galaxy – Page 22 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ team says why it used Red’s 8K camera

When director James Gunn revealed that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 would be the first movie shot with Red’s 8K Weapon camera , he triggered a bit of speculation: what prompted the move beyond the incredibly high resolution? You might have a better answer today. Red has posted a behind-the-scenes look at the movie that, to no one’s surprise, talks a lot about why the Vol. 2 team shot with such relatively exotic gear. And no, it’s not just about that picture quality. As director of photography Henry Braham summarizes: the Weapon is a “large format” camera that’s simultaneously “tiny.” That let the crew shoot very detailed imagery regardless of the shot — important for a CG-heavy movie, since it maintains a consistently sharp look. They could use the same cameras for handheld close-ups or unusual rigs, such as a spider rig that flies along a wire. In short, they didn’t have to switch cameras or resort to convoluted setups. The behind-the-scenes video is undoubtedly a puff piece meant to sell you on both the camera and the movie. However, it’s also a hint as to where movie technology is going. You can expect 8K digital cameras to become more commonplace, of course, but they also promise more elaborate cinematography that might have been difficult just a few years ago. Source: Red

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‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ team says why it used Red’s 8K camera

We destroyed a collectible Doritos bag to get at its hidden MP3 Player

Junk food and summer blockbusters go hand in hand — from the nachos, popcorn and candy you buy at the cinema, to action-hero faces plastered on every brand of potato chips at the supermarket. This has been the way of the world as long as I can remember, but this summer, the pairing may have reached its apex. In a perfect storm of brand synergy, nostalgia and guilty pleasures, Marvel has decided to release the soundtrack to ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ in the most unconventional format imaginable: a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos . Like Frito-Lay’s last “smart bag, ” the album-in-a-Doritos-bag gimmick is a bizarre, yet weirdly delightful marketing mess. The film’s soundtrack isn’t hidden in the bag as a CD or thumb drive, nor is it a redemption code for iTunes or Google Play — the album is literally built into the Doritos bag as a faux-cassette player, complete with a headphone jack, buttons to play, rewind, fast-forward, change volume or stop and a mini-USB port to recharge. Again — this is a bag of tortilla chips that you can recharge. The moment new of this absurd product tie-in reached Engadget, our team had questions. Does it sound any good? Can you transfer the music to your phone? If you tear the bag apart, are you rewarded with a halfway decent media player? We resolved to track down a bag, destroy it, and find out. You can tell at a glance that the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Doritos aren’t your typical bag of snack chips. For one, the bag itself comes in a display box decorated to look like a vintage stereo, with printed dials and a window peeking through to the bag’s embedded media player. Inside the box are instructions (plug in headphones and turn it on, of course) and an extremely cheap headset reminiscent of 1990s “walkman style” stereo cans with a thin metal headband and flimsy, foam-covered speakers. While the headphones do look a lot like the pair Chris Pratt wore in the original Guardians movie, they put out decidedly low fidelity sound. Maybe it’s an intentional nod to the MP3 player’s facade: cassette tapes never sounded that great anyway . Either way, the bag’s music player doesn’t need cheap headphones to be mediocre. The ports on ours were so misaligned that we actually couldn’t get the headphones to plug in until we opened the bag and shuffled around the internals. When we finally got the audio port lined up, it worked well enough to fulfill its novelty — but the music was a little distorted, even on good headphones. Fortunately, this is the fault of Doritos’ cheap media player, not the music itself: plugging the bag’s mini-USB charging cable into a PC will let you download the entire album as DRM-free MP3 files encoded at 320kbps. The novelty of asking someone if they want to listen to music from a snack bag is worth a few laughs, but at $29.99, this is probably the worst way to buy the film’s soundtrack. Getting the music files out of the bag is a bit of a chore, and tearing it apart to get at the electronics doesn’t yield much of a reward — the Doritos MP3 player is little more than a cheap, exposed circuit board sandwiched between two pieces of foam. Without the snack bag, its buttons are too tall and awkward, the audio port is exposed and flimsy and it has no visible user interface to speak of. It’s not even worth pillaging for the player’s microSD card , which holds a paltry 256MB of data. Looks like we destroyed the eBay value of this season’s most ridiculous collector’s item for nothing.

