Tuesday, 23 July 2013
The Daily Roundup for 07.23.2013
Mixamo Is Building A Platform For The Biggest Game Developers To Create Their Own 3D Characters
With app stores becoming ever more competitive, game makers have had to upgrade from building 2D games to creating 3D titles over the past two years. That has meant even more creative and intensive work for artists and producers, as the graphics processing power on smartphones has increased.
But there are tools to help. Mixamo is a 25-person startup that has existed very quietly for the past five years. Even though they haven’t really spoken to the press much before, they’ve raised about $11 million in total and have racked up customers like Microsoft, EA, Sony, Blizzard and Gameloft.
They’re a web-based service that helps developers tool and animate 3D characters by making rigging and animation easier. A developer can upload the mesh for a character, place joint locators and locator rings to figure out how to make the character move, and then run Mixamo’s auto-rigging software. For console titles, the company says they can cut the cost of 500 seconds of animations by anywhere from 70 to 80 percent compared to standard techniques like keyframing and motion capture.
An offshoot from some research out of Stanford’s BioMotion Lab, the company has built up a store where they sell existing characters and animations on top of a subscription-based service. (They’re one of the largest animations providers in the asset store for Unity, a hugely popular game development platform backed by Sequoia Capital).
“We want to be an end-to-end solution where you can do complex animations with 10,000 polygons on a single character,” said Stefano Corazza, the CEO and co-founder of Mixamo.
Naturally, Mixamo has a SaaS-based business model, where they sell subscriptions by the seat to gaming studios. Their All Access product gives studios one year of unlimited access to their 3D characters, Auto-Rigger and their library of thousands of animations for $1,500 per seat.
They’re seeing developers handle about 800 or 900 characters per week and have a few thousand customers. The company has taken funding from Granite Ventures and Keynote Ventures.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/6lgriXLQzCs/
Journalism May Be Collapsing, But With Pressfolios, You Can At Least Build A Nice Portfolio
If you’re a working journalist (or even an aspiring one), you’re probably getting tired of hearing that it’s important to build your personal brand. Now, leaving aside the obnoxiousness of the phrase “personal brand,” I suspect we hear it so much because it’s kinda true — and a startup called Pressfolios aims to make it easy for journalists to build that brand through an online portfolio.
“Journalists probably best served by adopting the mindset of entrepreneur rather than a serial employee,” said co-founder Marc Samson. “If they can put their best foot forward, they’re going to be better served in their careers, and a big part of that is keeping track of your published work and developing a professional identity.”
There are some obvious questions: Isn’t an online portfolio just a website? And aren’t there already tons of website building tools? Well, yes, but there are some unique challenges for journalists, like the fact that old articles can be taken offline, and that you’re may be generating new content constantly but you don’t have time it to add to the portfolio. For example, there’s a section of my personal website where I highlight some of my past work, but I haven’t updated it in a year, and one of the articles is no longer online.
Samson told me there are “three core components working in symphony – our platform simultaneously serves as a personal repository, a cloud backup service, and a website builder, all wrapped into one.” So instead of just linking to the stories that you want to highlight, Pressfolios also creates a backup version. The profile is also specifically designed to highlight the kinds of things a journalist would want to highlight — the links to past content are pretty prominent, and there’s also a space for listing skills and a detailed biography. You can see my (very basic) profile here.
The site is leaving private beta today, and it’s also adding a $12 per month pro version. New features including the ability to include RSS integration (making it easy to add your latest stories to your portfolio, and to even do it in bulk if you want), custom domains (so your Pressfolio doesn’t have to be a Pressfolio.com URL), and private Pressfolios (which makes it less obvious to your bosses that you’re looking for a new job).
What Pressfolios doesn’t offer is significant integration with social networks — you can link to your profiles, but that’s it. Samson acknowledged that a reporter with an active account and a significant following can attract a potential employer’s “curiosity”, but he argued that reporters probably aren’t going to “get hired based on their social media accounts.”
Overall, I like the product and I plan to build out my profile even further (though check back in a few weeks ). I did wonder whether there’s enough of a market to build a big company here — after all, journalism is neither a lucrative nor fast-growing profession. Samson countered that journalists sometimes sell themselves short, and while he doesn’t necessarily think Pressfolios will become a big, venture-backed company (which is why it’s self-funded), he does see a real opportunity here.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/m_G4mkr3zJA/
NTT DoCoMo outs Raku-Raku F-09E smartphone for 'beginners'
Viber support page hacked by Syrian Electronic Army, most user info remains safe
Apple reports Q3 2013 revenue of $35.3 billion: 31.2 million iPhones sold, iPad and Mac sales decline
SwiftKey Cloud Makes Android's Favorite Keyboard Even Better
No, nunca antes vivimos mejor
Viñeta de Alex Gregory publicada en The New Yorker y traducida por @OmaCroga
A pesar de lo que se dice a menudo de que en el pasado vivÃamos vidas más sencillas y con menos preocupaciones la entrada El pasado era una mierda , con apartados como Vidas breves, Piojos, malaria, tos sangrienta y dolor de muelas, Inseguridad alimentaria, y Mugre, ignorancia, superstición, tiranÃa, pone las cosas en su sitio y aclara que para nada era asÃ.
