What do we talk about when we talk about love? Early poets reached for the sun and stars to describe their beloveds, while novelists have struggled to convey their 'wretched ordinariness'

At matins on 6 April 1327, in the church of St Clare in Avignon, Francesco Petrarch may or may not have seen Laura for the first time: her skin "whiter and colder than snow, not touched by the sun for many years", golden hair, black eyes. We don't know for sure whether Laura really existed. Some of Petrarch's contemporaries thought she was just a symbol and a pretext, though on the flyleaf of his Virgil he noted not only the date of his original glimpse of her but also that 20 years later he had news of her death in the plague – and a passing remark implies she was married and might have been worn out over the years with childbearing. From that moment of encounter in Avignon anyway – whether mythic or actual - flowed the inspiration for the Rime Sparse, written over the next quarter of a century: poems dwelling on Petrarch's helpless love for Laura, his dreaming and desires, his excited and jaded senses, his dismay at his own ageing and his grief over Laura's death – and on the work of poetry, forging its tribute to her.

In the poems there's no mention of Laura's husband or children. Nothing actually happens between the lover and his beloved. The meetings he describes only take place in fantasy, in the writing itself; fulfilment is held off all the way up to the end of the 366th and last poem, where the idea of a virgin Laura mingles with praise for the Virgin Mary.

Petrarch draws on the traditions of the troubadours and Dante's Vita Nuova, but his representation of his convoluted, darkened inner state is distinctively original, and tremendous. Somehow his idealising language manages to also be gritty and surprising, rich with contradictions. "When I remember the time and place where I lost myself, and / the dear knot with which Love with his own hand bound me (he / so made bitterness seem sweet and weeping pleasure), / I am all sulphur and tinder, and my heart is afire . . ." Even readers who need the literal translation can feel something of the poetry's loveliness in Italian, how the vowel-music opens its airy spaces round the lament, makes elegant the complexity of allusion.

Quando mi vene inanzi il tempo e 'l loco

ov' i' perdei me stesso, e 'l caro nodo

ond' Amor di sua man m'avinse in modo

che l'amar mi fe' dolce e 'l piange gioco,

solfo et esca son tutto, et il cor un foco . . .

English by contrast is so consonantal. Two hundred years later, Thomas Wyatt used one of the sonnets in the Rime Sparse as the basis for his own poem. "Who so list to hount," he wrote, "I knowe where is an hynde . . ." The familiar semi-magical Petrarchan markers are in place – a forest where the weary lover-hunter will lose his way, the elusive and singular deer who is both prey and fatal enchantress. But something has happened to the love story in its travels across time and geography. It's partly in the sounds of the language, so dense and intricate in the mouth, and the freer play that English poetry can have in rhyme. But it's not only that. In Petrarch, the white doe wears a collar studded with diamonds and topazes (emblems of steadfastness and chastity), which proclaims her untouchable: "It has pleased my Caesar to make me free." The collar in Wyatt's poem declares:

"Noli me tangere, for Cesars I ame;
And wylde for to hold, though I seme tame."

Which doesn't sound like the same thing at all: it seems to suggest a fraught earthly terrain where love and power and possession interact, rather than an idealising dream. And the woman isn't merely the inspiration-aspiration of the poem's trajectory, but has a psychology and will and passions of her own, which are part of the poet's difficulty, as well as her attraction ("Yet may I by no meanes my weried mind / Drawe from the Diere"). The "Noli me tangere" reference to the Christian ideal whose spirit and language underpins the love-pursuit feels more risky, almost blasphemous, in Wyatt. It might have been written about Anne Boleyn – whom Wyatt may have loved, and who certainly wore Caesar's collar. (Is it Anne who in a different poem dies unknown of herself, "dazed with dreadfull face"? There is a story that Wyatt was made to watch her execution.) In other Wyatt poems, it's more or less explicit that the affairs are consummated. A girl walked in his chamber once "with naked fote"; "her lose gowne from her shoulders did fall, / And she me caught in her armes long and small". That's a real chamber, with boards underfoot, not a symbolic mind-space under a green laurel tree (lauro, Laura).

This is the double pulse of the expression of erotic love in literature, between the ideal and the real; between the archetypal space that the dreaming and the words open up in imagination, and the strong resistance that life and other people offer to assimilation to any idea. Shakespeare's sonnets are structured around just this fertilising tension. He isn't only torn between the male beloved ("lord of my love", the fair angel, more lovely and temperate than a summer's day) and the black-browed female whose eyes are nothing like the sun and whose breath "reeks" (the contrast between these extremes seems almost parodistic). The sonnets' ambivalence is at the core of loving – "mine eye and heart are at a mortal war". A language aspiring towards perfection and immutability is entangled in the knotty real textures of unfulfilment, difficulty, decay. Sonnet 95 is about the fair angel, not the dark one:

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which like a canker in the fragrant Rose
Doth spot the beautie of thy budding name?
Oh in what sweets doest thou thy sinnes inclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy daies,
(Making lascivious comments on thy sport)
Cannot dispraise, but in a kinde of praise,
Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.
Oh what a mansion have those vices got,
Which for their habitation chose out thee . . .

Simon May in his ambitious new book Love: A Secret History wants to trace the evolution of the idea of love in western culture, from Plato through the various phases of Christian thinking, via German romanticism and Nietzsche to the present day. He argues that we have a problem because "the tremendous liberation of sex and marriage over the past hundred years has been accompanied by love's ossification, rather than its reinvention", and that human love is now "widely tasked with achieving what once only divine love was thought capable of: to be our ultimate source of meaning and happiness, and of power over suffering and disappointment". Such exaggerated hopes for love, he fears, can only set us up for failure.

Novalis's Hymns to the Night were published in Prussia in 1800, when the poet-philosopher was 28; the moment of German romanticism is central to May's argument because he believes the cult of love was born out of "reactions to the irretrievable loss of a divine world-order and the firm moorings it afforded". Novalis's 15-year-old fiancée Sophie von Kühn had died, and the hymns were inspired in a moment when he was "shedding bitter tears" beside her grave, "which in its narrow dark bosom hid the vanished form of my life". A vision of Night came to him, "and at once snapped the bond of birth – the chains of the Light"; the broken lover was made whole in an upside-down world, where light and life turn out to be the lesser part of the world's possibility; only death and night which hold out the possibility of renewal, and restoration of the lover's loss. In the Hymns Sophie doesn't actually feature much at all, and when she does she's dissolved into an idealising generality: "through the cloud I saw the glorified face of my beloved. In her eyes eternity reposed – I laid hold of her hands, and the tears became a sparkling bond that could not be broken." The Night is a haven and its light is the Beloved. Creative love is the daughter of Night. Poignantly the poetry infuses its deathly philosophy with youthful ardour and eroticism, recoiling from the terrible null sum of real sufferings. "Do we perhaps need so much energy and effort for ordinary and common things," Novalis wrote in his Miscellaneous Observations, "because for an authentic human being nothing is more out of the ordinary – nothing more uncommon than wretched ordinariness." And, "at present this realm certainly seems to us so dark inside, lonely, shapeless."

But that tradition in love-literature which sets a transcendent value on love, merging the love-object with divinity, is only one element in a developing complex whole. For every dream of unfettered longing a counteractive impulse seems sooner or later to assert itself: the restless scratch of observation, which snags on real things and difficult "wretched ordinariness". Love-language has been pulled differently in different eras between the great generalising symbols – the heart, the rose, the fixed star – and language's opposite capacity: finding words to capture the unique specificity of the loved one, inside her real moment in history. If all the Beloveds are fair, and roses, and fixed stars, then why one rather than another? Wouldn't anyone do? Whether Petrarch's Laura was real or not is a question for the margins of poetry. More important is whether it matters inside the poetry what Laura – or the fair angel, or the Beloved – was like, or what she felt, or whether she bore children or grew old. It has mattered more or less, at different moments in the history of literary sensibility.

May doesn't write very much in his book about the novel form; but he ought to be reassured that on the whole it has cherished less transcendent expectations of romantic love than the troubadours. (In fact it's never quite clear whose love-longings they are that seem to May so problematically idealising, at the end of a European 20th century when our scepticism has gone through idealisms pretty thoroughly, at least in serious writing – the story is different perhaps in film and pop music. His analysis ends with Freud and Proust, master demythologisers from 100 years ago, which doesn't help explain.) Courtship, marriage and adultery have been the engine of the novel's plot, significantly often. Yet there's something in the novel's fundamentals – its sheer volume unfolding in real time, its prose sentences tending onwards out of the moment, its prose-sound which can't help resembling reasoned explanation – that makes it tend to act love out on earth, not aiming at the heavens.

There's plenty of room inside a novel for love's dreaming. Prince Andrei in War and Peace listens to Natasha Rostov singing one evening at the clavichord; that night he can't sleep, he's helplessly happy and has "a sudden, vivid awareness of the terrible opposition between something infinitely great and indefinable that was in him, and something narrow and fleshly that he himself, and even she, was . . . he felt as joyful and new in his soul as if he had gone from a stuffy room into God's open world." He knows next to nothing about Natasha, her separate life and thoughts (she knows even less about him). Love opens up for him on to this vision of a meaning beyond either of them; yet it depends on his electric attraction to her and her only, her particular slim girl's body and mix of effrontery and naivety. The transcendent ambitions of his love are real and not to be discounted – even when later poor Natasha makes such a mess of everything. Confused by postponement and her ignorant sex-longings, she tries to run away with another man; Andrei falls back on the false reassurance of disillusion, discounting the hopes he had had as puerile (though he had accepted, in the depth of his vision, that she too was "narrow and fleshly"). Irony, however, isn't meant to have the last word. It's just that the story has to move on beyond the moment of ideal aspiration to its difficult fulfilment in time (and then on again, beyond the end of the lovers' rupture, to when they are strangely reconciled in the flight from Moscow).

Realism needn't aim to dismantle the ideal, or prove that it's hollow. Tolstoy here only wants to capture the mystery of that generalising, transcendent yearning and then correct, as the story unfolds, for its likely interactions with the real. He's like a painter making a mark on his paper and looking up to check, then making another mark closer to the way things actually are. Without the ideal longing – grown out of our pair-bonding nature – which first dreams love into being, there's nowhere for its reality to take root. But in novels, love's dreaming has consequences, it has to co-exist inside a book's whole length with change and accidents and the sheer difficulty of mutuality (and sometimes, depending on the novelist, with disillusion, contempt, parody – irony may be allowed a freer rein than in Tolstoy).

In her 1995 novel The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald pays tender homage to Novalis's romanticism, but tells the story of his love for Sophie in a language very different to the poet's own. The novel begins not in "holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night", but with the poet returning with a friend from university to his family home, finding them in the middle of washing-day, throwing "great dingy snowfalls of sheets, pillowcases, bolster-cases, vests, bodices, drawers, from the upper windows into the courtyard, where grave-looking servants . . . were receiving them into giant baskets". Exuberant, spilling over with their high spirits, imitating Fichte with whom they have studied in Jena, the two young men advance into the courtyard: "There is no such concept as a thing in itself" . . . "Let your thought be the washbasket! Have you thought the washbasket? Now then, gentlemen, let your thought be on that that thought the washbasket!" The housekeeper complains they are trampling on the unsorted garments.

For long periods the world of love has been represented in literature by those whose focus was less on the mantle of the Beloved than on what was hidden under or beyond it – on the one hand her nakedness, on the other essence, light, bliss (and the focus was also on the desiring self – "let your thought be on that that thought"). But the Beloved, all that time, had been taking care to dress to attract the desire of the Lover, choosing and sewing and maintaining the mantle. Once women stepped out of their place in the frame and began to write the story from their own point of view (and once their servants stepped out from invisibility), the sewing and washing side of love was bound to be brought rather more inside the picture.

There have been, of course, idealising portraits of the male beloved, but it's difficult to imagine any male ideal, whether adored by a woman or by another man, offering to the adorer's gaze quite the same unchanging stillness, the same rich eloquence of non-response as female love objects did, once upon a time. Even men's love-writing about men, including Shakespeare's, has tended to find the beloved love-object more agitatingly reactive than Petrarch ever found Laura; the attraction of the male is too firmly fastened to his being something, rather than simply being contemplated. And it's unthinkable that Petrarch could ever have written into Laura what Cavafy rejoices at having seen in his boys: "desires glowing openly / in eyes that looked at you, / trembling for you in voices. . ." When Natasha burns in response to careless, useless, sensual Kuragin, it ruins her for Prince Andrei, not only because she's betrayed him, but also because she's betrayed his ideal of her chaste girlhood.

The Blue Flower is a study of just how the ideal in love might be interfused with the real, and the real with the ideal. Sophie is 12 when Novalis (22) first meets her and determines to marry her. Fitzgerald makes Sophie cheerful, childish, boisterous, affectionate, reluctant to commit to words. "She is not beautiful, she is not even pretty . . . empty-headed, moreover at twelve years old she has a double chin", the poet's brother thinks. Novalis asks her to write to him, but her letters are forced and dutiful. She is the solid object that stops and absorbs his airy aspirations; the living counterpoint to his abstractions. Stubbornly she deflects all his attempts to get her philosophising. "('Should you like to be born again?' 'Yes, if I could have fair hair.') 'I can't comprehend her, I can't get the measure of her. I love something that I do not understand.'" Without her poet-lover to dream her transcendent mystery into being, would Sophie only have been half herself, half realised? Certainly no one would remember her now. Perhaps she was simply ordinary, and only the poet's fantasy made her exceptional. Or, perhaps "wretched ordinariness" itself is the deepest mystery, if love (and art) have only the genius to find it out. Fitzgerald's Sophie refuses to believe in the afterlife. Does Novalis betray her memory in his poetry, having her disembodied spirit appear to him at her graveside?

In All About Love Lisa Appignanesi has made a sort of compendium of love stories, picking them from literature and history and philosophy and anecdotally from life. The effect of cramming so many passions all together inside one book is sometimes a bit like cake for breakfast, cake for lunch, cake for tea – you feel the need after a while for greens, or a nunnery (although no doubt it all goes on in nunneries too). What can we learn, from putting so many examples side by side? If anything, that the forms of love aren't eternal. Our love-icons and constellations of love-imagery aren't perennials, they're rather what archaeologist Colin Renfrew calls constitutive symbols: "in defining symbols, we are not just playing with words, but recognising features of the material world with which human individuals come to engage"; "that engagement . . . is socially mediated, and it comes about when other features of the society make that feasible." Desires, having their origin no doubt in the requirements of our biology and our socialisation, take on shapes and colours differently inside each different historical moment. Fitzgerald makes it clear in The Blue Flower just why love-language in early 19th-century Europe was so death-haunted: her last page is a litany of losses. Not only Sophie died, but also Novalis's brothers and sisters, one after another, in their teens and twenties – and then the poet himself, of tuberculosis, less than a year after the publication of his Hymns. He needed to invent an upside-down night-world.

Appignanesi has enjoyed putting some unlikely writers to bed together; 12th-century Capellanus's rules for love ("When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved his heart palpitates") sit alongside The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr Right, 1995 ("Don't meet him halfway or go Dutch with him on a date", and "Always end phone calls first"). "It is terrible to desire and not possess, and terrible to possess and not desire," says Yeats; and Queen Victoria rants against the Women's Rights "on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety". "Happiness is not the question here," Appignanesi writes. "We need love because it confronts us with the height and depths of our being." Well, something like that. It's hard, after all these centuries' accumulations of love-writing, finding the new words to express new forms.

May's preferred description of love is as "a yearning for ontological rootedness". Which definitely leaves the last word to the poets and songwriters: such as Joni Mitchell, who calls it "the strongest poison and medicine of all". Or Goethe in his Roman Elegies, taking time out from his studies "on classical soil" to spend with his new lover, fulfilling a literary tradition and at the same time seizing the once-only real opportunity of love in the here and now. In the Elegies ideal and real are poised in a perfect conjunction.

. . . when she sinks into sleep, wakeful and thoughtful I lie.
Often I even compose my poetry in her embraces,
Counting hexameter beats, tapping them out on her back
Softly, with one hand's fingers. She sweetly breathes in her slumber,
Warmly the glow of her breath
pierces the depths of my heart.
Eros recalls, as he tends our lamp, how he did the same service
For his Triumvirs, the three poets of love, long ago.

