On The Desktop is devoted to information of interest to those working in the fields of TV, Film, and Multimedia. It includes commentary, news, tips, publication links, announcements, and other resources that have recently come across the editor's desktop.
UN debut for $100 laptop for poor. (BBC News) A prototype of a cheap and robust laptop for pupils has been welcomed as an "expression of global solidarity" by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The green machine was showcased for the first time by MIT's Nicholas Negroponte at the UN net summit in Tunis. He plans to have millions of $100 machines in production within a year.
The laptops are powered with a wind-up crank, have very low power consumption and will let children interact with each other while learning. Read More.
The Net Generation Comes to College! A recent (2005) online study of college students at Ball State University found the following:
97 percent had a cell phone
68 percent sent text messages with their cell phones
14 percent sent instant messages with their cell phones
50 percent listed instant messaging as their top choice in communicating
44 percent said they couldn't live at college without instant messaging
66 percent log on to instant messaging programs several times a day
56 percent spend an hour or more daily sending instant messages
Centre frees youngsters from web of addiction. (China Daily) When Cui Nan realised his parents had tricked him, that instead of taking him to a new job, they were delivering him to a hospital for Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD), not for one second did he imagine their white lie could turn out to be true.
But just 15 days' later, the 25-year-old from Hebei Province became a paid volunteer at the IAD centre at the Central Hospital of the Beijing Military Command, working as an assistant to the centre's psychological consultant. Read More.
Bad News for Paper Boys. (CBC) Americans are abandoning their newspapers, sending the industry into the biggest slump in years, new circulation statistics show.
Average weekday circulation at U.S. newspapers fell 2.6 per cent during the six month-period ending in September, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported Monday.
Sunday circulation also fell, showing a decline of 3.1 per cent in the six months to September, according to an analysis of the data by the Newspaper Association of America.
Daily newspapers in the U.S. have suffered from declining circulation for years, but this drop in readership is sharper than in the past. Some industry observers are calling it the worst slump in years. Read More.
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Fruitcake Parody Songs Online. The Portland, Oregon based Borders Perrin Norrander has unveiled a new advertising campaign for the Oregon State Lottery, touting their new holiday scratch-it ticket, Fruitcake Cash.
The campaign, created by art director Jeremy Boland and copywriter Eric Terchila, includes 60- and 30- second television and radio commercials that will run through the end of the year, as well as a website. |
The spots spoof traditional late night music compilation infomercials by pseudo-selling "The Spirit of Fruitcake Volume Four."
The fruitcake parody songs were so well received by the Lottery, the agency produced a complete CD including full-length versions of the songs featured in the commercials. The CDs will be distributed to local radio stations for promotional use. The songs, composed and produced by Asche & Spencer, can also be downloaded on the campaign's website, www.spiritoffruitcake.com. Have fun listening to songs about the gift nobody wants but it keeps on being given. |
Blind gamers get their own titles. (BBC News) Visually impaired people are now increasingly able to join in the video gaming fun thanks to an ever-expanding range of audio games.
More games are being made which do not rely on sight. They even have the potential to turn into new gaming genres in their own right which could start to appeal to sighted gamers.
But, compared with the millions of copies of PC and console games sold every year, the market for audio games is still relatively tiny.
"My guess is that about 3,000 audio or blind-accessible games are sold a year," said Richard van Tol who jointly runs Audio Games.Net, an information site for fans and developers.
"Loads of blind people have computers but not many of them know about audio games."
There are currently about 50 commercially available titles on the market, with perhaps three times as many freeware and shareware options. Read More.
Folkstreams provides online documentaries. (Scout Report) To say that finding certain obscure documentaries can be difficult is quite an understatement. Fortunately, finding documentary films about American folk or roots culture just got much easier, courtesy of the good people at Folkstreams.net. On this website, visitors can view dozens of very compelling documentaries about such persons as John E. "Frail" Joines, a master tale teller from Wilkes County, North Carolina and singer-faith healer Fannie Bell Chapman. Visitors looking for specific films can search the entire website for such viewing material, along with searching program transcripts, images, and essays. One rather intriguing film that should not be missed is "Hundred and Two Mature", which provides a portrait of retired businessman Harry Lieberman. The site also contains an RSS feed and a worthwhile blog which allows visitors to leave audio feedback.
