Technology
Andrew
Falcetti
Monday, August 02, 2010
Raccoon
Eyes Studio, a computer animation and soon to be game developing studio,
consists of three graduates of Polytechnic NYU: Anthony Musich, Tom Burns, and
Carmine Elvezio. The studio’s first work, titled “2084”, a short inspired
partly by George Orwell’s novel 1984,
was their senior project.
Founding
members Anthony and Tom both graduated with BA’s in digital media, and
Carmine—the newest member—graduated with a BA in computer science, and also
does network infrastructure development, theoretical graphics work,
programming, and game development. Carmine will be creating a game engine for
the studio from the ground up—no easy task, as any programmer can tell you. Tom
has also worked on an app known as Occupational
Forces (check out the link at the end of the article for more information).
Raccoon
Eyes is Anthony and Tom’s brainchild they share an interest in 3D animation,
and intend to continue working in 3D animation post-graduation By attaching the
Raccoon Eyes Studio name to their senior project, they hope to start making
themselves known.
The
story of “2084” takes place in Dubai (which they felt helped keep the story
true to the source material), amid a never-ending war. They chose 1984 as the inspiration because they saw
the novel as an extremely interesting and entertaining psychological thriller,
and the concept of the never-ending war
proved to very good source material, leaving them with a lot of creative
freedom and laying the perfect ground work for the creation of “2084”. In addition
to 1984, two of the biggest influences
on “2084” were the Star Wars movies
and Fallout video game series. Anthony said he always liked how iconic the
stormtrooper was to Star Wars, and that how as soon as you saw it, you knew
immediately what it was. He wanted to create an image immediately recognizable
as being from “2084,” so the helmet of the grunt in “2084” was designed after a
combination of gas masks and the stormstrooper face plate. This also kept true
to Orwell’s ideas of an anonymous army stressing uniformity, much like the
stormtroopers. The post apocalyptic environments in Fallout were a huge
influence on the way they modeled the terrain and buildings in “2084,” with its
bleak desolate world and destroyed buildings that give the viewer a sense of
despair.
The
creative aspect of “2084” took about a semester and a half to put together,
while the whole project took a year, beginning in June of 2009 and ending in
June of 2010. Anthony and Tom both easily clocked 1000 hours each working on
the project, which includes rendering times. They said the most difficult
things they encountered while creating “2084” were getting everything done with
the results they wanted on a deadline, while juggling a full time schedule of
classes. Also difficult was rendering, which takes all the elements that they
created—such as lighting and the 2d maps that can give a flat object
depth—combines them and finalizes them for the actual finished production.
Raccoon
Eyes hasn’t stopped with the completion of their senior project; their ambition
is to turn “2084” into a fully-fledged universe covering the entire story of
the warring nations, and not just through animated movies. They want anyone who
hasn’t read 1984 to have the ability
to understand what’s going in the world of 2084. They’re trying to use a future
we have and throw them into the past, bringing ideas of technology into the
past that didn’t actually exist. Their goal is to keep a level of realism in a
futuristic, post-apocalyptic world that can have the viewer believing this is
possible. They plan on branching out from animation and into game development,
and hope to get their work into Apple’s hugely successful App Store, and even
possibly Xbox Live Arcade. They want to be able to reach a huge audience with
their work, which the App Store and XBLA make very possible for indie
developers. They do have a plan for a game, which is still in the
pre-production stage. “The game is codenamed Project Platypus, and it will be a
game of monstrous proportions,” was the only cryptic remark they would give make.
Though the studio as of now consists of the three members, they are looking to
expand and “make Platypus truly monstrous” .
They
are also still looking for a mascot, but live raccoons are quite tricky to
catch according to Anthony.
