Where should I put the camera? I'll decide in Post!

The next amazing technology leap in film-making is upon us: placing our cameras in Post-production, or at least being able to tweak its position. Great option to have, although -as usual in these cases- also means more potential fiddling time in front of the computer.

And it looks incredibly cool too, like a 3D application or a game. Only, it's real. Too exciting.



It's obviously not going to happen tomorrow, especially for indie film, but how amazing it is that it is now being used at all!?

Remote touch. A step closer.

Imagine having a skype call. Only, you can now shake hands with the person at the other end of the word after your interview. Or pinch your friend back in your native country. Kiss your girlfriend when she is away. I have always thought that would change relationships in a way we can't possibly understand right now, plus it would make distances effectively disappear. Simply too large a thought to handle.

Well, we're not quite there. Yet, with MIT now having reached this stage, we are now a step closer. Watch and marvel.

Looking forward to the next step. So exciting to be living all this technology!

The latest joys of technology

Last month I scheduled a text that I needed sent earlier than I was gonna wake up. I uploaded a comic book onto "the cloud" so that I could read it on my mobile on the bus. Sent an online album with pictures of the summer to the family (pics that I had been automatically uploaded from my phone minutes after I took them). And I created a series of formulas on a spreadsheet that now allow my brother and me to manage our work on Calachurras more efficiently. Also, as usual, my texts were regularly backed up onto the internet automatically.

Almost as amazingly, I was able to find the below drawing -picturing a donkey showing surprise quite convincingly- in nearly no time.

Oh, and through an interesting phone app, I can now know where the ISS is at any time. Probably not as useful as to know where that damn satellite is going to fall, but still good to me :)

It's exciting to be living this age of technology.

Rise of the planet of the apes

Effects + Heart = Movie goodness. Yes, please.


It's exciting to see the fruits of the latest technology applied to movies. In this case, Avatar's big push in motion capture technology, with which the actors can capture body and face performance, allows the "Planet of the Apes" sequel to exist.

The danger is to learn to use this new technology integrated in the storytelling process. Looking at the trailer, it looked a bit like the tragic "I, robot", with Apes replacing the hordes of robots. Except for a couple of images, which encouraged me to go see it, and eventually enjoy it enormously.

The greatest archievement is to me that you root for the main character, a bloody monkey, to the point that you side with him against humans (the little bastards). Apes are in the movie more human than humans, just as in other good stories has happened with robots (Wall-e, Johnny 5), monsters (Hulk, King kong) or aliens (E.T. or this guy). Easy. By doing this rather than trying to trick the audience, the achieve effects that enhance the story instead of replacing it (films like "Hellboy 2", "Clash of the Titans"* or the "Transformers" eternal sequels spring to mind now), and that's why, I believe, certain sequences, which would have otherwise been just a way how showing off much money the movie had, work so well and so honestly. I personally loved the helicopter moment, you'll now when you see it :)

Click HERE if you want to see a special-effects-featurette.

Don't click on it if you don't, that would be silly.

Sure the writers took to some licenses in the story, but the final result is good enough as to want to ignore those bits. Only the feeling that the story wasn't going as far as it could have stopped me from loudly cheering at the end. It seems it was thought up as a trilogy. Well, ok they earned that. As long as we don't go back to battles of giant robots destroying cities for cosmical reasons.

Bring it on.

* Niceties aside, "Clash of the Titans" is still the worst movie in modern times in my book. Its sequel, now on the making, means a step back in human evolution and will probably end up destroying the world at least twice.

Google+: First impressions

So after a few days, here's my perception of Google+.

Great stuff that's already here:

- Circles!: G+'s way of classifying your contacts. Makes a lot of sense, it's a pleasure to use. Means that you only share updates, easily, with the people you want. And it's pretty! :)

- "Hangouts": Basically, a videoconference service for up to 10 people! I like that the image changes automatically to show whoever person is talking at a particular time too. Can't wait to use it for face-to-face, yet remote filmaking meetings, or just family ones.

- Instant upload: The pictures of your phone get uploaded to a private album onto your Google+ that is instantly viewable and shareable. How many of us never download the pics to our computer? Never again!