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We destroyed a collectible Doritos bag to get at its hidden MP3 Player

Six Flags and Samsung unveil ‘mixed reality’ rollercoaster

To many of us, roller coasters are just fine without extra visual stimulation. However, last year, several amusement parks introduced virtual reality devices, letting you fly through space or a gargoyle-infested dystopia. Six Flags and Samsung have done that one better now with the New Revolution Galactic Attack mixed reality experience. As before, Six Flags is using Samsung’s Gear VR headset, but now it’s using the passthrough camera on the Galaxy phones, letting you see the virtual content overlaid on the real world. Samsung says the Six Flags experience “enables millions of consumers to experience virtual reality for the first time.” However, the passthrough camera on the Gear VR won’t deliver mixed reality that’s as good as something like Microsoft’s Hololens , which overlays virtual content onto the real world, not a camera view. However, it’ll at least give folks a view of the outside rather than locking them in a digital box. On top of the virtual imagery, there’s a level of gamification. “As riders drop at high speeds, the mixed reality view changes to a completely immersive, virtual reality environment and a fighter spaceship cockpit materializes and envelops the riders into a tunnel of light, ” the PR breathlessly explains. From there, you’ll be brought into one of three (virtual) drone bays, “each of which offer a completely different gaming experience and three different endings, ” Six Flags explains. As before, the VR is synchronized to the ride movements, so that you don’t experience any not-so-virtual puking. The featured ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, CA is the New Revolution, the first-ever looping roller coaster built in 1976. While not the park’s most diabolic ride, the LA Times advises riders to keep their heads back “or you’ll get your ears boxed.” At the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, CA, the New Revolution Galactic Attack will be available on floorless looping Kong coaster. Source: Six Flags

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Six Flags and Samsung unveil ‘mixed reality’ rollercoaster

Amazon is selling its own processors now, too

Amazon’s come a long way since its humble beginnings as an online book store. It sells everything from groceries to its own Kindle and tablet hardware , runs streaming services complete with original shows , and has a huge cloud-computing business among other interests . And now Amazon’s started pushing its own line of processors, plunging its finger into yet another pie. You won’t find its ARM-based “Alpine” chips among the T-shirts and homeware on Amazon’s online store, of course. They are being sold directly to manufacturers and service providers through subsidiary Annapurna Labs , a chip designer Amazon acquired early last year. The Alpine chip range is intended for products like WiFi routers, storage devices and connected home products (internet of things things), with companies including ASUS, Netgear and Synology already counted as customers. As Bloomberg notes, the chips are also a good fit for data centers, but are more suited to storage and networking tasks, not high-performance servers where Intel reigns king. Apart from being an interesting milestone in Amazon’s campaign for world domination, it getting into the processor business will resonate little with us everyday consumers. But, when you finally commit to buying a smart home hub after comparing numerous Amazon reviews, that hardware may well turn up with an Amazon brain inside, too. Via: Bloomberg , The Verge Source: Annapurna Labs

GOG Galaxy lets you roll back broken or unwanted updates

The latest version of gaming platform GOG Galaxy now supports patch and update rollbacks, letting you quickly restore a game to a previous version. Rollbacks were originally touted by the company as an DRM-free, anti-Steam feature , letting you skip an update if you hated it. “We know that patches can occasionally break a game or affect your mods, ” said tech VP Piotr Karwowski. GOG Galaxy has other ways you can avoid being locked down, like an opt-out for automatic updates and the ability buy games straight from its store sans the platform. Other game clients, including Steam, generally require such updates, a bone of contention for some players. The main drawback to GOG is a dearth of the latest games, though it does have fairly recent, popular titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt . The company describes the Galaxy client as “fully optional, ” though you’ll miss things like multiplayer, achievements and chat if you don’t use it. Along with rollbacks, the new version brings download pausing, extra installation options, improved friend searching, more speed and an updated UI. It’s now available to anybody in the preview program (you can enroll just by selecting the “receive preview updates” option), and will roll out to everybody else a bit later. Filed under: Gaming Comments Tags: Galaxy, GOG, GOG Galaxy, GoodOldGames, PCGaming, Platform, Steam, update, Windows

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GOG Galaxy lets you roll back broken or unwanted updates

Samsung Rigged the S4 to Unnaturally Perform Better in Benchmark Tests

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is a damn fine phone. It’s fast, it’s big, it’s thin and it’s completely deserving to be in most people’s pockets. But apparently that’s not enough for Samsung. Samsung has gotten caught cheating benchmark tests to make itself look better. Basically, the S4 is specifically tweaked to be better at benchmarking than anything else it does. Read more…