Check
out Raccoon Eyes Studio on their Web site, Facebook page, and their YouTube
page featuring “2084.”
http://raccooneyesstudios.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Raccoon-Eyes-Studios/106280589396048
http://www.youtube.com/user/RaccoonEyesStudio
Follow
these links for more info on Occupational Forces.
http://www.occupationforces.com/
http://www.eyebeam.org/reblog/10-05-31/augmented-reality-game-on-iphone-occupation-forces-at-dumbo
Emily Olson
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
With the state of the
environment getting increasingly less easy to ignore, I've been questioning our
daily 'green' routines. I'm all about small changes, but lately they just don't
seem to be cutting it. So I began searching for other individuals who do more
than just place paper in the paper bin, take their fixed gear to work and
patiently wait for Anderson Cooper to tell them what’s really going on. (This
is what I do) My search on Google was vast; I was an explorer of the Internet,
swarming through pages of information and contacting thousands and thousands of
people. (This is false)
Jameson Detweiler, a recent
graduate of Drexel University started a search engine, a website called
GreenKonnect. As stated from the site, "GreenKonnect is a human-powered
search engine for the green building industry." The idea came about when
Jameson along with several others joined Drexel in transforming a fraternity
house into a green certified home. The ultimate goal was to develop solid
designs for energy, health, and the environment. He found the process
frustrating at times, with the hundreds of companies all claiming to have the
best green products. There was no major source of information, no easy way to
navigate to find the best answer. Although Google cando wonders, it can also
lead to massive amounts of unnecessary information. GreenKonnect was decided to
be the resource for green building information. In order to make it the
best engine for going green, the site had to be designed for people; by people. Real
humans edit all content, so that all possible results are more applicable to
the consumers need.
It’s pretty easy to go green
in little ways in our own daily lives, but the task thatGreenKonnect tackles is
pretty intense. To help a building become eco-friendly is quite harder than
riding a bike. However, GreenKonnect is doing anything but just chugging along.
If you take a peek at the projects on the site, you can see the list of green
buildings all over U.S. Slowly, buildings are getting their act together but
Jameson wishes to, “see more transparency and less green washing. I believe
that certifications and labels have their place. No one knows everything about
everything, so we need a knowledgeable third party that we trust to review
things for us.”
Fear not, GreenKonnect along
with other sites such as Pharos Project, http://www.pharosproject.net/,
is making green information available for building materials. Although, there are also the little things we
buy, filled with no-good particles waiting to just negatively affect you. Jameson
suggests caring about the “paint of your walls and the deodorant you use,
because they can have major impacts on your health, happiness and productivity.”
GoodGuide, http://www.goodguide.com, is helping you find products that are healthy
for you and for the environment. With over 13800 search results for deodorant,
you will most likely find one that suits you.
Although these sites are
helpful, there is a greater picture they are not apart of. GreenKonnect does
make things easier for the environment, but ideally its searches should exist
for all sites, not just itself. For Jameson the ultimate goal, “is to not have
a choice. Every choice should be a green choice. We want to make green building
so easy that there is no excuse to not build sustainably.”
Andrew
Falcetti
The
iPhone has been one of the most successful pieces of technology of the past few
years. It accounts for 54% of Smartphone traffic. It’s a wonderful device that many
can’t see themselves living without. Personally, I’ve had every version of the
iPhone, and loved each one more and more. It actually turned me into an Apple fan
boy, as I now also own a Macbook Pro. For those who are unaware, the WWDC
(World Wide Developers Conference) is an annual meeting where Apple usually
releases exciting information on new products and software. This year was
especially thrilling because of the announcement of the brand new iPhone 4.
The
new iPhone 4 boasts a plethora of new features, some of which iPhone users have
been waiting for since the iPhone 2, and others that jail broken iPhones
(hacked iPhones that you can use on a network other then AT&T) have already
had. So what’s new about this iPhone?
What makes it so special and why are so many people literally salivating
to own this smart new piece of technology?
First,
the actual phone itself is what makes it so sought after. The body of the
iPhone is black glass with a steel rim. It still looks very much like an Apple
product, and the glass is supposed to be much more durable and
scratch-resistant than previous iPhones’. Apple claims it’s the thinnest Smartphone
ever, as it’s about 34% thinner than iPhone 3GS. A new feature around the phone
is a stainless steel rim lining, which acts as an antenna and supposedly will
greatly increase the reception for 3G and Wi-Fi.
