 |  TUAW - The Unofficial Apple WeblogTUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com рекомендовать друзьям >> |
- Talkcast tonight, 10pm EDT/7pm PDT: Father's Day Edition!
Happy Father's Day! If you've made it through all the grilling and presentations of soap on a rope, join me for this week's Talkcast! We shall cover the news of the last week including the grand debut of the unlocked iPhone and the possibility of the iPhone replacing the iPod touch. Of course no Kelly-hosted episode is complete without a visit to my House of Crackpot Theories, and we'll do some rampant speculating on new hardware rumors as well.
Remember: If Kelly hosts the show, it means we have an aftershow! TUAWTF covers all manner of topics. Often silly, never recorded. Come share your stories of Dr Pepper cake and bad internet connections.
Your calls and questions help make the show the best it can be, otherwise I'm just talking to myself! To participate, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (Viva free weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8.
If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Blink or X-Lite SIP clients, basic instructions are here. (If you like Blink, the pro version is available in the Mac App Store.) Skype users with SkypeOut credit can call the main Talkshoe number; it's also a free call with the Google Voice browser plugin. Talk to you tonight!
Talkcast tonight, 10pm EDT/7pm PDT: Father's Day Edition! originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 19 Jun 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Переслать - Rumor: New Mac Pros and Mac Minis in August, CNet says
CNet's Brian Tong announced via Twitter that Apple is preparing to debut new Mac Pros and Mac Minis in August. Tong added that both models are expected to have Thunderbolt and Sandy Bridge processors, urging people to wait before buying new machines.
As MacRumors points out, Tong was spot on when he said new iMacs would arrive around the first week of May. Considering he is drawing upon the same sources, and current stocks of Mac Pros and Mac Minis are being depleted, we're willing to place our bets in his corner as well. A Mac Pro and Mac Mini refresh, along with expected updates to the MacBook Air and Airport/Time Capsule product lines, would make a very nice back-to-school press event in August.
Rumor: New Mac Pros and Mac Minis in August, CNet says originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 19 Jun 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Переслать - Flare for iPhone shoots 'HDR-like' video
Flare for the iPhone is an interesting app for video hobbyists, notable for the technical wizardry on display. It can shoot video with a quasi-HDR effect and do it in real time. It isn't easy to apply filtering effects on the fly, and that's just what Flare does.
Flare is not shooting real HDR. You're not acquiring concurrent video streams of multiple exposures. What you are getting is some extreme filtering, sharpening and contrast expansion that gives you a hyper-saturated picture. Some will love the effect. Others might just scratch their heads.
The app gives you some switchable settings to determine how extreme the processing is. You can lock white balance, exposure and focus with two quick screen taps. AirPlay is supported. You're not going to get full HD on the iPhone. Expect 640 x 360 resolution at 24 frames per second on an iPhone 4 and 16 frames per second on a 3GS. I noticed a couple of video stutters on my iPhone 4, but generally the app ran well.
Flare is clever and not overpriced at US$0.99. It's an impressive achievement in software coding. Getting real-time video processing on a cellphone is not a walk in the park. If you like the effects, I'd say go for it, but don't expect real HDR quality. It's just beyond the scope of the iPhone hardware/software capabilities. On the other hand, if you're looking for some stunning, juiced-up video, Flare might be for you.
I've put a few samples in the gallery, and as always, your comments are appreciated. Note that the screen grabs are not as good a resolution as what you can expect in the real world. Flare requires iOS 4.1 or greater.
Flare for iPhone shoots 'HDR-like' video originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 19 Jun 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Переслать - Apple Store is down (Updated)
Update: The store is back up with no apparent changes.
The yellow sticky note of doom has appeared, and the Apple Store is down. Usually, the Saturday night/early Sunday morning down time is for general maintenance, but as soon as the store is back up, we will let you know!
Apple Store is down (Updated) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 19 Jun 2011 01:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Переслать - NYPL Biblion: World's Fair iPad app a compelling look at yesterday's future
In 1939 and 1940, a world that was beginning to climb out of the Great Depression and about to descend into World War II had a brief glimpse of a bright future at the New York World's Fair. After the Fair shut its gates for the last time in 1940, the organizers took their meticulous records of the event and presented them to the New York Public Library for safekeeping. 70+ years later, the library has opened the Fair to the world again in the form of NYPL Biblion: World's Fair, an innovative and exhaustively detailed history of the Fair in an interactive iPad app. In this review, I'll discuss this amazing app -- the first in a hopefully long series exploring the NYPL's collection -- and show you some screen shots of the app in action.
User Interface and Navigation
The free app is huge -- 252 MB in size -- and contains essays, documents, photos, film, and audio from the Fair. With this much information on hand, the designers had to figure out a way to let users navigate the history of the New York World's Fair in their own way. Rather than guide users by the hand in a static timeline, the World's Fair app starts by displaying floating groups of pictures, each of which is labeled with a different title: Introduction, A Moment in Time, Enter the World of Tomorrow, Beacon of Idealism, Fashion Food and Famous Faces, From the Stacks, and You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet.