Google Video and ATAS Foundation archives. (Cynopsis ) Google and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation have launched a joint effort to make the Foundation's Archive of American Television interviews available for free viewing on Google Video. Starting this week, the first 75 interviews (out of a total 284 interviews) are available at http://video.google.com The archive includes and extraordinary list of interviews with actors, producers, show creators, writers, artists, journalists and directors from the last 75 years of TV including Alan Alda, Sid Caesar, Diahann Carroll, Ossie Davis, Phyllis Diller, Michael J. Fox, Andy Griffith, Robert Guillaume, Florence Henderson, Angela Lansbury, William Shatner, Dick Van Dyke, Betty White, and James Garner. Producer/Creators on the list include Dick Wolf, Steven Bochco, Dick Clark, Sherwood Schwartz, Norman Lear, Grant Tinker, David Wolper, and Carl Reiner. And Directors/Executives such as James Burrows, John Frankenheimer, Bob Mackie, Gene Reynolds and Ted Turner.
Google Print. (Google) The world's libraries are a tremendous source of knowledge, much of which has never been available online. One of the goals for Google Print is to change that and has taken a step toward meeting it: making available a number of public domain books that were never subject to copyright or whose copyright has expired. Google is able to show every page because these books are in the public domain. (For books not in the public domain the company shows only small snippets of the work unless the publisher or copyright holder has given permission to show more.)
Independent Lens: Interactive. (Scout Report) Over the past few years, Independent Lens has produced a number of well-received documentaries that have aired on PBS and other places. They have also created some very nice websites in an attempt to enhance the viewing experience of their programs. The Independent Lens: Interactive site offers some additional web-original projects for the interested public. Some of these features include Beyond the Fire, which introduces visitors to the stories of fifteen teenagers living in the US, who have survived war in seven different regions. One very compelling highlight of the site is the Off the Map feature. Here visitors can learn about the visionary art produced by a selection of persons working in various media, such as bottle caps, matchsticks, and chewing gum. For those looking for something with a unique perspective on the world and its inhabitants, this website will definitely bring a smile to their eye.
Interview Peter Friedman (BrainTrustDV) Peter Friedman has been making documentaries since 1984. He has received the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, the Prix Italia and the Prix Europa. He has been nominated for an Emmy and an Academy Award.
Friedman's new documentary MANA--BEYOND BELIEF, co-directed by Roger Manley, is a symphony of tightly controlled HD images which convey various manifestations of belief throughout the world. In an era of self-consciously amateurish documentary making, this formal, globetrotting essay contains images so elegant and that it sometimes seems decadent by contrast.
"I suppose in some way we were reacting against the lack of mastery of visual language--and even of basic craftsmanship--in so many documentaries, including the box office hits. There are huge numbers of documentaries now, most of which are not very good. High-quality anything is always in a small minority, but when so many mediocre films make a big splash thanks only to their trendy subject or flashy style, it's the cultural equivalent of air pollution." Read Interview.
Interview with Walter Murch. (NPR) Walter Murch has worked on The English Patient, The Godfather and other films. In this interview you'll hear of him discuss what he does as a film and sound editor. on NPR's All Things Considered. This online interview includes some interesting personal descriptions of what he does as a film and sound editor and why.
Documentary "Mojados, Into The Night" (Apple News) In the winter of 2003 filmmaker Tommy Davis followed four men across the United States-Mexico border for his first documentary, "Mojados, Into The Night." He marched with them for four days and nights across 120 miles of desert, 85 pounds of batteries and videotapes strapped to his
back. "I wanted to show what these people go through to get into our country," he says. "I'd never done a documentary before, but I knew it was something I had to do."
Davis released the film in March 2004 at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, where it won the Audience Award. It took the Best Documentary award at the Arizona International Film Festival the next month.
View clips from the award-winning movie online-and learn more about his production process using Mac computer technology.
