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Sony's new cameraphone CMOS jams bigger gear into the same space (video)
Sony's done gone and developed a new back-illuminated CMOS designed to improve the state of your casual camerawork. Traditional units mount a merged pixel-sensor and circuit on a supporting substrate -- the innovation here is to produce the two separately and layer them without any additional material. This makes manufacturing easier and without a mount, you're able to lever-in bigger kit into the same space. It's also packing HDR Movie, which like the still-image version, will produce better moving pictures in tricky light. An eight-megapixel version will ship to cellphone producers in March, with a 13-megapixel edition following in June and if Sony's really successful, it might earn enough to buy a copy of Photoshop rather than producing release images in MS Paint.
Wacom Inkling digital sketch pen hands-on (video)
Wacom's new digital pen can't help but stand out from the competition. It's a specialized device that makes no apologies for catering to graphics enthusiasts at the expense of casual note-takers. Moreover, it does something pretty amazing: instead of just turning your sketches into simple bitmaps, it can also export them as vector-based images with multiple layers, which means they can be directly used as the basis for more complex and final art. The Inkling will cost £150 ($230 converted) when it reaches European stores in October, but in the meantime we've got some early hands-on impressions right after the break. %Gallery-133144% %Gallery-133182%
Layar Player lets AR loose on iPhone apps
Layar's been the go-to platform for augmented reality on Android since 2009, bringing you the useful, the creepy, and the just plain weird -- and now it's unleashing the beast on iOS, again (it's already available as a dedicated app). The Netherlands-based company just launched Layar Player, a free tool that allows anyone -- with a little developer know-how -- to create their very own AR iPhone app. Accompanying the announcement are three brand new Layar Player-enabled apps: the Bing-sponsored Snowboard Hero, which incorporates a special AR mode for collecting points; a contractor locator called Layer Trade; and VerbeterdeBuurt, an app that acts as an AR community bulletin board. The company's press release touts the "democratization of augmented reality," and while we can get behind their AR-for-alll message, we've already seen Layar used in ways that give us the willies. Don't get us wrong, we're still excited about the endless AR possibilities, but we're hoping, at least for now, that iPhone app developers can keep the AR monsters at bay.
Fennec (a.k.a. Firefox Mobile) goes alpha for Android and Nokia N900
Well, it looks like you can finally get rid of that less-than-stable pre-alpha release of Fennec (a.k.a. Firefox Mobile) for Android -- Mozillla has just released the full alpha release for not only Android (2.0 and later), but the Nokia N900 as well. The big news with this release is an increase in "performance and responsiveness to user actions" (always a good thing), as well as two new features dubbed "Electrolysis" and "Layers," the former of which lets the browser interface run in a separate process from the one rendering web content, while the latter promises to "greatly improve performance in graphic intensive actions like scrolling, zooming, animations and video." You'll also get full support for add-ons, and Firefox Sync built into the browser to let you have a continuous experience as you move between devices. Hit up the link below for the download link, and for a quick video overview of what's in store.
First Look: Layers for iPhone, natural media painting app
The very talented Ben Gotow has just released a brand new iPhone app called Layers, his third now after Mathomatic and NetSketch (iTunes links). Layers, not to be confused with the innovative screen capture application on the Mac desktop, is a natural media painting app for the iPhone. Stating the obvious, it incorporates Photoshop-like layers, as well as a variety of brush and color selection options, panning, zooming and the ability to export your masterpieces as JPG or Photoshop PSD files (layers included). I gave it a run-through and am extremely impressed with the implementation. I am no painter, a fact hinted at by my not posting any screenshots of my own work. However, I'm adept enough with digital art to recognize that this is a very intuitive interface. Manipulating layers is done in a side view with layer previews, allowing a tap-and-drag re-ordering and one-tap addition and subtraction of layers. I especially appreciate the 30 levels of undo history, making it simple to backtrack errant swipes. The application allows for sophisticated artistic expression beyond mere "finger painting," and, with a little practice, you can create some complex imagery. The layering functionality even allows for photo compositing, using multiple layers with photos and the eraser tool to remove portions of the top layers. This is more in line with my personal skill set, so I had some fun with this. Tight erasing can be a little tricky when you have big fingers which are hard to see around, but the undo functionality and some dedication make it perfectly feasible.
All the World's a Stage: The core layer
This week's edition of All the World's a Stage concludes a three-part series on the layers of social interaction in roleplaying. Next week we will continue looking at how to roleplay one's professions. Good friends are stars in the sky of life, and especially as roleplayers, friends are absolutely essential to our hobby – our whole reason for playing WoW involves creative social interactions. Even if you never really know who a roleplaying partner is in real life, just roleplaying with him or her for a few minutes can create a memorable experience. Previously, we discussed how to roleplay when you first meet someone, as well as what to do once you've gotten to know them a bit more. The key in each case is remembering that roleplaying is a social experience first, and a creative one second – your character must conform to the rules of good socialization before he or she can succeed creatively. Even though at first this seems more limiting, in the end it will be more liberating, because through sociable characters, you can collaboratively create stories and experiences in a way that no other form of storytelling can. In fact, the closer you become to your group of friends, the more the possibilities bloom. The core concept characterizations you used to use to entertain strangers are still useful, but here they can take on a deeper meaning. You still listen to your friends and adapt your own character to theirs, but now they will listen to you, and adapt their characters to yours. The closer your friendships are, the more your exploration and creativity are truly mutual and cooperative, and the more you can try out new things that you've never done before.