The
camera on the back of the phone has been made larger and now even features a
flash, a feature that was not available on previous iPhones. According to many
iPhones users, the camera on the previous iPhone were getting fairly good shots
in low-light conditions, but one would have to constantly use an app to try and
lighten the picture, but doing so would give it a grainy finish. The camera is
still 5 megapixels, and the flash works for both video as well as pictures. Now
here’s where you know Apple was really listening to customers and delivered:
the iPhone 4 now features a front facing camera! Apple fans have been asking
for this feature since the iPhone was given 3G capabilities. Apple will have its
own video conferencing app called FaceTime. It only works from iPhone 4 to
iPhone 4 via Wi-Fi, but Apple will eventually bring it to 3G. This is very
exciting to all iPhone lovers, and it almost seems like the icing on the
already pretty much perfect cake.
Now
here’s where things get technical. The iPhone display now has a resolution of
960x640 pixels. Apple has called this the Retina Display. This pixel count is
four times as many as the 3GS, which is nothing to scoff at. The images shown
by apple at the WWDC are extremely sharp and crisp looking, making this the
prettiest screen on any iPhone. How is this going to affect all those pages of
apps you have? Don’t worry, they’ll automatically upscale, but developers will
still need to improve a few things on their own to get the absolute best
images.
The
iPhone 4 features the same processor as its now famous iPad, which according to
Apple can process data faster than previous iPhone processors all the while
still using less battery life. As for the battery, it’s about one quarter
bigger than the other iPhone batteries. This in addition to the aforementioned
new processor should lead to some vastly improved battery life.
Next,
let’s take a look at the new software and related features. The iPhone 4 will
ship with iOS 4, the latest iPhone operating system. The main feature that
every iPhone lover I know is foaming at the mouth for is multi-tasking. This
won’t work with absolutely every app, but having it at all is a huge
improvement. Another new feature fans are excited about is the ability to have
wallpaper on the screen behind your apps. Jailbroken iPhones had this ability
for a long time, and it’s nice to know you don’t have to go to such lengths to
have it anymore. The iPhone now also has
an app called iMovie, a video editing app that allows you to cut out parts of
videos and even add music to a video from your music on the iPhone. You’ll be
able to export the videos in 360, 520, and 720p. And finally, for those who
love the new ability to digitally download and read books on the go, Apple is
bringing iBook to the iPhone. It’s also currently available on the iPad and
Apple claims everything will still be perfectly readable on the iPhone screen.
One
thing that has changed outside of Apple is the way the data plan works with
AT&T. Up until June 7th, you were able to sign up for a
$30-a-month unlimited iPhone data plan in addition to your calling and texting
plan. After June 7th, that will no longer be available. You now can
choose between a $15-a-month plan with a 200MB limit, or a $25-a-month plan
with a 2GB limit. If you already have a $30 unlimited iPhone plan and don’t
change it, that’s fine too. You can keep
it.
Apple’s
newest (and in my personal opinion greatest) phone will be released on June 24
in either black or white. It’ll be $199 for a 16GB and $299 for a 32GB. I will
definitely be getting my hands on one of these the day of release. And while I check out the new features and
download fun apps I will be writing a follow-up piece. Seriously, this phone pretty much does
everything.
PHISHY BUSINESS
Keith D. Carroll
Monday, May 31, 2010
You
log into Facebook, eager to see if
you have any new notifications. You don’t care if it’s a photo comment,
a friend request, or a wall post; as long
as you see the little red
icon, you’ll be happy.
You’re in luck. On your
home page,
you see that you have a new wall post, one from a friend you haven’t
spoken to in a long time. Intrigued, you click on the link that will
take you to the post.
The page loads, and you read the new message. It goes something like this:
“Hey (your name here)!! Check out these
optical illusions! They are so realistic!” and there’s a phony link
to a would-be slideshow.
