Blade Runner

Ridley Scott creates worlds. Whether it is ancient Rome, the infinite blackness of space, or a futuristic Los Angeles, the English director is a master of worlds.

Blade Runner, when it was first released, did moderately well at the box office. But in the 30 years since, it has become not only a classic but also a reference point for filmmakers, students of films, and cinephiles alike. From the first image of the dystopian landscape, audiences knew they were glimpsing a world they had never seen before.

Blade Runner showcased Harrison Ford in perhaps his most subtle yet affecting role. In fact, all the actors in the film — Rutger Hauer, the devastating Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah, and the unforgettable Joe Turkel — deliver such unique performances that the movie is a revelation in terms of acting alone.

Blade Runner Sequel

It is not unusual that an artist would choose to return to familiar territory. Walt Whitman edited his seminal Leaves of Grass his entire life. Composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart often returned to specific themes and melodies. Monet’s greatest inspiration was his flower garden at Giverny.

In the case of Ridley Scott, his two masterpieces are arguably Alien and Blade Runner. His return to the Alien world, Prometheus, will be out in just a few weeks. And the man from South Shields is already at work on the Blade Runner sequel.

Of course, there are few details at the moment. Some reports are suggesting that the story will take place some years after the conclusion of the first film. Empire Online states that the original writer, Hampton Fancher, is in talks to help pen the Blade Runner sequel. What does Scott have to say about the next Blade Runner? Not a lot at the moment. Speaking with The Daily Beast, he said this:

“Funny enough, I started my first meetings on the Blade Runner sequel last week. We have a very good take on it. And we’ll definitely be featuring a female protagonist.”

Few, but tantalizing details. The Blade Runner sequel may very well be the most anticipated Sci-Fi sequel since Luke found out who his father was.

Nvidia GeForce Grid (and other revolutionary technologies)

If iTunes and Netflix spelled the end of the DVD and perhaps the video store as we know it, then the Nvidia GeForce Grid may represent the same to the gaming console. This undoubtedly is not something Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and other console manufacturers would like to hear, but this may very well be the future.

The Nvidia GeForce Grid is a massive data center and supercomputer that solves some very big gaming issues. The first is the question of cross-platform gaming. In the past, you had to choose your platform. The console, the smartphone, the tablet, TV, and computer — they all required platform-specific games. With the Grid, gamers will be able to have a seamless cloud-based gaming experience on any device.

The second issue is that even if you are dealing with a single platform, the experience will still vary from user to user. For example, PC gamers are limited by their specific hardware, the version of Windows or Mac OS they are running, even the settings within the game. This complex range of systems and platforms has traditionally been one of the biggest stumbling blocks that developers face.

In his keynote address, Jen-Hsun Huang also stated that 4 out of 5 gamers do not bother to adjust the settings that might actually help alleviate some of these system SNAFUs. The Nvidia GeForce Grid will fix this by recognizing a user’s system specs and settings and adjust the game accordingly.

There are other cloud-based gaming companies out there, like OnLive and Gaikai, but none have the kind of hardware that Nvidia can provide to deal with issues of scalability, latency, and virtualization. Cloud-based services need to match one cloud game session with one graphics card. With the Nvidia GeForce Grid and the Nvidia VGX technology, a virtualized GPU board is created that enables one hundred users to share a single VGX board that has a true PC experience with GPU-accelerated VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure).

So, will this spell the end of the console as we know it? Not any time soon (probably). Regardless of if or when, manufacturers need to decide what the console represents, beyond the obvious fiscal value. Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo — they all have to figure what would be the necessity of keeping the console alive when the cloud provides so many obvious solutions and benefits.

Perhaps the console has to become a more personalized, fully-integrated center that recognizers the user and enhances the gaming experience. Otherwise, it will simply become just another medium, like the RCA Video Disc before it, the VCRs and the Betamaxes, and even the DVD player now.

For more information on the Nvidia GeForce Grid and GeForce Games, click on the links.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The French New Wave

When you hear of the French New wave, you immediately center on two names: Truffaut and Godard. Truffaut exploded onto the scene with his autobiographical film The 400 Blows and later the seminal Jules et Jim. Godard began his prolific career with the iconic film Breathless and Bande à part (think Tarantino’s and Lawrence Bender’s production company A Band Apart).

Godard and Truffaut’s films are as much a revelation today as they were a half century ago. The French New Wave marked a new direction in cinema. These intrepid, young French artists found their inspiration in the works of Japanese filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu and the Italian Neo-Realists, including Rossellini,Visconti, and Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 film Bicycle Thieves. And their visual language, especially in the case of Godard and Truffaut, was heavily influenced by Orson Welles’s underrated 1958 film Touch of Evil.

