Some Stuff: Thursday, September 17, 2009

On this date in 1920, the NFL was founded

The trailer for JIM CARREY'S new, animated version of "A Christmas Carol" The movie comes out November 6th. It was directed by ROBERT ZEMECKIS, who also did "The Polar Express" . . . and it uses the same kind of "motion capture" animation technology that that flick used.

Nick Cage just laid it out on the table yesterday on why he dropped out o Seth Rogens “Green Hornet” he said, "wasn't interested in just being just a straight up bad guy who was killing people willy-nilly. I had to have some humanity and to try to give it something where you could understand why the character was the way he was but I don't think there was enough time to develop it."

"Up until now, holograms have been for the eyes only, and if you'd try to touch it, your hand would go right through," Hiro-yuki Shinoda, professor at Tokyo university and one of the developers of the technology, says
"But now we have a technology that also adds the sensation of touch to holograms."
Holograms -- three-dimensional images -- are commonly found on credit cards, DVDs and CDs to prevent forgery, and larger scale holograms have been used in entertainment. Like Will.I.Am during the democratic convention last year.
By using ultrasonic waves, the scientists have developed software that creates pressure when a user's hand "touches" a hologram that is projected. The technology has so far been tested with relatively simple objects, although the researchers have more practical plans, including virtual switches at hospitals, for example, and other places where contamination by touch is an issue.

Games have long played a role in classrooms, but next month marks the launch of the first U.S. public school curriculum based entirely on game-inspired learning. Select sixth graders can look forward to playing video games such as "Little Big Planet" and "Civilization," as well as non-digital games ranging from role-playing scenarios to board games and card games. The Quest to Learn (Q2L) school, based in Manhattan, hopes its guided approach can help students take on the role of explorers, mathematicians, historians, writers and evolutionary biologists.