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World Heritage Tour. The mission of this unique site is the making of a documentary image bank with panoramic pictures and interactive virtual reality movies for all sites registered as World Heritage by the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
The site provides a place to disseminate these virtual reality movies for documentation and promotion of the World Heritage. Visit Site. |
The Interactive Khronos Projector. The Khronos Projector is an interactive-art installation allowing people to explore pre-recorded movie content in an entirely new way. A classic video-tape allows a simple control of the reproducing process (stop, backward, forward, and elementary control on the reproduction speed). Modern digital players add little more than the possibility to perform random temporal jumps between image frames.
The goal of the Khronos Projector is to go beyond these forms of exclusive temporal control, by giving the user an entirely new dimension to play with: by touching the projection screen, the user is able to send parts of the image forward or backwards in time. By actually touching a deformable projection screen, shaking it or curling it, separate "islands of time" as well as "temporal waves" are created within the visible frame. This is done by interactively reshaping a two-dimensional spatio-temporal surface that "cuts" the spatio-temporal volume of data generated by a movie. See SIGGRAPH slide show. Best viewed with high-speed internet.
Chance Encounters - An Interactive Site. The site, "Chance Encounters" takes you on a journey into the creative world of JeanPaulGaultier.com, featuring worldwide leading artists. Don't miss the groundbreaking manga film "The Fragrance Alchemist" telling the story of a child creating the perfume of his dreams. How the story goes is up to you. The Manga Maker allows you to personalize the film and share the completed version with friends.
Interactive Architect Studio 3D. (Scout Report) When one thinks of the vast number of influential architects the world has seen during the past centuries, one is reminded of Dies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and of course, that Master from the Midwest, Frank Lloyd Wright. It's hard to imagine that a website would be able to conjure up the spirit of this famous and controversial architect, but it does just that. With the assistance of a user-friendly interface, the Architect Studio 3D site allows users to build a model home for a number of clients and their very specific needs. With a small icon of the master residing in the bottom of the left-hand corner of the screen, visitors will get the chance to create their own building for one of these clients, and then submit it to a design gallery for consideration by others. For those visitors who may be less familiar with the world of architecture, there is a handy section titled "About Architecture". Here they will find a glossary of terms that provide brief descriptions of such important concepts and design elements as site, wall, client, roof, and exterior material. Of course, no such site would be complete without a brief biography of the man himself, and as such, a nice overview of his work and life is provided here as well.
Exploratorium: Digital Library (Scout Report) Over the past decade, the Scout Report has reported on many of the websites created by the Exploratorium, and as each one is truly a delight, this one was a welcome find as well. Their Digital Library site brings together digital media and digitized museum materials related to interactive exhibits and scientific phenomena, such as images and a host of educational activities. Two good places to start exploring are the Asset Archive and the Learning Resources Collection. In the Asset Archive, visitors can find many of these materials quite easily, and they include demonstrations of physical properties of objects and images that deal with biological exploration. The Learning Resources Collection is a resource for K-12 educators that will surely delight both due to its broad ambit and the quality of the materials. The site is rounded out by a number of special collections, such as the Microscope Imaging Station, which contains media created from living organisms. Read More.
Introducing Aperture (Apple) The first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers, Aperture, delivers an advanced and incredibly fast RAW-focused workflow that makes working with RAW images as easy as working with JPEGs. Its unique compare and select tools let you quickly and easily edit a large photo shoot, whittling down thousands of photos into a handful of top picks. And it offers stellar photo management tools scalable enough to handle thousands of projects.
Built-in nondestructive RAW image editing allows you to perfect your images without fear of damaging or overwriting digital "masters." And Aperture provides you with all the tools you need to create stunning prints, customized contact sheets, beautiful bound books, and websites as outstanding as your own photos. Read More.
JAlbum Free web photo album software. This free gallery software makes web albums of your digital images. With JAlbum, no extra software is needed to view the albums, just your web browser.
Unlike "server side" album scripts, JAlbum albums can be served from a plain web server without scripting support. You can also share your albums on CD-ROM. JAlbum runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux.