Where have you been Godard?

I hate to admit that when I heard that the 81-year-old Godard was making a new film, I was first a little shocked that he was still alive. Like the elder musicians in the documentary Buena Vista Social Club, time may have forgotten these aging masters, but many still have so much life and creativity left to share.

Goodbye to Language

Godard’s new film, Goodbye to Language, will be shot in 3D, a kind of art house Hugo. The French filmmaker expressed his desire to shoot in 3D back in 2010 when he first began talking about this new project. “Maybe I’ll even shoot my next film in 3D,” Godard told the Zurich newspaper Die SonntagsZeitung. “I always like it when new techniques are introduced. Because it doesn’t have any rules yet. And one can do everything.”

There are scant details about Goodbye to Language. In his own words, Godard states the following:

“It’s about a man and his wife who no longer speak the same language. The dog they take on walks then intervenes and speaks. How I’ll do it, I don’t yet know. The rest is simple.”

When it comes to Godard and his films, nothing is that simple.

Ghost Recon Alpha

The film follows a Ghost Recon leader into a remote, militarized area of Russia. The leader is in plain clothes and in the passenger’s seat next to a suspicious driver. The portly driver recognizes that the Ghost Recon leader is not a local. Never a good sign.

We soon see another Ghost Recon team member in camouflage, checking his high-performance night-vision binoculars. More vehicles. An ambush is about to take place. The truck is eventually pulled over by Russian soldiers. This is where it all goes south.

Ghost Recon Alpha ends where Future Soldier begins. The series, which is the brainchild of writer Tom Clancy, has the player in charge of a fictional squad of United States Army Special Forces operators from Company D, 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (5th SFG). There have been 11 Ghost Recon games to date in the series.

Ghost Recon Alpha was put together by Ubisoft and Little Minx, a company that is under Ridley Scott & Associates. It was directed by Academy Award winners Hervé de Crécy and François Alaux, who won an Oscar in 2010 for Logorama, and penned by screenwriter Timothy J. Sexton (Children of Men, Live from Baghdad).

A year ago, the French publisher launched Ubisoft Motion Pictures to adapt its game franchises into films. Besides the Prince of Persia series, which was brought to the big screen by Jerry Bruckheimer, Ubisoft has other hot titles that would make viable choices for big Hollywood productions, including Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell.

The Ghost Recon Alpha movie is in anticipation of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, launching on May 22 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and June 12 for PC.

Kisai Uzamaki Whirlpool Watch

Since Tokyoflash set up its Design Studio Blog in 2010, the Kisai Uzamaki whirlpool watch is the sixth non-commissioned design to go into production. The blog has numerous submissions, ranging from a very cool watch whose display changes depending on the angle it is viewed at to a ‘mood’-type watch whose interface looks like a microscopic close-up of an insect’s eyes.

The beautifully designed Kisai Uzamaki gets its name from the Japanese word for whirlpool. The acrylic lens has three concentric circles, each one descending toward the face of the watch, thus simulating a whirlpool. The conceptual design was voted one of the most popular designs by fans on the blog.

The Kisai Uzamaki whirlpool watch is made entirely of stainless steel and is available in black or silver with a blue or green display. The EL backlight can be initiated by pressing the crown, which illuminates the spirals for a short time, thus creating a night-time glow. The outer ring corresponds to the hour and the inner ring to the minutes.

Of course, this watch is not for those who want quick, precise timekeeping. Once you get used to the design, however, timekeeping becomes as easy as hands pointed at a number.

Design Challenge

If you are interested in submitting a design, Tokyoflash offers royalties to designers, which, depending on sales, could be quite lucrative. The Design Challenge is ongoing, so submissions can be made at any time. You do not even need to have a 3D rendering of your design, as Tokyoflash “have staff (who) can handle this part. Your idea is the most important factor.”

The designer, Firdaus Rohman, had this to say about his experience designing the watch:

“I learnt that the development of this watch was extremely challenging. The final product had to be adjusted to meet technical requirements but a million thanks to the Team at Tokyoflash who put in so much effort to technically harmonize the watch to match as closely as possible to the original design. The result is impressive!”

For more information on the Design Challenge, click on the following link.

The Kisai Uzamaki whirlpool watch retails for $129 (qualifies for free shipping) and can be purchased directly from the Tokyoflash website.

HelloFax

HelloFax is one of those ideas that makes you wonder why it has taken this long for someone to come up with it. And often, as is the case with CEO Joseph Walla, it takes a young intrepid individual to look at the way something has been done for decades and time immemorial and say, “Wait, why are we still doing things this way?”