If you're new to the app and don't touch one of those groupings, the app quickly displays a magazine-like front page with suggestions of where to go next. There's a lot of animation involved in the app, which was produced for the library by Potion, and it makes great use of the standard gestures used on the iPad. Want to move between the "stacks?" Just flick between them. Tap on one of the stacks to read an introduction, and then tap on a bright blue and easy to see View Stories link to see a graphical representation of stories. Within the story groupings are colored bars: red for audio and video content, blue for featured images, orange for documents, and yellow for connections to related information from the NYPL stacks.
The user interface is everything in this app, since it's your way to browse the tremendous amount of content that's packed into it. I personally found the app to be easy to use and understand, and to give you an idea of how much I like the Biblion World's Fair app, it actually kept me entertained one evening for five straight hours. That's unprecedented for me, as I usually get bored and distracted by something else fairly quickly. I feel like the Biblion app literally takes me back in time to the late 1930's, and since I'm a history buff I can easily get sucked into wandering through the articles, photos, and other audiovisual content for hours.
Knowing how much I like this app, I was surprised by several tweets by a well-known blogger/author I know. He found the Biblion World's Fair app user interface to be "a mess." I personally think that linear thinkers might have a bit of an issue with the user interface, as it's really meant for exploration and wandering around the virtual library stacks. For me, a guy with an incredibly messy desk who is always working on about five things at once, the Biblion World's Fair app was a joy to use.
There is one complaint that I have -- there's no search function built into the app. While it's a lot of fun to zip around from subject to subject, it would be nice to be able to search for certain names or topics throughout the collected content.
Content
The Biblion World's Fair app truly brought not only the New York World's Fair to life for me, but provided excellent context into the historical significance of the event. The Fair was opened with a televised (yes, in 1939) speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which was the first time an American president used the new medium. Unfortunately, no recording exists of that speech.
One wonderful find in the app is a group of short color movies by an amateur filmmaker by the name of H. Earl Hoover. The silent movies give a personal perspective of the event from a regular citizen who attended the fair, and the color and scope of the event really comes across in these movies.
The NYPL team was able to recreate the "Democracity" city of the future pageant that took place inside the Fair's iconic Perisphere, using a combination of pre-production drawings, scripts, photos, musical scores, a chorus, and computer animation to create a short video. I'm sure the recreation doesn't have the emotional impact of the actual exhibit, but it was a game attempt by the developers to show what it must have been like.
Something that surprised and delighted me was to find that many of the essays accompanying photos in the app were non-judgmental, telling the story of the New York World's Fair without the usual postmodern "interpretation" that seems to plague many historical exhibits these days. Kudos to the NYPL for keeping the majority of the essays as descriptive as possible without tainting them with personal or political judgment.
Many of the things that we now take for granted, such as electric appliances, television, suburbs, and freeways, were first demonstrated to the public at the Fair. The impending world war is a constant undertone of many of the essays, with discussions of the fate of the Czechoslovakian exhibit after the German invasion in 1938 and how the controversial Soviet Union exhibit closed after 1939 after that nation invaded Poland and Finland.
There's no way that I can do justice to the sheer amount and quality of the written and visual content of this app. Just know that if you have an interest in this period of time in our history, the portions of the New York Public Library's collection that are highlighted in this app will keep you entertained for many hours.
Conclusion
The New York Public Library states that Biblion is to become a series of applications that will "explore ... the Library's vast and awe-inspiring collection." In fact, when the app first launches, the phrase "Biblion: The Boundless Library" is displayed, and the Library intends for Biblion to become an electronic magazine of sorts that will highlight different parts of the collection and exhibits.
We're fortunate that the NYPL decided to pick the 1939-40 New York World's Fair as the topic of the first issue of Biblion, as they had a lot of material to work with. If this app is any indication of what we can expect in the future, Biblion is going to be an exciting and worthwhile collection of historical information.
If you're an iPad owner, don't worry about whether or not you like history -- download this free app and give it a try. You might surprise yourself by spending hours immersed in this fascinating look at the future as seen from the past.
NYPL Biblion: World's Fair iPad app a compelling look at yesterday's future originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 18 Jun 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Переслать
 | Культура, Искусство, Арт - статьи и фото Лучшие статьи и фотографии по темам: Арт, Фотография, Дизайн, Архитектура, Интерьер, Мода, ХэндМейд, Кино, Литература и т. д. Присоединиться → |
| rss2email.ru |
| rss2email.ru | отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=6894&u=24004&r=484673635 управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp партнерская программа: http://partner.rss2email.ru/?pid=1 |
