Another one bites the dust...

Dell number three bursts into flames in Singapore. Don't use these on your laps people! Protect the jewels!

P.S. I wish I had something better to post about - truly, I do.

Maybe something from the pitch later today?

[Update]

I -do- have something to post.

Check out these tablet pc drawings by Glen Vilppu. I got them from Seward Street (which from what I understand is going to go offline eventually) and wanted to archive them here. I figure most people haven't seen them anyways. Enjoy!













Some late-breaking news today!

Only days after joining, Hayao Miyazaki has resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) - the guys who choose the Oscars every year. Miyazaki was quoted as wanting to "concentrate on his creative activities." Miyazaki-san joined Ken Watanabe and Akira Kurosawa as the third Japanese member of the Academy before his resignation.

Autodesk has released 3d Studio Max 9 and Maya 8 today. This is notable since this is the first version of the program released since Autodesk's takeover of Alias, the company who originally made Maya. Whether or not they will stay two products for the 10th and 9th versions (respectively) remains a mystery, but this is a good thing for all you people who know Maya and/or Max really well, and couldn't be bothered to learn the other.

Here are some of the features for all you geeks (Of Maya 8)

* 64-bit support for Windows and Linux (Where's the Mac support? Was this already integrated into Maya 7?)
* Scalable multithreading to improve performance on multiprocessor systems
* Ability to override viewports with a user-defined renderer, such as a game engine
* Optimized mental ray 3.5 core for superior rendering performance and memory usage
* Polygon Bridge and Transfer Polygon Attributes
* Support for high dynamic range (HDR) and floating-point images
* Support for interactive viewing of native and custom mental ray shaders
* Improved Autodesk FBX plug-in to provide tighter integration between Maya and applications such as 3ds Max and MotionBuilder
* Interchangeable geometry cache between Maya and 3ds Max, allowing for the exchange of complex data between the two packages
* Export of render layers to Autodesk Toxik software’s database