All the World's a Stage: The surface layer
This installment of All the World's a Stage diverges from the series of roleplaying guides about how to roleplay your race, class, and professions, in order to have a closer look at different layers of social interaction in roleplaying, and see in which ways you can tailor your character for each one.So there you are -- you've got the coolest, funniest, most heartbreaking character idea on your whole RP server. You login, create your new masterpiece, and start leveling up... But as time goes by, you realize you have a problem. No one seems interested in you! You may be having trouble meeting people who actually roleplay on a roleplaying server, or the roleplayers you run into may not realize how truly awesome your character is. Let's say you even join an RP guild and try to impress your guildmates with your witty "/guild" chatter, only to discover that they're seem mildly interested at best. What's a roleplaying genius to do? It would be tempting to think that you are not such a great roleplayer as you think, or that your character idea isn't as fantastic as you had hoped, but the truth might lie in something far less depressing: You may have created a character with true depth, yet lacking established friends to explore that depth with, your character has no way of showing it. Making such friends is never easy if you are too deep for them -- they expect some sort of interesting surface-level interaction first. Likewise, if a character is all silly gimmicks designed to entertain strangers, without anything deeper for potential close friends to enjoy, he or she may seem like an attention grabber, entertaining in the short term, but mostly shallow in the end. Choosing the right kind of surface-layer character traits to suit your personality and social needs is essential if you want to have a good experience in roleplaying.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Rogue
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-second in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. Rogues are the masters of shadows. While two other classes actually use the shadow as a source of magical power, it's the Rogue who can potentially live and breathe the shadow, and make it an essential part of who he or she is what he or she does."The Shadow" as a concept, could mean a number of different things to your character, however -- anything from literal shadows that he or she might disappear in, to underground networks, knowledge of the street, and secret societies few others know about. An advanced rogue might even possess an intimate relationship with "the Shadow" as a mystical force he can wrap around himself in as a kind of cloak, or step through the shadows to appear behind his enemy in a flash.In fact, your rogue may not even use the term "shadow" at all, and may simply think of himself as a simple bandit, thief, pickpocket, detective, scout, special agent, assassin, bank-robber, or even a venture capitalist. In fact, the Rogue class is suitable as a broad catch-all class for a number of seemingly unrelated character types, from a court jester to a penniless tourist.
How to create your own Toast DVD menu style
A while back reader Michael Coyle was nice enough to send us this write-up on how to customize Leopard's Guest account, and just recently he sent along another guide that you might not need right away, but will come in handy when you really need it. He's got an in-depth look at how to create a custom menu style when authoring a DVD in Toast Titanium 8.As he says, the default styles that come with the application are a little less than formal, so if you want to create a professional menu for the DVD that fits your needs, this will show you how. As far as I can tell, the style is just a Photoshop file with various layers for the DVD to use as a menu (selected, frames for videos and the border around them, and so on); so the trick is finding the right layers to edit and leaving everything else alone (so nothing breaks).If you've got some DVD authoring in your future, and plan to use Toast to get it all done, there you go.
Lair off-screen trailer looked good at GDC
Stills and screenshots can only do so much to convey how good a game looks. Here's an off-screen video presentation of Lair recorded from GDC, showing off the Factor 5 game in action (or, should we say, motion).You might recognize some of the animation from videos seen elsewhere, but it was nice to catch the newer footage of a dragon wireframe model meticulously rendered with layers of musculature and skin, too.If that's not enough for ya, you can always just listen in to the audio, which features a young lady from Washington asking questions of a developer with the hope of getting hired. Consider this a lesson in networking.[Via GameBrink]
ImagePlay, an open source, layered image editor
I stumbled across another interesting (and free) image manipulator in Apple's downloads section by the name of ImagePlay. It's actually an open source editor with versions available from Sourceforge for OS X, OS 9 and even Windows, but because of that open-sourceness it doesn't appear to be utilizing all the abilities of CoreImage like ImageTricks does (correct me if I'm wrong). However, ImagePlay does offer a few key features, such as layers, various effects and filters, as well as the incredibly handy ability to offer an estimated file size when exporting various image formats such as JPEG, PNG, BMP (uh, why?), Photoshop, TIFF and even QuickTime.While it obviously isn't Photoshop, I'm sure ImagePlay can still find its place in plenty of people's Application folders. This handy little image editor is available at either Apple's Downloads section or from its home at Sourceforge for the amazingly low price of $0.