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, iDevice Apps

New iPhone, iPod touch and iPad product announcements for May 5, 2011:

New iPhone, iPad and iPod touch apps

• JamKit is a community-driven drumming game and rhythm training tool. Players refine their drumming skills by playing “challenges” made by users across the world as they rank up, unlock VIP features, and compete to be in the JamKit hall of fame. Exposure to the unique drumming techniques of others provides inspiration for users to develop their own distinctive style that they can show off by creating original challenges of their own and contributing to the ever evolving world challenge library that provides fresh, unique content for users everywhere to experience every day.
• In Spelunk, ancient Element Village has five Books of Elements, which record the secrets of integration of things. One day, the Monster Gate in underground city struck village and robbed the Book of Elements to integrate powerful troops to conquer the world. While our brave collin will enter the underground cavern alone and recapture the Book of Elements to save the world.
• PAN Vision and Fabrication Games have announced the launch of Piclings, a new platform game for iOS devices that turns photos into playable worlds. Snap pics of fancy buildings, beautiful natural landscapes or even your weird uncle’s mangy dog, and the game engine takes care of the rest, converting them into levels populated with enemy Huffies and Puffies standing in the way of collectible treasures. Bring your very own Picling named Picazzo to life through photos limited only by your imagination. Piclings is now available for download from the App Store for $0.99.
• Playlithium is pleased to announce that Super Ball Escape HD is available now for free on the App Store. The happy owners of iPad and iPad 2 can now discover, in a version especially dedicated to them, this unique action game playable with the tilt control. Super Ball Escape HD will challenge your skills. Take control of a robot ball and try getting free through numerous mazes. Action, stealth and balance will be part of the game.
• Mooee has updated GolfSites to version 2.0, one of the most advanced Golf GPS App for the iPhone. Designed by golfers for golfers, GolfSites has all the bells and whistles of similar Golf GPS Apps plus it has something others don’t: Ball Path Tracking. By pressing your stroke button every time you hit a ball, GolfSites will remember where you’ve hit, and will show you your ball paths at the end of the game. All your scores will be recorded, statistics and location captured.
• Finncodex has released Neon Geoms 1.1 for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users. Neon Geoms is a unique new physics game that requires a mixture of logic, skill and co-ordination to win. Players move a neon ball through various levels, collecting stars for points as they go. Something that sets Neon Geom apart from the rest is its level editor, which allows players to custom create, edit and share their very own levels. Users are also able to play custom levels created by others.
• Thinking Drone, LLC has announced the release of Dash of Color Free for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users. This free photography app lets users apply selective coloring to black and white images, or transform color images to black and white. Dash Of Color Free offers users many of the same tools and effects used by professionals, so they can get dramatic results with a few taps of the screen.
• Urban Anomaly today released Seattle HitList, a tool that identifies the best free sites and informal landmarks within the geographical boundaries of Seattle, Washington. The guide features over 80 MB of high resolution photos, narrative, and geo-mapping of dozens of locations that meet the HitList criteria: suitably hip, local or artistic, free or mostly free, and photogenic. The app is built around an intuitive interface that provides three different types of media browsing.
• Astro Ape Studios has awakened its latest creation, Monsterz’ Revenge, an eerie new social game for iOS that pits a cast of ghouls against evil fast-food restaurants. The graveyard is overrun by fast-food joints crashing the Monsterz’ cookout, and they’re striking back with a spooky skirmish. Players will challenge the junk-food giants by hitting the drive-thru in their customizable battle car, leaving each joint in crumbles.
• Bare Reef has launched its rebranded line of stock market portfolio tracking apps for the iPad, iPhone and Mac. Portfolio Mobile offers the most comprehensive set of features found in any iPad, iPhone or Mac stock portfolio monitoring app. The launch also includes a new web portal that simplifies the process of entering and editing trade history. The new Mac version is available as a 30 day demo exclusively at Portfolio Mobile.
• CGMatic Co., Ltd has announced they are reducing the price of Grove Keeper and Grove Keeper HD for a limited time to celebrate the release of the new versions. Grove Keeper is a casual physics based action puzzle set in a beautiful fantasy world. Taking control of the Grove Keeper, the master of magic, accompanied by likable friends during his journey. Simple and easy to play, outlast the enemies using skillful control and witful strategy.
• That Can Be My Next Tweet generates your future tweets based on the DNA of your existing messages. NEW: combine your future tweets together with someone else to create bizarre mix-ups and profoundly strange combinations!
• Jack woke up with one thing on his mind: food! In Spider Jack, help Jack swing through 75 stages of peril-filled puzzles to reach his dinner. Tap “hook points” to cast Jack’s web through obstacle courses and nimbly avoid dangers. To keep the itsy-bitsy spider climbing, cut previous webs so Jack can cast new lines in his pursuit of delicious bugs.
• TouchGEN has announced their new iPad magazine, devoted to gaming on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices. This pilot edition features 15 reviews from 2008-2010 that earned our editor’s choice seal of approval. A full, first issue of the magazine is in the pipeline for release soon. Issue 1 will feature all the things you’d expect from a news-stand gaming magazine, such as news, reviews, features, commentaries and the like, but in an interactive format.
• Rapid Turtle Games has announced that Charlie In Trouble - Returning Home, the final chapter in the Charlie In Trouble series is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store! The game features 8 huge levels divided into 21 stages, with many new puzzles and arcade platform jumping. Help Charlie once more to find his way back to home in the final chapter of this adventure game. He has defied the King’s orders, and traveled through a magical portal only to become trapped on the other side. In order to return home, Charlie must make it through 8 levels in this strange new realm filled with puzzles and enemies.
• INTERSOG Mobile has introduced Cam Capture 1.0, their new imaging utility for iPhone 4. Cam Capture allows users to make quick snapshots for important documents straight from their mobile devices, and additionally can organize and save them. Geared to be both practical and flexible enough to cater to even the most industrious users, Cam Capture simplifies the task of getting personal official photos of oneself made down to an easy seconds-long process.
• Nemo Games has introduced Enduro 1.0, their new driving game for iPhone and iPad. This fantastic game has been faithfully recreated for all retro lovers out there. Enduro consists of maneuvering a race car in the National Enduro, a long-distance endurance race. The object of the race is to pass a certain amount of cars each day. The driver must avoid other racers and pass 180 cars on the first day, and 280 cars with each following day.
• Synqua Games Ltd. has announced the successful release of Chillingham Manor for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This devilishly entertaining matching puzzle game treats players to a delightfully macabre atmosphere and dynamic competitive gameplay against a vibrant variety of diverse villains. The game is complete with a lengthy, endlessly re-playable campaign that throws gamers into the shoes of a rookie cartoon exorcist through Chillingham Manor.
• RB Apps, LLC has announced the global availability of the Doggy Diva app for the iPhone and iPod touch. It is an entertaining game designed especially for little fashionistas as well as for dog owners who adore playing and dressing up their doggies. Doggy Diva offers all the quality from the finely-detailed characters and accessories till the smooth and clean interface that is easy enough to use even for the little users.
• Neon Play has released Pro Football Touchdown 1.0 for iOS. The game has three different game modes, each requiring the player to catch footballs to score touchdowns. The game features live global leaderboards and scores can also be posted to Twitter and Facebook to obtain bragging rights amongst friends. There are also over 20 achievements to complete using Game Center.
• 8coupons has announced its iPhone application is available for free download today at the Apple App Store.  Relative to other deal aggregation apps, 8coupons is the most comprehensive, equipped with over 500K live deals within every zip code in the U.S.
• Appsules LLC has introduced Elapsed 1.0, their first product for iPhone and iPod touch. Elapsed is a free timer application that allows tracking of multiple timers simultaneously. Frequently used timers can be saved for easy reuse. Elapsed uniquely allows modification of running timers, thereby making it ideal for dealing with unexpected changes. Possible uses include metered parking, baking, grilling, doing laundry, exercising and any other tasks busy people need to monitor.
• RedLynx and Chillingo, leading independent games publisher and division of Electronic Arts, are teaming up to redefine touch-based racing on iOS devices with the announcement of DrawRace 2: Racing Evolved for the iPhone and iPad.
• ab2labs has announced that the update of their photography app, Effects 3.0, is now available exclusively for iPhone and iPod touch. Effects is a stylish and creative way to create unique photos. In Effects, the user can manipulate pictures in multiple ways thanks to many innovative features. The features include filters, layers, live preview, sharing with social media and email, upgradeable export resolution and custom frames.
• Readdle has released Printer Pro 1.5, a new version of popular application for printing email attachments, annotated documents, web pages, photos and other types of content from iOS devices. The new version of Printer Pro enhances printing experience for iPhone and iPad owners by delivering an excellent performance and advanced feature set. Also, Printer Pro 1.5 lets iOS owners to print PDF documents with mark-ups, hand drawn notes, signatures and even embedded forms right from Mail or PDF.
• Out of the Park Developments has announced the release of iOOTP Baseball 2011, an exciting new iOS game for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad that puts players in control of a major league baseball team. It’s driven by OOTP’s Out of the Park Baseball engine, which has provided stunningly realistic baseball simulations on PC, Mac, and Linux for over a decade. In addition, it’s the only game of its kind currently available at the App Store.
• Thanks to iPromDress 3.0, well-dressed girls will be heading to the prom in a perfect dress. Designed for easy, intuitive use, with iPromDress you can find the closest prom dress shop, store pictures of your dresses to compare them, and share your dress details and photos through email or Facebook. Your favorites are stored in an easy-to-navigate list, from which you can view the details, pictures, and even get directions back to the boutique. Shop, compare and share with iPromDress for iPhone.
• WhiskIT has announced the release of Spingredients 1.01 for iOS. Challenge yourself to cook whatever it suggests, or use it for inspiration when creating new dishes or menus. The app suggests which ingredients best complement not only your chosen ingredient, but also each other. This gives experienced cooks four key ingredients with which to create that perfect dish. For those in need of a little more inspiration, a built-in Google search helps you to find recipes.
• Thinknao software has announced its latest iOS game, Quoth 1.0 for iOS. Quoth is an exciting new twist to the word puzzles you’ve seen before. Use your knowledge and skills to fill in missing letters of famous quotes, sayings and anecdotes. Earn awards along the way and pass on your favorite sayings to friends and family. Quoth challenges you to fill-in missing letters of famous quotes, sayings and anecdotes within a set time limit. It’s so simple that anyone can play.
• Elite Gudz has announced a major expansion of its Retro-Pop Techno Kitten Adventure game. Previously exclusive to the Xbox Indies marketplace, a platform showcasing games developed by independent boutique studios. Techno Kitten Adventure is a single-button game in which players pilot a jetpack-powered kitten through an obstacle-laden world of rainbows, stars and other sparkly distractions, all set to upbeat techno music.
• It’s late at night. You can’t get hold of your husband. Or maybe your kid hasn’t come home yet. You try and call, but there’s no answer. You start to worry. You could start driving around to places you think they might be. Or, you could use the newly launched application for iPhone and iPad: Footprints. Footprints is a location-sharing app which displays the current whereabouts of your family and friends on a map. Utilizing its optimized Location Tracker, Footprints tracks and shares locations in the background, in real-time, all the time, without draining the battery like some other GPS trackers do.
• Thanks to Openfeint, My Brute is going free for a day. My Brute is a crazy, off-the-wall game of combat that gives you the chance to challenge fighters from all over the world. You simply take on a series of challenges, gain experience, unlock new skills and crush your enemies with ever-greater speed.
• Super Boise Studios is proud to announce the release of Political Fury: Primary 2012 Edition for the iPhone and iPad. Political Fury is about bringing people of various political beliefs together and letting them show off what they know about politics and current events. With this major update they can now share their knowledge in amazing new ways. The developers have added a custom-built forum, an in-game social network, a Primary 2012 Center, a newsfeed that’s updated daily, more community polls, and hundreds of new trivia questions. They’ve also expanded The Knowledge Battle to include the 2012 Presidential candidates so now players can help establish both their party and their candidate as the smartest in the land.
• Villain announced today the release Archetype Cadet and Archetype Cadet HD, free new versions of Archetype, its top-selling and critically acclaimed online first-person shooter game for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Archetype Cadet gives players a free training ground to experience the best, most intense online FPS action from the world of Archetype. Both versions of Archetype Cadet are now available as a free download in the iTunes App Store, and a free new 1.5.1 update of the core Archetype game with memory optimization updates is also available from iTunes.
• iMotion HD is an intuitive and powerful time-lapse and stop-motion app for iOS. Take pictures, edit your movie and export HD 720p videos to your device or directly to Youtube. Time-lapse is a cinematography technique which accelerates movement. It can be used to photograph cloudscapes and celestial motion, plants growing and flowers blooming, evolution of a building project, crowds… Stop motion is an animation technique which make a physically manipulated object look like it’s moving on its own.

New apps for iPad only

• Golden Hammer Software has introduced Scribble Worm 1.0, a revolutionary new puzzle game for the iPad. Use your finger to draw patterns on notebook paper. These patterns come to life as cutesy worms scribbled in crayon, wriggling their way across the paper. The goal is to reach an apple elsewhere on the page by drawing a pattern and anticipating the path of the resulting worm. With a unique game mechanic, Scribble Worm offers lots of challenging puzzles and Game Center support.
• 955 Dreams Inc. has introduced On the Way to Woodstock 1.0.6 for Apple’s iPad. This immersive, interactive timeline explores the phenomenon of how a generation evolved from sock hops to Woodstock. Enjoy over 100 hours of narrative, photography, videos and music from the 1950s, the 1960s and each of the artists that performed at the 1969 Woodstock Art & Music Fair. Over 100 rare color photos of Woodstock from award-winning photographer, Barry Levine.
• iNetwallpaper Limited has announced 3D Wallpaper Pro 1.0, their flagship iPad Wallpaper App. With sleek and stylish design, 3D Wallpaper Pro delivers unique and exclusive iPad Wallpaper, raising the bar in iPad and iPad 2 wallpaper apps. 3D Wallpaper Pro redefines what people should expect from iPad wallpaper apps; this new iPad-only app gives users unique and exclusive HD images with stunning levels of detail and depth.
• ComboApp today announces the recent release of the Pocket MBA Full Course: Part 4 app bundle for the iPad. Created specifically for mobile learning on Apple’s powerful tablet platforms and structured to be a fully self sufficient mobile learning experience, Part 4 of the Pocket MBA Full Course app bundle series represents the latest expansion of the publisher’s well rounded “Full Course” mobile business education solutions franchise.
• APPinspect has announced Hazard Manager 3.1, the map-based workplace inspection app. Upload jpeg floorplans via iTunes for many buildings, using scanned sketches or graphic files. Navigate from Group to Inspection Floorplan Folder to carry out a new Inspection. Choose Inspection Layer to add HazardPoints to map. Edit, push and shove HazardPoints. View all Layers. Flip through all inspections in a folder. Email inspection in .hzp format so another HazMan user can share the inspection.

New accessories

• Urbanears has announced the release of Plattan Plus—a version of the Plattan headphone featuring an Apple certified microphone and remote, with the additional functionality of volume control. The Plattan Plus comes in Dark Grey, Purple, Pool and Cerise and is available for purchase now. The Plattan is designed to be the perfect classic headphone with all the additional features that make it above and beyond what a static headphone would offer. Because you can fold it down to the size of your fist, the Plattan is extremely mobile, allowing for better protection when not in use.

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

The problem of cheating in chess has hit epidemic proportions with many reasons why. I’ll explain to you my opinion on the current situation on chess cheating, a bit on the history of cheating in chess, and what we can possibly do to stop it.

Chess cheating continues from history till modern day

Chess, the honorable game of kings, has had a markedly dark and diverse history of cheating. As a matter of fact, cheating in chess is just about as old as the game itself. However, in recent days the problem has gotten so bad that there is suspected cheating even amongst world class grandmasters. With computers becoming ever more powerful and earpieces and other forms to cheat becoming smaller and harder to detect, it’s no surprise that cheating in chess has become more prevalent and harder to detect.

The most popular methods and utilities used for cheating in chess appear to be:

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

Tonight's AV results will feel very raw for the Lib Dems, but could open the way for progressive parties to re-engage

In my experience, nothing prepares you for the overwhelming reality of a significant experience. A first kiss, the birth of a child, the death of a loved one. One can imagine all these things in advance, often endlessly so. But when they actually happen, theory flies out of the window and the sheer force of the experience takes over.

It is exactly the same in politics. Politicians often pride themselves on their ability to think round corners, to anticipate secondary and tertiary outcomes, and thus to discount the impact of the foreseeable as they move seamlessly on to the next thing. But they deceive themselves too. Even when the long expected occurs in politics, its impact is far greater than the clever people can ever imagine. And I guarantee that it will be like that for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats tomorrow.

"Although I anticipated the total of the losses, somehow when some of the losses happen to you it feels much worse," wrote Richard Crossman in his diary after the first Wilson government was clobbered in the 1965 local elections. "Birmingham, twelve seats lost; Coventry, four seats lost. This is tremendously serious," Crossman continued. "One can't expect the electorate to vote Labour after nearly eight months of Labour government when, despite sowing a lot of seed, we have reaped nothing," he concluded.

Nearly half a century on, that's pretty much where Clegg and the Lib Dems find themselves today. Clegg's clever people have long claimed that this week's local and devolved elections would be bloody but bearable. A month or so ago, however, they began to grasp that the Tories were implacably committed to the defeat of the AV referendum. That's why this week's elections have been the event that broke the coalition's sense of fraternity. But even so, the hurt today will be deeper, more shocking and, above all, more politically consequential than they expected. Crossman's three raw reflections – it feels worse, it is tremendously serious, and we have reaped nothing – will be Clegg's too.

To be fair, there is a measure of pain for all the main parties. The media, ever ready to kick a man when he is down, will concentrate on Clegg. But this is not a good day for the Conservatives. The tide is starting to turn on the Tories in English local government. The party is becalmed in Wales and Scotland. And, for Cameron, even AV is a reminder that behind every silver lining there is still a dark cloud, since both the coalition and the Tory party will now be much harder to manage.

Even Labour has problems. The election of lots of new Labour councillors should not be dismissed. Nor the expected re-election in Wales. But the outcome in Scotland is a humiliation in what used to be Labour heartlands, especially when compared with the hopes so recently. And the very serious Labour splits over AV show how Ed Miliband's writ, like that of the Islamabad government in Pakistan, simply does not run in the tribal areas. If this referendum splits the Labour party as deeply as the European one did in the 1970s – and it could – then today will deliver as much pain as gain.

These elections mark a turning point in British politics in three significant respects. The first, not to be underestimated, is in Scotland. It now seems likely that Alex Salmond's Scottish Nationalists will have a second term at Holyrood. This surely means that there will at last be a referendum on Scottish independence some time before 2016. The default assumption across the political class north and south has always been that this referendum would be lost. But Salmond's re-election might just be a game-changer. If he pulls it off, the political consequences for Scotland and for the remainder of the UK would be massive – not least for the prospect of a future Labour government in London. Take Scotland more seriously.

