"Project Gustav is a realistic painting-system prototype that enables artists to become immersed in the digital painting experience. It achieves interactivity and realism by leveraging the computing power of modern GPUs, taking full advantage of multitouch and tablet input technology and our novel natural media-modeling and brush-simulation algorithms. Project Gustav is a great example of how Microsoft's research efforts are leading to exciting new technologies to support creativity. About Typically the experience of painting on a computer is nothing like painting in the real world. Real painting is actually a very complex phenomenon - a 3D brush consisting of thousands of individually deforming bristles, interacting with viscous fluid paint and a rough-surfaced canvas to create rich, complex strokes. Until fairly recently, the amount of computing power available on a typical home computer simply hasn't been sufficient to attempt simulating such a real-world painting experience in any detail. Project Gustav aims to leverage the increasing power of the PC and ever faster graphics processors and combine that with a natural user interface, to bring a rich painting experience to a wide audience including hobbyists and professionals alike. The result is a prototype system that contains some of the world's most advanced algorithms for natural painting. Image Gallery Here are a few images that were created by users of Project Gustav, and demonstrations of some of the realistic mixing and blending effects enabled by Project Gustav's new painting algorithms. Project Gustav user interfaceProject Gustav user interface (click for hi-res) Project Gustav user interface with palette openUI with mixing palette open (click for hi-res) Pastel fish Pastel clouds - (Cloud computing??) Glossy streaky oil paint rendering #1 Glossy streaky oil paint rendering #2 Oil hand Streaky horse Fall maples Pastel Rose Smearing effects Multitouch Promo in Gusta

"Back in 1995, Clifford Stoll, PhD wrote an article for Newsweek about a emerging thing called the internet. According to him, it was going to go nowhere. It's almost humorous how wrong he was. Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping-just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obsolete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet-which there isn't-the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople. Link "

HAH!

As Chilean and international rescue forces work through the rubble cause by the massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake that hit near Concepcion, Chile's second-largest city, users of social media the world over have undertaken their own rescue measures. Twitter, Facebook, and several of Google's properties aren't trivial, now. They're life-saving, informational tools. An eye-rolling bit of gossip about one of those Kardashian girls can explode through the Web in minutes--and now, news about those in Chile is traveling over the same digital pathways, with the same speed, reaching the same vast amount of people. These are a few ways social media is being used in the wake of the quake.

Hoping Giorgio's doing ok...

OH YEAH! urgh...

can you believe this? why? why? why? ohyeah, and who cares where people are EVERY SECOND of the day besides a parent or your boss?

despite the bad translation, this is actually going to be very handy. Buffalo has introduced an analog to digital cable converter that will connect your VCR to a USB port, and allow you to directly transfer VHS tapes into Digital format with it's own embedded software. Funny, because I was just looking at all the old VHS tapes we've accumulated and was thinking about the nightmare of conversion.

"Timeline paintings Ward Shelley paints these wonderfully intricate timelines of different things...his life, Frank Zappa's career, and the history of the avant garde. Ward Shelley"

Yep. I found it quite inspirational. I'm always at that edge of feeling like I'm faking something.