You’re disappointed. You’ve been
phished.
Facebook phishing seems to be a fairly
common occurrence on the social networking site. According to Facebook’s
Help Center, phishing is “an online attempt to trick a user by
pretending
to be an official login page or an official email from an organization
that you would have an account with, such as a bank or an email
provider,
in order to obtain a user’s login and account information.”
A phished account is different from being
hacked; in the latter, no mass messages or false advertisements were
published. The account has still been compromised, however.
There are many of different ways for
an account to get phished. The most common method is clicking on
suspicious
links or advertisements. Usually, they require the user to submit his
or her account information, such as the login e-mail address and
password.
These ads can be for a variety of things. Odds are, if a sidebar that
reads, “You’re the 10 billionth visitor to our site! You’ve won
a free iPad!” appears, it’s a fake. By clicking on it, and submitting
any information whatsoever, one is inviting his or her profile to be
manipulated.
Other ways to get phished include having
a preexisting virus on your computer, accepting friend requests from
people you don’t know and have no mutual friends with (strange but
true), and, of course, clicking on that link for the bogus optical
illusions.
Facebook has tried to take action against
spammers. In 2008, the company sued Adam Guerbuez, owner of the
Canada-based
company Atlanis Blue Capital, over the nearly 4 million false e-mails
he sent to Facebook users about drugs and penis enlargement pills.
Facebook
won the lawsuit, and a judge in San Jose, Calif., ordered Guerbuez to
pay $873 million in damages.
Once an account has been phished, it’s
imperative to run anti-virus software on the entire computer, change
the account’s password (to prevent further spamming), and report the
incident to Facebook. There is a link on Facebook’s Help Center page
that enables users to log any incident of phishing. The optional step
after that is to put up the awkward, apologetic,
“Hey-didn’t-mean-to-get-your-
Preventing phishing is a fairly simple
process. Avoid clicking on any links that are suspicious, or from
unverified
sources. If, upon close inspection, the URL for the link is not www.facebook.com/(whatever you are clicking on, it’s probably spam. If you need to “like”
a certain page, such as “OMG! FAT GUY FALS DOWN STAIRS! SO HILAROUS!!”
(typos included), before you can see the contents of it, it’s probably
not legit.
Users should also be careful about what
applications they add to their pages. Every user-created application
comes with terms and conditions; make sure to read them thoroughly.
Read the feedback other users give. If the application doesn’t seem
safe, don’t add it. By accepting the terms, the applications get full
access to people’s profiles and account information.
The future of Facebook phishing is
uncertain.
Internet chatter suggests that, in time, the phony ads will be replaced
by real ones, and spamming will become more prevalent in whatever new
trend is popular at the time. The requests to see pictures of Kim
Kardashian
in high school or demands that you invite 20 friends to be a fan will
be a thing of the past.
You’ll be able to see that notification waiting for you.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Halo: Reach beta which started on Monday, May 3rd, is what could easily be the biggest beta in gaming history. It is playable through your already existing copy of Halo 3: ODST. Normally public betas require you to have some kind of admittance key or code that allows you in, but Bungie took a bold step in allowing anyone with a copy of ODST to play the Reach beta. The Halo franchise is one of the most well known and successful in video games, so allowing such a large audience to help test out the online multiplayer was a risk, but one well worth it. The amount of feedback they’ll receive will be an immense help to making sure when the final product is released in September that they’ll have worked out every bug they can. There was a hiccup the first day the beta was released to the general ODST owning public though, with servers straining to connect people in the matchmaking lobbies and certain game playlists not appearing. Bungie addressed it immediately though and had everything under control by the second day of the release. Bungie announced that the amount of day one players for the Halo: Reach beta topped the total amount of players for the entire Halo 3 beta. Also in the first twenty four hours alone of the beta going public, there were 157,972,986 kills and 14,205,611 games played - pretty impressive numbers for only the first day.