The second is the effect of the expected rejection of the AV referendum on the prospects for constitutional and electoral reform more generally. Those of us who thought AV would win have to hold our hands up here and confess to getting this wrong. But the lesson of this referendum is twofold: first, that reformers need to prepare their case better, maximise their support better, detach the issue as far as possible from partisan advantage and then avoid entangling the referendum with important elections between the parties; second, it is to recognise that the Tory party is, by and large, reform's enemy,

Those who are against reform, and not just Conservative opponents, will now point to the AV result, like the three-to-one rejection of John Prescott's north-east devolution plan in 2004, as proof that, in the absence of the national grievance that exists in Scotland and Wales, voters will back the status quo. Perhaps. But the lesson of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution and, more recently, of the 2011 referendum on Welsh assembly powers, is also that genuine cross-party political preparation is an essential engine of referendum success. Reformers – which hopefully still includes the Labour party in spite of its abject performance on AV – should therefore now establish a UK constitutional reform convention, along the lines pioneered in Scotland 20 years ago.

There is a direct link between that proposal and the third and most immediate effect of May 2011 voting. The referendum campaign has marked the breaking-point of any attempt to turn the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition into a longer-term liberal centre-right project. That does not mean that the coalition was the wrong course for the parties to take a year ago, or that it is now at an end. Neither is true. But it does mean that the coalition will now become a more limited transactional alliance and not the marriage of consenting liberal hearts that some have imagined. The questions of when it ends, how it ends and what happens next are now all on the table, senior Lib Dems now say. To which I would add that the question of Clegg's leadership of his party at the next election is now also there too.

None of this is to say that the rift between Labour and the Lib Dems is about to be healed. Massive uncertainties still litter this part of the political landscape, not least in the destructive form of Labour's infinitely stubborn tribalist tendency. But Labour needs the Lib Dems and vice versa. And the way towards some sort of evolving re-engagement between the progressive parties is beginning to open up. And that, amid so many mixed messages from the voters this week, is a small, flickering still-uncertain sign of hope for the future.

Environmentalism is stuck – factional and uncertain even of the goals we seek. But we must face facts and engage with reality

In my column this week, I discussed the crisis the environment movement is now confronting. I'm using this essay to expand on the problems I mentioned there, and in particular to consider the most interesting of the responses to the crisis proposed so far, by writer and environmentalist Paul Kingsnorth. Let me begin by spelling out, at greater length, the problems we face.

1. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions means increasing electricity production. It is hard to see a way around this. Because low-carbon electricity is the best means of replacing the fossil fuels used for heating and transport, electricity generation will rise, even if we manage to engineer a massive reduction in overall energy consumption. The Zero Carbon Britain report published by the Centre for Alternative Technology envisages a 55% cut in overall energy demand by 2030 – and a near-doubling of electricity production.

2. Low carbon electricity means, to most greens, renewable sources of energy. They were never well-loved, but now, in the places in which major deployment is taking place, they are provoking something approaching a full-scale revolt. Here in mid-Wales, for example, and in the highlands of Scotland, public anger towards wind farms and the power lines and hubs required to serve them is coming to dominate local politics. While there are plenty of stupid myths circulating about the inability of wind turbines to produce electricity and about the greenhouse gases released in constructing them, in other respects the opposition to them is not irrational. People love their landscapes, and so they should.

Those of us who support renewables find ourselves in a difficult position: demanding the industrialisation of the countryside, supporting new power stations, new power lines and (for the electricity storage required) new reservoirs. Even offshore power, whose landscape impacts are much smaller, means more grid connections and more storage.

3. The only viable low-carbon alternative we have at the moment is nuclear power. This has the advantage of being confined to compact industrial sites, rather than sprawling over the countryside, and of requiring fewer new grid connections (especially if new plants are built next to the old ones). It has the following disadvantages:

a. The current generation of power stations require uranium mining, which destroys habitats and pollutes land and water. Though its global impacts are much smaller than the global impacts of coal, the damage it causes cannot be overlooked.

b. The waste it produces must be stored for long enough to be rendered safe. It is not technically difficult to do this, with vitrification, encasement and deep burial, but governments keep delaying their decisions as a result of public opposition.

Both these issues (as well as concerns about proliferation and security) could be addressed through the replacement of conventional nuclear power with thorium or integral fast reactors but, partly as a result of public resistance to atomic energy, neither technology has yet been developed. (I'll explore the potential of both approaches in a later column).

c. Nuclear power divides our movements. Some of the most effective environmental organisations – Greenpeace for example – could not drop their opposition without falling apart.

4. Whichever low-carbon technology we embrace, we help to provide the means by which the industrial economy can keep expanding, even if it does so without a major release of greenhouse gases. This threatens to exacerbate all the other issues that concern us. To prevent this from happening, the replacement of fossil fuels should be accompanied by a transition to a steady-state economy. Professor Herman Daly and author Tim Jackson have shown us how this can be done technically. How it can be done politically is, at present, quite another matter.

5. Those who, on the other hand, advocate a return to a land-based economy and the abandonment of industrial society find themselves in conflict with the desires of most of humanity, in both rich and poor nations. They have produced no convincing account of how people could be persuaded to turn their backs on manufactured products, advanced infrastructure and public services.

6. Our reliance on the mineral crunch, which was supposed to have brought the economic engine of destruction to a grinding halt, appears to have been misplaced. The collapse of accessible mineral reserves has not occurred, and shows little sign of occurring within our lifetimes. Capitalism has proved adept at finding new reserves or (in the case of fossil fuels) substitutes for those that are depleting. This takes place at a massive cost to the environment, as exploitation intrudes into an ever wider range of habitats and involves ever more destructive processes. New mineral reserves allow us to continue waging war against biodiversity, habitats, soil, fresh water supplies and the climate.

7. We have no idea what to do next.

8. Partly as a result, we have started tearing each other apart. This is an understandable but unnecessary reaction. Those seeking to protect the landscape are not our enemies; nor are those advocating that renewables should replace fossil fuel; nor are those promoting nuclear power as the answer; nor are those opposing nuclear power. We are all struggling with the same problem, all bumping up against atmospheric chemistry and physical constraints.

The enmity arises when people go into denial. Denial is everywhere. Those opposing windfarms find it convenient to deny that climate change is happening, or that turbines produce much electricity. Those promoting windfarms downplay the landscape impacts. Nuclear enthusiasts ignore the impacts of uranium mining. Opponents of nuclear power dismiss the solid science on the impacts of radiation and embrace wildly-inflated junk numbers instead. Primitivists decry all manufacturing industry, but fail to explain how their medicines and spectacles, scythes and billhooks will be produced. Localists rely on technologies – such as microwind and high-latitude solar power – that cannot deliver. Technocratic greens refuse to see that if economic growth is not addressed, a series of escalating catastrophes is inevitable. Romantic greens insist that the problem can be solved without even engaging in these dilemmas, yet fail to explain how else it can be done.

We're all responding to the same impulses, but we're all being tripped up by denial. Denial, and a failure to see the whole picture, are our enemies. Or perhaps, as doctors say about alcohol, our false friends.

I'm by no means the first to recognise that environmentalism is stuck. Paul Kingsnorth co-founded the Dark Mountain project as a means of exploring this problem. His latest essay The Quants and the Poets is a compelling and beautifully-written account of the way in which "the green movement has torpedoed itself with numbers" and is now trying to save the world "one emission at a time". Trying to accommodate a narrative of other people's making, greens "feel obliged to act like speak-your-weight machines just to be heard." This approach, he argues, "has left environmentalism in a position where its advocates now find themselves unable to do anything but argue about which machines they would prefer to use to power an ever-growing industrial economy."

He explains his prescription as follows:

What is missing here is stories, and an understanding of the importance of stories in getting to the bottom of what is really going on. Because at root, this whole squabble between worldviews is not about numbers at all – it is about narratives. … How to reassert the importance of stories, then, is perhaps a key question now. Green poets might perhaps start by observing that worlds are not 'saved' by the same stories that are killing them. They might want to observe that saving worlds is an impossible business in the first place, and that attempting to do so is likely to lead to some very dark places. Or they might try and explore what it is about how we see ourselves which reduces us to this, time and time again – arguing about machines rather than wondering what those machines give us and what they take away.

In his magnificent book Landscape and Memory, Simon Schama argues in support of a poetic narrative of the kind Kingsnorth promotes.

Of one thing at least I am certain: that not to take myth seriously in the life of an ostensibly "disenchanted" culture like our own is actually to impoverish our understanding of our shared world.

I'm sure that's right, as is Schama's warning that, in embracing narratives, we do not become morally blinded by their poetic power. (He was thinking, in particular, about the old German stories of the redemptive power of the Urwald – the ancient Hercynian forest - and the national myth of the German forest character, arising from Arminius's victory over the Romans in the forbidding Teutoburger Wald. Poetic narratives, even initially harmless ones, have a nasty habit of backfiring spectacularly.)

But here too there is a problem. Green narratives have collapsed precisely because they were unable to withstand the steely quantification demanded by an attempt to get to grips with problems like climate change. Or they have been struck down by circumstance: such as the inconvenient non-appearance of the commodities crunch they predicted. If a new poetic narrative is no better able to answer questions such as how a steady-state economy can be achieved, how low-carbon electricity will be produced, how the common fisheries policy can be reformed or how, in a land-based economy, bricks and glass will be made, it too will collapse. In fact, it will never get off the ground as these questions, once formulated, won't go away.

Perhaps we are less tolerant of myth than we used to be. Perhaps we should be. Is creating new, opposing myths the best way of confronting the founding myths of neoliberal capitalism? I don't think so. Is it not better to fight them with withering analysis, quantification and exposure? But can we do this without becoming insensible to beauty, and to the impulse – a love for the world and its people, its places and its living creatures – which turned us green in the first place? I don't know. I do know that it's a discussion in which we have to engage.

www.monbiot.com

Today I would like to share with you an interview I've done with designer StrangeProgram, an artist with an extensive gallery on deviantART that shows a colorful and interesting style.

Check out the interview!

1. First of all we would like to thank you for taking the time to provide abduzeedo.com with this interview. Please tell us more about your art and design background and what made you become an artist and designer?

Hi, no problem! I started doing art because my mom did a lot of art. She was constantly doing either watercolor painting, or sketching, or anything, really. So early on in my life, my greatest artistic inspiration was her. As time went on I began to explore interests in graphics design, particularly forum board signatures, and began trying to make them. I constantly wanted to expand my technique and eventually I shifted to larger canvas sizes to improve the potential I could do with the work. I think what made me do it at first was just the excitement of learning new techniques and expanding on styles.

2 How did you come up with your style, what made you explore more this style and what in your opinion is the main characteristic of it?

Well, I really wanted to create a style where the true stars of the show were the colors, the textures, and the contrasts. To create something pleasing to the eye using these utilities as your main device is a lot of fun! So eventually I started coming up with more and more ways that I could use them to my adventure to sync with my techniques. As time has gone on, I've been able to develop more interesting techiques to apply. I like expressing myself using the color, the texture, and the contrasts - it isn't so obvious that it is my emotion expression, but that is a good thing to me. I think the main characteristic to my work is how comfortable I am with expressing myself using it - It always flows so naturally with how I feel and what I am thinking.

3. How's your workflow for your projects? How would you break down your workflow in steps?

As my mom has been doing artwork for her entire life she's always stressed the importance of defining your values with your darks and lights and balancing them in the piece of artwork. I always try to begin with some brainstorming, trying to get some idea of where the light source is going to be, what the values are going to be and how I am going to distribute the light shades and dark shades evenly in the piece, and where the negative space is going to go and how I am going to use it. I'll come up with a basic idea of what and then slowly work my way up, distributing detailing evenly. I like to decide where the real impactful stuff is going to be early on, and plan what I'm going to do to separate this piece from the last. I always begin with which colors I am going to use in mind. I would say that my main resource for planning is my imagination. I try my best to visualize what is going to happen.

4. What's the importance of the computer in the creative process?

Really the greatest advantage of the digital age for the artist to me is just the sheer amount of directions that you can go with it, and how much different things you can work with to create one piece. The ability to illustrate in one program, 3D model in another, and paint in another and then put it all together really is a phenomenal combination of different techniques that the artist has chosen to apply into the completion of one single project. The capability that an artist has to utilize all these different programs and all the different tools available in them is limitless.

5. Apart from the profits, what type of satisfaction do you get from your work? And how much this matter in your life?

The satisfaction of expression is one thing. It is my favorite way to communicate, without ever having to tell anybody anything. It feels like a release sometimes. In a less abstract way it also just keeps me interested and gives me something to pay attention to. There is a lot of enjoyment to be had completing something and being proud of it. The way it helps me express myself is important to my life - it's a craft that I have come to build up and enjoy working with.

6. What are your favourite 5 websites, and why?

Google.com - This is probably the most important and took for granted. For research, just looking at pictures of things (Not using them!), or researching something that has to do with the work that I am doing. Having a search engine available is also a great advantage of the computer in the creative process.

Deviantart.com - There are a lot of resources here, in the resource and stock images part of the website. It is also where I upload a lot of my artwork. Also a great way to keep track of other artists whos work I enjoy.

sxc.hu - Free stock image site. A lot of good stock photos here.

Depthcore.com - Essentially an inspiration portal for me - a lot of very inspiring and talented artists who release artworks on a regular basis together as a collective.

Kular.adobe.com - I was a little hard pressed to think of another one, but even though I don't use this website very often, I have used it before and it is no doubt very useful for coming up with combinations of colors that work well together in design.

7. Advice for those who are starting out their career. What kind of references are important for those who want to work with this kind of style?

The best advice I can probably give is to really get comfortable with your tools. Get comfortable with the tools in all the programs you use. You can do this through tutorials, or, you can do like I did, where I essentially just always kept trying to use a new tool with every new project I made. Sometimes the results aren't in your favor, but once you come to learn and master a lot of the tools in the programs you use that'll be your greatest asset in really developing a comfortable relationship with the work you do. I use a lot of geometric references and have been trying to introduce some perspective based techniques into my work, so I guess the best starting point for someone trying to work with a style like mine is to try to come to some technical foundation that you can apply your creativity to.

Where to find this artist

http://strangeprogram.deviantart.com/

More work of this artist

Molly Wood, CNET's Executive Editor, and the host of a daily television program covering technology, posted to her blog last week under the headline: "Welcome to the age of data. Watch your back!"

In a conversation with 7x7, she said that the current "information boom" sweeping through the Bay Area can be summed up by one word -- data.

"The startups have this in common. They harvest data, use it to make connections, to advertise to you, or to use the web as a giant recommendation engine. Essentially, they are forming a kind of supercomputer made of users and their data."

She notes the "dark side" of all this. "The level of information out there about you and me is staggering. They can sell this data. So the cost of 'free' has never been higher."

What she is referring to is that while services such as Google and Facebook don't charge you anything for using them, what they get in return is access to all kinds of data that allows them to better tailor their services (and advertisements) to you on a targeted basis.

You'd have to reread each company's Terms of Service every week to keep up with their ever-changing policies when it comes to "protecting" your personal data. But one way or another, information about you and your preferences goes far beyond the corporate campuses in Mountainview or Palo Alto.

"There are the third-party data harvesters," says Wood, "or Mafia garbage collectors" that make it their business to find and sell data about us to all sorts of clients.

"We live in a transparent society now, but it is a one-way street where companies know all about us but we don't know very much about what they are doing with the information they gather about us.

Wood believes that the concept in Daniel Suarez's book "Freedom," where members of a "darknet" use special glasses that are able to display the publicly available information about all people on earth above their heads, has already essentially become reality.

She calls this our personalized "data score," although it's one we don't have access to.

She cites Google as a case in point. Given its enormous processing power, combined with the voluminous data it gathers as you use its many services like gmail, YouTube, maps, docs, Blogger, calendar, and so on, "Google could probably build a computer clone of you," notes Wood, "If it wanted to."

 

Mercedes Italy has revealed a new special edition model based on the Smart ForTwo Cabrio. It’s called the Brabus Le Bleue and will be limited to only 60 units on the Italian market only.

The first thing that will distinguish the special edition is a plain dark blue metallic paint and special alloy wheels Brabus Monoblock VII 6-twin-spoke 16-inch front and 17 "rear. On the interior, the model will add a soft beige color, with contrasting leather seats and door trim with blue stitching and the Brabus logo. The list of standard equipment includes: navigation system with integrated multi-media touch screen display, CD / DVD player, iPod interface, USB and Bluetooth hands-free.

Like with all the other Brabus models, the new Smart ForTwo Cabrio Le Bleue is powered by the same 102 hp engine that accelerates the car from 0 to 60 mph in 8.9 seconds and reaches a top speed of 96 mph, with fuel consumption and emissions of 5.2 l/100 km and 119 g / km of CO2.

Smart ForTwo Cabrio Brabus La Bleue originally appeared on topspeed.com on Monday, 2 May 2011 13:30 EST.

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“Fight of the Century” Lyrics.

Written by John Papola and Russ Roberts

KEYNES

Here we are… peace out! great recession
thanks to me, as you see, we’re not in a depression
Recovery, destiny if you follow my lesson
Lord Keynes, here I come, line up for the procession

HAYEK
We brought out the shovels and we’re still in a ditch…
And still digging. don’t you think that it’s time for a switch…
From that hair of the dog. Friend, the party is over.
The long run is here. It’s time to get sober!

