No more tangled headphones?
At least that’s what Josh Shires and James Griffith say. Two British designers have given us the perfect solution for the curse of tangled headphone cables. After they worked through over 25 prototypes, they have come up with the idea of an iPhone case that doubles as tangle-free headphone storage. This case is called the Mous Musicase and it enables its users to wind and unwind the headphone cable whenever they want or need to use them. Now this is what I call simple but effective!
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What is the bottom dollar in production??
Recent figures on pay structure for below the line film production salaries!
Most of us that work in the media and in film have aspirations, and even lofty goals; and so we should. Casey Kasem, an iconic radio personality, who recently died this summer, used to close with “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars”. Most of us do just that. We are the creative types, the bread and butter behind every production, the push and the pull, the muscle and the operators. It is usually pretty easy to forget these individuals as their name goes racing by in the multitude of names at the end credits of a film. In Cyprus, we need these people more than ever! Continue reading
Film project funding for the 21st Century! From student films to indie – Crowdfunding!
Recently I have engaged in Crowd funding a number of projects on various crowd funding websites. It is a phenomenon that seems to have caught on in the recent worldwide economic climate. It is a bit like engaging in low risk investment for start ups on a tiny scale. Its basically getting the whole wide world to contribute a little bit of money to get a project off the ground. This has caught on like wildfire! Continue reading
My Tv wants to be smart! Help your Tv grow up and be smart!
Part 1 of 2
Quite recently the term Smart TV has been coined to mean a variety of things. Although Samsung may be using the phrase, it has moved beyond its products and first & foremost, it definitely means connectivity. It means that you can you can surf the internet using a prebuilt application or even speak to your TV and it will perform certain command functions. You can watch TV through the internet through Netflix or Hulu and sometimes do much more. Many operating systems are used in this endeavor to expand the entertainment experience. Custom OS software like the Sony Bravia line or the Samsung lines are used, but also Linux based OS systems as well as Android. Continue reading
Buying a TV? LED was just a stepping stone, here comes the real revolution, OLED!
If you are in the market for a tv, then you should do two things. Wait, and save up some money. Okay, a lot of money!
LED televsions are going to enjoy a shorter stay then expected, as we move over to the next real staple of television viewing technology. It is not just the next evolution – but a revolution! When you compare LED & OLED the choice is obvious. OLED is lighter, plastic not glass, thinner (paper thin!), flexible, brighter, more responsive, has better contrast, more vibrant colors, deeper blacks, consumes less power, and has a larger field of view. But they are also a lot more sensitive to humidity and water, and don’t last as long. OLED has been around for a number of years, but research and development has been meticulous, and products few and far between. Continue reading
Identity Crisis! – Nokia 808 PureView
Am I a camera or a phone? Well these days people are calling these mega phones with mega mega pixel cameras, “camera phones”. Just to get the statistics out of the way, this camera phone has an incredible 41 megapixel camera with auto focus, face detection, geo tagging, self timer, digital zoom, Carl Zeis lens, image oversampling, lossless zoom and a 1280 or 720 pixels HD video recording capability.
I don’t want to mention the phone side of things, although it is quite impressive with great connectivity and a Nokia bred Symbian OS, (to each their own), but instead I want to “focus” on the incredible camera. Continue reading
Lazy or innovative? You decide!
Although this won “The 50 Best Inventions of 2011” and their website is great as it provides real time demos I still had my doubts. Lytro is the name of the camera where you “shoot and ask where you want to focus..later”. Just compose the shot and click. Now what will be in focus, background, foreground – somewhere in the middle – that’s a decision you can make at a later date. Cutting edge software technology, both in the production and post production ends of this device allow all this to happen.
For many photographers, not just the purists, this may seem like blasphemy. Where is my creative control? Well its there, like any other “point and shoot camera”, but your choices for focus must come later. So in essence you can produce the same photo twice, with 2 different focal points. The choices are limited, see the website and the demo. I am just not sure how much time someone would dedicate after the fact. The point of taking a photograph is what you decide in that fleeting moment before you snap the picture. That timeless few seconds between decision and indecision. Afterwards upon review of the photo you may not be living in that moment any more. You could be far from it – totally removed – it becomes something else. To some that may not be all that bad.
The bottom line that the progress of technology in this case seems to constantly sum up the art form. Create a couple of less steps than a decade ago, to get to the same or similar results. This could be a time saver or a time killer. This could be the answer to all those who love taking pictures but may never get that focusing quite right.
Or it could be something in between.
J.I – Senior Mediazone Officer