Other stuff I still want! :)

- Circles within circles: A hierarchical structure would be very good to effectively organise your folks (you can vote for the inclusion of this feature here in Google moderator, I just did myself :)

- Integration with other Google services: Like scheduling an event that will go straight into your Gcalendar or being able to use your Gmail groups of contacts as Circles. Not even need to vote for this, it's obvious that it will be rolled out as soon as it's ready. But it can't happen overnight!

- Permission to be tagged: Always! Either giving permission over pics/albums, or to a list of people/circles. This type of thing is where Google can easily be ahead of Facebook.
- Way of limiting the amount of posts per person on a particular feed: Some people share too much, and /or too often, and they tend to take over the feed for the circles they are in (unless they have their own circle, but this defies the concept of circles itself). I rather see older posts of several people than today's 450 posts from the same person! 

And the experience continues :)

Google+: The opportunity

Google+, for those who haven't had the chance to give it a try yet, is Google's alternative to Facebook.

Yes, it does look like Facebook, which on the internet seems to have become ammunition to criticize G+.

Personally, doesn't bother me. People are familiar with that visual way of receiving and creating information. Also, the changes that social media needs are fundamentally conceptual, not visual. And most importantly, it's Google, so as with everything else they create, there will soon be a way of personalize it to your liking.

And that's the key to what Google+ means. Its power is not in what it is now, but in what it can become.

Part of the privacy issue on social networks, only us ourselves can solve it. Whether we like it or not, communications happen increasingly online, and we are still trying to keep up with the system! To build a new platform to do that on, I for one think there's no one better than Google.

Unlike Facebook creators, Google listens to users. They actually have an ongoing list of pending changes on their official feedback platform Google moderator. Where, incidentally, you too can go and draw attention to something that you think is not working particularly well on any Google product. Here is the one for Google+.

Also unlike Facebook, Google cares about privacy. And already has in place some basic tools towards this end that I'm sure won't be the only ones.

So live it, contribute to the moderator. Let's create the social experience as WE want it. As it should have always been, with control over what we do.

Go Google! - Contact importing now

You should already have a Gmail (Google) account.

Really. It is the best thing you can do if you don't have your own domain and want to look professional. Also, Google accounts are easier to manage. hotmail, yahoo, etc.. they can all be a bit of a nightmare to spam-filter or sometimes even to find your Inbox! Plus they look kind of dodgy from a professional-ish point of view.

Also, you look cooler when giving out a gmail address. AND sexier.

Yes, you guessed it:

they ALL use gmail.

And since they have now made made available a feature by which you can import your contacts from your previous account (and most providers are supported) you can now change email address in 4 easy steps:

1. - Create yourself a gmail account
2. - Import your contacts from your old terrible soon-to-be-forgotten account
3. - Email all your contacts to let them know about it
4. - Be happier! :)

Voilá. Your old msn/yahoo/whatever is now an empty useless shell.

I know what you are going to say. People may still email you at your old account. When you move houses, you can always take steps to receive correspondence from the old address, but at the end of the day people may not listen and keep visiting at your old place. Which is just silly.

No, they won't be visiting you.

Or emailing you, for that matter.

Of course, if feeling nostalgic you can still visit your old account now and then. That way you can also tell any confused/slow friends AGAIN you already changed your email address. Obviously, if they keep persisting on emailing you there, you'll just have to stop being friends with them.

Love Google.

Welcome to Future III: An OS for the future

I though I'd shut up for a minute about The Entity!! and post a quick entry on what might have been the most significant technology-related event last week.

Google announced that they are developing an operating system called Chrome OS. It was bound to happen (in fact the first OS created by Google is already running on some mobile phones), but it is great to actually SEE it happen.

There are quite a few reasons why this Chrome OS should be very good news:

• A system that endangers Microsoft. Market competition is good. Microsoft and its products control the market because there's no other choice. Other systems are not yet as user-friendly, cheap or popular, and so are not considered but a great many of the buyers. Google's logo, however, may be the most recogniseable ever. Google's popularity allows them to compete for Microsoft 's market share.

• An inexpensive system: Most of Google products are simply free. Others are not, but even these are available at affordable prices. We can only expect a good deal on their OS too.

• A system easier to use: One of the main characteristics of Google's products is that they are simple to use. Even if you don't yet know how to work out complex functionalities, you will find yourself using the product in a couple of minutes. And with no problems.