KEYNES
Are you kidding? my cure works perfectly fine…
have a look, the great recession ended back in ’09.
I deserve credit. Things would have been worse
All the estimates prove it—I’ll quote chapter and verse

HAYEK
Econometricians, they’re ever so pious
Are they doing real science or confirming their bias?
Their “Keynesian” models are tidy and neat
But that top down approach is a fatal conceit

REFRAIN
Which way should we choose?
more bottom up or more top down
…the fight continues…
Keynes and Hayek’s second round

it’s time to weigh in…
more from the top or from the ground
…lets listen to the greats
Keynes and Hayek throwing down

KEYNES
We could have done better, had we only spent more
Too bad that only happens when there’s a World War
You can carp all you want about stats and regression
Do you deny World War II cut short the Depression?

HAYEK
Wow. One data point and you’re jumping for joy
the Last time I checked, wars only destroy
There was no multiplier, consumption just shrank
As we used scarce resources for every new tank

Pretty perverse to call that prosperity
Rationed meat, Rationed butter… a life of austerity
When that war spending ended your friends cried disaster
yet the economy thrived and grew faster

KEYNES
You too only see what you want to see
The spending on war clearly goosed GDP
Unemployment was over, almost down to zero
That’s why I’m the master, that’s why I’m the hero

HAYEK
Creating employment’s a straightforward craft
When the nation’s at war, and there’s a draft
If every worker was staffed in the army and fleet
We’d have full employment and nothing to eat

REFRAIN REPEATS

HAYEK
jobs are a means, not the ends in themselves
people work to live better, to put food on the shelves
real growth means production of what people demand
That’s entrepreneurship not your central plan

KEYNES
My solution is simple and easy to handle..
its spending that matters, why’s that such a scandal?
The money sloshes through the pipes and the sluices
revitalizing the economy’s juices

it’s just like an engine that’s stalled and gone dark
To bring it to life, we need a quick spark
Spending’s the life blood that gets the flow going
Where it goes doesn’t matter, just get spending flowing

HAYEK
You see slack in some sectors as a “general glut”
But some sectors are healthy, only some in a rut
So spending’s not free – that’s the heart of the matter
too much is wasted as cronies get fatter.

The economy’s not a car, there’s no engine to stall
no expert can fix it, there’s no “it” at all.
The economy’s us, we don’t need a mechanic
Put away the wrenches, the economy’s organic

REFRAIN REPEATS

KEYNES
so what would you do to help those unemployed?
this is the question you seem to avoid
when we’re in a mess, would you just have us wait?
Doing nothing until markets equilibrate?

HAYEK
I don’t want to do nothing, there’s plenty to do
The question I ponder is who plans for whom?
Do I plan for myself or leave it to you?
I want plans by the many, not by the few.

Let’s not repeat what created our troubles
I want real growth not a series of bubbles
Stop bailing out loser, let prices work
If we don’t try to steer them they won’t go berserk

KEYNES
Come on, Are you kidding? Don’t Wall Street’s gyrations
Challenge your world view of self-regulation?
Even you must admit that the lesson we’ve learned
Is more oversight’s needed or else we’ll get burned

HAYEK
Oversight? The government’s long been in bed
With those Wall Street execs and the firms that they’ve bled
Capitalism’s about profit and loss
you bail out the losers there’s no end to the cost

the lesson I’ve learned? It’s how little we know,
the world is complex, not some circular flow
the economy’s not a class you can master in college
to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge

REFRAIN REPEATS

KEYNES
You get on your high horse and you’re off to the races
I look at the world on a case by case basis
When people are suffering I roll up my sleeves
And do what I can to cure our disease

The future’s uncertain, our outlooks are frail
Thats why free markets are so prone to fail
In a volatile world we need more discretion
So state intervention can counter depression

HAYEK
People aren’t chessmen you move on a board
at your whim–their dreams and desires ignored
With political incentives, discretion’s a joke
Those dials you’re twisting… just mirrors and smoke

We need stable rules and real market prices
so prosperity emerges and cuts short the crisis
give us a chance so we can discover
the most valuable ways to serve one another

FINAL REFRAIN
Which way should we choose?
more bottom up or more top down
the fight continues…
Keynes and Hayek’s second round

it’s time to weigh in…
more from the top or from the ground
…lets listen to the greats
Keynes and Hayek throwing down

The Lamborghini tears through the desert, dodging black pillars that look a lot like the Tomorrow Awards award. It speeds toward a darkening sky, what is that. Hell? Evil? The to Eye of Sauron‎? Who cares, the Lamborghini doesn't, it just revs up the engine once more and shoots straight through it parting the dark skies with its super-power: awesomeness.

OV-105, as Space Shuttle Endeavour is designated by NASA, is due to fly into space for the final time today Sunday "more toward the end of the week." Here's everything you need to know about this remarkable machine, which was put together from spare parts.

Her Name

Endeavour isn't the American English spelling of the word for a concerted, earnest attempt to reach a lofty goal--because OV-105 isn't named for the word. Instead she's named in honor of HMS Endeavour, the British ship which took James Cook on his first voyage of discovery in 1768. The main objective of the voyage, tasked by the Admiralty and the Royal Society, was to travel to Tahiti to accurately observe a transit of Venus across the Sun--a measurement that gave scientists an incredibly accurate measurement of the distance between the Sun and the Earth.

Endeavour was actually named as part of a competition among school kids in the U.S., and her name was popularly suggested, accounting for almost a third of state-level entries.

The Spare Part Space Shuttle

Endeavour, the newest shuttle, wasn't a planned addition to the fleet. Her existence is due to the Challenger tragedy, which changed NASA forever but left a gaping hole in its space launch capabilities--vital for the construction of the International Space Station.

Hence the contract to build Endeavour was awarded in July 1987, and she was put together largely from spare parts that had been constructed as part of the manufacturing process of Discovery and Atlantis, pieces of body that had been built at the same time as these vehicles (to minimize cost exposures) in case of any mishap. It took just five years to construct and test the vehicle, and she flew for the first time on May 7th, 1992.

Her Tech Specs

Endeavour is 122.1 feet long, with a wingspan of 78 feet and empty of fuel and payload she weighs 162,000 pounds (in comparison a 737-400 aircraft, typically used for long-range intracontinental flights, is 119.5 feet long, with a 94.8 feet wingspan and an empty weight of 73,000 pounds).

She's powered with three Rocketdyne Block 2A Space Shuttle Main Engines, each of which weighs over 7,000 pounds and is capable of pushing with 400,000 pounds of thrust (the engine of a 737 typically pushes at around 20,000 pounds at take-off). When lit, the engines burn at over 3,000 Celcius, and if their fuel pumps were used to pump water instead of fuel, each could drain a typical swimming pool in 75 seconds.

Endeavour's cargo bay is 15 feet wide by 59 feet long, and she can lift up to 55,250 pounds of cargo into orbit.

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Endeavour's Advanced Tech, Ahead of the Rest

Because she was built last, the companies responsible for constructing Endeavour could include more advanced technology.

This included a 40-foot drag chute for landing, halving the rollout distance, better avionics, better nose wheel steering, better auxiliary power units to drive her hydraulics, an external airlock enabling docking to the ISS, stronger wings and a lighter-weight construction. These advances were later included in re-fits of the rest of the fleet.

The Hubble Space Telescope Mission

Perhaps Endeavour's finest moment was the very first mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope--a vital mission to repair a manufacturing flaw that seriously limited the telescope's usefulness. Launching December 2 1993, the shuttle flew up to the HST's high orbit at 321 nautical miles in what was the most complex, and one of the riskiest shuttle flights undertaken to date, with a 1 in 150 calculated chance of catastrophic failure due to collision with space debris or micrometeorites.

Five spacewalks were needed to repair the telescope's various systems, which was a record at the time. The repairs were a complete success, and transformed Hubble into one of the most remarkable tools for astronomy ever made.

Today's Unique Payloads

Flying in the shuttle today are a couple of unique pieces of hardware.

The first is the AMS2, the second Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, based off a flight of an earlier prototype, which is a billion-dollar experiment to detect such neat things as antimatter, dark matter and strangelets (a physics oddity: particles made entirely of strange quarks). It's all about hard science to solve some big puzzles, and will function on the outside of the ISS for up to 10 years.

The second unique payload is 13 Lego sets, flying as part of the Lego Bricks in Space program--a scientific and educational experiment which will see astronauts building various models and seeing how they react in microgravity. The results will be shared with schools when they begin in September.

Where She'll Rest Up

When she lands after the current mission, Endeavour will undergo a major dismantling program to render her safe to be displayed in a museum--in this case the California Science Center in Los Angeles, although the shuttle's Canadarm robot arm is being removed for display in an undecided location in Canada.

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

Read More: What China's New Space Station Means For The World

In Myth II destruction reigns supreme. Castle walls will crumble under a barrage of Dwarven mortar fire. Drawbridges will lower before your besieging army. Flaming arrows will rain down from battlements, lighting the ground beneath you. Dark wizards will hurl deadly sorceries at your ranks, scattering even your bravest warriors.

Myth II: Soulblighter is a unique strategy game, set in a 3D world of dangerous alliances and ancient evil, where all beings tremble before the wrath of Soulblighter, cruelest and most cunning of the evil Fallen Lords.

Version 1.7.2:

• Massive OpenGL optimizations, especially with detail textures (2x - 5x as fast on modern hardware)!
• New event-based input system that guarantees every character typed will be registered.
• New preference to automatically save multiplayer films.
• Elimination of up to two ticks of baked-in latency in the Myth net code.
• Overhead map zoom level will now be saved between games.
• Fix for the endless "Waiting for other players..." dialog.
• Type-to-seek functionality for the new game, recordings and saved game lists.
• Restored custom plugin images in the single-player new game dialog.
• Optimized gameplay code, resulting in 30% faster save game loads.
• Added new high resolution icons.

Section: Mac Software, Miscellaneous / Other

Macintosh product updates and announcements for April 20, 2011:

Software

• SuperSync LLC has announced SuperSync 4.0.8, an update to the industry leading iTunes sync utility. SuperSync enables users to visually compare, access, sync, and merge their iTunes libraries across multiple Macintosh, Windows PCs, hard drives, network storage, and iOS devices. Version 4.0.8 is major update, that includes an improved user interface, a complete rewrite of iTunes Library detection feature, improved support of iTunes specific metadata, device importing, and more.
• IcyBlaze has launched their Spring Sales, offering 1,000 30% off Coupon code for iDocument. Now is a perfect chance for Mac users to own a copy of this small application. iDocument manages all your documents on your Mac with all cool managing feature like tags, labels, rating, encrypts, instant search, etc. iDocument now supports lots of different formats, and with the index function, the program reacts 2 times faster than before.
• The Omegabundle Group has announced OmegaBundle 2011 for LiveCode. Save 85% on purchasing LiveCode and 12 essential, professional add-ons and extensions for LiveCode. Rapidly build iPhone / iPad apps and Mac OS X applications with LiveCode, and for other operating systems. Extend your applications with 3D, client-server databases and more. This is a limited time offer in order to provide cross platform, iOS and Android developers with the best original and third party tools available.
• Old Jewel Software has released LazyMouse 2.5, a free upgrade to its popular Mac shareware utility. LazyMouse is a Preference Pane that moves the user’s cursor to the default button whenever a dialog box appears on the screen. It saves time moving the mouse to dismiss dialogs. Version 2.5 adds the ability to show an animation when the cursor is moved. The animation shows a ghosted cursor moving from the original mouse position to the new mouse position.
• Sourcebits has officially launched DMG Architect - Disk Builder into the Mac App Store. The app allows users to create, burn and share disk icons with a level of ease never before seen. DMG Architect combines professional-level detail with novice-friendly design to create a product which is perfect for everyone. Features such as full Apple Script support mean that you’ll never have to fuss with the graphics interface if you don’t want to, and those who don’t have artwork already in mind can browse the large gallery of templates, backgrounds and icons. For the more advanced users, DMG Architect showcases full WYSIWYG control, as well as the ability to create and include your own End User License Agreement and capabilities to burn your project directly to a CD or DVD. No matter your level of experience, DMG Architect can help you get the job done.
• Chimp Studios has introduced Guest List Planner 1.0 for Mac OS X, their event planner app featuring one-click import of complete lists of names and addresses stored in the user’s Address Book, Gmail and Facebook accounts. With all contacts imported, it is a simple matter of dragging selected names onto the Guest List. The app is perfect for couples planning their weddings, parents planning kids’ birthday and graduation parties, and children planning retirement parties for their parents.
• UK based WriteIt! Studios has released Cookie Stumbler 1.1.3. Cookie Stumbler deletes either automatically via schedules or as a One-Click-Solution all advertising + tracking cookies and all cookies not included in the bookmarks and/or history. CS can be highly customized e.g. via its whitelist and blacklist. Through regularly updated cookie definitions and via a sophisticated heuristics engine Cookie Stumbler recognizes efficiently the majority of Ad/Tracking cookies.
• Cristallight and Don Kurt have announced iBarcoder 3.3.4, the latest Mac Barcode software for your MacOSX 10.4 or later. iBarcoder provides business owners with the cutting edge technology that they need to create the unique and individualized barcodes they need including the QR code. The format of the system is user-friendly and there is 24 hour customer service and technical support available if you have a question or problem.
• In collaboration with iPresentee and iWebThemesPro, iWebTemplate has announced the addition of 9 new iWeb templates to be used with Apple’s Website building application. The following superb iWeb templates have been added: Mac Store, Underground, Tea Time, Retro, Mammoth, Drawing, Church Dark, Wedding and Church. The new iWeb templates can be easily customized. The new iWeb templates include an installer to make sure the templates end up in the right place.
• Little Worlds Studio has announced the release of its new Mac game Color Cross, available starting today on the MacStore. After the success of Color Cross and Animal Color Cross on Nintendo DS, DSiWare, PC, Facebook, iPad and iPhone, Little Worlds Studio today launches the adaptation of its two bestsellers merged into one single game for the MacStore: Color Cross. Puzzle game fans can solve more than 200 puzzles in this version especially developed and adapted for the Mac, offering high definition graphics and a smooth and intuitive interface.
• Ambrosia Software, Inc. has announced the release of their much acclaimed widget, EasyEnvelopes 1.0.9. This free (yes, free!) widget for Mac OS X makes printing envelopes a breeze. You can use EasyEnvelopes to quickly print a one-off envelope, or utilize its tight integration with Address Book which allows you to quickly find a person’s address and easily print an envelope. It even handles USPS bar codes for both 5 and 9 digit bar codes, and boasts many time-saving niceties.
• Synium Software has announced a special thirty-three percent discount for Easter 2011. All Synium applications in the Mac App Store as well as the iOS App Store are reduced in price, the offer is valid from April 21st to April 25th 2011. MacFamilyTree, Chronories, Foodurama, Screenium and iFinance. iOS apps include many favorites such as MobileFamilyTree, iFinance Mobile and Motocross. This is great software for a great price, but only for a limited time.
• Zevrix Solutions has announced the release of InPreflight Pro 2.9.1, a maintenance update to its document preparation solution for Adobe InDesign. Described as “delightfully simple to use” by Macworld, InPreflight is an all-in-one solution to check InDesign documents. Collect the documents for output and ship to final destination. It combines powerful batch-packaging, quality control and graphic reports. The new version addresses stability and performance issues related to document packaging.
• Apparent Software has released Cashculator Free on the Mac App Store, a free version of their Cashculator personal finance application that is the simplest way to manage personal finances and make smarter financial decisions. This free version is limited only by the number of scenarios and the number of months in financial forecast, but has all other functionality without any limitations.

Hardware

• AViiQ has announced availability of the AViiQ Portable Quick Stand. Weighing less than 3.4 oz and measuring no more than 3/8 of an inch thick when folded, the AViiQ Portable Quick Stand fits in any bag and is designed to support laptops up to 17-inches in size. 

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

A year on from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, this specially-commissioned story is set in Louisiana, where Pa Claude and Jackie are going out fishing on the bayou

The dawn looked more like a sunset. The horizon was a luminous peach-colored line, and rising above it were gray commas of cloud with copper bottoms, each the size of a small town. The old man came onto his back porch holding a cup of coffee and looked east over the sound, his great grandson dawdling behind, hands in his pockets, a willowy boy of nine. Claude Ledet was eighty-eight, his skin a sun-eroded fabric of pale craters and burgundy spots. He looked down to his little wharf hugging the island.

"We goin fish today, down to the mouth of the river."

"The river?" The boy's voice sailed high in the question.

"The Mississippi," his great grandfather snapped. "Don't you know nothing?"

The boy grinned, goofy and sweet. "I know it's a long way off, Pa Claude. For your boat."

The old man turned west, looking for weather. Sometimes he would see what was there, sometimes his mind would layer memories over the present, and he would see what was there last year, or the decade before that, or sixty years earlier when he'd built his little frame house high up on pilings. The day before, he'd seen the big wooden oyster lugger The Two Sons go by, loaded down, and he'd waved at his cousins Henry and Rene where they sat on the deck sorting what they had dredged up from their lease, even though Henry and Rene had been dead of old age for many years and The Two Sons lay sunk and rotting in Lake Borgne. Sometimes he saw things from several different decades at once, steam tugs, coastal sail boats, brand new Chris Craft mahogany yachts, jet skis carrying windblown children racing above the swells, time-wandering images floating side-by-side and overlapping like a bowl of fresh shucked oysters.

Claude looked down at the boy. "Why you here?"

"Aunt Brenda couldn't come stay with you today. She's at the doctor with the flu."

"That oldest girl couldn't come?"

"Suzie?"