This
beta only consists of the online multiplayer with only a few game modes and
maps. It features the usual Team Slayer mode which is just a team death match
of both teams trying to get 100 kills first. It also has a new mode that was
only playable as of Friday the 7th called Invasion. Invasion is
similar to Battlefield Bad Company 2’s
rush mode, where one team attacks and the other defends. In Reach, one team plays as the Spartans
(the human super soldiers) who defend the objectives and the attackers are the
Elites (Covenant warriors). In regular Invasion, the Spartans have to defend
certain marked spots from the Covenant, who if standing in the spot will cause
a countdown timer that when it reaches zero, the area is conquered and points
are allocated to the team. After conquering a set amount of areas, the Elites
must capture a “core” and bring it back to a designated area - so essentially “capture
the flag”. The second version of Invasion is called Invasion Slayer. Instead of
the Spartans defending and the Elites attacking, there is a marked area that
each time has to try to get to and hold for a given time. Now each side has two
man teams, so you’re still all going for the win, but within each team there
are still winners within that team for killing the most enemies and conquering
the objective the most times. This mode also allows vehicles to be used, such
as the Warthog (a jeep with a mounted gun), a Scorpion (a large tank with a
devastating blast), a Wraith and a Banshee.
One
major new addition to the Halo online
universe is that now you have “loadouts” that come with specific weapons and
specific powers for the player. These powers are all limited in how long you
can use them for, but they do recharge. The powers they actually do give
include sprinting, invisibility, a jet pack, and the ability to grant yourself
temporary invincibility but at the cost of mobility as you can’t move while
using it. You’re also able to change your armor with a level of depth not seen
in the previous Halo games. There are
more options as to what you can put on your character and they do benefit some
of your abilities such as extending the duration of invisibility, or making you
sprint faster when you use lighter pieces of
armor. You don’t get to choose the specifics of what goes into the “loadouts”
though; you can only use preset ones which you are able to switch between in
between respawns. When a team can effectively use all the abilities together
correctly, there can be no stopping them. The other big difference is now the
Elites are actually different from the Spartans. They run as fast as a Spartan
sprints, and they have the ability to do a roll that can make evading enemy
attacks very easy when manipulated correctly. It’s the first time the Elites
have actually felt like the way they should’ve, strong, fast, and agile - a
worthy opponent to the super solider Spartans.
A
challenge in making this game for Bungie was that they had to go in reverse
with the technology and weapons in the game since this game precedes the other Halo games in the stories’ timeline. The
guns that already existed in Halo,
such as the standard Spartan assault rifle or the Covenant needler, fire slower
than they did in Halo 3. New guns,
such as the DMR (designated marksman rifle) replace the battle rifle, a popular
gun in the old Halo games. Its
equivalent is the needler rifle, which fires the same projectiles as the needler
but at a much slower more accurate rate. These are just a few of the many new weapons
at the player’s disposal in Reach,
which even though they’re new still feel like true guns out of the Halo universe.
In
my week with the Halo: Reach beta, I
can say that even though there are only a handful of game modes, it’s hard to
put the game down. There’s no way you can learn to effectively use the new
abilities, unlock the new armor, and get a feel for the new guns in on only a
few games. It still feels like I’m playing Halo
3 online, just with new guns and the abilities which add a new level of
depth to combat. They didn’t change their formula which has left Halo 3 one of the most games played on
XboxLive. If you enjoyed playing Halo 3
online, you’re almost guaranteed to like Reach.
I’m definitely going to be getting in as much play time as I can before the end
of the beta ends on the 19th. Check out Halo: Reach when it drops on September 1st.
Gaming: End of a Relationship?
Andrew Falcetti
Thursday, May 06, 2010
I LOVE video games. Simple as
that. There is nothing I'd rather do on a weekend than play Halo 3 or Bad Company 2 online with my buddies. Or waste away an entire night
trying to get as much completed in Fallout
3 as I can. Games are a means of relaxing for me, and a great way to spend
time with friends and make new ones.
