visualize

Porn studio's antipiracy plan rejects mass lawsuits

"I'm not of the mind that someone who pirates one piece of content is never going to purchase another piece of content."

That statement was made a couple of months ago by Quentin Boyer, a spokesman for adult-film company Pink Visual. Los Angeles-based Pink Visual has eschewed filing copyright suits against alleged film pirates in the hope that it can strike some kind of balance in a world where unauthorized digital photos, books, movies, and music are so easily passed around the Internet.

This year, a growing number of porn studios, including such top triple-x filmmakers as … Read more

Google backs tax-transparency challenge

Google has thrown its support behind a contest that searches for ways to map out the U.S. government's esoteric spending patterns. Called "Data Viz Challenge," the contest has been assembled by the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, a digital-arts collective headquartered a stone's throw from Google's Manhattan satellite office, and promises $5,000 to the entrant who can best "visualize how your individual federal income taxes are spent."

Winners will be announced, fittingly, on April 18--the day that tax returns are due. The data is to be sourced from WhatWePayFor.com, a … Read more

iTunes 10: Screensaver starts during full-screen visualizer

Some people are reporting an issue with iTunes 10 in which the screensaver starts while they are using iTunes' visualizer in full-screen mode on connected devices like HDTVs. Prior to iTunes 10, the visualizer would take precedence on the screen display, not allowing the screensaver to start when playing, similar to a full-screen video. Apple Support Discussions user "megadot" writes:

I have my Mac Mini connected to my flat screen TV. I have my screen saver set to come on after the minimum time to protect my plasma panel. Since upgrading to iTunes 10 my screen saver starts … Read more

Porn studio could teach Apple, Google about cloud

Home video innovations always seem to lead back to porn.

The fingerprints of the adult-film industry can be found on the development of VHS and Blu-ray disc. Soon, the sector may teach us about the cloud.

Pink Visual, a porn studio with a history of embracing new technologies, appears to be among the first filmmakers in the United States to offer the kind of streaming-video features that Apple and Google were said to be considering last year.

Instead of storing digital movies they own on computer hard drives, Pink Visual customers will be able to store clips they buy from … Read more

Artist creates new batch of 'porn for the blind'

Toronto artist Lisa J. Murphy believes we live in a highly sexualized world that often leaves the visually impaired behind. So she decided awhile ago to do something about it.

Last year, Murphy's book "Tactile Mind," which featured several nude, 3D pictures of men and women along with braille descriptions, gained new life in the media, two years after its release. Last week, the artist released four new images, including one featuring a woman's legs in stiletto shoes, as well as "a photograph of a woman's behind...wearing soft pink" panties.

The original book comes with the hefty price of $225, and the new set of images, titled "Tactile Atelier Bookmark," cost $100, according to Murphy's Web site. In an interview with AOL News, she says the process of creating the images takes up to 50 hours for each, and therefore the high price tag for the unusual art--or porn, depending on your point of view--is justifiable.

"I took photographs of my friends in lingerie, blew up the images, and hand-sculpted them into clay," Murphy told AOL News. "Then I made thermoform copies. I ran the plastic myself through my thermoform machine at home, so each one took awhile to make."

The hardest of the four images in her latest batch of creations, Murphy said, was the female behind. … Read more

Amazon uses visual search for shoe shopping

Amazon has added a visual search component to its shoe shopping service.

Starting today, customers can now browse all the shoes available on Amazon by the design of the shoe. The online retail giant hopes that the new feature will help customers find the "styles they want easily and quickly."

Overall, the premise is quite simple. When a person chooses either men's or women's shoes, they will be presented with several different shoe categories. Upon picking the appropriate category, they will find a new filtering option called "shoe shape" that features silhouettes of different … Read more

Microsoft updates SQL for the cloud

Microsoft's latest salvo in the war for cloud relevancy has taken shape as an update to SQL server, the software giant's flagship database product.

Denali, the code name for the next SQL server release, introduces a new development tool for Visual Studio that bridges the gap between building and deploying applications that cross the borders between the enterprise and the SQL Azure cloud service.

According to The Register, Microsoft is scheduled to make the first preview of Denali available to subscribers on MSDN and TechNet. The software will be released at the annual Professional Association for SQL Server … Read more

ILM doc shows Lucas' focus on making 'great movies'

SAN FRANCISCO--When George Lucas talks about the raison d'etre of his award-winning visual effects studio, Industrial Light & Magic, his logic might strike some in the bottom line-obsessed world of Hollywood as heretical.

"I started ILM to help make great movies," Lucas told CNET recently. "That's what we're here for. We're not here as a big moneymaking organization. We're not here as a business. We're here to make great movies."

Of course, any filmmaker would probably want to say something like that, but Lucas may well be the one person … Read more

Sobees' My Friends maps out Facebook check-ins

Four-buck iPad app My Friends from social-aggregation company Sobees has a new trick up its sleeve as of this morning that makes browsing through your friends' Facebook Places check-ins a more eyeball-friendly experience.

The app, which acts as a dolled-up interface for Facebook, now lets you browse Places check-ins in chronological order, as well as see them on an integrated Google Map. The feature joins other familiar Facebook mainstays like photos, chat, and events--all of which My Friends has skinned to fit within the iPad's rectangular interface.

The Places browser in My Friends offers up the same general experience … Read more