"That's right. So many come around to visit with me I can't keep 'em straight."

The boy gave him a long look. "Great-aunt Suzie's your daughter."

The old man nodded west. "Get two rods off the porch and my box. I'm goin bail the skiff."

"Her friend's husband got killed in that rig accident about three weeks ago. It's a big mess out in the Gulf."

"My radio's burnt out and that damn television don't make no sense to me at all."

"Everybody's talking about it. You haven't heard?"

Claude put a hand to his stubbly chin. "We need some crackers and potted meat and a jug of water."

The boy settled a baseball cap down on his curls. "I didn't know we were going fishing."

Soon the two of them were in a plank skiff being pushed east by Claude's five-horse Champion, a smoky old outboard he had to pull on ten times before it would even pop, the first tugs on the rope making only the noise of a startled hen. The twelve- foot boat rattled and wandered but managed after a while to get up to ten miles an hour as it cut between the big shrimp company dock and an incoming corporate trawler.

The boy looked back at the vessel as the wheelman leaned out of the cabin to watch them. "Pa Claude, you sure you want to go all the way to the river?"

The old man didn't answer as he watched for the pass that led to the gulf, which he saw after a minute and turned into, and then two minutes later turned back out of when three foot rollers caused the skiff to buck and sway. They began to follow the grassy back of the island where there were no houses, still headed east, a longer but calmer route.

After several miles they began to pass oil company canals cut into the marsh on both the left and right, and the motor hit a stump, hard, jumping up and puttering in open air until Claude could find the kill switch. As he replaced the propeller's shear pin with a cut nail, the boy asked them what a stump was doing out in open salt water.

"Aw, Jackie, this used to not be water."

The boy brushed dark hair under his cap. "What was it?"

"Ha. Land, you little fool. You see how what we in now looks like a lagoon? Years ago it was a long narrow cut, not a hundred feet wide." He looked up from his work. "All this was land. Over there was camps, but they fell in the water every one. A farmer grew sugar cane in a sure-enough field over there. I remember a road. The world's meltin away on account of all these rig canals."

"Maybe you ought to stay off the shore out of these stumps," the boy said quietly.

"Yah. I'll go out further in the old way."

In another five miles the island fell away to the right and they stopped in open water. "The chop ain't too bad." Claude pointed to a long concave shore a mile off to the northeast that had been cut into with five canals. "We can head over there and then skin down that long bank south of it and around past the jetties at the mouth and anchor in a little hook inside the rocks where it'll be calm. That's where them redfish hide." He looked across the water again. "This used to be cypress trees, here. Even a little high ground."

The motor idled and both of them studied a broad whitecapped channel they would have to cross. Something other than bitter marsh smell hung in the air. The great-grandfather pushed a lever on the motor and the skiff slowly gained speed. They rocked through a rough place, shipping only a couple gallons of water because the old man still knew how to play the swells.

Close to the crescent of marsh and out of the big currents, the boat cut into rusty water topped with an engulfing stink like that of a steaming refinery. "What the hell," the old man yelled over the motor.

"Pa Claude, what's that smell?" The boy leaned over to look at the water.

"I don't know, baby. We run up on a little oil, I guess."

But as the skiff slid along, they saw that it was not a little oil they were going though, but a broad deep pool of reddish crude that had blown against the shore and was turning the marsh grasses into tarred pretzels. They saw pelicans trembling about the bank like bronze ghosts strangling under glossy sheets. The slathered skiff seemed lost in a vast storage tank of crude oil, as thick as glue. Looking overboard, Claude saw that the engine's water pump was pulling pure oil and spitting it up in a fuming stench. He killed the outboard, fearing that the very sea around them could erupt into flames.

"This must be some of that blown-up rig's stuff," the boy said.

"What? What rig? The steam plant by North Pass?" The old man was dizzy, afraid, and his mind suddenly went many years off track. To the east he saw more water than he remembered, open Gulf running all the way to the orange triangle marking the eroded mouth of the river. He wondered what had happened to the land, its fish-filled inlets, the shrimp-spawning marsh, the oak groves, the hummocks overrun with white egrets, how a place that fed so richly whoever sailed through it could dissolve, history and graveyard and church and road and home.

They waited. The sun was straight up, it was May in Louisiana, and the heat was cooking the oil to fumes as the skiff stuck in place. After an hour the boy began to vomit overboard. Claude stuck his arm into the water and it came up covered with a black-and-red batter halfway to his elbow. The boy retched again, and the old man himself felt headspun and sick. He pulled the starter rope figuring they should try for open water to the south. Doddering up to speed, the boat dragged through the oil until the bow suddenly rose up on what, a thousand-year-old cypress stump or one of a million abandoned pipelines? The hull rolled high and slid off to the right, dumping Claude Ledet into the terrible slop, and as he went under, his mind came back to a splintered version of the present, and he knew at once that he had to get back to the surface because the boy, he felt sure, would jump after him, and a news account he'd read thirty years before of a grandfather and grandson gone fishing and not coming back in at the appointed time bloomed into his head, because when the sheriff's men dragged the canal the next morning the hooks brought up together the grandfather and a four-year-old boy wrapped tightly in his arms. Sweet Jesus, he thought, give us a hand.

He twisted to get his bearings but could not tell up from down until he felt ten narrow fingers pulling up on his shirt and he knew Jackie was in the water with him and struggling blindly out of some blood kin urge that nobody understands, and now he knew which way was up, so Claude spread his arms, cupped his hands and pulled them both to the sky, remembering not to take a breath too quickly once his head broke the surface. His great-grandson he knew to be a weak swimmer, and the boy had taken in a large amount of oil that was jetting from his nostrils as he coughed into the terrible water. The old man took him by the collar and struggled fifty yards toward shore, slow as a giant water bug, and reaching his depth, walked them in the rest of the way where they fell on a thin shell reef and coughed and puked burning red streamers of oil until they were nearly unconscious with the strain of it. They sat like oiled birds and watched the skiff, which had beached itself far across the open water, back on the island. In another hour the boy began to cry that his skin was burning all over and that he couldn't breathe. Claude had pulled his handkerchief and mopped off the thickest oil from Jackie's face and eyes, but the white skin itself would not come clean and kept the color of thin-smeared tar. The old man stood and walked off the ledge of shells into the grass, but they were miles from any building, and all he could see was the great flat marsh spreading north. Miles away, a ship passed straight out into the Gulf, a helicopter went over at two thousand feet. They would just have to wait.

Claude sat next to Jackie, but it hurt the boy to be touched, so the old man just watched and slept, dozing now and then, rousing with a start and forgetting where he was, who this weeping person next to him was, why his own neck and back flamed and blistered. Around four o'clock they saw a sports fisherman and Claude stood and waved his bony arms. They were taken into a smudged new boat and brought to the landing on the island where an ambulance took them up Highway 1 to the hospital. The old man spent one night there because it took that long for the nurses to scour him and test his blood over and over. Against all prohibitions he walked down the hall past the priest, through a crowd of relatives and friends, or people he guessed were such, to see Jackie, who was on a ventilator, his eyelids blue, his beanlike fingers cold. Claude waited long to see if the boy would at least open one eye to discover that his great-grandfather was in good shape. But he didn't. The nurses had cleaned Jackie up, but the smell of oil hung in the room like an unwelcome spirit.

A week later, the relatives took Claude's boat away from him, and then his car, which he had not driven in three years anyway. On a Tuesday he woke up and dressed for work at the fish plant, which had been closed twenty years, and his daughter had to tell him to just go sit on the little porch and drink his coffee. He walked down to his wharf instead and stood at the very end, remarking to no one how the land had melted away all around just since yesterday. So much water and no place to go. He turned for a moment and saw his graying daughter seated on a rush chair on the porch, her head down in her hands.

A boat's engine throbbed in his ears and looking again at the water he saw his old uncle, Monsieur Abadie from all the way over in Tiger Island going out in his long skiff propelled by a one-cylinder inboard. On the north side of his uncle raced the fresh-painted Aztec, the sailing lugger owned by the Czechs who lived on the river, and knifing between, but coming in, was The Two Sons, its decks piled high with sacks of oysters, Jackie standing at the very bow, raising his arms and waving with big sweeps of his sun-brightened hands.

• Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England

Game of the year?

In less capable hands, Portal 2 could have been a disaster. As part of Valve’s mighty Orange Box, the original felt like the sort of brilliant support act you sometimes find on a stadium tour, threatening to blow the main band - Half Life 2: Episode 2 - off the stage. It didn’t matter that it was short or less graphically impressive, because for its brief running time it was smart, tight, inventive and engaging. Through dint of its own imagination, it couldn’t help but capture yours.

Who can forget the increasingly mad ramblings of your AI nemesis, GladOS, the weird scribbled messages on the wall, the superb, understated finale? The problem for Portal 2 is the same problem that any support act faces when it starts touring the arenas alone. Can it hold an audience for a longer haul? Fill the larger spaces? Justify all that expectation? Or will it end up stretching a few good ideas over too many hours, and end up a saggy, overblown mess?

Luckily, Portal 2 comes out ready for the big-time. Valve has cleverly expanded on the original without diluting what made it work, and transformed a quirky, left-field game into a blockbuster without losing its heart along the way. If you loved Portal you’ll love Portal 2. If you never played Portal, you’ll still love Portal 2. In fact, provided you have eyes, a brain and opposable thumbs, it’s safe to say that you’ll love Portal 2.

At first, it's all much the same, but with a few cool twists. After a hectic opening sequence with a new guide, the Stephen Merchant voiced robot, Wheatley, you’re back in the test chambers of Aperture Science, learning how to use portals and getting to grips with switches, companion cubes and laser beams. As you might remember, your Portal gun can create two portals, one blue, one orange, which instantly transmit any light or matter coming through them - including your heroine, Chell. Objects coming through the portal also retain their momentum, meaning that you can use speed picked up by, say, falling, to hurl yourself across vast horizontal gaps. Portals can only be placed on certain surfaces, and gates are sometimes used to prevent you connecting two areas.

It sounds complex and it is complex, but it’s also surprisingly easy to pick-up, and the feeling when a concept clicks or a solution to a puzzle suddenly falls into place is one of Portal 2’s biggest pleasures. It’s not long, either, before new ideas start trickling in. Spring-pads (dubbed Aerial Faith Plates), bridges made of light and new laser-bending cubes are quickly thrown into the mix, along with old favourites like the robotic turrets (which come complete with a range of cheerful greetings before the bullets start flying your way).?

Where Portal 2 really steps away from the original is in the setting and the style. In Portal the story almost sneaked out from behind the stripped-back setting and the gameplay. In Portal 2 it’s all upfront. Years have passed since the first game, and Aperture’s chambers are in a state of disrepair from the off. The old pristine whites have tarnished and decayed, vegetation creeps over rusty surfaces, and you’ll frequently catch glimpses of the machinery behind the chambers. Graphically speaking, there’s a lot more detail here than there was in the first game, with some spectacular sequences that take you deep behind the scenes of Aperture Science, and this is probably the most impressive outing Valve's Source engine has had yet.??

With Wheatley and GladOS quite directly involved in the action, Portal 2 is also a less lonesome game than its predecessor, which felt (perhaps appropriately) clinical at times. The dark, paranoid humour is absolutely spot-on, as Marchant’s dumb, bumbling robot schtick contrasts with GladOS’s line of ironic, bitter put-downs, and while you're unlikely to bust a gut chuckling, it's hard to resist the game's bleak wit. The music fits the mood just as perfectly. Where Portal was more of a cerebral exercise - at least in its early stages - Portal 2 is a rawer, more emotional affair.

In fact, it’s all so good that it comes as a bit of a blow when Portal 2 appears to be building up to a climax all too soon. Saying too much here would spoil what follows, but we can safely say that just when it seems to be drawing to its end, the game is really just building up for a second act that’s every bit as ingenious as the first. On top of the all the old Portal mechanics, Valve throws in a selection of liquid gels which radically change the properties of surfaces they land on, so you're racing and bouncing all over the place. The game then builds up for the most gruelling and thrilling set of tests we’ve seen. There are periods in this second act where you might struggle to see where you’re meant to be going or what you’re meant to be doing, but stick with it. The answer is always slap-on-the-forehead obvious when you finally spot it, and it’s definitely worth persevering. The comedy gets even better, and before you’re done you’ll have a deeper understanding of Aperture’s oddball history. Superbly paced, brilliantly designed and totally engrossing, Portal 2 does for Portal what Half-Life 2 did for Half-Life. It really is that good.

Meanwhile, the all-new co-op multiplayer mode is so much more than the usual bonus option. Featuring two new robot heroes - Atlas and P-Body - on a new mission for GladOS herself, it’s a separate campaign with an all-new sequence of levels designed specifically for collaborative play. The basic gameplay is much the same as in the single-player game, but with the emphasis on each player pressing switches and creating portals to help their partner proceed, before the roles are reversed. You can play with a stranger, but it’s much more rewarding to play with a friend. In fact, if you can’t find one online, the split-screen option works a treat, with the added bonus that it’s easier to kick someone sitting on the same sofa when they mess things up.

Verdict:

Valve has done it again, creating a satisfying single-player experience that can stand up with Half-Life 2, and a co-op mode worthy of the company that gave us Left4Dead. Despite some tough moments in the game’s second half, Portal 2 is mind-bending fun from beginning to end, and one of the finest games you’re likely to enjoy this year.

Tags: Gaming Portal 2 Valve Xbox 360 PS3 EA

Portal 2 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:56:55 +0100

However throughout the near two decades of rapid expansion neither city has managed to develop a fully-fledged, world-class, theme park.

Ferrari World, located on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, was intended to address that issue, combining the strong brand image of the Italian supercar manufacturer with a collection of innovative attractions.

I managed to head to the park on Saturday April 16th using a very attractive buy-one-get one free offer provided by a local online discount site.

The sight of the park from a distance can only be described as simply breath taking. Its huge curved red roof - which covers some 200,000 square meters and is designed to look like the side profile of a Ferrari GT - manages to stand out in an area littered with some of the best modern architecture in the world today.

The interior doesn’t fail to impress, either, with the open plan park being well laid out in a hub and spoke system most commonly associated with Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, the most visited theme park on the planet.

Upon arriving at the park a sign stated that neither Formula Rossa, the world’s fastest roller coaster, nor G-Force, the parks 200-foot centre piece drop tower, would be operated due to “Scheduled maintenance and upgrades” leaving guests, particularly tourists who wouldn’t be able to make a repeat visit, disappointed.

The fact two of the headliner attractions were closed was even more disappointing given that Ferrari World, unlike most major theme parks around the world, already closes one day a week for maintenance and doesn’t open on normal operating days until midday.

Heading in to the park (with a free ticket in hand as compensation for the closed attractions) the number of varied attractions was very good, with an even spread of thrill, family and kids rides which were well laid out across the park so as to avoid segregating the children’s attractions as many parks do.
Fiorano GT Challenge, a Maurer Sohne dual-launched coaster, was the best of the thrill rides in operation whilst V-12, a log flume ride through the engine it takes its name from, was an fun, and very wet, experience that could be enjoyed by the whole family.

Made in Maranello and Racing Legends, two dark rides using the same system, lacked the quality set by some of the other headline attractions whilst Driving with Champions, a simulator attraction provided some mild thrills but, as with the two dark rides, failed to immerse the guest in the story.

The staff at Ferrari World were friendly and well trained, showcasing some of the standard practices used by staff at some of the best theme park resorts around the world. Attraction loading was a quick and smooth process though there was no real test for those working the rides and shows as the park was far from busy.

Away from the attractions the dining and shopping experience, along with the many galleries and side shows, were exceptional, with dining options to please every taste and an expansive main store with everything from standard theme park fair to expensive unique items such as a Formula 1 steering wheel.

At just over $60 (US) Ferrari World is reasonably priced, though with the park having only 20 attractions guests are certainly paying for quality over quantity, with the park probably falling in the half-day bracket for the standard family.

Overall Ferrari World is a huge step forward for the theme park industry in the United Arab Emirates and is hopefully a sign of things to come in the future, with reports suggesting that some of the projects in the Dubailand area are set to resume after the economic crisis halted the progress of a number of theme parks in the area.

Those who work at Ferrari say there’s no such thing as perfection in racing, only evolution, the same can be said for this theme park. There’s plenty thee to be proud of, but some problems need to be ironed out and investment needs to be continued in the long-term to ensure the park is ranked amongst the best in the world.

This article is heavily styled and is best viewed at PeepCode!

Sinatra

The Sinatra web framework has a beautiful REST API, can be extremely powerful, and is super fast.

It’s easily deployed with Phusion Passenger alongside my other Rack-based web applications.

I started with the Nesta⁴ blog engine and enhanced it with the additional CSS and graphic generation features I needed. All pages are cached statically with Sinatra::Cache⁵ for even greater speed. Although this blog could be generated with a static site generator, I find it more natural to write it in a dynamic style.

One example is the generation of text headline images with the Textorize⁶ renderer from Thomas Fuchs. I reference the images by URL in my CSS files. Sinatra generates the graphic on the fly when that URL is accesed (then caches it). Sinatra keeps URLs at the forefront of the web developer’s mind — where they should be!

Other resources are generated at the view level when needed. Code snippets are formatted by the Pygments⁷ command-line script via a special RedCloth tag implemented as a Haml filter.

Textorize (right half) renders text edges smoothly.

heading: About this Blog
heading-font: Klavika-BoldCondensed
heading-color: #000
heading-background: transparent
published: December 30 2019 at 6pm
categories: meta design
summary: An article about...
format: haml

.column.article
  %h2 Bacon

  :custom
    Haml and textile together...

