Apple on Wednesday announced the launch of iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities including Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT. iTunes U as a concept isn’t new, but now it is promoted worldwide and the site is redesigned.
Monthly Archive for May, 2007
While waiting for iPhone to hit the streets more is happening on the touch screen business. Today morning Microsoft unveiled “Surface”, a table-shaped computer that responds to touch. Until this morning, the project – almost five years in the making and code-named “Milan” – was top-secret. PopularMechanics has video and some details of these “Surface Computing” tables. The video includes an interview with Jeff Han, well known for his multitouch demos.
Microsoft’s official site for “Surface” was also launched.
Surface computing uses a blend of wireless protocols, special machine-readable tags and shape recognition to seamlessly merge the real and the virtual world. The table can be built with a variety of wireless transceivers, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and RFID and is designed to sync instantly with any device that touches its surface. “Surface machines will cost $5000 to $10,000 at launch and are probably first seen in public spaces like bars and restaurants and people want to expand it into other environments” states Pete Thompson, Microsoft’s general manager for surface computing. Personally I can see this type of large devices work in groups, social places, where interaction is needed, but not for personal working. Or could the working methods change from “sitting in front of a desk and typing keyboard”? Also is multi touch the one to shift the software driven industry back to hardware driven?
Thanks to Lordi, Helsinki hosted the Eurovision Song Contest this year (more details in wikipedia). As this quite surely was once in a lifetime opportunity, I had to check out Semi-Final’s Dress Rehearsal on Wednesday at 21:00.
True Fantasy artwork
An airport style security check welcomed the visitors when entering Hartwall Areena. The hall itself was transformed from an ice-hockey arena to an enormous studio with thousands of lights and massive amount of other technical equipment clearly broadcasting in mind. The stage and surroundings were aesthetic and professionally made (probably none of the team members in charge of the 2005 World Championships in Athletics were involved this time).
Lights and screen after 4,000 hours of programming.
The rehearsal was an exact copy of the semi-final including all the interviews and voting results. Two large screens located in both upper corners of the arena showed the actual TV picture with all the graphics and postcards between performances. The stage with the enormous transparent LED-screen (after a closer examination I found it to be actually a metal net with small LEDs located about 3cm from each other to create the illusion of transparency) worked well and visuals, meaning mainly light and screen design, were fascinating and unique for the presenting artists. The screens were made by Barco and the moving lights by Robe – both links include interesting technical details. Pyrotechnics were also widely used, which is an interesting detail as almost everything is prohibited especially in indoor concerts. Camera work was mainly enjoyable and especially the spider cam moving above the crowd was impressive.
The stage formed a transformable entity with five screen areas.
Well, Serbia won the final (no idea why). It felt that better songs were present in semi-final than in final. As an example Andorra and Denmark were eliminated. My personal favorites included Georgia (Sopho – Visionary Dream), Bulgaria (Elitsa Todorova – Voda) and Hungary (Magdi Rózsa – Unsubstantial Blues). Rózsa won the Best Composer Award which is given to the best songwriter among the Eurovision song composers every year. Belarus was a catchy one and Germany neither France was bad.
Mikki Kunttu’s and his team’s light design in use (notice the turned off LED screen).
For once, a decent production not to be ashamed of as a nation.
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