Hands-on: Fontifier
I am absolutely in love with Fontifier , a simple service that creates a font from your own handwriting. Fontifier isn't new-- Daily Candy covered it in 2005 and I saw it on the Craft blog --but in my opinion, good, ol' fashioned handwriting needs all the help it can get.
In about 5 minutes yesterday, I printed out Fontifier's template, scratched in my own versions of all the letters and symbols in a typical font, then scanned and uploaded the sheet. I expected that once I uploaded my alphabet, I'd have to wait a few minutes, hours, or even days to get my True Type font back. But after I paid $9 via credit card--ding!--there it was. I downloaded the file, dragged it to the Fonts folder in my Control Panel, opened Microsoft Word and started typing.
The result doesn't exactly mimic my handwriting. I don't usually write with such a thick pen and I typically keep my hand a little straighter. Typing with my font in Word, text looks nice at 18 points, but below that, my letters look a little jagged.
Still, I'm already dreaming up uses for my font--valentines! party invitations!-- and plan on creating a few more in weeks to come.
My Fontifier font only sorta kinda looks like my real handwriting.CAFTA fight: sugar vs. silicon
The battle over the Central America Free Trade Agreement pits the tech industry against sugar beet and sugarcane producers, according to a Mercury News story posted Saturday .
Labor groups have taken a stand against the proposed trade pact, but the story indicates the relatively tiny sugar industry alone may succeed in gumming up CAFTA.
"The battle over a proposed Central American trade deal has in some ways become a fight between the $610 billion high-tech industry and the $10 billion U.S. sugar industry," the story states. "So far, sugar's winning."'Indiana Jones' graphics meant to go unnoticed
Industrial Light & Magic's Hayden Landis, who was the computer graphics supervisor on the latest Indy film, views stills at the San Francisco headquarters of the Lucasfilm special effects division.
SAN FRANCISCO--There's just something about that familiar Indiana Jones music. You know it--dun ta dun ta, dun ta da...
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/movies/Indiana_Jones_graphics_meant_to_go_unnoticed';Even having spent months slaving over some 540 computer-generated images for the just-released Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , the admittedly jaded Hayden Landis still gets excited when he hears that theme song.
"The little kid in you comes out," said Landis, computer graphics supervisor on the film, recalling the music in the opening of the movie trailer. "I grew up with Indiana Jones."
It's that very nostalgic feeling that Landis and his team at Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic tried to create with the film's visual effects--at director Steven Spielberg's request, Landis said.
Whether it was from nostalgia or some other motivation, people have turned out for the movie in force. Hollywood Reporter said Sunday that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has tallied an estimated gross of $269 million worldwide for its opening weekend, finishing No. 1 in all major markets. In the U.S., the Associated Press reported , the movie grossed an estimated $101 million from Friday to Sunday, plus $25 million from its opening night Thursday.
Spielberg "wanted to make sure it looked like all the other" Indy films, Landis explained Friday in an interview with CNET News.com here at ILM's headquarters. Spielberg even shot the film with one of the very lenses used for the first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark , which was released 27 years ago.
digg_url='http://digg.com/movies/Indiana_Jones_graphics_meant_to_go_unnoticed';From a technological standpoint, that meant some challenges in seamlessly matching the computer-generated images to the older film style--lens scratches and all. In that vein, the computer animation couldn't be " in your face ," and if ILM did its job, viewers will hardly notice the 45 minutes of CGI in the film, Landis said. Interestingly, about 300 people worked in-house on CGI for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , the same number of people who worked on the film's set, Landis said.
Another technological challenge was the sheer array of types of CGI used in a film which, like its prequels, involves worldwide adventure. "We have a bit of everything in this," Landis said, listing examples like water, space, hair, and creatures.
An Indiana Jones movie poster is displayed prominently in the lobby of Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic in San Francisco.For example, in a jungle chase sequence shot in Hawaii, to make an area look more like undisturbed terrain, the team tapped into ILM's virtual garden library and added lush plants digitally. A relatively plain road was magically converted into a dramatic cliffside, he said.
ILM also created a new software tool for the film called Fracture, which allows the special effects team to "destroy" huge "set pieces," , Landis said. These are things that were never possible before CGI, he added, because of health risks or other constraints.
As for working with Spielberg, Landis called it "refreshing," because the director always had a clear big-picture idea of what he wanted and left the details to others.
Next up for Landis is another nostalgia-oriented project--a redo of the Star Tours ride at Disneyland. The big question...will Captain EO make a comeback?
This post was updated at 11:12 a.m. PDT after ILM corrected the number it initially provided of CGI shots in the film. There were 540 CGI shots in the film, not 450.Google Apps for Your Domain gets customizable start page
Google just put a new feature in its Google Apps for Your Domain suite of services: a "start page." This is a new corporate version of Google's existing personal start page, for people inside a company using Google's apps for e-mail and calendaring. The differences between the standard Google start page and this product are that administrators can design the page, can lock down all or part of it, and can give it a custom URL.