With JAlbum you have full control of the look of the generated album, not just color theme and basic layout, still making an album is just a matter of drag and drop + a button click if you prefer to use one of the many existing looks. JAlbum will process your images, make index pages and slide show pages and even upload the final album to the Internet for your friends to see.
3D Photo Browser 8.3 ((Scout Report) No doubt there are many users seeking a new way to view their own images, video clips, and 3D files. Those persons may wish to take a look at the latest version of the 3D browser which allow them to view high-quality thumbnails and also edit their own images and videos at their leisure. The program also offers a number of other options, such as the ability to create slide shows and stereo images. This application is compatible with computers running Windows 98 or newer. Read More.
What's on that music CD, anyway? (MSNBC) Lurking on some music disks is the recording industry's latest attempt to stem the tide of music piracy -- software that limits the amount of times music CDs can be copied.
Nine months ago, Sony began deploying copy-limiting software on about 20 albums. Anyone who dropped one of these CDs into a PC was forced to install a special music player to hear the tunes. But with that software came another program designed to silently watch the user for illicit CD copying. The program, produced by UK firm First 4 Internet Ltd., went unnoticed for months -- in part because it employed a special cloaking technology that made it invisible to most users. Read More.
Texas Sues Sony Over CD Software (CBS News) The state sued Sony BMG Music Entertainment under its new anti-spyware law, saying anti-piracy technology the company slipped into music CDs leaves computers vulnerable to hackers.
The lawsuit is over the so-called XCP technology that Sony had added to more than 50 CDs to restrict to three the number of times a single disc could be copied. Read More.
Sony's long-term rootkit CD woes (BBC) Sony BMG, the world's second largest record label, has for the past three weeks been the subject of a corporate embarrassment that rivals earlier public relations nightmares involving tampered Tylenol and contaminated Perrier.
While in the short-term one of the world's best-known brands has suffered enormous damage, the longer-term implications are even more significant - a fundamental re-thinking of policies toward digital locks known as technological protection measures (TPMs). Read More.
Cool idea.. I wish I had thought of it first! (Scout Report) "In what the Scout Report dubbed as the 'ideal story' for a Friday, take a look at the The Million Dollar Homepage. It’s not a joke, it’s actually an inspiration. It reminds one that 'creativity' isn’t always in the design, but in the concept itself. Take this site, for example. The idea is simple. Sell a pixel on the site for a dollar, with the goal being to raise $1,000,000. Sounds crazy, right? Who in their right mind would pay for such a thing? Such a question is a big reason why it’s working. The site has already raised $500,000 in just over a month, and has gathered huge amounts of press. Sometimes, the more crazy the idea… the better it works. Creativity is ingenuity so much as it is anything else."
National Geographic: WildCam Africa. (Scout Report) In 1985, Pete Le Roux dreamed of a wildlife reserve in Africa. Twenty years later it is a successful reality, as the pond he built from an old irrigation system is alive with the sounds of elephants and impalas. Visitors to this site established by National Geographic Magazine can view "Pete’s Pond" via a live webcam offered here. Of course, that’s just one of the many highlights that visitors may enjoy. They may also want to read through the weblog authored by researchers Jeanette Selier and Villiers Steyn. Here they post highlights of their work, complemented by a selection of high-quality images of the animals they are studying, such as the African wild cat. Those who are cartographically minded may want to take a look at the map of the Mashatu Game Reserve, which is home to Pete’s Pond and its thousands of different animal residents. Overall, this is a fine educational site, and one that warrants several visits.
Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party. (Scout Report) This new addition to Library of Congress' American Memory makes 448 images culled from approximately 2,650 photographs in the Records of the National Woman's Party, and held by the Manuscript Division at Library of Congress, available online. The National Woman's Party was the militant wing of the suffrage movement, whose members engaged in public protests, such as picketing, pageants, parades, hunger strikes, and demonstrations, often resulting in arrests and imprisonment, all to bring publicity to the cause of women's right to vote. Pictures reflecting this broad range of tactics, dating from 1875 to 1938 (the majority from 1913 and 1922) are showcased at the website. The gallery entitled Suffrage Prisoners presents portraits of roughly 60 National Woman's Party activists who were jailed for their role in suffrage protests
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