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(Credit: Gizmodo--art by Jesus Diaz; copy by Mark Wilson and Jesus Diaz; extra documentation by Eric Sheline)The 102-year history of the Times Square New Year's Even Ball is one filled with technology, death and, of course, pretty shiny lights. See it all unfold in our historical timeline.
Of course, for those who don't appreciate the festivity of the ball drop, despite all of the hard work behind the scenes, feel free to ignore the ball's 32,256 glimmering Philips LEDs and turn your attention to your iPhone...because, yes, Waterford has made an app for that.
Happy New Year everyone!
This story originally appeared on Gizmodo.
(Credit:
JVC)
I recently posted a blog about JVC's new 19 foot by 34 foot, 12,500-pound LED-based screen--which JVC says is the first true 720p screen in Times Square--that debuted on December 2.
Well, now that it's up, we can finally take a gander. Hmmm, this strikes me as the type of thing you'd have to see in person and in motion to really appreciate, cause pics just ain't cutting it.
This reminds me of the 2D age in video games and how you could look at a screenshot of a game and estimate, pretty accurately, its graphical quality. Then the 3D era was ushered in, and when screenshots of games looked like crap, the most widely used defense was, "I know the screens look like crap, but you really need to see it in motion to appreciate it." JVC should totally take the gaming fanboy stance on this pic.
The video below is pretty cool though. It's a time-lapsed vid of the screen's construction. Hey look, it does look good in motion!
Just in case you've forgotten, JVC is still around. And apparently it doesn't want you forgetting that fact anytime soon.
On December 2 it plans to unveil what it says will be Times Square's first true 720p HD screen. I assume they mean the first true 720p screen in Times Square that could not fit in your house.
The screen will be LED-based, boast a size of 19 by 34 feet, a 12,500-pound weight, a pair of LED tickers with animated programming synchronized between all three screens, and of course, giant LED letters illuminated by neon. What would Times Square be without neon?
The screen will be located just one story above ground level at Broadway and 43rd. Here's hoping someone has the foresight to get some Call of Duty hooked up to this thing.
Check out additional specs here.
(Credit:
MUJI U.S.A.)
To celebrate the opening of their newest Times Square flagship location, Japanese retail store MUJI will give away 500 "Chronotebooks," their unique take on the classic (read: boring) paper planner.
(Credit:
MUJI U.S.A.)
The Chronotebook is Muji's update to the tired paper notebook planner. Where memopads and datebooks have cluttered lines and graphics, the Chronotebook only has a clock in the middle of the page: one for AM, one for PM. Users are free to organize their day around these clocks in way that's similar to a brainstorm. The Chronotebooks will sell in the new store for $4.95, but the first 500 people to step into the Times Square location will get one for $0.00.
Multiverse's new virtual Times Square demo showcases the company's latest technology, including the ability to pipe YouTube videos directly into a virtual world.
(Credit: Multiverse Network)I spent part of Friday afternoon in New York's Times Square, but something wasn't quite right.
On the one hand, things looked very realistic, with the many digital video screens blaring high-fidelity but inane content out at me. On the other, there was only one person in evidence.
So, OK, this wasn't really Times Square. Rather, it was a new technology demo from Multiverse Network, a leading virtual-world platform developer.
In general, Multiverse just makes its platform available to any development team that wants to use it to create a new virtual world. But in this case, the company created the Times Square demo itself as a way to showcase some of its newest innovations.
In point of fact, the demo is pretty impressive, as evidenced by the video (click here for Windows Media format) Multiverse put up on its site.
Even though there's only one avatar in the demo, Multiverse's technology can support up to 1,000 on a single server.
(Credit: Multiverse Network)A couple of things make this special.
First, if you're familiar with virtual worlds like Second Life, this takes the graphics to another level of realism, and that's a nice thing. Second, even though there's only one avatar in the demo, it would be possible using its technology, Multiverse says, to populate the Times Square scene--or any using their platform--with up to 1,000 avatars, all off a single server.
But there are some other little bits of magic going on here.
One is that all the video boards in the virtual Times Square are running different pieces of content, including at least a couple piping in video directly, and seamlessly, from YouTube. That's not something I think we've seen before using any other platform.
Another nice element is what Multiverse calls its high-dynamic range lighting system, which can display the best possible lighting effects on a high-end gamer machine or lesser effects on a lower-end machine. The system determines the CPU and GPU power and adjusts the effects accordingly.
All in all, this is just a demo, and certainly not anything regular users can yet play around with. But to Multiverse, it's indicative of what's possible with its platform and therefore what any virtual-world developer using that platform can do with it.
Of course, I'm not really that big a fan of Times Square anyway. Now, if we can adjust that demo so I can bop over to Eighth Avenue and catch a bus from Port Authority to New Jersey, that would be impressive.
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