Ya lo sentÃa antes asÃ, pero me reafirmo en que me alegro enormemente de haber nacido en el siglo XX.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/mundoreal/no-nunca-antes-vivimos-mejor.html
US Defense Department offers key spectrum to cellular carriers
Viber Attacked By Syrian Electronic Army
Viber has confirmed a situation earlier this morning in which Viber appeared to have been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (a pro-government group of computer hackers aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad).
AppleSpot originally reported on the hack that affected the Viber support page, though it was unclear the extent to which hackers accessed Viber systems.
Viber has now clarified that the hack only allowed access to two minor systems, a customer support panel and a support administration system. According to the company’s official response, “no sensitive user data was exposed and Viber’s databases were not ‘hacked’.”
The company did not confirm whether the attack came from the Syrian Electronic Army, though the hacker group does take responsibility for the hack. Viber did, however, claim that the hack was the product of a phishing attack that was carried out against one of their employees.
Here’s the official statement:
Today the Viber Support site was defaced after a Viber employee unfortunately fell victim to an email phishing attack. The phishing attack allowed access to two minor systems: a customer support panel and a support administration system. Information from one of these systems was posted on the defaced page.
It is very important to emphasize that no sensitive user data was exposed and that Viber’s databases were not “hacked”. Sensitive, private user information is kept in a secure system that cannot be accessed through this type of attack and is not part of our support system.
We take this incident very seriously and we are working right now to return the support site to full service for our users. Additionally, we want to assure all of our users that we are reviewing all of our policies to make sure that no such incident is repeated in the future.
The hack took down the Viber support page, and replaced it with the following message and a screenshot of the hack.
Dear All Viber Users,
The Israeli-based “Viber” is spying and tracking you
We weren’t able to hack all Viber systems, but most of it is designed for spying and tracking
The above screenshot (within the screenshot) was meant to act as proof that the hackers did in fact access Viber’s databases. We also looked at their released files to confirm their claims (second screenshot).
As you can see, the hackers were able to access information such as phone number, UDID, country, IP address, device type, OS OS type, OS version, registration date, most recent update, and push token.
Viber also took the opportunity to respond to accusations of spying:
Viber, like many other companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Google, and Intel maintains a development center in Israel. It seems like this caused some people to come up with some pretty bizarre conspiracy theories.
It goes without saying, that these claims are completely without merit, and have no basis in reality whatsoever.
Viber is a free messaging and calling service based out of Israel with over 200 million users globally.
We will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/pWD_czbfxQg/
Kobo's newest e-reader leaks, photos show Aura-inspired design
SwiftKey Cloud syncs your keyboard profile, includes trending phrases (video)
Intel previews 4.5W Y-series Core chips for fanless tablets
Ziphius gets fully funded on Kickstarter, expected to ship in March
Sony Honami reportedly poses for photos in near-complete form
The First Touchscreen to Recognize Fingerprints
Samsung puts the new Exynos 5 Octa 5420 SoC up against a Nexus 10 at SIGGRAPH 2013 (hands-on video)
Verizon reveals new Droid accessories, includes SOL Republic headphones, speakers and external batteries (eyes-on)
18 Best Free Apps for the Samsung Galaxy S3
'OK Google Now' comes to mobile phones in Verizon's 2013 Droid trio
Researchers Create “Near-Exhaustive,” Ultra-Realistic Cloth Simulation
Cloth is hard to simulate yet it’s important in gaming, scientific analysis, and CGI. That’s why scientists at Berkely and Carnegie Mellon have spent six months exhaustively exploring all of the possible configurations of a single cloth robe on a cute little animated figure, thereby reducing error and creating some of the nicest simulated cloth you’ll see today. They report on their findings in a paper that will be released at SIGGRAPH today.
“The criticism of data-driven techniques has always been that you can’t pre-compute everything,” said Adrien Treuille, associate professor of computer science and robotics at Carnegie Mellon. “Well, that may have been true 10 years ago, but that’s not the way the world is anymore.”