“Our objective as a company is to end faxing everywhere for everyone,” says Walla in conversation with Mashable. “It’s so wasteful. It’s environmentally unfriendly, and it’s a waste of time.” Although HelloFax began simply as a faxing service, Walla and co-founder Neal O’Mara realized they were onto something when they added the ability to edit and sign documents inside a browser. This of course eliminates the need to print documents, sign them, and re-scan them so that they can make yet another cyber journey.

“We see faxing the way Google probably sees Android,” continues Walla. “It’s this way of expanding and protecting its core business which is search. Our core business is documents and document signing, and faxing is just this transmission method that hasn’t gone away.”

What HelloFax Will Mean for Businesses

HelloFax understands that their service is much broader than what it might mean for the average user. Of course, we all welcome the opportunity to save ourselves a trip to our local Staples or OfficeMax to send out a fax, but what it represents to businesses is even more significant.

Consider for a moment the sea of faxes sent around the world on a daily basis. Okay, scratch that. For those of you who work in an office, just think about the number of faxes the office receives in a day. For a society that prides itself on being ‘paperless’, we still have a lot of bad analog habits. And this is more than just convenience. If you factor in the amount of money companies spend on sending and receiving long-distance faxes, you begin to see the value of a service like HelloFax.

Enter Google Drive

HelloFax’s integration with Google Drive is seamless. All you need to do is sign in with a Gmail account and you are set to start faxing. In honour of their launch, HelloFax is giving 50 free faxes and unlimited e-signatures if you sign up through Google Drive. You will also be eligible to win a MacBook Air and 1TB of Google Drive Storage.

For more information on pricing and the full HelloFax service, head to the HelloFax website.

Shoe Charger for Your Smartphone

Anthony Mutua demonstrated this shoe charger technology at the Science and Innovation Week taking place at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi. Mutua’s patented design is able to harvest the energy that is generated while a person walks.

A specialized chip is inserted into the sole of a shoe, where energy in the form of electricity can be stored. Speaking with Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, Mutua says, “The electricity is generated by the act of walking and running, and can be harvested in two ways.”

One method has your phone or music player connected to the shoe via a thin extension cable so that the device can be charged instantaneously. The alternative is to charge the device immediately following the walk or run, using the energy harnessed in the chip’s crystals.

Because the development of the technology is fairly inexpensive, Mutua aims to mass produce the shoe charger (which might help bring down costs, for the developers and consumers). The cost per shoe would be about 3,800 Kenyan shillings or approximately $45 USD. The chips would also be transferrable so that you would not be limited to keeping them in your favorite pair of sneakers or pumps. Mutua also hopes to make it possible to charge more than one device at a time.

Mutua received funding from the National Council of Science and Technology to help develop and now commercialize the product. David Ngigi, a senior science secretary with the National Council for Science and Technology, says “We have been financing the development of ideas to prototype levels, but because most innovators lack funds for commercialisation, this innovations never reach the market. So we are changing this.”

This is not the first exercise/charging method for portable and mobile devices to be developed. The WeBike is a beautifully rendered exercise/charger that meshes smart energy and sustainability with functionality and design. However, at just over $13,000 a pop, the WeBike is a more suitable option for larger institutions, organizations, and companies.

There is no date yet given for when the shoe charger might hit the market, but it just goes to show, that whether in Kenya, the UK, Sweden, or Korea, not all great ideas come solely out of Cupertino.

A Billion Angry Birds

Gaming companies know that you are only good as you last title (pretty much the general rule of thumb in business, no?). Even the most storied developers can make one ‘wrong’ move and have fans turn on them like a Roman mob. And although Rovio’s Angry Birds has been downloaded over a billion times, the Finish company is not putting all their Easter eggs in one basket.

Meet the Amazing Alex

Gamasutra reported last week that Rovio has acquired the rights to Casey’s Contraptions from developers Mystery Coconut and Snappy Touch. The first game based on this acquisition will be Amazing Alex. Even with just a cursory glance, you can see the similarities between Casey and Alex.

Rovio’s VP of Franchise Development, Ville Heijari, stated that the company had acquired all rights for the brand. “Working with Noel [Llopis, Snappy Touch founder] and Miguel [A. Friginal, Mystery Coconut founder] has been fantastic, and this is a game that we all fell in love with from the first play,” said Heijari. However, it is not clear if the two developers behind Casey’s Contraption will be staying on to work with Rovio on the new title.