.column.article

  %h2 Custom Filter Sample
 
  :custom_red_cloth

    movie. http://example.com/movie.mov

    source. /tutorials/code.rb

    buy. http://peepcode.com/products

module CustomTags
  
  def movie(opts)
    my_text = opts[:text]
    # Build an HTML string around my_text
    # ...
    return my_text
  end
  
end

module Haml
  module Filters

    # Renders custom textile.    
    module CustomRedCloth
      include ::Haml::Filters::Base
      lazy_require 'custom_tags'

      def render(text)
        red_cloth = ::RedCloth.new(text)
        red_cloth.hard_breaks = false
        red_cloth.extend CustomTags
        red_cloth.to_html
      end
    end
  end
end

@import ../page_util
@import ../pygments_pastie

+masthead-reset
+dark-logo
+dark-masthead-menu

!base_color = #d1e3ff

.prose
  +grid_6
  float: left
  margin:
    left = !grid_gutter_width
    top  = !line_height*5

jQuery(function () {

  var paper = Raphael("graph", 940, 81),
    timeline;

  timeline = new Timeline(paper, [
    {date:"06/25/2004", version:"0.5"},
    {date:"12/13/2005", version:"1.0.0"},
    {date:"12/07/2007", version:"2.0.0"},
    {date:"6/10/2010",  version:"3.0 ?"}
  ]);

});

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

April 15, 2011 6:00 AM

Topware Entertainment's Two Worlds II is now available for purchase from Macgamestore.com. The fantasy role playing game sends players to the unexplored land of Eastern Antaloor and features detailed graphics, a unique magic system, and a flexible combat system.

A breathtaking journey into Antaloor's past.

After the downfall of Aziraal, God of Fire, the Dark Lord Gandohar has nearly achieved his objective to disrupt the balance between the elements. Dark magic surges into the land to fill the void. Recognizing the potential for complete control over the dark powers, Gandohar starts to use the power of Aziraal trap within Kyra, the descendant of the Orphans. Despite her ancestry, Kyra cannot endure the strain. With Antaloor already in his clutches, Gandohar concocts a new plan from his stronghold in Oswaroth. There are still those who struggle against the tyrant, hoping to shift the balance of forces in their favor. The fight for Antaloor continues...

Five years have passed since dramatic events brought the whole world to the edge of the abyss. The hero is a prisoner in the dungeons of Gandohar's castle. His hopes of saving his sister vanished with his freedom. Just as despair threatens to overcome him, hope comes from where he would have least expected. The Orcs, a race the hero had always hated, have put together a rescue squad that frees the hero from his bonds. He emerges into a land desecrated by evil. He embarks on a journey to shed light on Gandohar's dark past, hoping to discover a weak point in his enemy's defense. If he fails, he will lose his sister forever.

Gameplay:
A perfect mix of flexibility, creativity and state-of-the-art technology "Two Worlds II" is a perfect blend of classic and innovated RPG features, atmosphere, and technology. A complex quest system and an exciting main story draw you into the world of Antaloor, made richer by secondary quest scenarios. Rich gameplay and engaging atmosphere propel the story and captures attention, promising danger and exploration throughout the many quests and video sequences. Enhanced AI, balancing standards, experienced authors, an active combat system, the innovative DEMONS™ magic management, and the PAPAK™ alchemy system guarantee enjoyment for new and experienced gamers. An artistic system of attack and defense moves has been integrated into the game. Parries and changing hit results creates a real opportunity for tactics and excitement, as the AI engage in combat and employ strategy of their own. The game also offers extreme flexibility in the weapon and armament design possibilities. The cornerstone at the heart of this feature is the newly created 'CRAFT'™ tool. Players can break down items into their basic materials and create new unique items. "Two Worlds II" is also graphically superb. The powerful GRACE™ engine offers technological highlights such as an unlimited number of dynamic light sources, 24 bit HDR post-processing, and Real Eye Adaptation. It will drastically reduce loading times, improve general game performance, and enable full gameplay with only moderate hardware requirements.

Features:

• A flexible combat system with variable attack moves, parrying and special tricks
  
• State-of-the-art technology, thanks to a powerful GRACE™ engine and special tools
  
• Lots of mini-games for breaking up gameplay
  
• Intuitive user interface for the DEMONS™ Magic system and the PAPAC™ Alchemy system
  
• Mercenaries and magically-created beings accompany the player
  
• Complex object management with movable and usable items
  
• Special CRAFT™ tool enables the individual configuration of armor and weapons
  
• Many Boss opponents, including special combat strategies and unique rewards
  
• Flexible MoSens system guarantees realistic every day and combat movements
  
• Various ways of moving, like walking, running, sprinting, riding, swimming, sailing and teleporting
  
• Captivating background story with numerous cutscenes
  
• Extensive Multiplayer part including building/setup simulation

Minimum Requirements:

• OS: Mac OS X 10.6.3 or later
  
• Processor: Intel Mac (2,0 GHz)
  
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
  
• Graphics: Shader 4.0 and 512 MB RAM
  
• Hard Drive: 8 GB hard drive space
  
• Other: Internet connection for Multiplayer
  
• Peripherals: Mouse, Keyboard

Recommended:

• OS: Mac OS X 10.6.3 or later
  
• Processor: Multi-Core CPU
  
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
  
• Graphics: Radeon HD 2900, Geforce 8800 GTX
  
• Hard Drive: 8 GB hard drive space
  
• Other: Internet connection with 6.000 BPS for Multiplayer
  
• Peripherals: Mouse, Keyboard

Two Worlds II is now available for $49.99 (USD). Visit the site below for more information.

Two Worlds II

These days many of us may think that Facebook is close to god of social networking. But the truth is that there is something the company is missing: It's called the "Unlit Social Graph."

The Unlit Social Graph is a concept introduced by Lawrence Coburn. The idea is what while we perceive Facebook as encompassing all social graphs, the truth is that there are still a lot of blind spots—meaning a lot of business opportunities for other businesses.

Coburn describes the Unlit Social Graph by drawing an analogy to the Dark Web. The Dark Web represents a huge amount of Internet data that is currently not reached by search engines. In 2008, Google realized this and launched an effort to "light up," or index, this web information—lest a competitor's search engine overtake them.

The same thing is about to happen with the Unlit Social Graph, argues Coburn.

Read the full story at TNW.

More of the latest in social media.

Photo credit: Fotolia

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The muscle cars just keep getting better and better. As further proof, Chevrolet has provided a glimpse at the 2012 Chevrolet Camaro, and it is even more appealing than today’s model, with several welcomed refinements and more base horsepower.

Most car shoppers will focus on the 3.6-liter V-6 nudging up 11 horsepower to 323 horsepower. Dubbed LFX, the direct-injection engine gains a host of enhancements and promises an EPA-rated 30 mph on the highway.

Attention should also be paid to the new FE4 suspension for the SS coupe, with retuned front and rear dampers, solid anti-roll bars, and 20-inch wheels.

“Our objective was to create a more precise sport suspension for the SS coupe, with greater road-holding capability,” said Al Oppenheiser, Camaro chief engineer. “We applied lessons learned from extensive track testing to better refine the suspension geometry for flatter cornering, a more neutral balance during hard turns, and minimized understeer at the limit.”

The exterior will be dressed with a new standard rear spoiler. The rear will also be improved with tail lamps from the current RS appearance package option.

The cabin features cosmetic and functional updates for 2012, with new instrument graphics and trim, new steering wheel, and a power lift feature for the front passenger seat. A rear vision package will be offered with a camera and rear park assist, a welcomed addition to a car with limited rearward visibility.

Just days after Chevrolet announced it would have offer a drool-worthy 2012 Centennial Edition Corvette, Chevy has unveiled an equality sinister and patriotic 2012 45th Anniversary Special Edition Camaro.

The anniversary model will make its public appearance on Friday, at the Camaro5 Fest II event in Arizona. It will be offered on the coupe and convertible for the 2LT and 2SS trim levels.

The Camaro will wear the same paint as the special-edition Vette: Carbon Flash Metallic. The 45th anniversary Camaro will be accented with hood and decklid strips, fender badges, dark silver fog lamp and tail lamp bezels, and body-colored roof molding.

The jet-black, leather-lined interior will feature red, white, and blue stitching on the seats, steering wheel, shift knob/boot, door armrests, and console lid. Obligatory logos on the steering wheel, sill plates, instrument panel, and seats will remind the driver that it is indeed a special car.

And if that isn’t enough to get your heartbeat of America pumping, then don’t forget, the 2012 model year will also bring a 550-horsepower Camaro ZL1.

Read our Chevrolet Camaro and Camaro Convertible reviews.

Visit the autoMedia Chevrolet Research Center for quick access to reviews, pricing, photos, and much more.

New page: ==<center>Poker Dream Jobs Popular Report October</center>== . . . . ==<center>[http://mydrugdir.com/forum/index.php?topic=44sMjE3fHwxMzAyNjI4MzQzfHwxOTUyfHwoRU5HSU5FKSBNZWRpYVdpa2k%3D...

New page

Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Here's what we found today.

How to become an innovation powerhouse. Vint Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist and the man who brought us the World Wide Web, explores the the keys to innovation in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. His verdict? More tech education for kids, and continue the search for overseas talent. "One cannot escape the observation, however, that the incidence of intelligence is uniform in all populations around the world," he writes. "There are absolutely more smart people outside the U.S. than there are living here. It is in our best interest to attract talent from anywhere in the world to participate in our innovation engine. Even if visitors return to their homelands after attending an American university, we will benefit from their contributions while they were here and, in all likelihood, even after they have returned home."

Emails add validity to new battle over Facebook. We thought it would be over with the Winklevii, but lawsuits fighting for ownership of Facebook just won't die. After the Winklevoss twins' continued lawsuit was squashed in federal court yesterday, a dark horse came back into the race. Paul Ceglia sued Mark Zuckerberg last July, claiming he had been promised 50 percent ownership of Facebook back in 2003. Of course, because no one had ever heard of Ceglia and because he waited a solid seven years to file suit, no one took him seriously. Now, it's time to take him seriously. Business Insider revealed today that Ceglia has refiled his lawsuit, showing dozens of emails between himself and Zuckerberg during the year Facebook was created, revealing Ceglia's investment and Zuckerberg's lies that the site was failing when it was actually a growing phenomenon. Now Ceglia's coming for back what he believes he deserves: half of Zuckerberg's stake in Facebook. Facebook calls these emails fraudulent, but if Ceglia is telling the truth, Facebook will be looking at another massive settlement. On the bright side, David Fincher might have found the plot for The Social Network: The Sequel.

The curious case of the female billionaire. Few people had heard of Lynn Tilton, one of Wall Street's wealthiest financiers who made her fortune by reforming distressed companies, until she stepped into public with a screed against TARP in 2008, and started a blog. Today, the 51-year-old founder and CEO of Patriarch partners who claims to own the most companies of anyone in America, is the leather-mini-skirt-wearing subject of Diva of Distressed, a new reality show slated for fall. She's also the subject of an enthralling profile in New York Magazine, in which she discusses pushing men around in the boardroom and in the political arena.

Hulu: Too popular for its own good? Thanks to Hulu, the free video streaming site, consumers are dropping their cable and TV services en masse. That's great news for Hulu, not so great news for the very companies that own it: ABC, Fox and NBC. According to today's LA Times Hulu's widespread consumer adoption is actually threatening it's revenue, which is still largely based on television advertising dollars. The problem is causing friction between the site's corporate parents and its entrepreneurial management. The Times reports that Hulu CEO Jason Kilar "has been resisting efforts by Hulu's owners to institute fundamental changes, such as squeezing in additional commercials." And, with Hulu's exclusive distribution rights to ABC, Fox and NBC's programming expiring this summer, things could get interesting. As one executive close to the arrangement tells The Times "The rights given to Hulu were intended to be a head start, to get them on their feet…Now, the content owners feel that it's time to take the training wheels off and start to compete on another level."

It's not them, it's you. As an entrepreneur, it's natural to jump in and handle problems when employees can't. But The New York Times suggests the real problem may be you. Writer and serial entrepreneur Jay Goltz points out that it's common for entrepreneurs to be bad managers within their own companies. His solution: "It starts with realizing that if you can't get out of the business, you are doing something wrong" and that "Maybe you have unrealistic expectations" about your employees.

Business by The Beatles. The Beatles will always be remembered as one the best rock bands of all time, but the lives of the Fab Four also offer many valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and budding businesspeople. That's exactly the premise behind the latest book from authors Richard Courtney and George Cassidy titled Come Together: The Business Wisdom of The Beatles. According to USA Today, the two authors chronicle the evolution of The Beatles, and tie in relevant business lessons, particularly in the areas of strategy, branding, and revenue. "We look at their career as the business model it is: the most successful of all time and one that is easily adaptable," Courtney said. "They did not know they were creating a business model but they were strategic about what they did."

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The trailer for an upcoming iOS game called dream:scape hit the internet only yesterday, and it's already racked up nearly 60,000 views. One reason for the video's viral popularity is that it's gorgeous: The game uses the Unreal Engine 3 to create vast picaresque landscapes. Another reason is that the game looks creepy and unsettling, making viewers want to find out more.

So that's exactly what we did. We chatted about dream:scape over e-mail with developer George Lippert, the head honcho of Speedbump Studios. So read our discussion below, watch the trailer, and click on the thumbnails to the right to see the screenshots in high resolution.

What kind of game is dream:scape?

It's really a bit of a gamble since it's unlike pretty much anything else on the App Store-- it's more of an interactive narrative experience, guided by the user. The goal was to create a completely immersive world and unfolding story that the user becomes enmeshed in, hopefully to the point that the experience truly becomes their own.

What's the basic storyline of the game?

The user takes on the role of a coma patient, Wilson, as he unravels his past by exploring the dreamscape of his memories. Unlike conscious memories, however, the dreamscape provides a level of unusual lucidity, shedding light on a decades-old mystery. As the experience unravels, the dreamscape environment expands and changes, eventually turning dark, stormy, and foreboding, reflecting the mood of the main character. The climax is a surreal trip of revelation and revenge that takes the user out of Wilson's dreamscape and into a Dali-esque netherworld.

The trailer shows mostly deserted areas. Will there be enemies or other characters in the game? If so, what kind?

This is an old-school Myst-style exploration experience, and in that vein I aimed to maintain a sense of eerie solitude. Memories are represented by audible voices and diary entries, but I knew that players would respond best to an actual character. Thus, I introduced the scarecrow guide, who leads the user through the experience. The dream:scape enemy is a bit of a secret, and while we do not meet him face to face, we interact with him very personally.

Is this a point-and-click adventure like Myst, or can your character move freely through the 3-D world?

I am happy to say that this is an entirely user-directed experience. I know why some developers stick with point-and-click games (restricting movement means exerting total control over what the player sees, arguably resulting in better graphics). The problem I have with that is that the game world becomes basically a series of polygonal matte paintings. What's the point of a beautiful game environment if you can't explore it freely? I may have taken a risk by making dream:scape fully explorable (some textures inevitably get a bit blurry when the player bumps their head against them, etc) but I'm hoping that the immersiveness of the overall experience more than makes up for it.

In the trailer's YouTube description, you say that there will be over 30 acres of open-world environments. What types of locations are in the game?

Dream:scape is set in a sort of generic 40s-era countryside, providing huge swaths of rolling hills, farmland, trees and country roads. Alongside that, and seamlessly integrated into it, are a small town, an abandoned cabin, a large barn, a church, an airfield with runway and hangar, a woodland path, a lake with shore, a wade-able river, a covered bridge, and more. Most of the building locations offer fully realized and accessible interiors. And of course, there is the final climactic location, which is completely unlike all the rest.

How many people worked on making dream:scape?

I know it's a bit sketchy to admit it, but it was pretty much just me. I did have help with the writing and the voice acting, as well as the original score, but the basic concept, design, build and programming was pretty much my baby. The Unreal Game Engine makes it fairly manageable for someone with enough inspiration and motivation.

Have you made other games before? If so, which ones?

I've dabbled in every aspect of game creation without ever actually creating a game. As a computer animator, I am adept with model creation, texturing, animation and camera direction. As a writer, I have created quite a few stories. As a long-time dabbler in realtime rendering, I've worked with several web3D applications, including the short-lived Adobe Atmosphere, with which I was able to make some cool movie tie-in content for Twentieth Century Fox. This is the first time I've chosen to put all of my skills together on a gaming project of my own design, but I am already working on the next one.

Can you give us any info on your next game?

There are several ideas on the table, but the main concept is tentatively titled "Escape From Atlantis". It's a huge undertaking-- another exploration-based game, but this one with interactive characters and creatures, a combination of strategy, story and puzzle elements. The unique twist of this game is that it will not have lives-- a feature that I have always found to be one of the fatal flaws of a truly immersive game environment. The concept for "Atlantis" is that the player has a limited amount of time to complete the game experience before they die. The game progresses in real time, with a HUD gauge ticking off their remaining time (the air in their diving tank). Visually, it is inspired by games like Bioshock and Fallout, if you can imagine that.

When do you expect the dream:scape to come out?

As soon as humanly possible, I hope. It is currently in review with Apple, and while I'd love to say I expect no glitches or slow-downs, reality may rear its ugly head.

How much will it cost?

I'm not quite ballsy enough (can I say that?) to charge what I think it's really worth, but I'll edge close to it. The regular price will be $2.99, but like most apps it'll launch at a sale price of $0.99.

Will it be a universal app, or will there be separate downloads for the iPhone and iPad?

I'm still factoring out all the possibilities with iPad and iPad 2, so for now it will be a universal app. Look for a more full-tilt version for iPad sometime in the (hopefully) near-future.