The cloth you see above is made of 29,000 vertices and rendered at 60 frames per second. It flows and moves just like real cloth and because all possible motions are rendered and taken into account using a sort of graph of all possible vertex positions. Why is this important? Because it allows for online simulations of clothing on a human body, it can make games far cooler than they are now, and you can use the technology to see how materials will perform in various configurations, different weather patterns, and the like. In short, it gives virtual robots real clothes.
Can we expect to see this technology in games any time soon? Not on current consoles.
70 MB requirement is likely too large to be practical for games targeting modern console systems (for example, the Xbox 360 has only 512 MB of RAM), we believe its cost is modest in the context of today’s modern PCs (and the coming generation of gaming consoles) which currently have multiple GBs of memory. Furthermore, we have not fully explored that gamut of cloth basis or secondary graph compression strategies and so both better compression, as well as run-time solutions that stream regions of the secondary graph (leaving only the basis representation in core), are likely possible.
It’s quite cute to see how these little figures move inside robes and “casual” clothing and I’d say we’re just a little past the uncanny valley, at least when it comes to clothing. With a few more months of rendering I wonder what they could do with floppy bellies and arm fat?
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/4CkWi_K4uxE/
BlackBerry Q10 hits Sprint August 30th, Samsung's ATIV S Neo arrives August 16th
Motorola Droid Mini for Verizon hands-on
Motorola Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx for Verizon hands-on
Verizon announces the Motorola Droid mini, priced at $99 and coming August 20th
Educación y nativos digitales: @blogoff desmontando mitos
Llevo años diciendo a propios y a extraños que eso de los nativos digitales es una chorrada y que estos no existen, que el que un niño haya nacido rodeado por ordenadores, smartphones o tablets no garantiza que sepa usarlos.
Juan GarcÃa, @blogoff, quien lleva años dando charlas a estudiantes sobre identidad digitales y temas similares, opina lo mismo y lo cuenta en esta charla de TEDx Valencia.
Quince minutos que no debes perderte si aún crees en los nativos digitales, una idea que como no consigamos erradicar hará que muchos acaben siendo en realidad patosos digitales.
- Adolescentes y redes sociales, un vÃdeo más que recomendable sobre el tema que tampoco tiene desperdicio.
- Educar en una sociedad digital no significa introducir un iPad en el aula, otra cosa muy a tener en cuenta.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/mundoreal/educacion-y-nativos-digitales-desmontando-mitos.html
Microsoft Is Teaching Kinect to Understand Sign Language
MakerBot's contest winners print a better birdhouse
Dropchord drops into Leap Motion store, OUYA and mobile versions to come
Plantronics BackBeat Go 2 Bluetooth in-ears: sweat resistance, six-month sleep
Sony PlayStation 4 waltzes past the FCC
New Gmail layout spawns targeted ads that look like emails
New Exynos 5 Octa: 20 percent more CPU power, over twice the 3D graphics oomph
Moto X's camera UI leaks, reveals swipe-driven UI and slow motion mode
Kiip Will Power Rewards In Yahoo Japan's Mobile Apps
Kiip, a startup that delivers real-world rewards to app users when they perform desirable tasks and reach key milestones, is announcing its integration with Yahoo Japan — marking the first time Yahoo Japan has integrated a third-party service into its app, according to Kiip co-founder and CEO Brian Wong.
As in other Kiip campaigns, users of the Yahoo Japan iPhone and Android apps will see “achievement ads” offering them rewards after completing certain activities. However, unlike most Kiip campaigns, the rewards in this case will take the form of Yahoo’s T-Points. In other words, Kiip is providing the technology for Yahoo Japan to bring T-Points from the web (where they are already available) to mobile.
Wong said Kiip is piloting similar programs with “about a dozen” publications. For those partners, Kiip serves as less of an ad network and more of a technology provider to optimize and promote existing rewards programs on mobile.
“Yahoo is playing publisher and advertiser in this case, leveraging the technology we’ve created over three years,” he said. “It’s not easy deliver these promotions at the right moment and the right place.”
The “Use Yahoo! Japan Apps Get T Points” campaign will run from July 24 to August 23. For its initiatives in Japan, Kiip has help from its investor Digital Garage and Digital Garage-owned marketing agency CGM.
Wong said this also illustrates Kiip’s larger shift as it moves beyond advertising in games. It’s now powering rewards for nearly 1,000 developers in a number of categories — for example, to-do list app Any.Do integrated a few months ago.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/qRqrC5-OYfA/
Insert Coin: Canary, a one-stop shop for securing your home
eBay Now Expands Home Delivery Service to Desktop
