StarryNight
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PSA: Interactive Starry Night now available for the iPad (video)
Greek Artist Petros Vrellis is a big admirer of Vincent Van Gogh, which prompted him to produce an interactive version of Starry Night. It took him a patience-sapping six months to produce the original PC version, where finger swipes redirect the painter's famous daubs into a light and sound show. Of course, there was such a clamor from users all desperate to have a go, that he managed to produce an iPad app in a little under a month. Now you can pick it up from the App Store at the source link, or head on past the break to see this new version in action (you really do have to see it).
WorldWide Telescope: Works great on a Mac (if you have Windows)
You might have heard that Microsoft Research has released WorldWide Telescope (WWT), it's software to devour the universe whole provide a fun way to browse the planets and stars. The BBC mentioned that you can run WWT on your Mac ... so long as you have Windows on your Mac. Sigh. VMWare helpfully gave the system a try, though, and found it worked great (and even posted a video about it.) I fired up the ol' Boot Camp and saw it wasn't bad. It boasts high-resolution photography of many parts of the sky, and is reasonably easy to use (for a Microsoft product). There were some weird, annoying flicker problems, but I'll chalk that up to the fact that it's beta software on a MacBook with a pokey graphics card. As an amateur astronomer with his own 10-inch Dob (that's right, ladies), I tend to use astronomy software less as a casual browsing tool, but more to find interesting things in the sky on a particular night. And for that, WWT ain't great. You won't find any satellites (like Iridium flares) in WWT. Worst of all -- there's no horizon I could easily find. (Found it, thanks to commenter dh!) So good luck trying to find that fuzzy thing next to the blue thing when it's under your feet. The Mac, however, is blessed with a great variety of native astronomy tools, most of which are free. Stellarium is excellent, free planetarium software. It's worth noting that Google Earth has a spiffy sky tool built-in, too. Last but not least, Starry Night Pro is the king of all astronomy software (and my favorite), but is a little spendy at $150.
Starry Night bed: like sleeping on a pile of money
Sure, your bed is pretty comfortable. you probably even have one of those plush down mattress covers. You may have convinced yourself that you're in the lap of luxury, but according to Leggett & Platt -- you're nowhere close. Enter the Starry Night bed, the be-all-end-all when it comes to breakneck, nosebleed opulence, and unparalleled extravagance. The sleeper not only combines dual, remote-controlled, adjustable mattresses with temperature control and anti-snore technology (whatever that is), but also manages to embed a 1080p HD projector, four subwoofers and tweeters, a 1.5TB of drive space, 4GB of RAM, Media Center integration, WiFi, and an iPod dock. Seriously. All they forgot was to make it not ugly. Showing at CES 2008, and priced from $20,000 to $50,000 (depending on options).[Via About Projectors]
Halo 3 Starry Night commercial
Not a Monday Night Football fan? We got you covered. Here's the Halo 3 'Starry Night' commercial.It doesn't pack the emo-punch of the Gears of War "Mad World" ad, but Starry Night seems to reveal one of Master Chief's childhood memories, suggesting there's a trace of boyish innocence trapped inside the otherwise stoic soldier. There's also a glimpse at what we assume to be the MA5B Assault Rifle, along with a new force field 'nade. We must reiterate that this commercial was created from scratch by Digital Domain. It does use Bungie's Halo 3 models and assets, but does not reflect the actual game. Let the speculation commence ...[Go Eagles!]