I was considering attending the Dachis Social Business Summit in Austin this past month, but a variety of conflicts made that difficult, so I punted. I was asked to speak there last year, but family issues — my mother’s cancer — made that impossible. Now, I am wondering if I would have heard anything new, if I had attended.

In 2009, I was excited by the concept of the social business, based on the wide acceptance of social tools in the open web and the premise that social network-based technologies might lead to new forms of collaboration, innovation, and transparency in business. I led a conference in April 2010 on social business, and brought together a dozen or so of the smartest people I know to muse on the impact that the social web is having on the world of business.

Zoom forward a year, and how things seem to have changed. Social business is a term in wide use, but it is not being held up in distinction to enterprise 2.0 (or the even earlier knowledge management), but pitched as the direct successor of these past failed, efforts. Or even worse, as just a synonym for enterprise 2.0, a field of inquiry that seems bogged down in endless discussions about barriers to adoption and ROI. Is this deja-vu all over again?

Luis Suarez falls in this camp, conflating every previous era of tool-driven business consultingology into one, as in KM, Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business: One and The Same:

For a good number of years you have probably heard me state how Enterprise 2.0 (Now morphed into Social Business) has started already to follow the same path that traditional Knowledge Management did back in the day. To the point where I have been mentioning how some of the key aspects from both Enterprise 2.0 and KM are, essentially, one and the same! Including making some of the very same mistakes KM went through back in the day. And that’s when it gets tricky, because, if you ask knowledge workers out there nowadays, their thoughts and opinions of traditional KM are no longer that positive anymore. Actually, quite the opposite! For a good number of years, KM has been enjoying, unjustly to be honest, a rather negative reputation, even more prevalent with the emergence of social computing within the Enterprise.

I think Luis and the others that are promoting this slight-of-hand are falling prey to the marketing machinery of enterprise software vendors and consulting companies.

It goes without saying that these players will fall upon whatever shiny new ideas come along, ideas that are taking attention away from their existing patter, and they will rapidly attempt to redefine the ideas to their purpose, which is to sell soap and lots of it.

At first, they try to deny the value in the new ideas — like The Social Business Naysayers in 2009 — but they will quickly shift to the new terms when they see it catching on in the marketplaces for ideas.

Don’t get me wrong: metaphors matter. They help frame a discussion, and give shape to otherwise difficult to distinguish alternatives. But if we get back to a more fundamental definition of social business, the reframing attempts of the marketers won’t work:

A social business is an organization designed consciously around sociality and social tools, as a response to a changed world and the emergence of the social web, including social media, social networks, and a long list of other advances.

By definition, social business can’t be the same as knowledge management, since there was no social web back in the day. There was, however, a large and active community of knowledge management software companies and consulting firms that wanted to contract to help companies apply that software. That pattern has persisted, for sure. And those companies, or others cut from the same cloth, are certainly interested in riding the new wave, and to do so they will respin their old rhetoric using new adjectives.

But they aren’t generally promoting a vision of radically re-conceived management and communications, like this:

Metaphorically, a social business will seem more like a village than an army, and where a lot of 20th management approaches will be obsolete. We can expect these features:

• ubiquitous use of social tools, and social networks,
• greater levels of personal autonomy,
• self-organization of groups and projects,
• very porous boundaries with the world,
• high reliance on non-financial motivation, or personal meaning and purpose,
• internal marketplaces for ideas and talent,
• and senior management operating more like Hollywood producers or investors than autocrats.

That’s very, very different from what these salespeople are selling, which is 20th century business with some new streaming collaboration software and a reorganizing of the cubicles. Like a sketchy car salesman taking an old car with a worn out engine and slapping a new coat of paint on it, using this year’s color.

Meanwhile, organic change is seeping into businesses, simply because the social web is too effective and too seductive to be delayed. These consultants and software vendors will make money, but they aren’t the driver of change in this dynamically changing environment. If anything, they are more of a source of confusion than clarity; more heat than light.

If you want to see the future of the social business, look to the smallest and youngest companies: watch how they operate. They have the least stake in the software and practices that held companies together (and back) in the previous century. And look to the software that is youngest, as well: it has the least connection to the dim, dark days of knowledge management and enterprise 2.0.

Dark Vendor: Thanks for allowing us to come by. We think you guys will really help your clients by using SuperFreak.

Themis: You are welcome. Thanks for paying us the courtesy of a visit. Now what makes SuperFreak different?

DV: Well, for one we have a high cross rate. Last week we had two 30% days. Second we make it win-win for everybody. You get price improvement and liquidity, and high cross rates. Our algorithm maximizes this.

T: How does it do that? Sounds great.

DV: Well, our tech guys have that part down… I can’t really understand their jargon anyway!

T: Well what kind of price improvement are we talking?

DV: In between the spread.

T: If it is a penny spread, then you split the spread?

DV: Sometimes.

T: Question. How is it in this demo some of the prints that are price improved are at .5 cents, and some are at .25 cents, and some are at .004 cents?

DV: The algorithm I guess.

T: Can I enter bids .004 cents above the displayed quote?

DV: No, that’s against the SEC rules.

T: But someone must be?

DV: No everyone gets price improved.

T: No, I understand that… but why is it that we never get a fill .004 above the bid when we are buying, but seem to get 99% of our fills at .004 above the bid when we are selling?

DV: We will have to check on that.

T: So who is deciding what prices within a penny to give to whom?

DV: Well the matching engine is maximizing liquidity so you are not moving the stock. Doesn’t a 30% cross rate help you?

T: This 30% cross rate. In our experience natural block liquidity crossed dark hits a wall between 7-8%. You guys really do 30%?

DV: Yes! We are trying to innovate to coagulate the best liquidity from all sources so that it is win-win for everybody!

T: Do you do business with the internalizers?

DV: We do business with everyone. Institutions, Brokers, other crossing platforms…

T: Do you use IOI’s?

DV: No!

T: But you have economic deals with some players? Do we all pay the same rate?

DV: No, it’ like Hertz. IBM pays a cheaper rate to rent from us than my mom.

T: Ahhh you were ready for that one! Seriously do any of the other liquidity pools pay you?

DV: Too funny guys… Actually we can’t share confidential arrangements due to non-disclosure agreements.

T: Gotcha. Now the sub penny thing again… I can’t get my head around why I as a buyer can’t enter a sub penny bid, or a sub penny offer, and supposedly no one else can, but yet you are allowed to mix a pot of our orders, none of which are sub penny, and magic sub penny trades occur.

DV: Funny Sal. The algorithm does this we told you!

T: Yeah but certain players seem to be getting 95% price improved, and we seem to be always getting 5% price improved. Wouldn’t it be fair for all the orders to be matched in the middle?

DV: But more choice is better for everyone.

T: What choice? I can’t enter those cool bids. Hey do those other guys pay you so that they get those cool prints?

DV: We can’t talk about arrangements.

T: Can we pay you on behalf of our clients so that we get all the upper hand prints?

DV: What time is the next train leaving Chatham again guys? I think we have to head back to the city.

T: Hey we are just asking fellas. All cool. We don’t want to make you nervous. We just want to understand better.

DV: I got ya.

T: By the way our gut says that the internalizers who you trade with are not only getting the upper hand because their economics are better with you, but they are also recording and monitoring all the orders they kiss, like financial modeling.

DV: We wouldn’t know about that.

T: One final thing. We get the Hertz analogy. But in that case… Hertz is giving up their spoils with tiered pricing. It’s their money that they are foregoing to make a large customer happy. But if you run an exchange or a dark pool, and you are giving one customer’s economics to another large customer because they pay you better, is it really the same? I mean SuperFreak is not giving its economics up… its giving my economics up.

DV: Give me my squeegee ball back. I hate you.

Where we left off 4:00pm EST:

INDU              12,381.11                                +1.06

SPX                 1,324.46                                  -3.71

CCMP             2,771.51                                  -8.91

Futures now at 7:00 am EST:

DJA                             -55 

SPA                             -7.00

NDA                           -10.50

Key Data out today:

07:30:              Small Business Optimism (NFIB)

08:30:              Import Price Index (expecting 2.1% increase month over month)

08:30:              Import Price Index (expecting 8.6% increase year over year)

08:30:              Trade Imbalance (expecting -$44billion)

10:00:              IBD Business Optimism (Big Banks and Insurers and Healthcare companies are optimistic, everyone else is pulling their hair out)

14:00:              Monthly Budget Statement.

Since the prior close, some key stories:

-       US Futures lower; Japan Nuclear Disaster maybe is not good.

-       Alcoa missed; down 3%.

-       Banks may show weaker revenue as loans stall. Don’t matter though. They aren’t banks anymore unless they need TARP. Otherwise they are prop traders and Facebook owners.

-       USD down, Gold flat near $1460 highs.

-       Libya guns blood blah blah blah.

-       Syria guns blood blah blah blah.

-       UK retail sales have largest drop since 1995, when they started tracking it. Non-Food fell the most.

-       Amazon starts selling Kindle with special offers. That’s kind of like a free order router that stops in every internalizer dark pool first.

-       Belarus is hunting bombers that killed over a dozen.

-       German Investor Confidence dropped more than expected this morning.

-       The R-Man is bullish. WTF. Richard Russell bullish? What’s next, Nouriel buying the QQQQ?

Earnings:

Pre-market:  FAST

After the Close: MG

Significant Movers This Morning:

JOEZ -11.5% (earnings) WMS -8.8% (guidance) EXTR -8.5% (guidance) NPSP -4.9% (9M share offering) ECT -4.8% (2.35M unit offering for holder) AA -3.4% (earnings).

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Top stories on MediaGuardian.co.uk

Rebekah Brooks faces questioning
Investigation of illegal news-gathering at News of World turns to newspaper's former editor

CPS under attack over BT and Phorm's covert online monitoring
Privacy watchdogs fear big corporations can violate UK internet users' rights with impunity

ITN chief's pay package hits nearly £700,000
News broadcaster reports pre-tax profit of £400,000 for 'challenging' 2010 after cutting staff costs

This week's featured media jobs

BBC - Senior Commercial Manager
Salford Quays/permanent/full time

Net-a-Porter - Deputy Product Editor
London/permanent/full time

Pro Pub - Webmaster Editorial Assistant
Epsom/permanent/full time

For more jobs, career advice and workplace news visit guardianjobs.co.uk

Today's headlines

The Guardian

News International chief Rebekah Brooks faces questioning by police over hacking. P1, 2
U2 set new record for highest grossing concert in history. P3
Harvard twins lose appeal for more Facebook money. P20
iPad on top but rivals catching up, say researchers. P24
Japan disaster to hit smartphone sales. P24
Peter Wilby: Why shouldn't Murdoch get what he wants? P29
Mark Lawson on copyright law. G2, P3

The Independent

News International's Rebekah Brooks: I have no knowledge of actual payments to police. P10
New online dating sensation targets Britain. P16
Apple boss Steve Jobs agrees to authorised biography. P18
Bebo to get a redesign. P33
David Cameron's copyright fight. P39
Fears on advertising outlook push WPP back. P40

Daily Telegraph

Leading actor wins court superinjunction. P1
U2 set new record for highest grossing concert in history. P3
Simon Cowell accused of helping tycoon friend hide £2bn in divorce battle. P3

The Times

Simon Cowell accused of helping tycoon friend hide £2bn in divorce battle. P12
Nine more potential phone hacking victims asked for evidence. P16
WPP under pressure over fear of cuts to clients' ad budgets. P41

Financial Times

Gordon Brown thwarted in attempt to have judicial inquiry into phone hacking investigations. P4
Inside Nokia: part one. P14
Nokia prepares for drop in market share. P17
Big names lured to new ad agency. P20
Intel to wrestle Arm over new chip. P23
WPP under pressure over fear of cuts to clients' ad budgets. P34

Wall Street Journal Europe

Indian web firms woo shoppers. P19

Daily Mail

Simon Cowell tells ITV bosses he quits The X Factor. P3
Mobile bills could be £200 too much a year. P21

Daily Express

Investors give WPP hard sell-off. P45

The Sun

Simon Cowell accused of helping tycoon friend hide £2bn in divorce battle. P6
Donny Osmond gets new radio show. P10
Britain's Got Talent coverage. P2, 3

Daily Mirror

Simon Cowell accused of helping tycoon friend hide £2bn in divorce battle. P1, 5

Daily Star

Britain's Got Talent coverage. P4, 5
Donny Osmond gets new radio show. P8

And finally ...

Almost four decades since a 14-year-old named Donny Osmond took Britain by storm, he is back with a bang. The 70s heartthrob is to launch his first UK radio show - in Oldham. Starting later this year, Osmond will front the Saturday breakfast show on Oldham's 96.2 The Revolution station. He follows in the illustrious footsteps of Pat Sharp. Daily Star P8

Also on MediaGuardian.co.uk today

Global ad spend 'hit by Japanese earthquake and Middle East'
ZenithOptimedia cuts forecast for worldwide ad market by almost £1.5bn, as Egypt and Japan almost halt commercial ads

Charles Constable joins Arqiva
Former Channel 5 and BBC executive to head digital unit handling transmitter firm's stakes in Freeview and YouView

Winklevoss twins lose Facebook appeal
Court rules brothers cannot renege on $65m settlement agreed after claims founder Mark Zuckerberg stole Facebook idea

Gameshow The Cube to launch in China
The latest TV shows heading for the Chinese market include Objective's hit format, Dating in the Dark, Shear Genius and Sing It

Lawyer to PCC chief - condemn the News of the World now
Stinging letter to Baroness Buscombe from lawyer who represents hacking victims

Big Brother: Channel 5 begins to sell commercial opportunities
Broadcaster's commercial division to meet media agencies, with deals expected to bring in more then £25m this year

Radio 2 boss takes on his critics
Bob Shennan defends station from attacks by commercial rivals and BBC Trust, saying he is not chasing a younger audience

Google's Eric Schmidt to give MacTaggart lecture
Search engine executive chairman is first leading figure from a technology company to deliver the speech

Julian Assange claims WikiLeaks is more accountable than governments
WikiLeaks founder defends organisation in his first formal public appearance since being arrested over sexual assault allegations

Google wins approval for ITA travel search deal - but antitrust case looms
Google's acquisition of travel software firm ITA has highlighted its dominance of the search market, prompting reports that an antitrust investigation is looming

We're just over two weeks away from the start of the 2011 NFL Draft. The Pittsburgh Steelers and the rest of the NFL are still meeting with NFL hopefuls in an attempt to perhaps glean any last information before settling in on what their final strategy will be. But time is running out for too much to change in terms of team's draft boards and how players can help or hurt their draft status. So, once this week and once next week, we'll take a crack at predicting who the Steelers will take with their first round pick.

Here's a list of names I've seen linked to the Steelers in some shape or fashion this draft season:

• Brandon Harris, CB, Miami
• Derek Sherrod, OT, Mississippi State
• Mike Pouncey, OG, Florida
• Muhammad Wilkerson, NT, Temple
• Aaron Williams, CB, Texas
• Nate Solder, OT, Colorado
• Jimmy Smith, CB, Colorado
• Rahim Moore, S, UCLA
• Phil Taylor, NT, Baylor
• Cameron Hayward, DE, Ohio State
• Benjamin Ijalana, OG, Villanova
  
• Ras-I Dowling, CB, Virginia
• Danny Watkins, G, Baylor
• Orlando Franklin, OT, Miami
• Curtis Brown, CB, Texas

One name I haven't heard associated with the Steelers is Wisconsin DE J.J. Watt. The reason is quite simple -- Watt has been moving up draft boards, and by now, is widely assumed to be long gone by the time the Steelers select at No. 31.

However, the Steelers have a history of trading up in the first round when there's a guy out there that they covet. They did so with Troy Polamalu, Kendrick Bell, and Santonio Holmes most notably. I think if Watt falls past, say, 13 or 14, then the Steelers should strongly consider packaging some sort of picks to move up and get the best 3-4 DE in this year's draft.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't think the Steelers need quantity in this draft -- just quality. I've got a post about this subject in the works, but if the Steelers can get two or three bigtime starters out of this year's draft, then it would be a wildly successful year. But as I'll elaborate on this week, the Steelers have already stockpiled depth and competition at multiple positions in the '10 and '09 drafts. What we've lacked is a couple of acquisitions that are slam dunks to be major contributors for years to come. This is the year to get that type of talent.

So, that's my dark horse pick for who the Steelers will grab in the first round of this year's draft. I know it's somewhat unlikely, but hey, what fun would it be if I just spat out another name you've already seen associated with the Steelers this past month? Not much.

Whoever gets Watt will be happy for years to come, and I for one just hope that Kevin Colbert and the Steelers front office considers giving up a bit to move up to get him next Thursday.

What would it take you might be asking? Well, if the Steelers moved up to No. 15 to grab him, perhaps they can give up a third and a fifth in this year's draft, plus a future third round pick in 2012. Remember, we might be losing more than one unrestricted free agent once a new CBA is reached. Guys like Ike Taylor and Willie Colon would yield future draft picks were they to sign elsewhere.

To the polls, what do you think the Steelers will do with their first round pick next Thursday?

Protecting your engine for up to 300,000 miles.

Even though the prototype is a test mule based on the S4 Avant, there are certain elements that tell us there’s something different about this model. These include the heavily blistered front and rear wheel arches housing the same dark 20-inch alloy rims found on the RS5 Coupe, as well as a modified front bumper with different air vents to supply additional cooling to the engine.