Setting up a company intranet page is certainly easy with this tool, but Google's business services are still a bit light. Google hasn't yet integrated Google Docs and Spreadsheets into Google Apps for Your Domain, for example. Google does have all the pieces to build a killer small business service. If Google takes the small business market seriously, we should see more activity on this service, and soon. Otherwise, Microsoft's Office Live and Intel's SuiteTwo may grab a lot of the business customers Google is trying to woo.
Related: News.com story and Webware blog posts .
New Mac OS X update fixes audio issue
The security update that Apple issued a week and a half ago apparently caused some audio problems on Intel-based Macs, so the company has released an updated version.
Apple released Mac OS X 10.4.10 to fix some security issues as well as reliability issues with USB drives. It seems that version led to some Mac users hearing "popping" sounds, Apple said in a message announcing the update Monday afternoon.
If you've haven't already updated to 10.4.10, Apple has released a new version of that update that fixes both the security issues and the audio problems. If you already downloaded 10.4.10, you're cool on the security front, but you'll want to download a smaller update to fix any audio problems, or to ward them off.
All three updates are available here on Apple's site, or through the Software Update button under the Apple menu on your Mac. Power PC users need not bother with the audio update.
Vizio keeps pressure on Sony, Samsung
After a dramatic rise to the top of the LCD TV market last summer, Vizio seemed to have gotten a taste of reality as it settled back down to the No. 3 spot through the end of the 2007.
But it appears Vizio is ratcheting up the price pressure again on its closest competitors, according to new figures from iSuppli, a market research firm that monitors the LCD industry.
For the first quarter of 2008, the top vendors' share of unit shipments, led by Samsung with 13.9 percent of units shipped, and followed by Sony and Vizio , remain separated by 0.3 of a percentage point. The three were separated by 1.8 points in the fourth quarter of last year.
As the economy worsens, and consumers have less discretionary income for luxury purchases like a flat-panel TV, lower-priced sets are going to sell better . Vizio is in a better position than most in its industry to do that because of its distribution channels, which are mainly bargain-friendly outlets like club stores, and Wal-Mart Stores, and because it saves money by not building and maintaining multi-billion-dollar fabs, or panel manufacturing plants. Instead, it buys its panels from those that do.
Both Sony and Samsung have already responded to Vizio's price pressure with lower-cost LCD TVs of their own. But those TV manufacturers that haven't responded similarly to the Vizio threat are finding the North American flat-panel market an increasingly difficult place to do business.
Philips was the first to buckle under the pressure , announcing last month that it would no longer make or distribute its own TVs in North America. Instead, it arranged for low-cost TV vendor Funai to do so on its behalf.
Shipments of LCD TVs were down across the board in the first quarter, reaching 5.6 million units, versus the same quarter a year ago when 7.96 million LCD TVs shipped, iSuppli said. Although the first quarter is always the weakest for the industry, it appears the second quarter may not fare much better.
iSuppli says unit shipments in North America are expected to grow just 26.6 percent overall this year, to 27.4 million units. That's a far cry from the 88.8 percent growth in 2007 and the 92.6 percent seen in 2006.
Online market predicts candidates' chances
This post is somewhat off topic, though the longer I write the blog, the more issues seem related to parenting and technology in some way. And after watching hours of election coverage this week, the Presidential race is intertwined with our whole lives right now. So follow me over this bridge between politics and an online market that tracks the candidates' quest for "Big Mo."
One undeniable result of Super Tuesday is that there will be full employment for pundits over the next nine months. For those of you political junkies who are tired of watching the same old talking heads stretch their speeches to fill yet another hour of programming, the Intrade Prediction Market provides a novel moving indicator of conventional wisdom. Site users buy and sell contracts whose price reflects the probablility that a candidate will receive their party's nomination.
Snapshot of the Democratic primary race, from Intrade.comIntrade calls itself a political futures market, others call it betting, but it has enough credibility to attract coverage by The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Intrade is based in Ireland and says that the company "can't be sure" if the activity is legal in specific locations.
But whether or not we are allowed to make trades, it is interesting to watch the price fluctuations that reflect collective public opinion about what is likely to happen.
Now that Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race, his shares dropped to almost zero, and John McCain's are selling for 93.8, reflecting a 93.8 percent chance that he will be his party's nominee.
On the Democratic side, the results are a lot more psychologically interesting, given that Obama and Clinton ran to a dead heat in the Super Tuesday elections. Nonetheless, Clinton's shares took a dip on February 5, then a spike up on February 6 , then closed down today at 42.8, perhaps fueled by perceptions of who beat expectations on Tuesday, or news that Clinton had loaned her campaign funds. Obama took a slight tick up on February 5, a dip back to recent baseline on February 6, then a sharp jump up today to 57.8.
Intrade has markets for current events like Grammy winners, to financial occurrences like a recession, to climate and weather. And yes, it has a market for the eventual winner of the November Presidential election, with McCain and Obama tied with current bid prices of 35.2, and Clinton in third at 28.5. For political horse-race fans, Intrade could become the index to watch.