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AI uses traditional Chinese techniques to create 'mindscapes'
The Chinese painting style called Xieyi literally means “writing ideas,” and marries the freehand techniques of calligraphy, line drawing and shading. It would seem odd, then, to let a machine interpret such a human-oriented artistic style. But that’s exactly what Hong Kong artist Victor Wong has done with a painting robot called A.I. Gemini
Recommended Reading: Netflix has a dud in Marvel's 'Iron Fist'
'Iron Fist' Isn't Just Racially Uncomfortable, It's Also a Boring Show Kwame Opam, The Verge Netflix's run of generating buzz with its Marvel original series has come to an end. The fourth show, Iron Fist, debuts next week and the reviews are already here. The prevailing sentiment is that the show suffers not only from appropriation and a lack of diversity, but that it's also just plain boring to watch. The Verge details the show's storytelling failures along the way. And yes, you should expect spoilers.
INKredible for iPad is an excellent note-taking app
I wasn't sure exactly what INKredible was all about when I first sat down to use it. It turns out that this free app (with in-app purchases) is a really useful note-taker for writing directly on your iPad to make easily edited notes. After launching INKredible for iPad the first time, you're greeted with a quick tutorial, and then you are presented with a blank, distraction-free page. Controls and buttons are visible with a swipe. Your pen strokes are vector graphics, so print-outs look truly detailed without stair-stepping jaggies. At first, using your finger (or stylus if you prefer) seems a bit awkward, but after a couple of minutes, it feels completely natural. The app has a feature called "automatic palm rejection" that works in stylus mode so your palm or wrist can be on the screen and not mess up what you are writing. A stylus is not required in stylus mode -- you can still use your finger. There are status indicators at the top of the screen to let you know what mode you are using. Sketches are easy if you are so inclined, so it's a nice app for creating simple drawings, although there are no built-in shapes. Everything is drawn freehand. Fortunately, there are unlimited undo and redo options. Pages are flipped by swiping. You can highlight text or a drawing and drag it elsewhere on the page or delete it. The app supports the iOS clipboard, and you can export via email or as a PDF. While the app is free, there are three reasonably priced add-ons each available at US$0.99: a Calligraphy Pen, a Ballpoint and a Wet Brush. INKredible is a very nice app, and if you take notes or like to draw, I suggest you download the free version -- it may be enough to meet your needs. My handwriting looked much better in this app than it does on paper. INKredible requires iOS 6 or later. It's iPad only, and works in portrait or landscape mode.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Scribe
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-sixth in a series of roleplaying guides about how to roleplay various aspects of the lore and gaming elements of WoW. What is inscription anyways? I mean, we all know that it's the newest profession, added in Wrath of the Lich King, and it lets you make these "glyphs" which allow you to modify or improve your various class abilities in interesting ways. In gaming terms all that makes perfect sense, but when it comes to telling a story with your character, there are a lot of details missing. Technically, a glyph is a character or symbol, like a heiroglyph or a pictograph, which we can see to a certain extent when we click on the glyph and put it into our in-game glyph interface -- it looks pretty cool with all those circles and lines and stuff. But what does it really mean? Are you pasting these symbols into a book of some sort? Are they getting magically tattooed onto your skin somewhere? And where did inscription come from to begin with? Has it been around in Azeroth all along somehow, or was it some sort of ancient knowledge only discovered recently, around the time in the Warcraft lore when the Wrath of the Lich King begins? If it was discovered, then who discovered it and how? How exactly does a scribe learn these glyphs? Does he or she pore over ancient tomes that haven't been read in thousands of years, trying to decipher ancient texts? Or is the art and magic of it more in the artistic calligraphy of it rather than any difficulty in discovering or interpreting the symbols themselves? There are far more questions than answers when it comes to roleplaying a scribe, and to a large extent each roleplayer is free to choose his or her own approach. What follows is the just one suggestion as to how you might work out a plausible solution -- please feel free to read it and improve upon it in whatever way you like.
Touchscreen calligraphy tablet concept gives linguists hope
Ah, now this is the spirit. Rather than concocting yet another handheld tablet that's good for nothing more than checking email and wowing onlookers, designers Soonkyu Jang, Chung Lee and Yonghuk Yim have come together to put linguists on the front burner once again. This here touchscreen concept is a calligraphy board that enables you to practice your stroke without ruining reams of paper and blasting through countless bottles of ink. Initially, at least, the board would only come loaded with teaching tools for the Korean language, but you know Leapfrog could hook this thing up with Lithuanian, Maltese and Slovak should it ever get involved.
Calligraphy Training brushes away our doubts
You might not remember the footnote mention of a Calligraphy Training (non)game for the DS -- it was two years ago, after all -- but some more news has recently surfaced about the title. Set to release in Japan on March 13th, this training game is aimed at teaching folks how to properly draw Japanese characters. One of the coolest things about this nongame is that it will ship with a special brush stylus. That alone has us starry-eyed in love with Calligraphy Training, but that's not even all the game has to offer. Apparently, the game has a multiplayer mode that lets up to six players compete over who's calligraphy is the most accurate. We're sure that's a better idea in theory than in practice, but it's still a nice feature.Game Watch also reports that there's a quest mode included in Calligraphy Training, as you'll be helping a wanderer to perfect 3099 different characters. Not bad for a simple little calligraphy game, Nintendo.Before you think "neat" and then forget about this game for the rest of time, you can head on over to its official website to watch some video footage, should you feel so inclined.[Via Modojo]
