studio

Piccolo is a prototype open-source platform that comes as a kit. With a target price of less than $70, it's an attractive computer-controlled plotter for tinkerers.

By swapping the tool head, one can use Piccolo for small-scale laser cutting, 3D printing, or drawing applications. … Read more

The weight of passing time is really dragging on me today. It could be the existential angst of Monday, or it could be that I'm wearing my iPad 2 as a wristwatch.

I never considered using a tablet as a wrist-mounted timepiece until the Wallee Hand Strap pitch landed in my inbox with the subject, "Tech designer unveils world's first iPad wristwatch."… Read more

On today's show, we talk to the guys from Chaotic Moon Studios, the ones building Kinect-controlled skateboards and shopping carts and more. They're moving into mind-controlled devices. No, really. Also, the problem with Google's new privacy policies: Web search! The iPad 3 rumor roundup, how to make the most of Google+, and Windows 8 vs. OS X Mountain Lion.

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Foreclosures, bankruptcies, eviction notices, and tears.

That's the picture painted Thursday in a New York Times op-ed piece about a Hollywood film industry that is supposedly "contracting."

Hilary De Vries, a screenwriter and book author, writes about how Hollywood's middle class is hurting. We're not talking Brad and Angelina or Martin Scorsese. We're talking about the guy you might remember from a soap opera or the writing team for a lesser-known sitcom. De Vries offered anecdotes about how her neighbors--several cash-strapped actors and screenwriters--have lost homes to foreclosure. She described how popular eateries are … Read more

The story behind Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is an interesting tale. Its development house, 38 Studios, was founded by former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling.

After finishing up his baseball career with the Boston Red Sox, Schilling refocused his energy (and a lot of money) into the company in addition to tying up sci-fi mastermind R.A. Salvatore and comic book veteran Todd McFarlane.

Jeff: While its story and characters are less than memorable, Reckoning is a lot of fun to play and has a combat system that's good enough to stand on its own. Historically, RPG games don't even have much of a fighting mechanic, but the one in Reckoning is totally out of the ordinary--and that's a good thing.

To me, Reckoning feels like an RPG stripped of its inaccessible number-crunching stat-trackers and at times comes across as a linear adventure altogether. That said, all the usual RPG suspects are accounted for, including choosing your class, upgrading a varied and complex skill tree, and deciding which quests to take on.

While it might be a blast to swing your sword at droves of enemies, Reckoning doesn't do much for me in the character development department. Considering the major players involved in the game's creation, it's a bit shocking to see that a lot of that energy may have been devoted to the game's expansive backstory instead of conveying a world filled with characters that players can identify with. You can talk with nonplayable characters in the game, but I'm not sure you need to.… Read more

The Manifold Clock from Studio Ve doesn't require special glasses. It didn't take a crew of 300 and a Hollywood budget to create. It's 3D in its purest form: real life.

The Manifold Clock doesn't just tell time with flat hands, it expresses it with ever-changing shapes created by a flexible sheet of Tyvek attached between the hands. Every minute looks slightly different.

There's some delightful mathematical geekiness behind all of this. The design uses the concept of Riemann surfaces.

If you're a math nerd, you probably already know all about Riemann surfaces. Others can brush up with the Kickstarter video below.… Read more

The last time we reviewed Synfig Studio, we were deeply impressed by this powerful freeware animation suite but more than a little daunted by the installation and setup process (make that processes). Synfig Studio is still totally free, but now it's also totally easy to install and easier than ever to use. Of course, creating digital animations is not exactly the same thing as applying the red-eye filter in your image editor; it's still a detailed process that involves a lot of steps. But Synfig offers tons of help, tutorials, examples, and extras, making it as easy or … Read more

Recording artist Neil Young today said that he was working with late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on a project that would push the quality of digital downloads to studio-quality levels.

In an interview with All Things Digital at the outlet's D: Dive Into Media conference today, Young discussed the quality of digital recordings, chiding MP3s for having just "5 percent of the data present in the original recording."

The answer to that other 95 percent would be "high-resolution" digital tracks that are of the same quality as the original studio recording, Young offered.

There are … Read more

Jeez, Reed, don't sugarcoat it. Tell us what you really think of the DVD's future.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who has sent mixed signals for the past year about whether the company was committed to DVDs for the long term and whether he believed discs still had a long life left, sounded a very loud death knell today for the format.

During the company's earnings call to discuss fourth-quarter earnings, BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield pointed out that Hastings had sounded much more optimistic last year about DVDs and was now making comments that suggested the company was … Read more