Native Client turns Chrome into high-end gaming platform | The Download Blog MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google's new technology to secure the Web and make browsers significantly more powerful got its first public demo tonight at the company's headquarters south of San Francisco after three years under wraps. Calling it Native Client, Google says that integrating technology into Chrome is essential for the future of Web browsers. To show that Native Client is road-ready, the company used its event to announce several new Chrome-only versions of games known for their rich and processor-intensive graphics, available immediately. It also revealed that the browser currently has more than 200 million users worldwide. The first public demonstration of Native Client started off with Ian Ellison-Taylor, director of product management for the open Web at Google, giving an overview of the questions that led to Native Client's creation. (Credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET) The popular Xbox game Bastion has been ported to Google Chrome using the new Native Client technology.
List of 3D graphics libraries 3D graphics have become so popular, particularly in video games, that specialized APIs (application programming interfaces) have been created to ease the processes in all stages of computer graphics generation. These APIs have also proved vital to computer graphics hardware manufacturers, as they provide a way for programmers to access the hardware in an abstract way, while still taking advantage of the special hardware of any specific graphics card. The first 3D graphics framework was probably Core, published by the ACM in 1977. Low-level 3D API[edit] These APIs for 3D computer graphics are particularly popular: JavaScript-based API[edit] WebGL is a JavaScript interface for OpenGL-ES-2.x API, promoted by Khronos. High-level 3D API[edit] There are also higher-level 3D scene-graph APIs which provide additional functionality on top of the lower-level rendering API. JavaScript-based engines[edit] There is more interest in web browser based high-level API for 3D graphics engines. Away3D
BBC Nature - Chimpanzees consider their audience when communicating 29 December 2011Last updated at 17:01 By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC Nature The chimps made soft "hoo" sounds to warn individuals that had not seen the threat Chimpanzees appear to consider who they are "talking to" before they call out. Researchers found that wild chimps that spotted a poisonous snake were more likely to make their "alert call" in the presence of a chimp that had not seen the threat. This indicates that the animals "understand the mindset" of others. The insight into the primates' remarkable intelligence will be published in the journal Current Biology. The University of St Andrews scientists, who carried out the work, study primate communication to uncover some of the origins of human language. To find out how the animals "talked to each other" about potential threats, they placed plastic snakes - models of rhino and gaboon vipers - into the paths of wild chimpanzees and monitored the primates' reactions. "They also tend to sit in one place for weeks.
Interactive 3D Graphics Course With Three.js & WebGL When does the course begin? This class is self paced. You can begin whenever you like and then follow your own pace. It’s a good idea to set goals for yourself to make sure you stick with the course. How long will the course be available? This class will always be available! How do I know if this course is for me? Take a look at the “Class Summary,” “What Should I Know,” and “What Will I Learn” sections above. Can I skip individual videos? Yes! How much does this cost? It’s completely free! What are the rules on collaboration? Collaboration is a great way to learn. Why are there so many questions? Udacity classes are a little different from traditional courses. What should I do while I’m watching the videos? Learn actively!
In Focus: Mexico Drug War, Five Years Later Posted Dec 21, 2011 Share This Gallery inShare19 A graphic picture is emerging in Mexico five years after President Felipe Calderon launched his all-out assault on organized crime: Mass killings as cartels fight each other for territory and civilians caught in the violence; police unable to prevent the mayhem or to investigate the aftermath. The government needed to act decisively, he said, to prevent organized crime from taking over the country. Since then, chaos has exploded on the ground in once-quiet places across the country, including Veracruz. The warring splinter groups have allowed two major cartels to take over most of the territory. Meanwhile, drugs continue to flow into the United States. Warning: All images in this entry are shown in full, not screened out for graphic content. A soldier guards a detainee during a presentation for the media in Tijuana, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 18, 2010. Graves are seen in San Rafael cemetery in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday, April 8, 2009.
Consortium | Open Standards for Real-Time 3D Communication The German 3D software developer Bitmanagement Software GmbH who are in the board of directors of the Web3D Consortium in Mountain View, California, USA has released the new authoring tool "BS Content Studio", which enables a wide audience to create interactive and Internet ready 3D content. This tool will sustainable accelerate and simplify the work-flow and time necessary to compose, animate and optimize 3D models and interactive content for the web and standalone applications. Even "non 3D specialists” can be now in the position to generate 3D real-time applications easily. The "BS Content Studio" Tool addresses a horizontal market and has been developed around the Web3D ISO standard X3D with the goal to enable a broad range of application domains including CAD, GIS, games, process automation, 3D printing, virtual catalogs, 3D marketing banners, configurators, product visualization, automation, augmented reality, stereo TV content, social communication and many more.
16. A Guide to Logical Fallacies By Paul Newall (2005) Expanding on our fourth discussion, we'll now look at the kinds of moves—rhetorical or otherwise—that can be made when setting out or defending an idea and countering others. We'll also consider some common errors in reasoning that come up in philosophical arguments from time to time, like anywhere else. Making an argument Although often we make arguments to try to learn about and understand the world around us, sometimes we hope to persuade others of our ideas and convince them to try or believe them, just as they might want to do likewise with us. What is the best (or most effective) way to persuade people of something? In a philosophical context, then, we need to bear in mind that arguments may be flawed and that rhetorical excesses can be used to make us overlook that fact. Fallacies As we discussed above, some mistakes in reasoning occur often enough that we now have almost a catalogue of them to consider. There are two kinds of fallacy: formal and informal.
Interactive 3D graphics for the Web, at last Up until now, it is claimed, interactive 3D graphics have not been available on the World Wide Web, even though "almost all PCs as well as mobile and embedded devices already contain high-performance 3D graphics hardware to process it." Two development groups have teamed up to change that. In a joint press release published at Phys.Org, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research report they "are working to describe computer scenes in spatial detail directly within the websites’ code." The two teams report they have agreed on a common proposal to extend the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to include advanced graphics capabilities. The two institutes originally each had their own proposals, namely X3DOM and XML3D, but say they are now distilling their technologies into common components to bring interactive and highly dynamic 3D graphics to the declarative world of HTML. (Photo by Joe McKendrick.
What Happens When I Die? Art by Alex Grey In order to answer the question, "What happens when I die?" I feel it is important to take a look at something a bit less speculative and that is the question of what happens when we live. There is no way to understand death if you don't know what life is. Who is it that is looking out through your eyes? Is it not the same quality of awareness that existed right before you read these words? And that awareness, the pure state of awareness was there before you could form words or even knew your name. The essential self is not contained within the boundaries of worldly identification, although it plays in those fields. The essential self is not limited in perception by the five senses, although it enjoys experiencing them. The self that is eternal is not limited by space and time, although it uses space and time to creatively express its essence. You are not your thoughts. Experience your thoughts, experience your story, experience your body, as none of it will last. Peace,
WebGL powers 3D virtual world on the Web One of the obstacles to Second Life popularity is the fact that people must install specific software to visit the site. One of the promises of a 3D technology called WebGL is that such worlds could be drawn directly in a browser. Now a company called Katalabs, formed by a number of Stanford researchers, has done just that with a virtual world project called KataSpace. KataSpace uses the Web technologies to create a user interface for the open-source Sirikata platform for multiuser 3D world, Katalabs said in a blog post. The demonstration world is workable but primitive, with only two avatars to pick from, some jerky movement, and terrain that avatars walk through rather than over. 3D on the Web is a competitive area , with WebGL support being built into Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera--the four browsers that all trail Microsoft's Internet Explorer in usage. "The Chrome experiments team is building a section specifically for WebGL," said Henry Bridge, a Google Chrome product manager.