• A system for the current times: Windows has essentially been the same OS all along. A few things change, new pretty unnecessary features are added for the sake of additional versions to sell, but nothing major changes. Microsoft is old, and by extension reluctant to change and adaptation. Google was nearly born with the Internet. They are designing the system of the future. An efficient platform with no accumulated clutter, designed for cloud computing (files and software on the web, rather than in your hard drive).

• A system that works: I'd be very surprised if the guys who created order out of chaos on the Internet did a poor job on their new endeavour. When you use Google spreadsheets, you don't need to save changes. And even if the computer we are working on blows up, our file will still be safe. And this is no fantasy. It's already there, testimony of their ways. How many times have we lost our work in Windows?

• Google wants to do it well. Not very often do we find a company who doesn't need to do anything to make money. From the times in which they really struggled to move ahead to the current times when no share is more valuable than Google's, their drive has always been progress. Most companies worry about the profit at the end of the year. Google will just be making a great operating system.

I can't wait! You? :-)

Welcome to Future II: Controller-free experience!

Or "Microsoft is not dead quite yet" :-)


It's always exciting to come across new projects willing to catapult us toward our future. As I mentioned before, our ways of interacting with technology are evolving rapidly, and I just came across an example that illustrates this perfectly.

Microsoft is developing a controller-less gaming system for their Xbox. The once revolutionary Wii is a thing of the past.



I do disagree with the comment at the end, and what Steven Spielberg (as much as I love nearly everything he does) implies. This is not only "a landmark in computer entertainment", I think this can be be hardly compared to what Cinemascope or Imax means for films, and that certainly doesn't limit itself to gaming experiences. Either by applying it to our everyday tasks or to virtual worlds, the system has potential to change machine-human interaction completely!

Always happy to be living this era :-)

In any case, watch the video. Really. The geek with the sunglasses alone makes it worth it.

Welcome to the Future I: Virtual travelling

Because it's being a while now, I thought I'd post something clever-sounding today, so that I can justify why I'm still wearing those horrible glasses of mine.

Companies like Google push us through the future, causing or facilitating changes that could not have happened otherwise and changing our lives at the same time. The change is sometimes minor. And sometimes we cannot even begin to imagine the implications. When months ago I used Google Street View to show a colleague our company's offices in the USA, her reaction was "Wow, this is scary". It is scary, I guess, but isn't it also beautiful the fact that we can walk around the world from our office/home? (and that this was unthinkable 1 year ago?).

Current coverage of Google street view

And this is hardly the limit of the adventure. As virtual travelling keeps evolving, and more features are incorporated to the experience, may we one day see a situation in which we have to decide whether it's really worth it to physically travel?

Let's just imagine for a second and go one step further. Combine Street view (or Google Earth, for the 3D version) with the concept of virtual worlds (like Second life), where we also have a virtual 3D avatar who "plays us" in the virtual environment. Now, let's meet in Paris. Today, why wait? Let's have a nice chat there before contemplating the Eiffel tower in all the possible lights (morning, dusk, illuminated in the dark) in a matter of seconds. And since we are not subject to physical limitations, let's fly (yep, fly, just like we would in a video game) or teleport to the Grand Canyon and spend the evening there.

Of course it's not that simple. Attempts have been made at making this possible, but no clear success as emerged of them. Graphics are not yet that realistic. Screens are still 2D. Computers are not yet as fast, and it is annoying to wait for Google Earth to load all the buildings and textures in Manhattan. This is NOW though. Computers evolve quickly.

Also, we see and hear, but we cannot touch. We all who live away from our loved ones love applications like skype. We love talking to our family or friends without barriers, or even have a conversation face to face. But it's not quite as good as being there, right? You may just need a hug that day, and all the available technology won't be able to help you. But talking about scary, I don't see why that too won't evolve. Tom Cruise's Minority report dream gloves for computer interaction have already been made. And virtual reality interaction devices are by now an old friend.

Ok, these are not the gloves I was talking about, but isn't it as cool? :-)

I believe one day, we will actually be able to kiss someone from the other side of the world. Or simply shake hands and actually feel it. That day distances will have disappeared, and everything will have changed .


Also, I'm one of those naive dreamers who really believed we'd have flying DeLoreans by now after watching Back to the Future II. It feels very good to be able to look towards the ever-mysterious tomorrow with documented hopes that we might get there after all. It's exciting to be living this age of technological change.

Welcome to the future.