Copyright © Carscoop.blogspot.com - All Rights Reserved

Company to Display New Professional 3D HD Imaging Solutions, XF Series Professional Camcorders, HD Broadcast Lenses, EOS Digital SLR Cameras and High-Resolution REALiS Projectors

April 11, 2011 – Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging, is exhibiting a wide range of products for broadcast HD television production, HD video content creation, and high-resolution image display at the 2011 NAB Show, booth # C-4325, April 11th to 14th, in the Las Vegas Convention Center. On display will be the most comprehensive display of the Company’s professional broadcast and HD imaging equipment including special guest presenters talking about the latest developments and techniques in the professional real-world application of Canon equipment. Included in the booth’s exhibit will be Canon’s HD broadcast lenses and robotic pan-tilt HD cameras, the new Canon XA10 professional camcorder, XF300-series and XF100-series professional camcorders, the Company’s popular line of EOS DSLR cameras with full-manual HD video capture, the REALiS WUX4000 Installation LCOS projector, and large-format imagePROGRAF printers.

Also on display during the show will be the new Technicolor CineStyle for the Canon 5D Mark II, a custom picture style which provides cinematographers with the image latitude for digital intermediate color-grading and delivery.

A Word on Canon

• Alex Buono
• Russell Carpenter
• Rodney Charters
• Allen Daviau & Bill Bennett
• Bruce Dorn
• Vincent Laforet
• Patrick Moreau
• Joe Pontecorvo
• Kevin Shahinian
• Gale Tattersall

Two New PL-Mount Canon Lenses

These two new lenses from Canon offer a performance level in accordance with emerging 4K production image format standards, which inherently ensures the very highest performance in contemporary 2K and HD digital 35mm motion-imaging.

New HDgc Portable HD zoom lens with 2x Built-in Extender

New Firmware for the XF305 and XF300 Professional Camcorders

Canon XA10 Professional Camcorder

Canon XF-Series Professional Camcorders

The XF105 and XF100 Professional Camcorders are ideal for mobile HD video capture in a compact form factor. The XF105 and XF100 utilize the same Canon XF Codec featured in the Canon XF305 and XF300, yet they are less than half the size and weight of those larger models. The XF105 and XF100 camcorders are ideal for Electronic News Gathering, documentary and independent filmmaking and event videography. The Canon XF105 and XF100 Professional Camcorders feature a Genuine Canon 10x HD Zoom lens and Canon’s built-in infrared low-light feature enabling the capture of HD video in complete darkness.

All XF-series models record to Compact Flash (CF) cards and feature hot-swappable card slots for maximum performance. Canon’s XF305 and XF105 models feature industry-standard HD-SDI output, genlock, and SMPTE time code (in/out) terminals for multi-camera or 3D productions.

The Canon XF Codec is an MPEG-2 4:2:2 50Mbps codec used for exceptional high-definition image quality, full non-linear editing (NLE) systems compatibility and efficient, robust workflow. The Canon XF Codec is currently compatible with leading software programs widely used within the video production and broadcast industries including those available from Adobe, Apple, Avid, and Grass Valley.

Now, with the new firmware announcement for the XF305 and XF300 models, all four Canon XF-series camcorders will include in-camera features to enable the easy set-up and capture of high-definition 3D video when two camcorders are paired.

Canon 3D Solutions for Broadcast Lenses

Most of Canon’s HDTV Zoom Lenses are equipped with 16-bit resolution Rotary Encoder Devices, which provide precise synchronous lens control by simply connecting the two lenses with a 20pin-20pin single cable. This 3D Bridge Cable will allow simultaneous control of a pair of lenses from one zoom and focus controllers.

The "3D Lens Adjustment Software" is intended to make stereoscopic tracking of the zoom, focus and iris even more precise, and allow appropriate offsets to be easily made using the Digital Drive Unit's display to compensate for minor zoom and focus tracking differences between any two lens pairs. Together with the 3D Bridge Cable, the software will also make it possible to use standard lens controllers. The software can be installed to the conventional lenses at Canon service centers for the customers who purchased the 3D Bridge Cable.

Additional Canon HD Lenses, Robotic POV Cameras, and the Canobeam

Canon EOS Digital SLR Cameras

Now capable of 24p (23.976 fps) and 30p (29.97 fps) image capture (when updated to Canon Firmware version 2.0.4 or higher), the Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR provides cinematographers and videographers with a versatile HD camera designed for creative, high-quality production work. Featuring a 21.1-megapixel full-frame 24 x 36mm CMOS sensor for 1920 x 1080 HD resolution capture, the Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR delivers a sensitivity range from ISO 50 to ISO 25600, superb low-light performance, excellent color reproduction, a shallow depth-of-field, and spectacular HD image quality.

The EOS-1D Mark IV Professional Digital SLR features Full HD capture and full manual exposure control, plus selectable frame rates on an APS-H-sized image sensor that’s larger in size than a Super 35mm motion picture film frame. The Canon EOS-1D Mark IV allows for three video recording resolutions – 1080p Full HD, 720p HD and Standard Definition. The camera will record Full HD at 1920 x 1080 in selectable frame rates of 24p (23.976), 25p, or 30p (29.97); and 720p HD or 480p SD video recording at either 50p or 60p (59.94).

Also on display will be the Canon EOS 7D digital SLR featuring Full HD video capture at 1920 x 1080 resolution with selectable frame rates of 24p, 25p or 30p, as well as 720p HD and 480p SD video recording at either 50p or 60p (59.94).

Canon imagePROGRAF Large Format Printers

REALiS WUX4000 Installation LCOS Projector

SOURCE Canon

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NIS' latest infernal turn-based strategy RPG given narrowed release window on Sony's console; naming contest underway.

The gates of the Netherworld will soon be reopened. NIS America today announced that Disgaea 4 will be available for the PlayStation 3 in the US this September. The game is expected to arrive in Europe this fall.

The Netherworld appears to have frozen over.

Disgaea 4 will incorporate a graphical overhaul over the previous flagship installment in NIS' quirky turn-based tactics role-playing game. And while the studio has also revamped the series' battle systems, it will retain many of the series' most familiar aspects.

Characters like "Dark Hero" Axel and the penguin-like servant Prinnies will be returning, as will many familiar character and enemy types, all re-rendered to take advantage of the new engine.

Beyond announcing a Disgaea 4's release window, NIS also said that it is accepting entries for the Come up with a "Dis-name-a" Contest. The promotion challenges gamers with submitting names for a weapon, special skill, and character, with the idea that the winning entry will be included in the retail version of the game. Those interested in participating can do so on the game's official website.

For more information, check out GameSpot's previous coverage of Disgaea 4.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

The first clip has just arrived for the upcoming web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy, which will debut on April 12 at Machinima.com. Take a look at the first clip below, which features Michael Jai White as Jax and Darren Shahlavi as Kano. You can also take a look at the full press release regarding Mortal Kombat: Legacy's online debut below the clip.

Warner Bros. Digital Distribution and Machinima.com today announced they have signed an agreement to premiere and distribute the highly anticipated Mortal Kombat: Legacy live action digital series produced by Warner Premiere. Directed by Kevin Tancharoen (Fame), and starring Jeri Ryan (Star Trek: Voyager) as "Sonya Blade," Michael Jai White (The Dark Knight) as "Major Jackson 'Jax' Briggs" and Darren Shahlavi (300) as "Kano," this series will take gamers deep into the history of the warriors they know and love.

The first action-packed episode of Mortal Kombat: Legacy will debut April 12 exclusively on Machinima, the dominant entertainment network for videogamers on YouTube (YouTube.com/Machinima). Fans from around the world will be able to watch and engage with the entire Mortal Kombat: Legacy series through Machinima's YouTube channel.

"With over 500 million monthly video views and 50 million monthly viewers, Machinima has the world's most highly-engaged gaming audience, which makes this agreement with Warner Bros. such a great fit," said Allen DeBevoise, Chairman and CEO of Machinima, Inc. "Mortal Kombat is an epic franchise with a rich story and characters, we're truly excited to bring Mortal Kombat: Legacy to our community. With our global scale and reach, we can now drive greater engagement and viewership than anyone for entertainment properties that fit our young, male-centric demo. Kevin's new incarnation of the Mortal Kombat franchise is precisely the type of world-class, high-octane action content that our audience will love."

Kevin Tancharoen, who directed and produced the popular, unofficial Mortal Kombat: Rebirth fan short, is bringing the same immersive directing style to this live-action digital series. "Machinima is the perfect entertainment destination to premiere the series," said Kevin Tancharoen, Director, Producer and co-writer of Mortal Kombat: Legacy. "They have a massive audience of gamers from around the world. We worked very closely with NetherRealm Studios and Ed Boon, and we're now putting the finishing touches on the episodes. I'm confident we've stayed true to the Mortal Kombat lore and am hoping the fans will be blown away by what they see."

Also on April 12, in a lead up to the series premiere, Machinima will host Kevin Tancharoen and cast from the series in a special live event. Details will be announced on Machinima.com soon.

Written by Kevin Tancharoen, Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing, Mortal Kombat: Legacy is an anthology of nine live action shorts, and brings to life the motivation behind each character's participation in the Mortal Kombat tournament. Each episode will provide never-before-revealed insights into characters featured in the upcoming videogame as well as the game's universe.

The latest iteration of the award-winning videogame, Mortal Kombat, marks a triumphant return to the series' mature presentation and a reinvention of its classic 2D fighting mechanic. Driven by an all new graphics engine, the fan favorite Fatality is back and presented in more gory detail than ever before. In addition, Mortal Kombat introduces a number of new game-play features including tag team and a deep story mode. Mortal Kombat is being developed by NetherRealm Studios, led by Mortal Kombat creator and creative director Ed Boon.

For the latest media news, visit The Wire. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Over the past two decades, the mobile industry has become increasingly stunted by fragmented protocols, standards, and regional differences. But a hot new technology called HTML5 promises to remedy this by delivering an unprecedented open, democratic and wonderfully fertile mobile web.

Evangelists say the HTML5 movement has so much momentum that it could defeat the native app — an application that is designed to run on a single platform — in as little as two years.

Sundar Pichai, who leads Google’s HTML5-happy Chrome OS initiative,  agrees that the “incredible advantages of the Web will prevail” over the dominant native app model. Another mobile developer expert Mike Rowehl adds: “We’ll forget that we even passed through another era of native apps on the way to the mobile web.”

The transition comes at a time when the mobile revolution is driving economic growth in the US and abroad. Phones are quickly become our second brain, and users are snapping the smartest phones they can find. Companies, large and small, are investing billions of dollars to create a smartphone presence.

HTML5 heralds huge efficiencies for web publishers, because it lets companies develop once and distribute across any device via an Internet browser. An HTML5 triumph will not only save billions in development costs, but it will also allow publishers to direct those savings towards more innovative, productive projects.

HTML5 apps are searchable by crawlers such as Google’s search engine, ensuring that the apps can be discovered by billions of consumers. They can mash content with data or apps from third parties, and access analytical services such as traffic measurement tools, and ad server targeting technologies. You don’t need to get anyone’s permission to distribute an HTLM5 app. And to top it off, at least one study says consumers prefer the convenience of them (though the research was commissioned by Adobe, which is partial to web apps).

HTML5 is so-called because it is the fifth generation of HyperText Markup Language, which is the coding language used to create web pages. By distributing over a web browser via fast, new mobile networks, HTML5 gets to bypass much of a phone’s underlying “iron,” or the chips, graphical cards and other components — all things that native apps rely on. Most phones being sold today have modern browsers that will operate on super fast 4g or LTE networks — the sort of thing that the HTML5 technology needs to thrive. Thus, as HTML5 advances (developers are working hard to improve it), companies will no longer need to build native apps.

So there’s tremendous logic behind HTML5’s onslaught. But it’s still not an assured victory. HTML5 has some limitations on things like speed, and access to certain phone features such as bluetooth. What happens over the next 12 months, however, will say a lot about its chances. Its destiny primarily depends on the next steps by Apple, the biggest proponent of native apps, and thus the antagonist of this story. And it’s precisely because no one knows how this will play out that makes this drama so riveting: Apple is like the Joker in the Dark Knight, a fiend with flair, while Batman (Google) works to keep the mobile metropolis safe.

(This debate about the emergence of HTML5 and its promise of a future beyond fragmented native app platforms is the focus of one of the sessions at the VentureBeat Mobile Summit April 25/26, a conference for the 180 executives active in transforming the mobile industry. Folks like Goog’e Pichai, will be in attendance, as will the major carriers and CEOs of the most disruptive private companies.)

The story started in 2007, with the release of the first iPhone. Led by its enigmatic leader Steve Jobs, Apple gave developers their first real taste of independence from the carrier oligarchy. The iPhone’s beauty was manifold, but first and foremost, it allowed developers to build applications and sell them for a fee — to users who could conveniently tap their iTunes account to buy things through the iPhone’s App Store. This bypassed the control of the carriers, which had long dictated what phones featured on their “decks.”

By the time the dust began to settle, Apple had essentially stolen a two-year lead. Not only that, millions of developers have invested in learning Objective-C, Apple’s programming framework for the iPhone, and other developer tools; these developers become specialists with vested interest to stay loyal to Apple. Now, well into 2011, Apple keeps pushing efforts to make native apps more attractive than HTLM5 web ones, in an effort to keep those millions of developers — and thus users — hostage.

And so paradoxically, Apple has turned out to be controlling, closed and manipulative. It has no incentive to push to full democracy on the web front. It is enjoys huge profits from its position, not only because it gets a 30 percent cut of the revenue from downloaded apps, but because its phones, and now iPads, are selling like crazy. It is now one of the most valuable companies in the world. At every turn, it seems, Apple finds a way to hamper or limit the features that allow HTML5 to work efficiently on its devices. It remains to be seen what tricks it has up its sleeve going forward, but it’s true that many people think Apple will be be able to stay ahead. There are so many areas where Apple and other companies have hived off their own platforms from the Web that Wired last year declared that the “Web is dead.”

But if you look closely, despite the Apple/Joker’s continued pranks to keep native app alive, you’ll see how much Google/Batman keeps closing the gap on him. The following are the areas where native app gained a quick advantage over HTML5. Note that in almost all areas HTMl5 has caught up. In several areas, HTML is about to catch up. In a few areas, HTML5 has a plan to catch up, but is admittedly at least a year or two away from doing so:

To conclude, native apps are still extremely popular for many developers, because HTLM5 is still working to close the performance gap. Take Trulia, the company that offers real estate information online. It’s not a game company, and so theoretically doesn’t need the blazing speed offered by a phone’s underlying chip iron. Still, mobile is a significant portion of the company’s traffic (20 percent and growing) and it’s map-heavy– and HTLM5 can’t handle the intensity of map graphics as well as native can.

Chief executive Pete Flint told me he hired ten developers to make native apps, and those apps have shown far superior engagement and page views, he says. “As a brand publisher, I’m loathe to create native apps,” he told me, “it just adds massive overhead.” Indeed, those developers need to learn specific skills to building native mobile apps, arguably having nothing to do with his core business. They have to learn the different programming code, simulators and tech capabilities of each platform, and of each version of the platform. By diverting so much money into this, he’s having to forgo investment in other core innovation. (do the back-of-the-envelope math: at least $100,000 per developer, or a total $1 million investment). In an ideal world, Flint says, he’d have embraced the evolution to HTLM5 Web apps — but HTML5 is just not there yet.

But HTLM5 will emerge competitive on just about every level within two years, says Michael Mullany, chief executive of Sencha, adding that already 95 percent of the functionality of native apps is being delivered by HTML5. And if you have any doubts about this, he points to the story already played out on the PC web. For at least 15 years, developers have been able to create “better apps” on the Windows PC desktop, compared to what they can do on a web browser. “But when was the last killer Windows native app developed?,” Mullany asks. It was probably Microsoft Outlook, which came out in 1998, he says. “Native has always had a performance advantage on the desktop,” he says, “but it hasn’t mattered because of the other benefits of being on the web.”

HTLM5 graphics performance for fast-moving games that have a lot of animation can’t match native’s performance, and probably won’t for some time to come. But for pretty much anything else, HTLM5 is good enough, an increasing number of developers are saying (see this great review by Redfin’s Sasha Aickin). The benefits gained from a slightly faster native experience will be so marginal for the vast majority of apps that it just wont’t matter enough to forgo the considerable benefits of the open web.

Things are moving very quickly. In just the past month or so, HTLM5 has shown momentum in other areas: The main browsers, from Chrome to Firefox to Explorer have bolstered their support of the web framework. Facebook, one of the fastest growing companies, and most popular companies in mobile, has largely embraced HTML5, but is expected to say more soon at its f8 conference. Enterprise players are realizing its advantages, too. Slow to embrace the smartphone native app, they’re now balking at the cost of developing those apps, especially now that Microsoft-Nokia is offering yet another compelling alternative to iOS, Android (we’ll talk another time about how Google is like Two-Face, sometimes), Palm’s WebOS and RIM — why even deal with the splintered distribution each each app would have. After all, many companies have already spent decades developing web apps for the PC, and so they don’t want to start over with native mobile apps. So some enterprise companies are embracing HTLM5 apps instead. Sencha says it saw its business double last year, largely because of this trend. Finally, publishers are getting pissed off at Apple’s insistence to retain 30 percent of the revenue from apps sold through it’s store.

This story is still in suspense stage: We just don’t know when it will end, but we do know it will end. The logic behind HTLM5 is just too compelling for native to win, but at the same time we just don’t now how many more tricks the Joker has up its sleeves to stave off this inevitable tidal shift to an open, democratic metropolis.

Tags: HTML5, native apps

Companies: Apple, Google, Sencha

People: Sundar Pichai