There
is an entire community of people out there who share this same sentiment as me,
and there’s a part of that group that having this love of games can cause a bit
of a problem. Now what could possibly go wrong if you’re getting to do what you
love for hours on end? The problem is that need that everyone feels to have a
significant other. To find someone we love and who loves us back and takes care
of us, we all want THE ONE. Now, what happens when you meet the one and they
don’t quite get gaming like you do? And what happens when gaming gets in the
way of the relationship? All will be torn to figure out a way to get their
spouse to understand their love of games and maybe even turn them into a gamer.
Now please, no one take this as a guy saying that no girls play games and that
as soon as a guy picks up a controller in a girl’s presence, she’ll slap it out
of his hands and demand attention. This is a guy who has wondered how each side
would handle the given situation. I know at some point in time, I would like to
move in with my current girlfriend. She’s never had a major problem with me
playing games. She’s a very understanding person who I know if I told I just
wanted to play video games would let me. Some people aren’t so fortunate and
have someone who thinks gaming is stupid, or a waste of time and money. This
goes back to what I said in my first article about finding the right game for
the right person. Sometimes all it takes is the introduction of the right game
to spark an interest in gaming for someone.
What
happens when the person will not budge on their opinion about gaming?
Compromise. A common word when it comes to relationships. If you want to spend
a long time with someone in a relationship, ninety-nine percent of the time you
will have to compromise on things at some point in time. You just have to
ensure that the compromise is fair. How do you judge if it’s fair? If you feel
you’re still not getting what you want, then the compromise isn’t a compromise.
Maybe set up a guys’ gaming night and she can have a girls’ night out or
something along those lines. One thing I’ve learned in my extensive time around
women is that you REALLY have to learn to think about their point of view and
how they feel. Of course it would look bad if you want to spend more time
playing a game and staring at a television screen for hours then have a nice
romantic dinner at home and watch a movie. But there are ways around this. Try
involving the other person in the game. Sit down and play Heavy Rain together. The story is compelling and plays out more
like a thriller movie than anything else. Who knows - maybe they’ll put
something together that you never would have. It’s getting the person involved
in what you’re doing that can make all the difference. Even if they don’t like
it, the gesture of trying to have them involved in it can be very meaningful. You
have to show that you want that person involved in the things you like to do. And
not just with video games, but with everything you do. It’s perfectly fine to
have certain things you do on your own, but having a person you love join you
in doing something you love can make it even more enjoyable. It’s all about
finding a balance that keeps you and the one you love happy. Happy gaming
everyone.
Video Games
Andrew Falcetti
Monday, May 03, 2010
Video
games are one of the largest media entertainment outlets in the world.
It’s a fast growing market, more so in recent years with the
introduction
of wildly popular systems such as the Nintendo Wii and DS. The
Entertainment
Software Association, which is the head of the interactive entertainment
industry, released the information that in 2008, video game sales were
at an astounding $11.7 billion. It’s an industry that can be recession
proof, as sales did not drop during the recent economic problems our
country has gone through. Video games are an inexpensive entertainment
outlet; many of the most popular games are even free. Anyone who has
Facebook has seen the constant outpouring of Farmville, Cafeworld, and
Mafia Wars updates from their friends’ playing activity. These social
games are attracting a huge new audience for gaming that would have
never otherwise considered playing a game. This is only beneficial to
the industry, as these can be considered gateway games. If you enjoy
playing something like Mafia Wars for hours on end, maybe you’ll enjoy
a more core gaming title like World of Warcraft or one of the online
Final Fantasy itineration’s.
That’s part of the beauty of video games. One can lead to another, and another, and another. To some it might seem daunting to enter the world of video games, considering that so many IP’s (Intellectual properties, or new games that aren’t a continuation of any previous game or series) are already in their second, third, or even fourth game. But thankfully it’s quite easy to get the original copies of a series of games, as many publishers are releasing older games via download. Stores such as Gamestop offer the ability to buy used games for less money then paying full price for a new version of that game. This also allows the customer to be able to find any older games that might not still be available regularly. It’s all just a matter of finding the games that are right for you.