Friday, January 21, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
South Korean film director shot a complete horror movie with iPhone
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Acclaimed South Korean film director Park Chan-wook is wielding a new cinematic tool: the iPhone.
Park, director of "Old Boy," "Lady Vengeance" and "Thirst," said Monday that his new fantasy-horror film "Paranmanjang" was shot entirely on Apple's iconic smartphone.
"The new technology creates strange effects because it is new and because it is a medium the audience is used to," Park told reporters Monday.
"Paranmanjang," which means a "life full of ups and downs," is about a man transcending his current and former lives. He catches a woman while fishing in a river in the middle of the night. They both end up entangled in the line, and he thinks she is dead.
Suddenly, though, she wakes up and attempts to strangle him, and he passes out. When the woman awakens him, she is wearing his clothing and he hers. She cries and calls him "father."
The movie, made on a budget of $133,000, was shot using the iPhone 4 and is slated to open in South Korean theaters Jan. 27. Park made the 30-minute film with his younger brother Park Chan-kyong, also a director.
Park Chan-wook's "Old Boy," a blood-soaked thriller about a man out for revenge after years of inexplicable imprisonment, took second place at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. His vampire romance "Thirst" shared the third-place award at Cannes in 2009.
Park Chan-kyong said that a wide variety of angles and edits were possible because numerous cameras could be used.
"There are some good points of making a movie with the iPhone as there are many people around the world who like to play and have fun with them," Park Chan-wook said. Compared with other movie cameras, the iPhone was good "because it is light and small and because anyone can use it," he said.
He said the directors attached lenses to their phones and nothing was particularly different from shooting a regular movie.
Lee Jung-hyun, who plays the woman, said the film has a bit of everything.
Though it is a short film with a running time around 30 minutes it "mixes all elements from horror and fantasy to some humor," she said.
via mercurynews.com
A new idea at that stage.. But implemented after 33 years
Apple is expected to update its iOS for mobile devices to version 4.3 in March and with it, the iPhone and iPad will say goodbye to the home button, said a Boy Genius Report.
According to BGR's source, Apple isadding multitouch features to this software update in place of the button. Button taps will be replaced with swipes and multitouch gestures in order to return to the home screen or navigate to the app switcher.
If the software is losing the home-button functionality, it's safe to assume that the next-generation iPhone and iPad will probably lack the feature as well. In fact, Apple is already testing iPads and iPhones sans home buttons, Boy Genius said.
Rumor has it, this will fulfill one of Apple chief executive Steve Jobs' wishes for the original iPhone. Apparently he didn't even want any physical buttons on the smartphone in the first place.
In fact, according to a 2007 Wall Street Journal profile of the CEO, buttons have been an issue for Jobs since he joined Apple in 1978. He didn't even want the "up," "down," "left," and "right" arrow keys included on the original Macintosh computer that the company produced. He felt that its absence would encourage developers to build programs that relied on the computer's mouse, a new idea at that stage.
The Journal report also said Jobs was resistant to the concept of a multi-button mouse that most PCs have, and Apple didn't produce a mouse with buttons until about five years ago.
If Jobs wish does come true, how will consumers react to a device that is completely buttonless? According to the Journal when the first iPod hit the market in 2001, the Apple tech-support lines most often answered questions about how to turn the device off and on, considering the music player lacked an explicitly defined power switch.
But given the iPod's undeniable popularity, people adapted to the minimalist design
via PCMAG.com
iPhone 4 cant withstand below freezing temperatures..
Maybe this is all apocryphal, but a woman in Norway, while wandering in the icy wastes of the frozen North in minus 14-degree weather, picked up her iPhone only to find it had shattered in the cold. She took the phone back to the Apple Store and the geniuses refused to repair it, citing that the phone is not designed to withstand temperatures below freezing or above 35 degrees Celsius.
To be fair, the iPhone will warn you when it’s gotten too hot but sadly it won’t scream in outright pain as it is exposed to ill arctic winds.
Let this be a lesson to you, friends: always swaddle your iPhone in a wool cozy before trekking out into the Norwegian wilderness to buy some Fenalaar or Kavli.
via MobileCrunch
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Toshiba wants you to take the glasses off for 3D
Toshiba feels confident enough in its 3D technology that it has introduced an HDTV display at this year's Consumer Electronics Show that no longer requires the viewer wear glasses. Instead, the effect is maintained through a sophisticated system that recognizes the viewer's face to ensure proper viewing angle and a special lens that angles images for both eyes.
What this does in effect is akin to the 3D photos first made popular years ago, those who have seen it say. In order for the effect to work, it is only turned on when a camera on the monitor detects that the eyes are properly aligned. While this means a restricted viewing angle, Toshiba says that the benefits of not needing glasses would make the new technology appealing. Only one face is recognized at a time, meaning if two are watching, only one would be exposed to the 3D effect. In addition, it requires the viewer sit much closer to the display than with other technologies that employ the use of glasses.
The first televisions are expected to go on sale in Japan in sizes of about 40 to 50 inches, according to reports. No details have been provided on an international launch, however.
Either way, analysts say the "glasses required" problem with 3D is what is holding it back. "Glasses really aren't working out very well, and consensus is that until the glasses go, 3D likely won't take off," analyst Rob Enderle
-TechNewsWorld.
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