Rovio has only released a teaser site for Amazing Alex, but it will be an “approachable, fun and highly addictive take on the physics puzzler genre” with which Rovio fans are already familiar. It will also have some “educational elements” to it. The original Casey’s Contraptions app for the iPad has already been removed from the App Store in preparation for the release of the Amazing Alex, which is expected to hit the iOS market by the summer.

Rovio has barely had time to come up for air since the release of their mega hit Angry Birds in 2009. In their recently released financial report for 2011, the company stated that total revenue amounted to $106.3 million, which was driven by strong growth in game download activity and consumer product sales. Earnings before tax were $67.6 million or 64 percent of total revenue. Merchandising alone represented 30 percent of total revenue.

To stay on top of news updates on Amazing Alex, you can follow the Twitter page or like the Facebook page.

Instacanvas

The Instacanvas Gallery

A recent graduate of MuckerLab’s Startup Program, the L.A.-based Instacanvas launched with a very simple plan: provide Instagram users a venue to showcase and sell their work. Anyone who wants to buy selected prints can have them instantly printed on canvas, the other half of the startup’s name. The site already has upward of 30,000 galleries and over a million unique monthly viewers.

Photographs are printed on museum-quality canvas with a 1.5 inch-thick frame. Users can print their own photos or browse galleries of artists from around the world. Prints start at $39.95 for a 12″ x 12″ frame and go up to $79.99 for 20″ x 20″ canvas. Instacanvas pays artists 20 percent of the sale, although you are not paid out until you have earned over $100 (checks come via PayPal). In order to keep track of sales, your Instacanvas gallery will display gallery views, number of prints sold, and total earnings.

CEO Matt Munson explains the company’s origins:

“It started with the idea that there are these billions and billions of photos being created every day on Instagram and other social media platforms, and some of us on the team had an interest in selling artwork, and some of us had talked about buying it. And as we looked around all we were seeing on the walls of our apartment was mass-produced artwork that we’d bought at Ikea or Target — things we really had no personal connection to. So, it seemed like it may be interesting to facilitate the ability for Instagram users to sell their artwork and to turn it into a physical item that someone could hang in their home.”

The Purists

Instacanvas is yet another reason for purists to deride the smartphone platform, which is not to say that most photographers are against the medium. What many purists comment on is the fact that applications like Instagram and Hipstamatic take away much of the craft and technique from the art form. The idea is that anyone with an iPhone and a nifty app can turn almost any photograph into a deceptive work of art.

But this does not alter the fact that what makes a photograph resonate remains the same: subject, composition, equipment, and, yes, technique. All that these applications have done is leveled the playing field a little. Now artists and photographers do not require expensive equipment, dark rooms, and the support of a New York gallery. All they need is a smartphone, a free app, and an Instacanvas account.

For more information on Instacanvas, head to the website.

“It’s Not Easy Being Me”

Celebrities don’t have it easy. Anonymity is a luxury they do not have. Paparazzi follow them wherever they go. Their every indiscretion (real or fabricated) ends up in the tabloids. Sure, there are the perks — the accolades, the adoration, the hedonistic lifestyles — but being famous is no free ride (well, not always).

An area where a lot of celebrities are starting to venture into is the realm of social media. Twitter, Facebook, Mobli — celebs are all over the social Web. However, many are still a little camera shy when it comes to social media. Enter WhoSay.

WhoSay What?

Want to see James Franco blowing up an inflatable doll? Or Tom Hanks prepping for a film? A picture of Zooey Deschanel’s Bundt cake? They want you to see this, too, but until now, celebrities did not have a lot of control over the photos that end up on the Internet. Although this continues to be true, there is a website and application that is changing all that: WhoSay.

WhoSay is a social media website for the stars — only for stars (and some minor celebrities). Yes, WhoSay membership is by invitation only. This means that you or I, unless we do something noteworthy, will not be invited to use this service. And really, what’s wrong with that? If a celeb wants to pose an embarrassing picture of themselves on the Internet just like we do, there should be a mechanism for them to do so where they still maintain some measure of control (all WhoSay pictures are tagged with a copyright symbol as well as the name of the celebrity who posted it).

WhoSay is based out of Los Angeles and was developed almost two years ago at Creative Artists Agency. WhoSay has 570 million social media fans across Twitter and Facebook and gets, according to CEO Steve Ellis, “multiple tens of millions of page views per month.” Ellis also assures that “this will never be a consumer application.”

WhoSay is not restricted to A-list actors, however. There are Wimbledon champs, champion polo players, fantasy writers, and Iron Chefs using the service. There also does not seem to be any specific criteria for admission, so who knows — perhaps we still have a shot for an invite.

For more information on WhoSay, head to the website.