It seems to me artists and filmmakers are just now starting to play with the possibilities brought out into the open by the power of consumer-grade computers and other electronics. Maybe not to the level of replacing render farms and the like, but more like "playing with the possibilities" and creating entirely new animation possibilities.
Check out Austin,Tx director Richanrd Linklatter's latest DVD Waking Life... the film was shot entirely on consumer-grade DV cameras, imported to standard Macs and PCs, and using a techinique called rotoscoping, they created a hybrid live action/animated feature.
Although, as a technique, Rotoscoping has been around for awhile, I think it's artists like Linklatter who are really pushing the envelope, so to speak, of just how far art and animation on the personal computer has come.
Tablet PCs are the natural evolution of the Ultraportable laptop, IMO.
I'm all for being able reach in my bag, resume from suspend-to-disk, load up mapquest and find that "pizza place in the neighborhood". The combination of wireless broadband and "slate-type" devices is part of my recurring "Geektopia Paradise" fantasies that I seen to be having all the time.
I, for one, have used my VAIO SuperSlim notebook(armed with our friend, 802.11b) to do everthing from "WarWalking" (scanning for wild 802's on foot) to ordering chinese food (all of this, without giving any money to Starbuck's).
Given the popularity of PDAs and Laptop PCs in our culture, I think that the tablet concept will be well-recieved by a pretty large cross-section of consumers, ranging from soccer moms (read a novel, order dinner, eMail the hubby...all on the sideline's of Junior's scrimmage match), to the hardest of the hardcore geek (dude, have you checked out my go-everywhere Linux tablet with built in camera and GPS module that updates my webcam AND coordinates?).
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There goes WiFi's reputation as a "Sexy" technology.
It seems to me artists and filmmakers are just now starting to play with the possibilities brought out into the open by the power of consumer-grade computers and other electronics. Maybe not to the level of replacing render farms and the like, but more like "playing with the possibilities" and creating entirely new animation possibilities.
Check out Austin,Tx director Richanrd Linklatter's latest DVD Waking Life... the film was shot entirely on consumer-grade DV cameras, imported to standard Macs and PCs, and using a techinique called rotoscoping, they created a hybrid live action/animated feature.
Although, as a technique, Rotoscoping has been around for awhile, I think it's artists like Linklatter who are really pushing the envelope, so to speak, of just how far art and animation on the personal computer has come.
Tablet PCs are the natural evolution of the Ultraportable laptop, IMO.
.02
I'm all for being able reach in my bag, resume from suspend-to-disk, load up mapquest and find that "pizza place in the neighborhood". The combination of wireless broadband and "slate-type" devices is part of my recurring "Geektopia Paradise" fantasies that I seen to be having all the time.
I, for one, have used my VAIO SuperSlim notebook(armed with our friend, 802.11b) to do everthing from "WarWalking" (scanning for wild 802's on foot) to ordering chinese food (all of this, without giving any money to Starbuck's).
Given the popularity of PDAs and Laptop PCs in our culture, I think that the tablet concept will be well-recieved by a pretty large cross-section of consumers, ranging from soccer moms (read a novel, order dinner, eMail the hubby...all on the sideline's of Junior's scrimmage match), to the hardest of the hardcore geek (dude, have you checked out my go-everywhere Linux tablet with built in camera and GPS module that updates my webcam AND coordinates?).
Just my