Day: August 29, 2013

Art

Incredible paintings of sci-fi suburbia will make you wish you were Swedish

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As reported on The Verge. By Dante D’Orazio Welcome to rural Sweden, sometime in the late ’80s. Citizens go about their mundane lives and children explore the countryside. But something isn’t quite right. Robots and hovercrafts are commonplace, and decaying science facilities sprout from the harsh Scandinavian landscape. There’s even a rumor circulating that dinosaurs have returned from the dead after some failed experiment. This is the world that exists in artist Simon Stålenhag’s mind, and…

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Business Culture Google

Google Exec Departs Amidst Rumors Of Tangled Love Quadrangle

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As reported on on TechCrunch. by ALEXIA TSOTSIS We’ve confirmed a report today that Android VP Hugo Barra is leaving Google for “Apple of China” Xiaomi. The report was timed to coincide with another story about the dissolution of Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s marriage to 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki. It also revealed that a person whom Hugo Barra had been in a previous relationship with was now dating Brin. Barra’s departure was said to be “unrelated” to the above. Barra had been at Google since March 2008, coming…

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Story

Apple Working On Intelligent Brightness Control And Automated FaceTime Camera Selection

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As reported on TechCrunch. by DARRELL ETHERINGTON Ideally, your smart device of the future anticipates your needs and adjusts itself to suit them without requiring input on your behalf. Two newly published patent applications (spotted by AppleInsider) from Apple describe systems that could help do just that for future iPhones and iPads, viaselective screen brightness control and auto camera switching during FaceTime video calls. The first patent application describes a way for a user to selectively adjust brightness and…

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Business Entertainment Hardware Dev

Black Betty 2K camera can shoot, cut and upload video with built-in Mac Mini

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As reported on Engadget. By Steve Dent The Black Betty company has just hit the scene with a cinema camera that pulls an astounding trick — it’s got a freaking desktop computer jammed into the body. Camera-wise, there’s a 2/3-inch 2K sensor with a 16mm lens mount developed by Silicon Imaging and used in films like Slumdog Millionaire. That’ll capture 2K or 1080p, 160-500 ISO footage at up to 30fps (or more for lower resolutions), and bring…

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Google

Google+ Hangouts moving to HD video soon, going plugin-free within months

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As reported on Engadget. By Jon Fingas You may not have noticed it yet, but Google is in the middle of sweeping changes toHangouts that should offer big improvements to image quality and accessibility. The company tells GigaOM that it’s currently upgrading its video chat service to 720p by switching from the H.264 video codec to the more efficient (and Google-controlled)VP8 standard. HD-quality Hangouts should be available soon after Google finishes the VP8 rollout to web users late next week.…

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