Probably one of the few videos sites that doesn't seem to make changes to their site. Granted Vimeo is a great site. It's always about the video. Ads and comments are always at the end of their list. When the annouced an new and improved Vimeo it made me wonder how could they make it better? Have they improved they're already great codec for they're video player? Have they sped up the site searches and downloads?
Even though I don't know how it'll be, since it's open to a select amount of Vimeo users. All is pointing to a more expansion of just not the desktop experience, but mobile as well ask the living room experience. Let hope that 2012 will bring us more great shorts and animation for all to see.
If you haven't noticed, the development of Gingerbread on the HP Touchpad has come to a screeching halt. Most of the Roms (Xron, CM7) haven't been updated in a while. So what does it all mean? Well the developers are starting to move onto next Android OS.
If you haven't known, Ice Cream Sandwich was made to be used for both phones and tablets. Gingerbread on the other hand was only made for phones. HP Touchpad users will be able to have a true tablet OS (aside from webOS).
It seems that the CyanogenMOD are the furthest along. It seems everything works except for the front camera. Wifi, video and touch all work. The only downside is that hardware video acceleration doesn't work which is a minus. As far as I know there are three people tweeting their progress. I'm not sure if they belong to the CyanogenMOD team or not, but it's good to see all this progress from around the world. Check out their twitter:
@yjwong
Looks like there's another video site on the rise. The Creators Project is a new (well technically a toddler) site that focuses more on technology and how it influences music, film, gaming and art. In this site we get a gilmpse of the creators of said pieces and how they manage to create something as simple as electronic sounds and make some compelling music with. Others how they used technology to create illusion. It's a very different site from Youtube or Vimeo. While one is about views, the other is about the piece, the Creators Project is about the person behind the piece and their thought process.
The Creators Projects gives us interviews and behind the scenes. The best thing about this site is that it doesn't focus on the big acts. It focuses on the truely innovative artists, musicians. It's not limited to people in the US either. You get videos from all over the world from the UK to all the way to the east Asian countries.
In theme with Syfy to bring old classics to life with either sequels or prequals, yesterday they showed that there is still interests in classics being retold. In Neverland we get the beginnings of the Peter Pan saga. What Neverland is, what Peter and Hook's relationship is and how they became apart.
The visuals is a nice contrast. It's not the full blown brights colors that we saw in Disney's Peter Pan or the movie Hook. Here we get a blend of both dark and light. The doesn't have a big budget since it is a TV miniseries on a cable network. Set designs are great, the CG is great for a television show and way better then what we usually get from Syfy's movies.
I'm looking forward to see what happens in the 2nd episode of this miniseries tonight on SyFy.
Sometimes it's not all about visuals, just about the story. Here we get short that minimal in visuals, but great in concept. The short starts with a blocky character that is pretty in a cubical room and draws a rectangle on a piece of paper. He does until the stack of paper is finished. When the clock is at 12:00, they all stop and you see that the last piece of paper has it's rectangular shape fading. Everything is timed perfectly at a single beat. The strokes, the opening of the marker, everything. For some reason the main character drops his marker. This total out of his and everybody's character.
In the mean time we get cuts of a person playing the drums. We don't know what's going on. Later we find out it's his heart. I'm not sure what the short was saying, but from what I'm guessing it's that we're not robots. Our souls/"heart" is what makes us different and alive. Well, that my gist of it. I guess the meaning of the story is open to interpetation.
So did you check out that Batman costume that someone made? It's looks exactly like the one in the Batman Arkham Asylum video game. The creators made sure to stay very true to the source with have the right colors, minute details, and just overall coolness. Even the cowl moves when your head turns. Maybe they should use this in Batman Begins. This suit is much better looking than the movie ones. Check out more at the TheEffectsLab forums.
