30Nov2004

Salt Lake Summaries 1

This is the first in a series of short features that will uncover the highlights from a rather formidable roundtable discussion held at Salt Lake City in the ASLA 2004 Annual Conference.  The roundtable was put together by Madis Pihlak and it was titled:  Design Computing: are we there yet?  He intended to highlight progress, status and hinderances to design computing in the landscape architecture profession.

Fred Abler, a participant from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, addressed the issue of huge file sizes for 3D objects in complex rendering. He spoke of Rich Photorealistic Content(RPC) and Non Photo Realistic(NPR) which he defined as raster based and vector based respectively.  He referenced Archvision as a company that has developed a technology that enables the placing of smart hi-res images into a rendering without over loading the file(http://www.archvision.com/).

Fred Abler also brought our attention to a new 3D image resource generated at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo called Objective Networks (http://www.objectivenetworks.net) which provides models for SketchUp.  SketchUp was heavily discussed in the roundtable as a next generation (easy interface, easy to learn) conceptual design and rendering tool--free demos and free tutorials are at the WWW site (http://www.sketchup.com). 

Edward Flaherty

2:01:48 PM    

 

In Korea, Email Is Only For Old People. _martini_ writes "This short article suggests that, in Korea, email is used only for formal communications, or by older, less tech-saavy generations, while IMs, blogs, and SMS has taken over as the primary means of day to day messages." [Slashdot]

 

1:41:44 PM    

 

Open source alt to Photoshop  GIMP 2.2 Splash Screen Competition. Lalakis writes "The GIMP 2.2 Splash Contest is now officially open! Competition entries should be attached to the live.gnome.org wiki before midnight next Sunday. Submit your work and get the glory (there may be a small prize sponsored, too)." [Slashdot]

 

1:40:57 PM    

 

NY Times tech columnist David Pogue has something resembling a weblog, with permalinks and an RSS feed. His FAQ also says that the archive of the Circuits section of the Times is now open to all and free. [Scripting News]

 

1:39:56 PM    

 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC P150. Review Fast, inexpensive and highly pocketable [The Register]

 

1:38:51 PM    

 

:)   How's my coding? Dial: 0800 666 700. Cash'n'Carrion User feedback from TechnoDepot [The Register]

 

1:38:05 PM    

 

More on open source apps/developments...Kaffe developer Dalibor Topic reports from the secret Boston Free Runtimes Summit. [Hack the Planet]

 

1:36:44 PM    

 

What might 'on-demand' services mean in a landscape architecture office?  IBM opens on demand tech center. Hoping literally to bring users more in touch with its on demand technologies, IBM on Monday announced the opening of a new technology center in Gaithersburg, Md., to help users implement a number of different orchestration and provisioning capabilities. [InfoWorld: Top News]

 

1:34:58 PM    

 

Wires got you bugged?  Wi-Fi Planet highlights multichannel access points. This weekís Wi-Fi Planet Conference and Expo will highlight the increasing variety and sophistication of WLAN technology for the enterprise. [InfoWorld: Top News]

 

1:33:15 PM    

 

Technology Review: Portable Projectors. Raskar, a research scientist at Cambridge, MA's Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, sees tiny projectors as the solution to one of the fundamental problems with our ever shrinking cell phones, PDAs, digital cameras, and other portable devices. [Tomalak's Realm]

 

1:32:02 PM    

 

Smarter searching means quicker access to critical resources...this is the future of problem solving...Searching Smarter, Not Harder. When it comes to searching, more is not always better. Data experts are honing topic maps to better classify the information that's out there. By John Gartner. [Wired News]

 

1:31:14 PM    

 

Peer-to-peer software is the basis of music sharing...might it be the basis for small office landscape architect collaboration?  We are not there yet...but the peer-to-peer concept is worth understanding and exploring...Music sharing continues to thrive. A steady growth in legal music downloads continues while illegal file sharing networks also flourish, analysts say. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

 

1:28:39 PM    

 

The interesting part of this story is the 'amateurs'.  They exist in every community.  If you are trying to beat the high-end software treadmill, it is the local amateur that may help your operation.  Open Source Geeks Considered Modern Heroes. loconet writes "The BBC reports that a report by Demos says that the all-consuming passions of geeks and nerds may actually be beneficial for society. The UK think tank's report published today, underlines the importance of 'Pro-Ams' -- amateurs who pursue a hobby or pastime, in many cases an all-consuming passion, to a professional standard. The report says Pro-Am astronomers have made 'significant contributions' to the knowledge of the universe, while Pro-Am computer programmers are providing the only serious challenge to Microsoft's dominance of personal computing." [Slashdot]

 

1:25:41 PM