in the 90’s represented the epicenter of graphics and workstation hardware innovation, where heavy weights like SGI, HP, … Read more
3D point-cloud scanning using only RGB and XYZ Nurulize is a virtual reality software developer founded in 2013 by software development and VFX industry veterans Philip Lunn and Scott Metzger. The company’s product was recently recognized at Nvidia’s GTC VR Content Showcase 2017, where they were awarded the Grand Prize over 120 other companies. Atom View is a tool for … Read more
The real danger of AI may be that it takes all the fun out of life A bot stole the show at The International Dota 2 Championship. Developed using OpenAI on Microsoft Azure and the specially designed bot got good by playing itself thousands of times instead of analyzing champion gamers, which is kind of interesting. It suggests that machines … Read more
Latest open tool for the VFX industry will standadize “look” transfer Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) have released the MaterialX Library for computer graphics. MaterialX is an open standard developed by Lucasfilm’s Advanced Development Group and ILM engineers to improve the transfer of rich materials and look-development content between applications and renderers. Originated at Lucasfilm in 2012, MaterialX … Read more
Giving its video production tools new power for VR Adobe announced the acquisition of the SkyBox plug-ins developed for Premiere and After Effects by Mettle. The SkyBox Suite of plug-ins offers transitions, titles, and effects for immersive content including VR. One of the earliest tools created by Mettle for After Effects was FreeForm, which brought the team to the attention … Read more
Boxx Technologies is a boutique workstation provider, and as such the company adds value for its customers in design and content creation by understanding what they need and designing for them. The company has been served well by this strategy. Primarily, Boxx has supplied fleets of customized workstations to companies as they ramp up for new projects. Mostly, the company … Read more
Siggraph is the day AMD is going to leverage their new Vega architecture across three product lines, and with multiple SKUs in each category. GPUs are employed in consumer and commercial AIBs, and in laptops for everything from gaming to spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations—gaming by far being the most interesting and challenging. They are also used in the professional space … Read more
She’s 17 this month We visited the emerald-eyed, green-haired virtual newscaster, Ananova, in Leeds England, in July 2001, for her first birthday. I was reminded of her due to all the recent news about AI and how reporters will no longer be needed. For example, the Bezos Post introduced an AI-powered story generating program call Heliograf , from a project … Read more
In a world of unending remakes we seem to love nostalgia Game of Thrones XXIIX, Sound & Fury Returns (for the 20th time), Star Wars 112 at theaters this summer. And so it goes, the unending replays, remakes, and redos. The baby boomers and their unimaginative gen-something kids living in fear of a world moving too fast and becoming too … Read more
